Does life ever get less... shit?

[DameSaggyMith]

Pretty much everyone (especially women) I know are in the same loop of:

Work is shit, hours are long, stressful.
Kids are hard. They cry and moan and get shit loads of parasites and viruses that make them cry and moan more, and sleep less.
There's no time for any other element of life. Even sleep.

I know it's not just me. Does it ever get better? Is retirement less grating and stressful? Wondering what it was all for. AIBU to want life to be generally less tedious?

Oh, and for me life has only got steadily better as I've got older because I've found work that I enjoy and gives me a nice balance.

I don't care how I look or becoming 'invisible' as I get older. I like being able to have that pressure gone. I enjoy my child. I feel like I've experienced so much and that I've grown as a person with each year. I feel seasoned now, as though I appreciate life more than I did when I was younger.

I think it can get better once you actually get a chance to have a life outside work and spend some time on yourself and more time for your children, too.

I just wanted to say that it isn't always all downhill.

I definitely think that no job is worth it, if it prevents you from enjoying your kids and home life. If you can earn enough to live and drop a few hours do it!!

It sounds like your job is the main part of the problem OP. But for everyone else it kind of sounds like it’s kids? Why have kids then?

@SlothSlothSloth This is what I don't understand. When I was a kid I noticed that the mums always complained about how hard it was having children and I thought "sounds like a bag of shit, why bother?" Still genuinely baffled as to why people put themselves through it.

I agree that things just change. I’m pushing 60 and have seen both parents die, one horrifically, the other very quickly. I worry about DD and now DGD and the ones DD is currently pregnant with. Will she be ok, will they be ok, how will DGD react etc. I just seem to have different concerns to the ones I had when DD was growing up. On the plus side the older I get the more I seem to be able to put things into perspective and not worry about the things I did when I was younger and when DD was little. I wouldn’t call things ‘shit’ but rather ‘the stuff of life’. Some of which are bloody hard and unpleasant.

it gets better.

I am fat but I am comfortable with my size. My kids can be little shits but I love them, I have a hobby that I enjoy and a job I love, its long hours and high stress but its worth it. The turning point for me was changing career, my self-esteem is higher than its ever been and that makes everything easier.

I don't feel like that most of the time. Bit I work a lot less than you - 40 hours over 3 days. Because we live in a very cheap area I can support our family on my wage, meaning dp can pursue starting a business. I don't think we'd be at all happy if we lived in the south east where I grew up.

When you change jobs start as you mean to go on,have a separate phone for work and turn it off/leave it at work at the end of the day.This will be hard but it is like breaking an addiction.
At least when your kids become teens you can get more sleep and lie instead,makes dealing with their angst a little easier!

Oh yes - I also don't care that I'm fat.

Auto correct,should be lie ins.

Life will get less shit probably only if you make drastic decisions. For example you may have trapped yourself in a particular lifestyle. Be creative. Can you move somewhere cheaper and cut down work hours? Can you retrain? Can you homeschool? Can you work online? Can you move country? Can you change religion? Anything! Basically look at your life with totally fresh eyes. Where can you go? What can you do? Think crazy, think outside the box, and see what you come up with, even if it's totally wild. In among all the madness you may find something feasible. You only get one life.

I used to feel like you,

My life was a endless sea of gray monotony with occasional disasters. It was like a gloomy decent into hell where there would be days where I would long for a nuclear strike so I could watch my shadow catch fire.

Then we made some drastic lifestyle changes and moved away from the UK. 5 years later I am extremely happy and love my life.

Kursk that is exactly how I feel most days. Today I had a conversation with a work colleague in which we were both dreading an upcoming team change, and I found myself thinking, “still, nuclear Armageddon might kick off before then and we’ll be spared the bother”.

Also it rains here all the bloody time.

Good that you managed to get out though. I know I can’t take another 35 years of this shit, and I don’t even have kids (I’m very much of the MirriVan world view).

Oh that sounds horrible to feel like that. No way to live. Can you simplify your life , cut your hours. Completely change your life? No it’s not normal to accept life is ‘shit’ . If I had a friend who felt like that I would really want to help them. People around me seem pretty happy and I have not heard diets mentioned since I left my hometown 25 years ago.

If your not happy- change.

I hated my job. So i went self employed. Sure I work 50 hours a week but im hell of a lot happier.

Kids are hard. Im a single mum to 3 teens and as much as I want to ship them off to their dad full time some days (tonight has been one of them nights) I wouldn't be without them.

It sounds like you need to have a sit down and work out where you can make changes.

I do think that life is what you make it.

I see people that have amazing lives on paper but all they do is moan about how shit things are. Other people who have really tough lives but are happy and make the most out of things.

Cheesy as fuck but happiness is a form of transport, not a destination.

My living situation is not the best, tiny cramped apartment, live on the opposite side of the world to friends and family, shit mental health, kids are doing ok but get racist shit at school sometimes, my relationship is generally ok but we don’t see each other enough. People have it way way way worse than me but it’s not the life I dreamed of.

But anyway, I try to think of the positives. We try to plan nice days and we try to be positive and haply every day. My husband and I are always thinking of ways to make more money or be fitter or have the kids be happier. We both try to be creative.

You’re only here once so why spend it hating your life? Even if it’s hard, try to enjoy it.

I suffer from long term clinical depression - have been on ADs most of my adult life and have made it a mission in life to pursue happiness. I'll catch the bugger before the black dog swamps me.

here's the stuff that makes a MASSIVE difference to the everyday OP:

1. Play uplifting music that you love - a soften as possible. On the commute, while making breakfast, cooking dinner, as loud as possible while you clean, at bath time etc. Use earphones at work and listen if you have a report to write etc. keep feeding your soul with it.
2. Eat food you love that is also healthy for you.
3. Watch funny stuff on TV. Not endless crime dramas. Get out the box sets of Parks& Rec/Kimmy Schmidt/Fresh Meat/Episodes/PeopleJust Do Nothing - whatever makes you howl with laughter. Watch one a day at least, when you feel shattered.
4. Watch happy/funny/silly stuff with DC if they're too young to watch the above with you. Just take 15 mins to watch a cartoon with them and cuddle on the sofa while you have a cup of tea.
5. Buy a notebook and make a long long list of loads of tiny things in life that you enjoy - fvaourite authors, hot drinks, bubble bath etc - and make sure you include a dose of three of them each day.
6. Cheesy but true: stop and smell the roses. If you pass a friendly cat or dog and want a stroke, have one. Pass a sweet scented plant - stop and smell it. When I started out doing this I felt like an idiot, but after a while you stop caring if you look like a mad menopausal bat and just start enjoying yourself, taking pleasure in life.
7. Make a mini bucket list of stuff you'd love to do that is easy to do. Not expensive holidays or writing a novel. Stuff like trying out a new cafe, walking along the river in the next town, browsing a bookshop for 30 minutes in your lunchbreak, inviting a couple of old friends round for wine and pasta in your tip of a house, knowing they won't care, buying a new copy of your favourite CD from adolescence and playing it again and again - that sort of thing. Then plot them in your week - out them in your diary - three a week at least. Keep adding to the mini bucket list in your notebook.

I do all this stuff as often as I can and it really helps keep the depression at bay.

Oh I forgot a massively important one: plan fun with your DC. At least once a week, plan some fun. It can just be make yoru own popcorn and watch a film on a rainy night, or it can be visit a local steam fair or petting zoo, or hire a row boat on the park lake etc. Get them to come up with ideas and do one each weekend. As you tuck them in at night discuss the fun you had. For me, learning to have fun regularly with DC took a lot of stress out of parenting, and even if it's just for a couple of hours at the weekend, it balances out the fact you're working 70 hours a week, OP, and they end up habving a lot of good times with you.

@Mirrivan - agree

re the long hours, I remember the thread about not wanting to work so hard and I agree. I didn't plan on doing a 70 hour week for a long time - just the time it took to get a mortgage company to sign off on that salary. We live very frugally otherwise but there seems to be assumptions that certain costs must automatically factor in to things.

anyway OP I doubt you'll get a chance to check back in for ages, but you've mentioned the option to cut your hours - if you have that option and don't need the extra cash, it's a no brainer. You mention respect or prestige I think - it means nothing when you are like a zombie from the work. (in fact arguably it means nothing anyway, to some of us).

I'm happy with my life. Have a good work/life balance. Stuck with just one DC as I don't want to give up little luxuries that we enjoy (holidays, getting my nails done etc) that I wouldn't be able to afford with more children. Don't diet, I eat whatever I want in moderation. Life is what you make it.

Loved the title of your thread Dame. And get what Bluevan and Mirrivan say, though I did have one DC on my own and its been pretty hard tbh.

Chronic health problems mean I can't work and have the whole "Benefits" hamster wheel to deal with plus I live in a crap council flat in a crap area. But then the low paid office work I did before was pretty , so the days I'm not ill and suicidal because of my health I'm just bloody glad I don't work anymore !

I think we owe it to ourselves to try to be happy and joyful when we can. It doesn't mean we can't "give back" too. Its not always possible to be happy and joyful of course - inevitably sometimes other important responsibilities and sacrifices and other feelings are part of life. Plus sensitive people are always probably going to struggle more unless they've got a lot of support to help mitigate this.

But I do sometimes think that many of us are too timid in pursuing what makes us happy, perhaps both in the small things in life and the big things.

I hope you find some new things to help you OP. Counselling might help (I have been thinking of it myself recently). Not necessarily for MH issues as such - just to deal with your frustrations and as a sounding board/support for creating new plans and ideas. Sadly, IME, friends aren't always that helpful or positive in these things. Everyones so up themselves busy.

Ah well, they do say that people without children are happier don't they?

Not that that seems to stop people desperately wanting them. Which you obviously did. Children don't just magically drop out of the sky. If you hate it so much ,why did you want children?