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 :(

Not a failure in the slightest. I'd be telling the snug married 'friends' to fuck off in your position.

Also, if your mum is happy with you being there, and you're happy with it too, there is absolutely nothing about living there that makes you a failure. If you have a good relationship with parents it's not a negative thing. I'd rather be paying rent to my parents than paying off a landlord's mortgage, quite frankly.

You sound like you have achieved an awful lot in your life and you're still young with plenty of time for whatever you want to do next. It takes very little effort to get married and pregnant (for most, anyway). Ridiculous if they think they've achieved more than you.

I’d say they feel threatened and possibly envious because you haven’t chosen the same lifestyle as them.

On track for what? To get married and have babies? Doesn't happen for everyone and not everyone's cup of tea. You will never regret extra quality time with your mum if you've got a good relationship with her so I wouldn't even worry about that and good for you for not agreeing with them! You sound like you're living life to its fullest and taking no shit from weird so called friends

You have got so much going for you - well qualified, well travelled and sounds like a good relationship with your parents that will work for you, your parents and enable you to save. Focus on what you want to do and achieve and try not to doubt yourself. You have options. Friends can be well meaning but their opinions/faux concerns are misplaced here.

Even if living with your parents was not temporary you would not be a failure .

You are much better off as you are, saving for a deposit on a small place of your own. I see that as true independence which is a real good starting point for the rest of your life, come what may.
I’d say you are in a fantastic position with an excellent education behind you plus all that independent travel experience. And the previous relationship experience whilst unhappy, gave you the opportunity to grow emotionally.
And you are only 29 OP.
So that should have been a well done from your friends instead of the very unnecessary knock back they gave you.
No need to drop them as friends if you don’t want to, but do realise that their views are quite limited and skewed and actually rather ignorant too. I doubt either of them would have had the courage to say what they did without the presence and backing of the other.
In your position OP, you can quite confidently laugh off their ‘advice’ and tell them you are just fine as you are thanks all the same.

What nasty friends

Your OP was totally not what I was expecting sounds like you are doing brilliantly. Maybe they are suffering from what my mother would have called " the green eyed monters".

You’re definitely not a failure. At 29 I was in a much worse position than you (back being a student after deciding to pursue a career change, single, broke and had fairly severe anxiety/depression and undiagnosed ADHD).

Within 7 years I’ve qualified, done a further Masters, got married, moved abroad, found a well paid but interesting job (and started my own; albeit still very small, business) and now have a dog and 2 children. We’re in the process of buying a house and because my husband has a well paid job we’re able to travel etc.
I’ve found meditation that works for one of my chronic health conditions and no longer have issues with anxiety and depression.

Obviously I’ve been incredibly fortunate and not everyone gets lucky (although I have worked hard a lot of this has also been luck), but a lot can change very quickly in your late twenties to mid thirties.

Your friends may face their own challenges in the future. Now we’re in our mid 30s-mid 40s a lot of my friends have experienced break-ups/divorce, job losses, difficulties conceiving, difficulties parenting, family problems, illness etc. They’re not failures, bad things just sometimes happen and they happen at different times for different people. They’ve also had lots of great things happen, we’ve had lots of births, marriages, career successes, travel etc in our friendship group too!

Also, you might have just chosen to prioritize different things (I chose to spend time and money retraining for a career that I knew I’d find fulfilling rather than pushing forward in a corporate career I’d grown to hate).
I’m glad for where I was at 29 because otherwise I wouldn’t have had the opportunities and experiences I’ve had (if I hadn’t been single I wouldn’t have met my lovely husband who is just right for me, if I hadn’t retrained then I wouldn’t have my current job etc).
In an ideal world I’d have known where I’d end up so I could have just relaxed and enjoyed my late teens and twenties!

My daughter is 39 next week. Had 3 or 4 long term relationships. Currently single. She has a fab life. Bought a house when she was 30, has a good job in HR, has a nice car, holidays several times a year, with friends she has met through earlier holidays. She would love to have a long term partner, but hasn't met the right person.. She has had friends treat her the same as yours, or when she has had a partner have criticised them. Many of these friends had huge weddings and are now divorced. I would tell your friends, diplomatically, to keep their noses out. Someone will come along, and until they do crack on and enjoy life while you have no strings.

It's not failure to live with your mum. I'd say that's a successful relationship, one many don't have. There are all kinds of life paths and it's all a journey. There's no right way of doing things. Carry on enjoying your life.

Your friends are nasty.

You sound like a smart, well travelled young woman. You are so young and don't need to settle and have kids at 29.

They sound bored and judgmental.

God no, you are in no way a failure. They sound jealous OP. You do you! I have a group of single friends and married friends. Being married doesn't guarantee happiness. Most of the married friends of mine are stressed and miserable and moaning about their boring lives! The single ones are travelling, meeting new people and much happier, albeit it is harder financially as a single person. These friends of yours are not real friends by the sound of it.

I got as far as 'they felt that life was passing me by' and thought 'Jesus H Christ, who the AF do your friends think they are?' I didn't need to read the details and I certainly am not thinking 'hm, OP should have done XYZ by now'. But then I don't think of life as a race to keep up with others in 'achieving' arbitrary goals.

Your friends will look back on this when they're older and wiser and less smug and cringe from here to kingdom come.

Hi OP

No I wouldn't call you a failure at all. For context, I live in London and at the age of 33 went to ante natal classes. The free NHS ones. There were 11 first time mum's and I was the youngest and this was 9 years ago. So if anything, IMO your friends have settled down too young and are probably jealous of your freedom. Also nothing wrong with living with your parents at that age, you could save to buy your own place far quickly than renting and then trying to save. You need new friends OP, they are not on your wavelength by the sounds of it.

I was expecting you to say you were knocking on 50 with all these things (which incldentslly would be fine).

You're 29!!!!!!!

Get new friends. Christ what insufferable pricks. Make sure you rub their ability to travel in their face when they have children at 31.

What an outrageous thing for them to say to you. I know very few people who were settled down with kids at your age. Most of by friends had kids mid to late 30s (if at all!).

It’s really awful of them to measure you by their standards and I think you should tell them as much.

Oh they already have children . That's even worse as they've decided it's the Ultimate Goal and no life is complete without them.

You do not need to spend your time around people like that.

Tell your ‘friends’ to fuck off back to the 1950s where their attitudes. You are not doing anything wrong, they are being total bitches.

If I had a 29 year old daughter, I would much rather have one in your shoes than theirs and that’s the truth. 29 these days is fairly young to be tied down with children.

Keep doing what you’re doing.

Oh, and I married at 23 and had my first two at 28 and 30, but I wasn't then, and am not now, deluded enough to think that makes me somehow ahead in life. There's other stuff that I didn't do, that might have been just as fulfilling in another way.

I'd say there are some pretty deep insecurities underlying this bonkers and presumptuous 'intervention' of your friends'. Or at the very least an extremely shallow understanding of life and people.

I was going to say exactly the same thing. OP, I didn’t meet my husband until I was 36 and did not get married until I was 41. None of my friends made me feel a failure.

So what was their solution? Are they paying for a daring service? Doing an arranged marriage? Suggesting tricking one night stand into parenthood? If aec without a condom is their measure of success then they can fuck right off.

Shocking news- but anyone who needs a man to be happy needs to work on themselves first! You don’t have to be married to be happy, as long as you feel happy with yourself tell them to do one

Given a completely free choice, I'd rather have been you at that age. You sound like you're having an interesting life, good job, house in the process of being sorted. They need to wind their bloody necks in.