Why is there so little resources for lonely women?

[DidIMissOut]

I’ve been looking for any help/support/place to even talk about loneliness.
Actual physical loneliness, being single and childless in my 30’s has left me really isolated in the world and I just wanted to at least talk about it a little, see if anyone else is going through what I am and maybe support each other.

But it so hard to find anything!
Most loneliness articles are only about men, leaving women out.
Online when I try to find something it’s either filled with men being angry at women, saying they don’t believe women can be lonely or they staight up say they are men’s only groups (that’s totally fine, I just wish there were something to women also).

Anything that is more women heavy, is filled with women who have husbands and twelve kids sating how lonely they are.
We can’t help each other, vecause we don’t understand each other AT ALL.

Books tend to be about, once again from men’s pov, for them, and thei isolation (usually those are also about how to not be or become an addict, violent, anti-women etc, so there’s nothing for me)

Bews are often worried about linely people, those always turn out to be about boys/young men.

It leaves me/women like me, outside of the outsiders.
And that just makes me feel even more worthless…
And have nowhere to turn to.

Well you are welcome to hide this thread ☺️

I am no bravely talking about loneliness single and childless women face, subject that rarely gets talked about and needs to be less of an taboo.

You can start your own thread about anything that is important to you.
I won’t engage with you anymore, you clearly don’t care and want to make everything about something this one single thread was not about.

I mean this with kindness and wonder why people seem to think that there is support available for everything under the sun these days. We need to learn to nurture our relationships and our friendships to make them better for ourselves.

People who are in a relationship can feel dreadfully lonely. But it’s a different set of circumstances and life experiences to feel lonely whilst being single and childless. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for OP to want to connect with that specific demographic for support.

I wonder OP if there are more people in that situation than you think, but don’t feel they can admit it.

I’d suggest looking for a counsellor who specialises in ‘social infertility’, assuming you would have liked kids but it hasn’t happens for social rather than biological reasons. Might help you process it as it’s completely understandable you’re struggling with it.

I get it OP. Sometimes you just want someone to listen and sympathise about how exhausting and miserable it can be.
We know all the ideas about joining hobby groups and putting yourself out there and trying to find new connections. Looking for a community who will listen to her doesn't mean that OP isn't still trying to do all that. She just wants a space where she isn't constantly having to put a brave face on.

The OP hasn’t said that partnered people aren’t allowed to complain about anything tho @PinkRoses1245

She has said that she struggles to relate her experience of loneliness to that of women who have a partner or children .

OP you don’t need technical knowledge to set up a blog - take a look at this https://www.wpbeginner.com/start-a-wordpress-blog/

I think this would be a really good thing for you to do - it would give you the space to vent and share your thoughts, and writing them down can also be therapeutic. Once you’ve started it (follow that link and it only takes about 30 mins to set up) and spent a bit of time writing your first post you can post on some forums like the childfree page here directing people to it. You could also do some research on what search terms might direct people there. How does that sound?

Maybe a start would be to start a thread on the Childfree board asking if anyone else is single and lonely?

I agree about Reddit - it should be the ideal place to start a similar thread since its reach is so massive, but you'd just get inundated by creepy men messaging you.

I have a couple of friends in a similar position to you, and you're right, while I empathise with them, it's not the same them talking to me about the realities of coming in the front door on a Friday evening and knowing they'll maybe not speak to another human being until Monday morning, when I'm going out of my mind for some peace and quiet from family life.

Found a couple of places which you might be able to use as a springboard into something offering community support.

Involuntary childless women (doesn’t look free to join the me ever support group) but podcasts and readings look like they are readily accessible

gateway-women.com

This one is childless by choice or chance and references the one above in its resources. But there are others.

https://www.thenotmom.com/resources

I’m not alone, but due to the nature of the inside of my head I can and have experienced very bleak and extended bouts of feeling utterly isolated and lonely.

Medication has helped. But the things that made the biggest difference in helping myself help myself were

The Fabulous App

The Daily Stoic

And books by Gary Bishop (unfuck yourself series)

Huge hug. A profound sense of loneliness is not to be underestimated in terms of the havoc it can play with your mind and your motivation to help yourself back out of the dark fog. If I find anything else I’ll add it to the thread.

Hi op. Just to say I can understand that gut wrenching loneliness, having experienced it myself in my late 20s. It’s awful and I believe leads to genuine feelings of depression which then sets in and makes it difficult to resolve.

but I think you are being unreasonable and doing yourself a disservice by only seeking support from those in exactly your position. I am married with two children but still experience loneliness from home working, being remote from people on the same wavelength, being surrounding by bloody school mums should irritate the fuck out of me with their oneupmanship and banal conversations. Loneliness isn’t linear - it’s a feeling, not a fact, so can take a variety of forms. But most importantly I REMEMBER the physicality of being and feeling literally alone and therefore would have more in common with you than you think. The existence of my partner and children is irrelevant to that.

whilst I totally understand how you feel, I think you risk isolating yourself more because of your very fixed ideas about who you are prepared to let help you out of it. I’d encourage you to think hard about that, and try to think more positively and constructively or you are unlikely to find a way out.

I wonder OP if there are more people in that situation than you think, but don’t feel they can admit it.

Or have no idea where or when to talk about it.
There is a massive and huge pressure to be this strong independent woman - thing that is happening now.

I know it comes from the fact that there (still, at the same thing) huge stigma being single woman.

So it’s a really tricky thing all around.

Have you read this book OP?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7687690-lonely

It has mixed reviews but I found some parts of it helpful, and there were a few times when I really felt "wow, I can relate to that - it's not just me".

By the end, I felt a drive to make changes in my own life, so as not to feel as drowned in loneliness as the author had felt. It was a sort of boot up the bum in a way.

It is isn't easy and I do understand where you are coming from OP.

And you aren't goady at all. MN is a forum for everyone, and anyone can ask for any sort of help on here, and there are so many lovely supportive people who contribute. So please do ignore any posters who are singularly unhelpful.

Also: Gateway Women, as mentioned upthread.

All the best OP.
.

Does it need to be online op?

I know in my area we have hens sheds, meet up groups, women's rambling, bookclubs etc plus other hobbies etc that are open to anyone. When I felt lonely I joined some classes and social groups and volunteered so I was out meeting people and it built my confidence and helped my mental wellbeing. And in turn I met a few people that I got on well with and keep in touch with. You could always source counselling, most areas offer free sessions in some capacity and that could be a safe space to explore your feelings around it.

@Guiltridden12345 beautifully put.

Why not start up your own support group in your area? There's only so much other people can do for us perhaps be a bit more pro active and see what evolves? If you only get a few responses that's still people to meet up with and talk to.

What a horrible post. You should be ashamed of yourself.

OP please ignore some of the posts on here. You have been cruelly treated in my opinion.

Especially suggestions that you are mentally ill because you feel lonely.

I wish you well and I hope you find a way to alleviate the horrible feeling of loneliness.

Try the Single Supplement FB group.

You're asking this in the wrong place OP. This is Mumsnet. The vast majority of us are mums or mums-to-be and you very categorically state that you don't want to connect with people who have DC, DPs and ILs, whereas the overwhelming majority of us have all or most of those people in our lives.

If you want to find a community of people who are not in relationships and don't have DC I honestly recommend you ask on a more diverse message board, such as Reddit, where you will find threads relating to what you're looking for.

Join MeetUp. Craft groups, walking groups. Whatever to meet people.

OP, I am in my 60s and single and childless - and you are in your 30s which believe me is the time I found it the hardest. Everyone I knew by that age was getting married and having babies. I remember where I worked every single other woman was pregnant and I went to my GP (a personal friend) and just cried.

You mentioned you were looking for books - there is a book by an Australian writer, Donna Ward, titled She I Dare Not Name - it's about her experiences as a single, childless woman. (I am in Australia). I found it incredibly helpful. It was available at Book Depository in the UK which has now closed down, but I would be very surprised if it's not available in the UK - so do have a look/Google around for it. Maybe Amazon or World of Books? It really helps to read another woman's experience.

I don't have any great advice - it is tough and lonely. It continues as other women talk about their children and you feel out of it, and you can't contribute to the conversation - and by my age, they are all talking about their grandchildren, and I can't contribute!

What you need is one or two single friends - single never married/divorced/widowed, whatever - and it's nice to have one or two married with kids friends who understand your situation - but single friends you can go out with, and talk about this with and they get it!

A book club is a start - or an amateur theatre group (I made a few good friends doing front of house stuff, not acting - with such a group). Anywhere like that where other single people are likely to congregate - or join a choir (lots of women alone - also men), a music group, or church group - whatever is your thing. It is hard to go alone but worth it when you find a friendly crowd (and that isn't always easy either).

It gets easier when you are quite a lot older - you are in what is the worst period really, 30s and 40s. You still have plenty of time to meet the right guy - but you do need to be out and about to do that. I also joined a singles social group - they can be really good.

Any nice single people at your workplace? Is your work a place where you get any chance to meet with/mix with other single people?

Best of luck and hang in there - a couple of good child-free friends and you might find you feel a bit happier.

It's quite late evening in Australia now, so I will leave it there, but I hope this might help a bit. By the time I was in my 50s nobody cared if I was single and never married, so many women that age are alone (divorced etc) or alone because their kids have left home.

Best wishes & hang in there!

BTW, OP I think there is a single women's forum on Whirlpool if you Google it - I have no idea what it's like but it might be worth a look?

Join groups? Tbh you say single mums can’t be lonely because they have children but I have never felt so lonely and isolated since having children, it’s not the same as adult company, other single mums don’t get it as they all “love being single” I can’t join groups because kids are with me all the time, I was never ever this lonely before I had children, other people can be lonely too not just single child free women.

Did you mean to just judge and "shame" someone for giving OP some common sense advice? It seems you're trying to occupy a moral high ground that you're somehow better than the PP with the useful advice because she dared to suggest that OP needs to get her finger out and join some groups to stop being lonely? It's literally the most obvious solution, it's been mentioned a few times on this thread, and OP is ignoring those suggestions in favour of having a go at posters who have told her to stop dismissing and pushing away other people's lived experiences that might actually get her closer to other humans and further away from being lonely. So it's like she's sitting in her house complaining it's on fire instead of standing up and walking out of the door.

I remember this feeling OP. I moved abroad for work in my 20s, and many weekends would go by where I didn't speak to a single other person. I'd feel like my tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth and then when I got to the office on Monday I would feel like I'd forgotten how to act normally. I'd fallen out of touch with my old friends (pre social media) and hadn't made new ones.

It's a profound sense of loneliness and, you're right, it feels impossible to admit to in real life, because if you start to acknowledge it, you feel like you can't stop. I used to lie about what I'd been up to on the weekends because I felt embarrassed to say I'd spent it alone again, even if I had tried to fill my time with the library and painting and sight seeing.

When I moved back to the UK I swore to only live in flat shares. They come with their own issues, but they were far preferable to me than being alone. Goodness knows how much worse it must be now people wfh as well. I hope you find the community you're looking for.

There are festivals and holiday groups for single and/or childless women - they may have forums for the inbetween times so it’s your peers that can relate but also it isn’t solely about loneliness etc.

Hi OP,

have you checked out this site? https://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/forums/loneliness-forum.413/

this has loads of useful links - some of which you may not have seen https://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/loneliness/

including this: https://giveusashout.org/get-help/issues/how-deal-loneliness/

you can text them for free support and they may well have more advice on the sort of thing you’re looking for. Let us know how you get on