To be surprised by the amount of people on here who have no family and no friends to rely on

[fossilgap]

It always strikes me as odd that a couple only have each other and nobody else to call on , and this has been the same for years on here, it’s not a new thing.
Of course with the family, this could be by choice, but surely everybody has a mate or two left unless you live in total isolation

There's more to life than children. What if you needed to get home from hospital and weren't allowed to drive and can't afford a taxi? Or you had a an accident which temporarily immobilised you?

I actually don’t think moving around is a bad thing, in fact I think it’s a net positive.

Learning to reestablish yourself and work that social “muscle” is a really important life skill which is one of the reasons university is life enhancing for a lot of people. It’s harder as you get older but if you have the skills and the confidence you’re in much better shape to do it.

Being stuck in the town you grew up in isn’t necessarily a recipe for being happy or grounded. It can be incredibly limiting. Desperately trying and failing to shake off perceptions of you which date back to primary school and fishing in a limited and stale friendship pool aren’t ideal.

Staying where you grow up isn't the solution for everyone. A combination of bullying at school and misanthropic parents meant I was actually at my most lonely and isolated living in my "home town".

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned but I think is also a big factor is luck

Our kids are at a school extremely close to our house, like virtually next door.

My eldest son's best friends both live almost two miles away which in London is a long way for primary school. We do do playdates and things but they require a lot more planning especially as our kids are in after school club 3 days a week and have extracurriculars the other 2 days.

Also both of them have mums who don't need any childcare help - one is a SAHM and the other has a reciprocal arrangement with her sister

In contrast, I ran into a mum I know from a preschool activity - her DD's best friend from school literally lives next door and they happen to both be part time and work different days. So they have a fab set up for reciprocal childcare and general support and socialising.

She didn't do anything differently to me, she just had better luck. It is what it is.

If you are fine on your own and don't need anybody, sure making connections is probably not a priority (even if isolation is very bad for your health, but we do many things not good for us).

What OP, I believe, is wondering about are all the millions of 'I need to... but I have no-one to ask' topics. If you can see that you may end up in situations where you need to ask someone for a favour (which will happen to majority of people at some point or other), and you realise you will not have anybody to ask - to then say that but I'm tired and can't really be arsed and tried once, but that one person did not instantly become my bestie, so that's it? Rewards would outweigh the risks and effort here.

I don’t live that far from my family, but they consist of two elderly DP who wouldn’t be able to render much assistance anyway, and one DB who is pretty useless. DH family are all much further away in another part of the country. We moved away from where most of our friends live a few years ago for work, so we’ve ended up more isolated than we would like, but sometimes it just can’t be helped.

There are people who deliberately isolate themselves because they have no wish to be asked to "help", and are also fiercely independent to the point where they can't really imagine a scenario where they need to ask a friend or relative for assistance themselves.

It's one of the reasons I've never been remotely interested in having children. It creates dependency, and looks to be impossibly difficult without some degree of support from family and friends, so it never interested me at all because it puts me in a position I have no desire to be in.

Even in emergencies I can't think of any scenario whereby I'd be reliant on a friend. Medical - phone an ambulance, long term sickness - healthcare, both private and NHS. Financial - pre-empted that by having the fortune to accumulate savings and pre-emptively pay for contingencies.

It's not the case at all that everyone without friends and family is miserable or at "risk" of isolation and destined to be lonely. Some people crave being left alone and cherish their independence to the point where what actually drives them is maintaining it and planning for contingency. Some of it is driven by selfishness and I would never deny that, but I don't see choosing to live a perhaps atypical life as something that needs to be excused or apologised for. I'm comfortable with having a "don't bother asking" attitude, because I don't make demands of other people myself.

And being in this situation is very scary and lonely. Not to mention that it's nice to have friends, but it's very scary to think that if you need help, there's no-one you can even ask.

Actually when DH was seriously injured on way into work I did have people to ring - family and friends - all said they couldn't help.

In many respect it was easier to realise we were on our own. You sort of go into problem solving mode and start to find ways to cope.

I also found false offer of help hard to deal with - people make them you say great lets do that only for them to back track or later when they were around go on about how they would have done x or y as if that was same as doing it. There also a tendency to blame you for not asking for help when you did - not driving DH couldn't get in a car due to cast and visiting hours school hours even with a car didn't work - - but somehow that's irrelevant and it your fault.

I mentioned on here once I'd done a lot of favours to others and when we need help we were on our own and that hurt and got slated as a CF because friendship shouldn't be reciprocal and what was matter with me that my family wasn't helping.

Thank you for this post. Well said.

@fossilgap I don't see anything aggressive at all in the post from @BluYlloRedPurpl . She was just stating that life isn't the same for everyone, some of us don't have big families or a lot of friends and it isn't always through choice

That sounds less like loneliness and more like misanthropy to me. While you may not want to be in a position where you have to "depend" on someone else, would you really turn someone down if they asked you for help?

I'm actually quite saddened by the posts from people who think that asking for help is somehow a sign of weakness, or something to be avoided lest someone asks you for something. I'm quite the opposite - happy to help whenever I can, glad to be useful and for the opportunity to model community to my kids. I couldn't think of anything worse than to teach them that they should never reach out for help if they need it.

I am not "secluded with my spouse". I go out several times a week to do exercise classes and run with a club. But they are acquaintances, not people I'd ask to look after my son for a few hours while I went to work, or even ask to give me a lift to hospital if I needed it. As far as I know they all work anyway.

Also, staying in your home town is no panacea if you didn't get on with people at school!

I absolutely agree with you regarding all the positives of moving around and leaving your home town. In my own case, my home town was deprived with very few opportunities. It was definitely beneficial to leave.
However, there are cons as well as pros. When my children were babies and toddlers I would have greatly welcomed some support with them. I was exhausted. I also had cancer when they were toddlers. Trying to parent two feisty toddlers whilst going through cancer treatment was tough. Yes, my DH was a great support but it would have been lovely to have friends and family nearby too. I also believe my children would have had a closer relationship with the rest of my family if we all lived relatively close to each other. I mean, they get on well but there's a little emotional distance there too.
Finally, now my parents are old and frail, I deeply regret being so far. There have been times when they needed me and I was too far to be of any practical help. I genuinely feel sad every day that I'm so far and am limited in what I can do for them. It's painful for me and doesn't feel natural.

I would struggle like mad to ask anyone to help but would instantly offer to help anyone out if I could.

Makes absolutely no sense really, and as I said earlier I think it is because being an only child you grow up relying on yourself and no-one else.

We are in that situation.... and feels like awful even more now we have a 4 year old kid.... I wish so bad to have a grandmother for him, like I had have my beautiful and kind grandmother!

Yes,
i think the mantra to do it alone to go faster takes all its sense here…

I do have a partner. I am grateful for that. I too regret not having children though and I find it very hard to live with. In theory I still have time as I am only in my late 30s, but I have a lot of worries too. Mostly that the child won't be healthy.

Growing up in one place, let alone staying there as an adult, is the opposite of my family's experience. We'd moved eight times before I was eight years old - different houses in different suburbs across Melbourne (all rentals, renting is, or at least was, the norm here, whatever real estate agents try to tell you). My parents split when I was eight and happily I barely saw my father again. My sister moved out around the same time. She's lived 2000km away most of our lives. It was only Mum and me until this year, when she had to go into a nursing home. None of this was planned, it's the way life worked out, and frankly I'm perfectly happy it has. I'm in a retirement village, so there's an inbuilt support system available should I eventually need it, and I get to live alone, in my own place, for the first time in my life. I have casual friends in my hobby groups and volunteering. What's this 😱 at not being surrounded by relatives? What guarantees, as many on this thread have pointed out, are there that relatives will be willing or able to assist in any situation?

I'm in a retirement village, so there's an inbuilt support system available should I eventually need it,

@Catsmere i would love to find a retirement village, mainly for the inbuilt support system. I have some nice friends at present, but life never brings guarantees and of course they will all die at some point!

Forums/online spaces are always going to have a lot of posts like that, it’s going to attract more people who are isolated for one reason or another, the main reason I’m on mumsnet is for the “chatter” I don’t get in real life because of disabilities I’m very isolated and realistically don’t have someone to call up.

@GiddyRobin
this is me exactly 🙈
Friends from every stage in life and in different counties and continents.
From every former workplace etc
Ive been so blessed .
Probably helps that I’m very sociable and am continually arranging all the nights out for every group 🥳🤣

I am single though , can’t seem to find the same success with men !! 🤩🤣🤣🤣

@redskydarknight I don't really have anything in common with other school mums at my youngest's school. They are all years younger than me and wouldn't want to socialise with someone who is nearly their mum's age. I have a few people who say hello maybe but no one I know well enough to look after my child. My older DS is at secondary and I've not really met the other parents as he didn't follow the standard route up from junior school.

Yes, and in the nature of things friends come and go, especially if you move around. I don't know what retirement villages in Britain are like, but they can be pretty good here. Important thing for me was finding a rental one, because I don't have the money to buy.

Agreed. A lot if not most single parents are definitely not going for coffee or doing hobbies weekly! It’s work and childcare on repeat. Unfortunately this is a huge factor in why such parents do not have friends that call on if needed.