nobody's priority

[priorityps]

I am nobody’s priority, or even close to. I am finding this really lonely. I do have good friends, involved family and nice colleagues. Many of which would be there for me if they HAD to be…. But that’s just it, if they HAD to. If there was nobody else, if it was so crucial I needed them badly. I have nobody who is just there for me. I am a lone parent and have been for 3 years. I go to Xmas day with ds and watch as my parents arrive, my siblings and their partners etc etc. Everyone has someone. Someone to check the oil in the car, remind you it’s bin day, pick up the loo roll that was forgotten in the weekly shop, get some chocolate if you’ve had a crap day, make you a cup of tea or help to get the duvet cover on the bed. Someone who is there if you have a bad day at work.

The reality is that I am in a queue for the people who are there for me. I’m after my best friend’s husband and dc. I’m after my dad with my mum and after my mum with my dad. I’m after all my sibling’s partners and dc. I get it, that’s life. I know I’m cared for and I know I have people there for me. But I’m nobody’s priority and it’s lonely. Not sure why I am posting. Feel a bit sad about it tonight.

I do think these posts show how loneliness is the last taboo in so many ways.

I was single for years, living alone, and while yes there are advantages it was also extremely draining and depressing sometimes, filling the long hours or trying to find things online and convince yourself a walking group on a Sunday morning wasn’t that awful …

When I look back I can see that sometimes I did over invest myself in situations or lives in a misguided attempt to feel useful or to feel as though I mattered, and it’s very hard. You also do become horribly used to not being a priority as OP put very well

I’m the same but no siblings or children. Counting blessings can only get me so far to stop loneliness.

@Caroparo52 I’m also my dentist’s priority when they do an £800 filling that I’m paying for, but it’s really not the same thing as I’m explaining in my OP.

@Giltedged oh gosh yes the over investment in those things - absolutely.

You are your ds priority.
End of.
Start the day with your cup half full instead of half empty.
You are fortunate to have a child, parents, siblings and friends. Live in a civilised country, have a home... etc etc

More toxic positivity. And we're not our children's priority, it's the other way around, rightfully.

Once you become a parent, I think most people would put their children before their partner, especially in a “Titanic lifeboat” situation as a pp described. Therefore even those who are coupled up are probably not each other’s “number one” priority if they have kids. For example, if my DH is ill I don’t run around playing nursemaid for him, although I do look after the children so he can rest. By contrast, if my children are ill, I am mopping brows / dispensing calpol and cuddles / making their favourite foods for them to nibble / getting up with them in the night etc. etc.

I do get the “not having anyone to do nothing with” thing though - that must be hard.

It’s not really that, though. It isn’t about illness or boats sinking or extreme situations like that: it’s more that in a couple with children you’re working as a team for the children - I know not in every case, but ideally that is how it is.

It’s a strange, empty sort of feeling that’s hard to verbalise.

That does sound very lonely OP and I totally get where you're at.

I think other posters have probably said this but, how about YOU making you a priority - buy yourself that bar of chocolate if you're feeling down, make yourself a cup of tea (just the way you like it!), check in with yourself when you've had a bad day (journaling and writing things down can help with this).

You've summed it up here - the over-investment is something I find myself doing. We now live in a world where we can openly express our feelings but loneliness is still taboo. I'm where you are OP, however much I count my blessings and treat myself to nice things doesn't take away the loneliness.

Yes. I don't whether it's a case of people just being different. Or perspective, or whatever.
Me personally I like the feeling of someone just being there, low level interaction that's natural as part of the day.

I think it's something you either get or you don't.

And as you say ... You may be able to accept it. But that doesn't mean it's ideal. It is what it is.

I SO relate.

I have DC (mid teens) their priorities (quite rightly) are their mates.
Both parents dead
No siblings
No aunts
No cousins
No family whatsoever - actually none.

I have friends who are lovely but I am not on their radar in any kind of meaningful way. I work freelance so no 'fixed' work colleagues. I could fall off the earth for several weeks before anyone (apart from DC) noticed. Certainly I am not any adults priority. I am not on anyone's "Christmas lunch seating plan". It's very fucking lonely.

@priorityps Absolutely it’s not the same if someone is being a “single parent” while their partner is working away for a week etc. People on this situation referring to themselves as single parenting for the week etc. drive me absolutely up the wall and I find it hard to bite my tongue! It’s 100 percent not the same thing! You have a partner who just happens to be away this week! Who is still at the end of a phone, could fly back to look after your kids if you dropped down dead, and is generally there for emotional and practical support and likely contributes to roughly half the household living expenses. It really isn’t the same situation at all…

I think I get it about the overinvolvement too. I was completely devastated recently when my sisters nominated each other as godparents but not me. To this day they insist this was just about convenience as they live close to each other etc (I like to think we are emotionally close but yes geographically I’m not close), and think I’m ridiculous to have been upset by it. I understand why they’d nominate each other but don’t understand why they didn’t also nominate me! They still don’t understand how hurtful that was to me, with a supersmall nuclear family of just myself and my child (there is also backstory to this in that our other sibling had suddenly and unexpectedly died not long before so it was even more hurtful to be cut out like that). I see their kids as hugely significant to me family-wise, probably especially because I’d have loved to have more kids of my own but didn’t get the chance, but it made me feel like shit, that I’m just nothing to them and less important even than their friends who they also nominated as godparents. We’ve made up and agreed to move on for the sake of family relations but honestly I still feel hurt by it years later and have made a conscious effort to keep them and their kids a bit more at arms length emotionally than before because I just couldn’t continue having such an unbalanced relationship with them where I value them so much more than they do me.

Anyway OP, it’s clear that you’re not the only one who feels this way. I hope that’s helped you to know that?! Maybe we should start a little moral support here for each other! I know it’s still not the same thing as having a partner etc. But it’s something!

I agree we can definitely do without some of the toxic positivity comments. Some people just don’t understand and I’d say that’s mostly because they’ve simply had the very good fortune not to be in the position we are with respect to loneliness which is really what this is about, extreme theoretical situations like lifeboats aside (by the way, yes I think everyone would put their kids in first before a partner but if there is one place after the kids are accounted for it’s probably going to your partner as it should, unless you’re about to split up!).

I agree loneliness is absolutely the last taboo in our society (maybe death being the other!). If you can’t moan anonymously on mumsnet without being told to count your blessings and focus on the positive then where can you?! 🤣 It’s ok to admit to ourselves that aspects of our lives are not as we want them to be. It’s actually a good thing because you have to be able to identify the problems in your life before you can make the changes you want and need. I spent a long time in an abusive marriage before becoming a single parent trying to “count my blessings” and it was not ultimately psychologically healthy for me.

I can relate in some ways OP. So sorry you are feeling this way x

@WoodforTrees I totally understand this too and have occasionally had the same thoughts, that if my child was away somewhere or when they grow up and fly the nest, I could literally die and nobody would even notice… they would of course, mainly at work cos I’m a GP! But I would only be missed there as a unit of work, not a person… TBH my family who are geographically scattered throughout the U.K. and not close by would definitely notice as I call one of them most days. So it’s not technically true but it feels that way somehow! And I do think if I wasn’t working and wasn’t in the habit of calling family, and didn’t have a kid at home, it would be different. I guess those are some blessings I ought to count! (Really not sure about my work being a blessing right now!!)