To ask dp if I can go on a dating website

[Crumpet2]

Lately I've been feeling that my life is majorly missing alot. Life feels bleak and boring and I'm only 24. I've been hearing a lot of "you are meant to be in your prime" and that I should be "grabbing life by the horns". This was spurred on by a conversation with some friends same age as mine who all agreed now is the time to put ourselves out there (we was talking about goals and ambitions).

So I'm a sahm ftm and it wasn't planned. I have no career aspects (going to start studying from home) and have just been living life day to day. Most of my friends go out all the time, either on holidays dates gigs or travel. One of my friend was contemplating leaving for another country as she claimed she had nothing to "anchor her down" I was slightly jealous at her freedom. How I'd love to just do what ever whenever but I can't. I have a baby and a fiance and very overbearing PILS that means my life has become mostly hanging around people not my age or have no relation to me. I've had to sacrifice alot to have dc vs than dp did and for once I want life to go my way.

I get extremely jealous when I see other women with a full face of makeup or or even just their hair brushed, I never have the time. With nice clothes, I don't have the money. I get jealous of dp having independence and freedom going to work (we can't afford childcare). I guess what I'm saying is I want to feel like me again. I feel like physically I never reached my potentially because I stopped looking after myself and then obviously my body changed post birth. I wish I had the time or energy to go to the gym, the money for the protein shakes and dietary needs.

What I really crave is to get dressed up and go out into the town and see where the night takes me. I used to do this before dp and had some of the most interesting times. I miss the drama and the thrill. The unpredictably of it all and the spontaneity. My social bubble has gotten really small since having dc, I mean it already was but now it's even smaller. Turns out most of my friends don't want to talk about children or mummy stuff and I don't blame them as they are on a completely different place in life. I don't want to go to mummy/toddler group for many reasons, majority of the mums are older (I've been to soft plays so I know this) I don't want my life to be evolved around babies ect... I want to have more friends. Meet new people. I don't have time or money right now to join "clubs" or start up a hobby. So I was thinking it may be worth joining a date app. Back in my tinder days I remember seeing lots of profiles of people stating they were looking for "just friendships" and I used to think it was odd as I never correlated the app as a way of doing this. But now I think it may actually help me. It will be an easy and accessible way to make friends in the comfort of my home with my dc. Aibu to propose this dp. I doubt he will take it well and I'm apprehensive that he will understand.

But it's something I really want to do. I want to broaden my horizons. I want life to start feeling a bit fuller again. I assume there maybe apps for friends but I doubt many people would go on them if there even are. Yes I know dc will grow up and things will become easier but dc is just 17months and I'm still along way away for free childcare at 3. I can't keep this up until then it's driving me crazy!!!

Aibu?

Could you get some evening work in a local pub? It would get you out of the house, you could earn a bit of money and meet people locally. It would also be an excuse to dress up a bit if you wanted. Yl

Go work in a bar! It will be fun, your fella can look after his kid. Will bring money in and you’ll have a laugh.

'friendship' on a dating site is pretty much code for FWBs.

Your horizons are very narrow at the moment and you're feeling left out and suffocated by your responsibilities and limitations. We all feel a bit like that when our lives are different to our friends, especially if those friends seem responsibility free. All my friends were older than I was with older children and they were getting a bit of independence back while I was still limited by, as you say, DH & small DCs. Reconnect with your free & single friends - leave the DCs with DH - and go out with them once a month, strictly no DC talk. Also, don't be fooled by the 'perfect' lives your friends seem to have, what do they call it, the instagram effect? I can guarantee they're spending time at home thinking life's a bit shit at times too, one or two of them might just be thinking they'd like the life you have! As for widening your horizons and friendships, do you have a health visitor? They are there to help you and they will. You could ask them about toddler groups more suited to you - i.e. with younger mothers, you're definitely not the only young mum around. Finally, it doesn't last forever, and, honestly, 35 isn't that old, you'll be young and energetic enough to enjoy fewer responsibilities and, by the sounds of it, financial stability. Good luck with your studying.

www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/support-while-you-study

I’m a ftm and I feel exactly the same. I feel like I’ve lost myself and my friendship group has more or less disappeared.
ive joined baby groups, tried quiet a few and there’s some mums that are very cliquey and others who are welcoming. I’ve found one group to be of similar age and lifestyle to me which is good but as you say it’s hard to sometimes strike up a friendship even then, it’s nice to not always talk about babies etc
Could you explain to dp how you are feeling? I’ve not had a night out with friends since the middle of my pregnancy but I spoke to my dh and explained how I felt and we have arranged quite a few date nights which have enabled me to get dressed up and go out. Have you got anyone who could look after your baby for a few hours so you two can get out and have some fun?

Hi I was feeling the same as you, couldn’t go back to work as I couldn’t afford childcare. I got a job in a hotel in the evenings and weekends, I just go to work when my partner comes home. This has given me a social aspect a bunch of new friends and my own money to spend. I know it won’t be ideal for everyone but has worked for me.

Bumble BFF is a great way to meet friends. Or go on Meet-up and you should find stuff going on that fits in with your interests.

I could of written a lot of this OP. I had my first DC when I was 21 and I tried so many different groups, all the mums were as you say married, possibly had other children, houses, careers etc It was a fairly middle class area and I was in a completely different place with nothing to say to these women other than talk about our children, and therefore the friendship could never really progress. It’s the same now five years on unfortunately. I’m still the youngest mum at the school gate, and although I have quite good conversations with the other mums (still almost always about our children), I’m still in a different life situation to them and I have never found a real mum friend. I have had my second 9 month old DC and I haven’t yet tried a baby group mostly because I have a bit of ptsd from how out of place I always felt at the other ones. I might not be the youngest there now, but like previous posters have said I think you always feel young/have those same insecurities in your mind.

I just want some one to hang out with, have some wine with and talk about non mum things. Maybe go running/do yoga with. Possibly a club night once every six months 😅 I don’t think any of them really know who am I in my personal life either because on the face of it I probably seem quite boring to them always only talking about my kids! I just don’t know how to break through that barrier of like I’m fun let’s hang out.

I don’t know if I’m missing something here, but why can’t you start having regular-ish nights out? Does your partner get to still go out in the evenings?

Getting a job in a pub for the evenings might also help. Dating sites are probably not the answer though!

I’m pretty sure ‘just friendship’ on Tinder would be a fuck buddy.

I’ve used Bumble BFF and made a friend through it - I did tell dp that he could check it to make sure it was set to bff mode not dating mode if he wanted but he declined the offer.

While it won't help you right now , try to take something from the fact that while you may be hating it now, you'll have so much more freedom in your 40s than the rest of your friend group who have kids later.

My DD turned up when I was 24 as well, and while I'm a bloke and worked throughout (as did DP) I still felt some serious FOMO at times. Just simple things like not having the freedom to go to the pub after work, not having the money to go to stuff, being dropped by friends because "No point inviting him, he won't be able to come" etc.

I'm now 39, with a nearly 15 year old DD, and can do all the stuff that my same age friends with small children can't do. Me and my DP can just drop everything and bugger off to the pub for a few hours in the evening, and DD is practically begging us to go so she can have the house to herself.

Holidays are now about what everyone wants to do rather than just entertaining DD. We can do city breaks and walk around Museums and go to nice restaurants and DD actually enjoys it. We couldn't have afforded that in our 20's anyway, so much better to get the cheap beach holidays in Devon etc out of the way back then.

And the best part is that I can keep up with DD. We went to Alton Towers earlier this year, with a bunch of her friends and their parents, who were mostly in their 50s. I chucked myself round every roller coaster there with the kids, while most of the parents noped out after the first couple and sat with the bags. While I'd hope I'll still be doing it in my 50s, the twinge in my back when we got back suggests I probably won't. But in the meantime we're going rock climbing this weekend, and will be taking the telescope out and going stargazing till stupid o' clock in the morning at some point to.

I know it seems an age away, but things do start to improve fairly quickly. They'll be in school before you know it, and you'll have that time during the day to work, or to study. And make sure DP is pulling his weight, if he's not looking after his kid by himself frequently so you can have some free time, or a night out with friends, he bloody well should be.

But I wouldn't go on a dating site, because that way leads to single parenthood, which I think most single parents would agree probably forces you to bury your own wants and needs a lot more than doing it with a partner.

Finding friends yes but I can tell you here and now if my other half said he was going on a dating site I would pack his bags.

You don't need a gym or protein shakes to get fit. Just go for a run.

Thanks for the perspective guys. It's really comforting to hear other people resonate with my post. It's a very isolating and lonely feeling. The FOMO is real and I guess I make myself feel guilty every day for not doing enough with myself. I want to be going away and experiencing new things. And I know this set up will only be temporary but my gosh it feels never ending when your in it and I worry about the time wasted.

I worry that I've settled down way too quickly which is ironic because 19 year old me wanted nothing more to be settled down in life but now it's happened I feel like I'm not at my full potential in life and this settled down life is holding me back. I never had time to really find out who I am (abusive childhood and string of bad partners) and now being lunged into this lifestyle I feel completely stripped of any identity I did have let alone discovering myself more.

Don't get me wrong I love dc and I wouldn't change having them for the world. I just wish they came along later when me and dp had been on more than just 4 dates (yes that's all we had before I became pregnant) and we got to sus out "us" as a couple. I wish I had gone on more holidays I've only been abroad 4 times in my whole life and 2 of those was to the same place! I guess now life is just so full of limitations its suffocating. No money = can't do much. No time or energy or childcare = can't do much. I know my friends may see a slither into my life and wish they had my life too and maybe I'm just going through a major life seems greener on the other side but I definitely think it would be. I would have back my freedom and independence and I miss those things. I want there to be more to me than being a mum because I feel like past my dc I don't have much to talk about.

My past friends have tailed off not because of me being a mum but because life has taken them to amazing new places or opportunities and I can't follow. They are all doing self indulging things and our lives just don't match. We do meet up here and there but not enough for my liking due to their busy schedules or the fact they do things I just can't do. As pps said after a while friends stop inviting you out when it's : oh she has to be back by then or doesn't have the money or childcare or oh she can't drink like we do (have to look after dc the next day).

And yes older mums and me just don't seem to click! If there isn't much in common its hard to relate to someone or feel like you a part of something. Most of the mums made jokes about their husbands or that their third pregnancy was a breeze ect and I just don't have any of those life experiences. I've also had it where some mums treat me like a child!!! It feels very condescending (doesn't help that I'm 5ft and tiny). I feel very belittled and that I'm not taken seriously and as I stressed in my op I don't want my friendship to be based around my dc. When I said my friends don't ask about my dc side of things I meant in the sense that when me and dp meet up with our mutual friends I notice the difference on how they interact between the two of us. With dp they ask about his work but with me it's never about mum life or how I am. It's almost like I don't have much to me for anyone to bother to address! I find my girl friends are abit better about that but particularly our male friends don't really care to take notice.

@fdgdfgdfgdfg perhaps you have underlying health issues. DF can't with us to Alton towers last time we went, went on all the rides and had a great day. He's in his seventies. We went away with PIL in may and they snuck off on their own to go on the bigger coasters at Efteling, they are in their late sixties.
God help me if I can't go on a day trip in my fifties just because I left it to my thirties to have DC!!
I've been paddle boarding in the sea this morning and gosh I'm nearly 40!
You chose to have your child young, that's fine for you. Don't make out that people who spent their twenties travelling, working and socialising, can't keep up with their teenagers by the time they're in their fifties.

@RewildingAmbridge

I do have an underlying health issue, that's really what I was getting at. It's not a major problem right now, but I probably won't be going on rollercoasters that frequently when I hit my mid 50's

I'm not at all trying to suggest that every parent over 50 is a geriatric who's incapable of keeping up with their kids, my Dad is in his 60's and is out surfing, mountain biking, skateboarding pretty much every few days, so I know that's not the case. Sorry if that's the impression I gave, I really didn't mean to offend.

And believe me, I didn't choose to become a parent at 24. First me and DP knew of our impending parenthood was when she went into labour. We'd only been together 11 months, weren't living together and this was no way part of our life plan.

There are many many disadvantages to having your kids young, OP knows about them already as she's living them so I didn't focus on them. Instead I tried to point out that it has its benefits as well.

TBH if you've been with your DP for only 4 dates when you fell pregnant then I personally think, at 24, you're absolutely mad to be giving up work entirely - I'm not sure where you are but Min wage is £9.50 an hour and childminders are around £5 an hour here, you'd also get UC help or tax free childcare to pay towards it too so unless the hourly rate of childcare (remember you'd only be responsible for half) is around £20 an hour where you are then yes it is worth going back to work - even or just 10 hours a week.

You CAN go on holidays, you CAN go on nights out - our first baby slotted right into our lives like that.......he came away with us twice a year, my now DH and I would go out every other weekend separately with our friends, I'd run and do yoga on evenings. Friday afternoons was always an early dinner in the pub with DS who was so sociable.