Does anyone’s life look perfect/great from the outside

[Illhaveapeepleasebob]

But really isn’t?

Most people's I would imagine. It's all in the language and the perception. I could tell you that today I worked in my greenhouse and cleared the pond in the garden. Sounds quite grand.
The greenhouse is 3rd hand and has several cracks and gaps where panes have slipped. I can barely fit in it. It cost £30.
The pond is just a bit bigger than an average puddle. I dug it myself and it is home to some frogs!

Oh God yeah!!! Live in a 200yr old 5 bed detached house on over a acre of land. It is beautiful but on buying at auction for 60/70% of its worth, it wasn't insulated etc so has been a labour of love.

Had a typical narcissist ex who to the outside world "adored me". Behind closed doors he was verbally, sometimes physically, financially and emotionally abusive.

I don't work but volunteer..... because I can't due to my MH.

To the outside world I look/looked like I had the perfect life...... i really really didn't/don't.

I'd imagine most lives which look perfect aren't, particularly the ones which make a show of how perfect they are.

I have a lovely life but I doubt anyone looks at me and is envious, we don't have anything that is a display of success like a nice car or fabulous social life. We're just healthy and content and financially comfortable and enjoy our daily activities, I doubt much of this can be seen.

Me I think. From the outside I have a high paying job I love, a happy marriage, lovely child and a nice lifestyle with holidays, treats etc.

What most don’t see is the chronic illnesses shit show and sadness and not being able to have more children.

There is a saying 'you never know what goes on behind closed doors' and I always try and remember that when I look at or hear about people. I appear to have the perfect life, I retired at 50, can spend my days doing what I want but nobody sees the crippling depression or lack of confidence that cause me to have breakdowns and what my husband has to put up with.

Don't think anyone has the perfect life tbh but I guess it depends what you class as perfect.

Gestures to the entire Instagram and YouTube family vlog community

My life is just what it is. I’ve not time, energy or inclination to start window dressing it. I’d rather get an early night.

Looking in to another's life you never see the full picture. Doesn't mean what you do see is a facade. But it is always a slim window. Be careful what assumptions you make and what you wish for....

My FIL frequently quotes Thoreau's "Most men live lives of quiet desperation."

On a more prosaic level, just cleared out my salad drawer in the fridge and it was like a biological weapons experiment at the bottom. I hope none of my work colleagues would suspect that highly organised individual at work has a salad drawer like that... 😬

Mine. On paper we have everything and we are still very lucky but my daughter has a life changing medical condition that is very hard. Not many people know about it so from the outside we’d look like we haven’t a care in the world.

My SIL plasters her perfect family all over social media. Whenever I spend time with her and her DH they're arguing or taking swipes at each other and she micro manages every interaction he has with their kids. I've never once seen them act lovingly towards one another in real life yet on SM they appear picture perfect.

These threads always depress me because so many people appear to have a weirdly low bar for ‘perfect’, and it’s nearly always ‘married with children, a detached house and a nice car and x holidays pa’.

I think the concept of a ‘perfect life’ is nonsense, but if I had to pick two friends who are leading very good lives, with a lot of enjoyment, satisfaction, good relationships, beauty etc, they would be

(1) friend in her 50s who is longterm single and childfree, left her corporate career after becoming seriously ill, and now lives very simply by teaching yoga, does a lot of environmental volunteering, sea swims daily etc

and

(2) friend in her 70s, an astonishing artist, but who has only in the last ten years got any recognition for her work, lives with her husband, a ceramicist, in a knackered farmhouse in a remote area, and for most of her life paid her bills by teaching meditation. Very happy, united couple, very rich minds, lives centred around their work, little money, beautiful place to live, lots of time outdoors.

These lives absolutely aren’t ‘perfect’ (the first friend has had cancer, and also a bad accident when cycling, and a natural disaster has meant her house is currently uninhabitable, while the second friend would like to have had children, and to have had more recognition for her work earlier), but they’re good, satisfying lives.

Hmm. It’s hard isn’t it? You can’t tell unless you are close to them, even then. For me, my life looks perfect. I don’t work. We have acres of land and an old house. We are married and have lovely children.
My life isn’t perfect, I don’t work because I have cPTSD from cse. But I’m content, mostly. Life is sweet now. Safe. Predictable. I consider myself to be fortunate, even on the days my nervous system makes me feel like I’m drowning.

Perfect or happy are never the goal.

Me I think. Me and DH have a lovely happy marriage, two heealthy and happy DC and a large home and both good careers.

From the outside looking in it's perfect but my DH career in particular comes with a lot of sacrifices for the family. We're now looking at a potential relation over 400 miles away too!

It's true we're very happy but it's not all a bed of roses. What I would say though is I'm a very open person so my friends know this and I don't post much on social media as I hate show offs.

I think about this from time to time e.g when a local 'perfect' couple announces a divorce or I hear of a friend with some condition that really makes them struggle. It serves as a good reminder that money doesn't buy happiness (once you have the basic bills covered) and as pp have said, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

We don't have lots of money but I'm grateful we're relatively healthy. No-one holds us up as perfect as we have a severely autistic child so it's mostly us bound to keeping everything as calm as possible.

I try hard not to envy people with NT children too much, I'm sure they have their own challenges.