To ask if you’d consider me a failure? Be honest.

[Ladybirdshere]

I met with friends on Saturday I’ve been friends with for around 10 years. We are very close, meeting up twice a month on average and share things about our life.

Well Saturday turned out to be a sort of intervention for me by my two friends. They said that they wanted to speak to me as they’d been talking and they felt that life was passing me by and that they felt I wasn’t doing much with my life.

l I think this was mainly focused around around boyfriends and living situation as we are all 29, I am single but my friends are both engaged and both have children.

Anyway, would you consider me a failure?

1. I work in advertising for 32k a year
2. I’m well travelled, last year I went travelling around America on my own
3. I can drive and have my own car
4. I have a degree and a masters
5. Ive lived in 4 different cities in the past ten years

but I don’t have

1. a partner, I’ve been single around a three years. I had a really bad breakup and simply haven’t found a new person
2. i recently moved back in with my mum as my finances changed and it meant I couldn’t afford living alone.
3. I don’t have any children

Am I a failure? We sort of agreed to disagree and they said they wanted to just make sure I stayed on the right track :(

I'm surprised by the reaction to the friends in this thread. Without the whole context of the conversation and previous conversations it is hard to say if they are in the wrong.

I agree that moving home is a really sensible option at the moment, however, you only have to go in the dating threads and women that meet men in the same situation are advised this is a red flag. Perhaps they are also thinking this will hinder your chances to move in romantically and their concern is coming from a good place.

I am also going to be honest, friends DC educated to a similar level as you are earning more. So without knowing your earning potential in your current job it's hard to know if you are selling yourself short professionally.

However, you are definitely not a failure, but is this honestly what your friends said or were they expressing their concern?

Or rather, have changed, given they have kids (I suspect they may also be slightly jealous of your travels!)

They sound like interfering old bags, even though they are only your age.

So what if you live at home? Its really hard to live on your own on one income and if they were in your shoes how would they manage? The state of the economy and housing market is hardly your fault.

Your life sounds great apart from those two. I would love to not have kids for a day or two to enjoy my own company and do as I please.

I hope you laughed in their face at their 'interventions'.

The ‘right track’!! Who do they think they are?? Honestly.

I found the worst part of the OP was that they’d ‘been talking’. Then they ambushed you 2:1. Please don’t pay any attention to it.

Most of all please don’t take on any of the shit about living at your mum’s - which seems like such a smart move in the context of everything else you’ve shared. It’s not one of those cases where you’ve never left home and it’s limiting your development. Apart from mutual financial benefits to you and your DM there are many advantages to living with parents again as adults - both of ours have done it for a couple of periods in their young adulthood. The benefits to the relationship can last a lifetime. Don’t know why it gets shamed in our society or seen as a backward step.

Conversely, I’ve seen so many adults who didn’t really ever properly leave home even though they physically moved out, due to an unhealthy enmeshment with parents that severely limits their life choices and capacity for adventure

No you’re not a failure, not being married/childless doesn’t make one person a failure. In all honesty, I would cut ties with such judgemental friends.

We can all choose different paths. It's not a race to the finish.
You choose your way.

Being chosen by a man is not your reason to be alive.

I'd be embracing the freedom of no man kids house and travelling more.
And sending lots of postcards. 😉

Get the feeling you share too much personal info with these people OP. Your financial situation is none of their business and if they think success in life is marriage and children they they are being narrow minded and petty to even consider bringing it up !
Your life sounds good to me

Morning, that quote is perfect to send. You're not a failure in anyway. You are also being sensible looking for some new friends, I don't have any other advice other than keep being you ❤️

Your. Not . A . Failure
Repeat this daily in your head and ignore your friends.

You friends are jealous dicks.
What you are describing is the sort of lifestyle I envy and could only dream of as a settled down mum of similar age to you.
You sound like you have a great life, as long as you are happy, try not to bother with them.

This is quite odd. For good friends to do this. The way you position it clearly you’re far from a failure, but I’m not sure they said that? They said they felt life was passing you by?

do you go out much, socialise? Or are you spending a lot of time sitting with your mum. Living with parents is often a sensible financial,choice but independance and a social life out with that is key. So other than meeting with these friends every couple of weeks how do you spend your time?

Total jealousy on your friends part! They have settled relationships and children so are feeling bogged down with life, childcare and daily routine, and see you earning good money, living independently and having travelled. What best way to normalise their feelings of envy than put you down to make themselves feel better?

These girls are not your friends. At best, they are smug a**eholes, but I'd be most inclined to go with they are extremely jealous of you.

So no, you are definitely NOT a failure.

You're absolutely NOT a failure OP, but you need friends who are less fucking judgey!

What makes them think that you need some sort of intervention, and that they are the right people to deliver it, ffs? They seem to believe that being "on the right track" means doing as they have done, not to realise that everyone's different, or that we all face different challenges, and that settled with children before the age of 30 isn't the right life for everyone. They've also failed to recognise that after being in an abusive relationship, people need time to heal and take stock. They lack both empathy and imagination.

What they said may have come from a place of kindness (and I hope it did) but it also sounds very narrow minded. I'd have been very hurt if any of my friends had had a conversation like that with me when I was 30 and being a complete party animal. And I'd probably have dropped them like a brick.

You are not a failure. They are twats and not friends. Why is their measure of success finding a man? That’s the real issue here, not anything that you have done with your life. Idiots.

OP, you are not a failure. You deserve huge credit not only for the achievements that you have listed but also for getting out of an emotionally abusive relationship. It takes courage to be willing to move back home, ready to regroup before you approach the next phase of your life.

Please just be really really careful about taking any extreme action as a result of this thread. MN is VERY trigger-happy when it comes to advising OPs to cut people off - there is a reason why LTB is a MN cliché and why there are so many threads about people who feel very lonely. Yes, it's possible that your friends are absolute bitches and that you should get better friends. It's also possible that you are slowly growing apart. Nevertheless you need to think very carefully before you send them 'witty' retorts composed by bored MNers or passive-aggressive quotations. Your friends have clearly hit several nerves with you - is it because they wanted to be cruel or is it because they are perceptive and know you well enough to know what your deep anxieties are, however clumsily they have expressed them or however painful it was to hear them articulated by someone else?

Maybe it is time to move on from these people, but I can't tell you whether that is the case and neither can anyone else on this thread. Please just remember that while this thread is entertainment for most people posting here, it's your life and you are the one who has to live it once the thread has died. Don't do anything hasty that you might regret because you have been whipped up by the crowd. Good luck

they sound pretty thick - you can’t magic a partner out of thin air. also, it’s not like you’re on the sofa eating crisps all day - you have a full life!

if they like judgement so much, perhaps they would like a lecture on having a baby outside of marriage (obvs I don’t have a problem with this, but they would be judged by some)

How many people do you think they’ve bored the shit out of with their wedding planning fluff?

I’d ignore them, keep saving for your deposit and get on with your life.

This.

@Ladybirdshere

What do these smug arseholes friends do for work?

Please tell me they're unmarried SAHMs, totally reliant on their boyfriends?

If so, I'd be giving them a taste of their medicine with comments about the risk of being unmarried when they are reliant on someone who has no obligation to continue supporting them.

It sounds like you're doing fine to me. You have a decent career and have plenty of time to settle down and have a family IF you decide you want that.

I do have quite an active social life. I go to the gym and to Zumba, I go to the pub quiz and to bottomless brunches when I can. I also am a member of an online book club and have a few different WhatsApp groups. In the past two weeks I’ve been to the cinema and out shopping with another friend.

The only thing I don’t do is OLD because I haven’t really been interested up until this point.

I think the 'two against one' element of your friends' "intervention" is shitty, regardless of whether you would or wouldn't consider yourself to be a failure.

It sounds as if you've achieved a lot more than huge numbers of people your age.

Presumably your parents aren't able to help you financially to move out? I wouldn't want my adult children living with me - not because I wouldn't want them to (I'd like it, in fact), but it would not be the right thing for them, and I'd do everything I could to help them on their way. A huge part of being a parent is making sure your children become capable of living independently, and I'd be worried if my 29 year old came back without an extremely concrete time-frame and plan to move out again.

If I am really honest, if it were one of my daughters, I'd be concerned that she was 29 and there was no sign of a husband or children. Because while 29 is not old, it's not young either in terms of having children. Again, I wouldn't say that unless she actually asked for my honest opinion, but I'd definitely be thinking it. I wouldn't be thinking she was a "failure", though. If anything, I'd be thinking I'd failed her as a parent in some way.

I m absolutely gobsmacked. Your so called friends sound so patronising and bitchy. I think they are just jealous.
I can imagine how upsetting it woukd have been for you.
Ditch them and enjoy your carefree life.
Having a partner and kids isn't everything.

I think you need new friends. They’re jealous.

Apart from having to move back in with your mum, it all sounds good.

You are not a failure, OP!! I was expecting to read something quite different, but instead you sound like an accomplished young woman. Life has most certainly not passed you by! You've done a lot so far, good for you!

Perhaps your friends want to see you tied down with kids and a partner like they are. Perhaps they are a smidge jealous?

They've had kids and settled down what I'd consider young. A lot of people I know from school were married with kids before I seemed to have my life together. Although I did meet my husband at uni we broke up in our early 20s and I travelled the world for 18 months. I came home and did get back with my husband but then decided to do masters and a PhD. I lived at home in my late 20s and was still a student. I did take some flack off various people, even friend's parents! I once bumped into my friends mum in tesco, her daughter was married with 2 kids by late 20s, she turned to my then boyfriend and laughed "are you keeping her?" I was doing a funded PhD at the time so my wage wasn't actually terrible, he certainly wasn't keeping me! Fast forward a few years, I'm now late 30s, married with 3 kids, a home owner and a good job. Many of my friends who married in their 20s are divorced, they are now dealing with struggling to afford a house, some have ended up in social housing when they had nice houses they owned before. I am really pleased I spent my 20s travelling, doing higher degrees and saving for a house deposit. When I did get married aged nearly 33 I was ready to and had my shit together. I'm happily married and have a good life. Funnily I saw the friend's mum last week in ASDA this time 🤣 I was with my family and all she said was "what beautiful children you have". She didn't ask if my husband was still keeping me 😆.

I'd ignore the comments, your friends are probably secretly jealous of you, you will more than likely find you are better off in the long run as when you do settle down you are ready to and have the means to.

This reminds me of one of the opening scenes of Muriel's Wedding (watch it if you haven't, it's brilliant!) and her horribly cruel friends who are all focused on getting married. I suspect you have outgrown these particular friends and your paths will diverge from now on, which is no bad thing. Time to make new friends.