Wanting to be alone all the time and irritated - perimenopause??

[Orchidsunlight]

Can anyone relate, I am late 40's and recently apart from being irritated a lot i find i just crave to be alone, is this normal? I have a house full of husband and 20 somethings and i feel like screaming , people everywhere, making noise, making all sorts of food in the kitchen, everyone asking me to remind them of things etc, I just want to be alone and sit with a glass of wine and a book, or something on tv i like. My real dream is to live alone in a cottage by the sea, just me my books, my candles, a nice bottle of wine in the fridge, doing what I like, when I like.
Is this normal as i feel quite fed up lately with people around me all the time at home...

This thread really resonates with me! I yearn to be alone! I'm 55, definitely going through menopause. There's just me and my partner but he will not leave me in peace! If I leave the lounge to go and read in the bedroom he comes in to ask what's wrong. If I say I need some time to myself, he'll lay on the bed and say "ignore me" so I go back downstairs and he follows me!

I went to put the bin out tonight, was outside maybe 4 minutes and he's come running out to see what's wrong.

I start preparing dinner and he's hovering trying to take the knife out of my hand to do it for me.

It's suffocating. I know it's because he cares but I just feel like roaring at him to fuck off!!

Yes I get this.
I am 48 and very hormonal but still have regular periods.

My job is quite solitary. I live with dd (early twenties) so I make as mush effort as I can with her but I just want to be alone. I see partner of 15 years at weekends which is just about manageable. There is no way we would ever live together.

Often think of booking myself a room in a hotel.

Someone who accidentally pressed the wrong one probably! I love Anne Tyler- going to read the one you recommended now! This is all me too.

Same here. I can't work out if its hormonal or just everyone else is just always wanting me to sort their shit out and I'm just sick of it.

YANBU. I'm in my 40s, but my kids are still young. I have the cottage fantasy as well, except mine is in a forest (preferably enchanted). I would spend all day pottering about in the garden, growing fruit and veg, making fruit wine, and eating bread and cheese.
Nobody wants anything from me, and if I don't want to do anything, I don't have to.

It sounds like heaven.

I can't work out if it's peri, my asd or natural introversion. Probably all 3, but I just want to be left alone of an evening.

I can usually tolerate my dh's company, but sometimes and increasingly, I just want time completely to myself. I'm so bloody done with parenting and being talked at by the time my oldest goes to bed around 8:45pm. God, I miss the 7pm bedtimes.

I'm actually toying with the idea of applying for flexi working so I can have one Friday a month off - alone.

I'm not depressed, honest! I love them all. Just overstimulated and irritated.

Running helps. No one can bug me outside.

I actually laughed out loud reading this because a friend and I went for a drink this evening and expressed exactly the same.

I have 2 late teenage DCs and I adore them but I've had enough of noise, mess and washing and I really want them to move out so I can soak up the silence and cleanliness and live a peaceful life reading all the books.

Dp is lovely but he does like to follow me around the house chatting to me. Git.

There should be special cafes made with comfy seats and coffee/wine with screening around each table so everyone has 100% alone time privacy in comfort

Me too. The tiny cottage by the sea and everything. I’d live there with my cats and a dog in peace and quiet.

God yes! You are not alone! I am early 50’s with teenagers and a DH and I feel DONE. Am on HRT which has taken the edge off but I still feel like a burning ball of irritation!

I can almost feel my maternal nurturing gene ebbing away. Would obviously die for them but so over bringing up children - and my DH just irritates me beyond belief.

Yearn for solitude and quiet and no fucking mess and demands. I am hoping it is my body’s way of telling me it is time to let my children go and be adults??

ideal for me would be kids gone but happy and settled and with DH living in an adjoining house (like Tim Burton and Helena BC did!) so I can enjoy the nice bits of our marriage but never have to deal with his crap and noise!!

I'm in peri. I'm single and live alone so I have that peace and quiet and being alone with books.
It's interesting because I used to go out a lot and socialize with people and now I can't be arsed with it at all and just want to sit alone and amuse myself.

Thank you so much for this thread and for the responses. I’ve felt like I was going mad recently, or turning into this awful person who hates everyone. I really don’t - I just love being alone. There are no demands, no questions, no being perceived or judged. It’s just me and it’s peaceful.

if it is hormonal, does it ease as you come through the menopause, and you like being around others again? I don’t want to be a strange woman living alone in the woods like something out of a horror film. Or do I…?!

@Orchidsunlight You've probably cared for others for long enough. You deserve some 'me' time

I suddenly could not listen or tolerate other people’s noise or thoughts

I'm at the advanced stage of not even wanting to hear the radio wittering on.

I used to love listening to radio 4 while I was in the kitchen - now the voices of other people just annoy the hell out of me. Silence is so nice.

This!!

alllllll of this.

even the sniffing, oh god, please will he stop with the sniffing 🤣🤣

yes i sleep in one of the kids rooms when they are at uni sometimes a few nights a week

These replies are wonderful and now I dont feel so weird ! Loving the cottage by the sea idea is not just me, and the 'enchanted' forest is amazing. I find i try and enjoy time with my now adult kids when home from uni but im also dreaming of getting back to my house and pottering. Im up now as early as i can be so i can potter.......

Must be the hormones and the natural lessening of the desire to care for others, my kids are now older but what happens when the parents need care!

this one would be perfect:
West Looe Hill, Looe PL13 2 bed cottage for sale - £230,000

It doesn't change even after the menopause. I'm 58 and couldn't bear to have anyone in my space now, been there, done that, now I thank God I'm single or I may well have committed murder by now 😆

Having your own bedroom is ace.

God yes the sniffing! The crumbs! The breathing! The shuffling around in slippers!
I know objectively that my DP is lovely and he never used to irritate me like this but I'd love to have a break from him! He's a home body and not very sociable so other than work and one circuits class a week he is rarely out. In the winter anyway. Thank goodness he has an allotment so is there a lot the rest of the year!

I think all this is harder over the winter when you're cooped up at home.

We had a household emergency last autumn and I moved into an Airbnb with my teen Dd for 10 nights. It was a gorgeous place and we both loved it. Long baths, watching whatever crap I wanted on the telly, starfishing in a huge comfy bed every night, eating what we wanted and ordering food to be delivered without someone commenting on the cost (he considers Deliveroo to be the height of extravagance!)

I'm 38, and i already feel like this 😭 I have a 4yo and an 8mo and it is relentless, I literally never have more than 10min to myself, 24/7 (I'm still on mat leave, and I'm really privileged, though I'm never with at least 1 child at every given moment).

I love it. I’d like to go one further and buy a plot of land away from neighbours, then put one of those DIY houses on it.

oooh yes even better