To not know how to get my identity back?

[jamoncrumpets]

As I have just realised that it's been completely subsumed by marriage and children and that I am now a walking cliche.

We moved house recently. We took all our larger pictures down at the old house and DH asked where they should go in the new one. I looked at our pictures. One is a framed cover of DH's favourite novel. One is a framed cover of one of his childhood favourite books. One is a photo of his favourite band. Two are posters for things to do with DH's work. Another is a poster of his favourite beauty spot. I encouraged him to buy these because he liked them. We both like them. But they're definitely his things.

But there's absolutely nothing that is mine. Not one thing. My childhood favourite books, favourite bands, films, novels, artists, etc have been consigned to nothingness and now I can't really remember what I actually like. I want to find something that I like.

And that just made me think that it's a wider issue and that I have been eroded down to something with no interests or voice of my own. And I don't know what to do about it.

You’ve made me blush, LittleDorrit. If you’d more of the same, there is a book called ‘Finding Your Own North Star’ by Martha Beck - very useful for the ‘lost’ times.

He thinks lots. I think not lots.

I like this, very funny. There's plenty of amusing personality shining though in that one great comment.

You're clearly still in there, OP. Stop giving a shit about his disapproval, put up what you want. You're still in there, let it out.

One thing, your child is autistic, there is a genetic component. Have you considered that your husband could be on the spectrum? Could you have squished yourself smaller and smaller to make his life more comfortable, more bearable (and to make him more pleasant to be around)? Is he quite intolerant of your "stuff"?

Honestly op, if your kids go to bed at 7 that's when your work day ends. The evening is for you. Have your tea with the kids, don't waste any of your precious time off cooking it cleaning! Your well-being is more important.

I’ve been there too OP and have come out the other side as a proper person again, although not the same person I was before. Mine are both upper primary age now.
I don’t have any ‘me time’ or leisure time without the kids, but I am very mindful of the fact that the evenings and weekends are my time away from work as well as their time off school. So I don’t run myself ragged taking them places that I don’t enjoy myself! Or running around like a lunatic taking them to hobbies that I get nothing from. We do hobbies together so that we all enjoy ourselves and get exercise - me as well as them. So for example, mine do swimming lessons but I swim myself while they are being taught.
It’s hard to explain but I do feel that I am being my own person at weekends because I am pursuing my own interests and making myself happy whilst also giving the DC some good experiences. I am not just being a mum-bot. Does anyone else do/feel the same?

Does your dh work weekends? If not, then can't you take a couple of hours out whilst he has the kids?
And also, every evening, there's two hours there. Sometimes your dh can cook, sometimes get a takeaway, sometimes have steak and chips or something that takes 2 mins. That's some good bath/walk/reading time.

It's not weird to frame book covers if you love books

It is. I have 400+ kindle books would not frame a cover 😳

If you don't have much spare time then perhaps you could pick a topic you are interested in and start researching it. I really enjoy doing this.

I also liked what someone suggested earlier in the post - set a reading target. That's really stimulating.

Perhaps even a trip to the cinema for yourself, an afternoon at a gallery, going for a swim or a walk can do a lot.

Hithere just because you personally wouldn’t do something doesn’t mean it’s weird! We’re all different.

OP, I totally understand where you are coming from. When my children were little (both NT, but the youndest very clingy to me and generally high maintenance until she was about 5!) I totally lost myself. Wore boring clothes, never had a haircut or wore make up, didn't exercise, didn't read or listen to music or watch anything that was related to my interests in the past and didn't develop new interests either. I worked part-time, and did most of the child and house related things. There wasn't time for anything else!

I did decide to end my relationship with the children's Dad (for a range of reasons) which caused alot of turmoil of course. But for the last three years I have been making an effort to do things for myself and it is so much easier now the children are older (11 & 7) and they spend time at their Dad's leaving me with time for myself. I work full time now, but I still feel like I have loads more headspace for both my children and my stuff.

It does sound like when your eldest starts school things will ease off a bit. I would suggest asking your DH for more help, but I know how hard this is because I struggled to ask my ex. He was very dominant in our relationship. I would ask him for help but he always managed to turn it around and make me feel guilty for asking/not doing enough myself. I ended up having a breakdown in actual fact and had alot of quite intensive psychiaty and counselling and medication to get through that. Getting to that very desperate point allowed me to end the relationship. I am of course not saying your situation is anything like mine, but I just wanted to highlight the effect that feeling 'lost' and like you don't have an identity can have an effect on your mental health. I really hope you can make some changes so you can feel happier.