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 don't think your friends sound nasty. I think they're just very narrow-minded. There may be a certain amount of, probably subconscious, envy which is causing them to reject your successes as not being important, but I'd guess it's mainly that they simply can't imagine a friend of theirs not wanting the same things that they do, or being content in a way they wouldn't be. If you do go on to have the same life as they do but are not happy in it, that's fine, you can all moan together. At least you'll always be on the same page. 😕

It does sound as if you've outgrown them, but if they're very dear friends (when they're not staging unhelpful interventions), perhaps hang on and hope they eventually have the great revelation that it's possible to be friends with someone who isn't exactly like them!

my twenties sound similar to yours. I lived mostly abroad, moved around, very interesting life, job and friends but no partner, mortgage or car.

I was in a very similar position to you at 29 when I was 30 but with a lower, unstable income. I don’t know if anyone thought I was a failure but I’d have been horrified if my friends had intervened.

but then not many of my friends were settled down by that age. I think you need more diverse and open minded friends.

I am 47 now, married with 2dc 9 and 11. I have plenty of friends who haven’t settled down and I don’t worry or pity them in the slightest!

Why would failure be centered around a partner and kids? If that was you only aim in life perhaps but you would be a pretty 1 dimensional person if that was the case.

You're doing brilliantly, apart from your choice in friends.

Those telling you moving in with parents was bad aren't feeling the 'single person pinch'. Staying with your parents is being financially responsible. Rent is not something to get into debt over and it may give you the space to save for a deposit so you can buy.

Your life sounds amazing. I wish I could go back and NOT do the relationship and dc in my 20's. I'm mid 50's now and my whole life revolves around other people. Parents get older and need help and the cute kids often grow up and become teens and adults with issues.

Enjoy your freedom for as long as you can.

I wouldn't consider anyone a failure. Trying to think of exceptions, I guess, murderers, abusers. But, generally, there's no single life trajectory for people to follow. Your friends sound shallow and naive.
Do you think disabled people who can't work are failures?
Do you think people who remain psingle are failures? People who can't have children or choose not to?

Everyone’s path is different. You need new friends that aren’t so judgemental and perhaps
people who are on a similar life path to you. Those friends are leaves or at best branches, let them go:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1qxqbx

Were they trying to get you to do online dating?

I wouldn’t no. But I do think living with your parents is a real stress for most adults. So personally I’d want to find ways out of that situation if I was able to. I suspect it’s the idea of having to move ‘back home’ that has filled your friends with horror! I spent every penny I owned to avoid it. But it may be that for you it’s a sensible pragmatic decision and you don’t feel stress or interpersonal conflict because you get on well.

Two of my children moved back home in their 20s to save money .. one after a break up, one just because. They are very similar age to you now.
It was lovely for all of us, and when they did find new partners, they moved in too for a while. As it happens both are now married, one with a baby, one has emigrated with his wife to her country.. all that happened in the last two years.

By contrast my eldest is sadly getting a divorce from her unfaithful ex.. at 31. Not something any of us anticipated.

Are any of them failures? NO. They are living their lives in ways that suit them, and suited them in different ways at different times.

Your 'friends' sound jealous. You are still free, have choices and obviously have a decent relationship with your Mum. There is nothing magical about a wedding ring (or a relationship unless it's what you want) and personally I think shared family living is great if you get on... beats using all your money on rent!

op, someone did that to me - at 40.

I still subsequently had a ds. So I wouldn't worry. Just because you aren't doing what they did, doesn't make you wrong or failing in any way

How bloody horrible of them! You’ve got a good job, a great life and have pursued your interests! Success isn’t a man and a child!! Plus it’s not your fault the housing market is a nightmare. You’re a success in your own right, might want some new friends though.

Maybe your friends are insecure about their own lives. I’m 28 and the only people I know my age who are married and have kids are those who don’t have any career to speak of and (aside from those who are extremely religious) aren’t very educated. Them thinking you need to have done that by now just shows a lack of ambition on their side imo.

Amazing how as soon as people get engaged, married, kids…not necessarily in that order they think their lives are successful.
Whats successful about that.
Surely success is measured by happiness.
If you’re happy in your life then that’s all that matters.

Your friends shouldn’t judge your life by their own standards.
You shouldn’t feel pressured to live the life others do.

Your friends are being small minded and judgemental

The only failure I can see is that you have awful, narrow-minded friends who aren't happy for you and want to drag you down.

Your life and your path sound perfectly normal to me. At 29 most of my friends had prioritised careers and travel over finding a man, and most only married in their 30s. I have every sympathy for people a decade younger than me who are at the sharp end of this country's fucked-up housing market so no judgment on that front either (and if you have a positive relationship with your parents, I don't even think it's such a bad thing to live with them).

But you need to sort out your friendship network. Friends are there to lift you up and nurture you, not to castigate you for not following one set life path. Ditch those friends immediately - if anyone had said that to me at 29, I would have walked out there and then. I hope you have other, less awful friends in your life; if you don't, get out there and find your people!

No your life sounds amazing. Your friends don't.

Surely if you are happy with your life you are not a failure!

I feel the only thing I’ve done is bring up 2 children and loads of people do that so I often feel like I’m a bit of a waste of space. I’ve never achieved anything. Have travelled but that’s not really an achievement. Haven’t got high powered job or got further than an A level.
I have a few friends and family who love me and they don’t think I’m a failure so I can’t be despite what I think of myself.

By the way, I’m in my 50s so a lot less time left than you OP

It sounds like you have done very well for yourself. Could your friends be jealous perhaps and have dressed it up as an "intervention"

Other than those crappy friends you sound like you’re doing well for yourself!

No definitely not.

Seriously? What a nasty pair.

Your friends are just as single as you are. None of you is married. Not sure where their pity is coming from.

This is the first thing I thought of!

Thank you all for being so kind. I really wanted perspectives from people of all ages to get a better understanding rather than go off what they assumed was the “normal”

I think a part of it is that they don’t think they much in common with me anymore as they talk a lot about babies ofc and wedding planning. The sad thing is I’m always happy to talk about this stuff and I love their children. It feels like they want me to “catch up” so we are all on the same page.

I think that I’m going to branch out a bit and meet some new friends. I was honestly left mortified and embarrassed by their “intervention” but I’m starting to see that their opinions of where I’m at isn’t going to change things. I actually found a lovely quote which I’m going to send them which says

“There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all lead to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only one that is wasting time is the one running around the mountain telling everyone that his or her path is wrong”