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 regret to inform you, your application for membership of the Viper Pit has failed.

You demonstrate some worrying symptoms of having a happy independent life. Your situation is not grim enough to elicit any sympathy and hand holds here on MN. Worse, you have all the hallmarks of not even trying to be a narrow minded judgemental bitch despite all the tutorials you have attended with your "friends". I can only think those poor cows secretly intended your VP application to fail .

All you need OP is better friends

Ugh with friends like that who needs enemies, they sound jealous and judgemental. Not a failure at all op in fact your life sounds fab ignore them and keep doing your thing x

For from a failure. If you were my daughter, I'd be more than proud of what you've achieved so far.

Your friends sounds horribly judgemental.

News flash, there's more to life than husbands and kids. How fucking depressing, and embarrassing, for them.

Reminds me of that movie with Julia Roberts and Kirsten Dunst.

Dont allow your private thoughts about being “left on the shelf” to give any credibility to what your friends have said.

Failure implies some universal standard. You’ve certainly not failed any universal standard, you have no doubt achieved much more in some areas than other women who are married.

Whilst you may wish to have a family, not everyone wants to marry and have children. There’s no arbitrary universal rule that married is better or parenthood is better.

please live yourself for who you are, celebrate your achievements, and take the opportunity to take stock and plan for the future you would like to have.

No, absolutely not a failure. Pair of judgemental bitches. Withdraw sneekily, you should not waste energy on them. Develop other friendships.

The only question to ask yourself is “am I happy?”. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks it’s your life. If you’re happy I would just tell your ‘friends’ that you’re quite happy with your life as it is thanks, like your job, happy living with family just now and saving. You don’t owe them any explanations. I wouldn’t move into your own place or rush into a new relationship just because of what someone else thinks you should do.

Absolutely fucking bizarre OP.

It's one thing for a 121 conversation where you check with a friend (I am not saying you should use OLD, but I might say to a good friend in your position who I knew was looking for a relationship without luck - 'do you think you need to bite the OLD bullet because it's tough to find anyone isn't it'), and quite a different thing for 2 friends to gang up like this.

Whether they meant well or not (and they are clueless and tactless if they did), in sounds to me that you are doing well in life - and even if you weren't - no one is a failure, we are all works in progress.

Good luck with the house deposit, sounds like moving in with parents is a good way to get to buy a flat.

We could all frown at any of the life choices others have made. Not everyone would want to have children in their twenties with someone they weren't married to, for example. But if that works for your friends, fine. It doesn't have to work for you.

I am happy, I get a little bit nervous at times about being “on the shelf”. I guess that’s why their comments cut so deep but it’s not something I’ve actively spoken about with them.

This worries me most about your post because if you are knowingly insecure about something, it is really shitty of "friends" to press on that button. It's nasty shit to rub on your friends sore point.

A lot of this is perspective and bear in mind in life people are most nasty and judgmental about what they themselves are insecure about - they are probably looking at you and wishing they had a bit of your freedom and feeling insecure they don't, so manage it by attack.

Making yourself feeling better by attacking others is well known as a bitch self-boosting tactic.

Like I said, it's perspective isn't it. The person I regard as the biggest "failure" that I know is someone who had a golden childhood of privilege (private school, great education, lots of extra curricular activities to a high standard), super-intelligent and high achieiving at school/university, got a good degree and was offered professional graduate training opportunities in places that some people would kill for, really wanted to make it as an actress and basically bummed around not getting anywhere pretty much only amateur acting, still thinks (now early 40s) there is a chance of sudden discovery (which although is possible for a woman in her 40s in that job is very unlikely), married a man with a good job and just became over-invested in her children because as an adult has never really achieved anything herself.

I think it's a sad, wasted life for someone with every life opportunity and so much potential. I know she feels bitter about her lack of work achievement and lack of income. It's very very sad and she isn't happy. Her husband is one of those who controls everything because he controls the money. She turns a blind eye to it and lives her life as if every breath of her children is to be worshipped.

That's just my take on it though. There would be women who looked at her and think her life is a huge success just because she's married, has a couple of kids and a husband who is financially comfortably off.

You probably need to spend a bit more time on the relationships boards here and read how miserable and unhappy and badly treated many women who are in relationships and marriages are. It's not happily ever after for everyone sadly.

So to answer you - no of course you are not a failure. Don't be insane!

What??? God no, you're not a failure. This sounds insane to me. Your friends are rude.

That sounds tough. If you want children (you mention pcos so I assume so) I think freezing eggs would take some of the pressure away a it's much better to do it at your age rather than waiting. Your life sounds lovely! Personally I wouldn't want to be living with a parent, but if you're happy there then good (and I completely understand that financially it makes sense). You have to live your life for you, not others.

I've been thinking a lot about this thread today.

I now can't remember which poster said Live your life as you wish to not as others wish you to (I've had a read back, but keep missing it), and they are 100% right. Where it doesn't seem quite right in this case, though, is that the OP herself has some doubts about what it is she wants. If the OP were saying "my life is brilliant, I've no interest in tying myself down to a partner and/or children", that would be one thing - but that isn't what she says. Or she does to some extent, but not entirely.

I'm not sure that it's helpful, either, to write the friends off as jealous bitches. I do think it's bitchy for the two of them to more or less take the OP to task with what does sound like feigned concern. But I don't think that all deviant behaviour can be explained as the result of "jealousy". People caricature motherhood as stressful and miserable and you being perpetually covered in sick (including on this thread), but that wasn't my experience at all of having young children. It was the best thing that ever happened to me by a million miles - it was the happiest time of my life. So these women may well feel exactly as I did and genuinely can't imagine anything better (though they're still being dicks to say so to a friend who has no children).

@dimorphism's post is very good.

@usernamen I'm also in what you call "London professional circles", and the majority of us were 28-30 when we started having children. However, that was 25 years ago - so some of my thinking if obviously coloured by this.

To answer someone else's question: I wouldn't feel like a failure as a parent if one of my DC were happy, fulfilled and enjoying life fully without a partner and/or children. But I would, slightly, if I didn't think that's what they really wanted. I wouldn't think of my child as being the failure, though.

They are jealous of you op. They are knee deep in the drudge and sacrifice and loneliness of having very small children and they want you to join them in their misery.

I'm 37 and have PCOS. Only a very long term, close friends knows. She's also single.

If any friends tried to host an intervention to get me to have children I'd tell them I have plenty of other things to worry about and will maybe have children when I meet the right person / feel like it.

My last boyfriend went on at me for "having no responsibilities" and "living like a teenager" because I had no children whereas he had (at least) two from previous relationships.

He resented that I could focus on my career and study part time. Neither of his children were planned. That's not my fault.

Oh and it IS envy.

My ex was the only person silent (no congratulations) when I bought a house. He said I was "being an arsehole."

I had to block him on linkedin months ago since he sent an email saying I'd "achieved nothing in life" and was "wasting (my) time on pointless qualifications with no end goal."

I get paid roughly twice as much as him.

You are absolutely not a failure!!!! I am so sorry your friends have made you feel like this! Sounds really sensible to move in with your mum and save a deposit and even more of a good idea to take some time before jumping into a new relationship. Continue to enjoy your life, 29 years old is not old at all!!!! Lots of my friends met and married in their mid/late thirties. Yes fertility is something to consider but better to freeze your eggs than end up with the wrong guy! It sounds like you have a nice and interesting life including a good social life and a solid plan to own a home etc I would continue to branch out socially as these friends seem very narrow minded. I had similar friends and although I didn’t stop seeing them I just kept them at arms length. You are doing so well please don’t worry x

Your decisions are entirely logical.
Do things in your own time and don’t worry about those so-called friends.
You won’t be living at home forever, it’s a temporary arrangement that suits you and your mum & they had no right to be so judgemental.
Not that you wish bad luck on people, but they will experience bad luck in life too at some point and maybe then they will understand that they should have been more sympathetic to your temporary setback.

Of course not. But in your shoes I would be living alone. Of course you can live alone on 32k.

Yanbu but your ‘friends’ are being ridiculous.

You’re living a great life, it’s just different to theirs. Someone needs to tell them that ‘success’ doesn’t equal having a partner. As long as you are happy it’s no one’s business but your own.

That being said, I would have a think about whether or not you do want kids in the next few years. I had a good friend decide at 39 that she was going to go it alone but it didn’t work out. She had 4 failed rounds of ivf (donor sperm) before giving up. She was told that there was nothing wrong but ivf has a greater chance of success the younger you are.

Something else has just occurred to me reading this thread@Ladybirdshere

Every choice has advantages and disadvantages. People are keenly aware of that.

So choosing to giving up work to raise your children has the advantages of being able to spend a lot of time with your children and save money on child care but the disadvantage of loss of your own income and independent 'work' identity.

Choosing not to have children has the advantages of freedom to whatever you want and the joys of a life lived to please your self and not having to compromise on anything for the sake of your children but it has the disadvantage of (potentially) not having anyone to care for you when you are older.

Whatever people choose they are keenly aware of the + and - of their situation. I think this means that people generally choose to socialise in groups who are broadly mirroring their choices in life. Sometimes this is practical (school mums and office workers find it easier to socialise where they are) but I think it is also a conscious/subconcious choice to stay away from people who remind you of what you are missing from your own choices.

The final piece in that jigsaw is trying to force someone to make the same choices you have so that you don't feel bad about yourself and your own disadvantages every time you look at them or hear about your life.

You really need to find new friends. The rubbing your nose in PCOS in this context is really malicious. Really malicious.

I don't think it's a given children will look after you when you're older if you have kids. They may well decide not to, or be unable to for various reasons (having children themselves, for example, moving away for a job).

And you'll have less money to look after yourself than you would have had if you didn't have kids.

You have to just have kids for their sake alone, I think, with no expectation beyond the joy they give you in the moment and the responsibility you have for them.

No. Definitely not. I'm nearly 35, 2 kids. My biggest regret is not travelling when I had the opportunity!

You're young. You're living your life! Enjoy it!