To feel sad I dont have husband

[cetaphilgirl]

I'm just turning 38 and the feelings of sadness that consume me about not being married and not having children (tho the not married part is actually worse) have become unbearable.

I find it hard to believe that not all women my age feel this way, and I'm convinced it's a natural feeling to want this. It's human nature to want a family and to belong.

I do have healthy long standing friendships and close family relationships, but that doesn't give me any security of emotional fulfilment. I also have a fulfilling job that feels rewarding.

I have two AIBU:

1. Am I being unreasonable to think that I need to have a husband/partner to truly feel fulfilled in life?
2. Can I stop being so sad about this? It never goes away.

When I was a teenager in the 90s I was shy, awkward and a bit repressed tbh, and my influence at the time were melodramas and romcoms which skewed my ideas of the standards I should expect in a partner. I chose badly, suffered for it, and now with hindsight I have much higher expectations (though I'm not actively dating now I'm approaching 50).

I think the modern influence on women and their romantic expectations comes from TV and film still, but with the added pressure from the internet and social media.

If there is one thing I have learnt over the past 25 years, it's that it's not a "one size fits all" life that we are all expected to adhere to. The right person just hasn't crossed paths with you yet. You have a good life, so find ways to really appreciate what you have. Spend time with friends, keep traveling, keep seeing family, still build that career. Focus on those.

Hi @cetaphilgirl
I can relate and I feel for you.
I divorced at 35 as had a disastrous marriage and have never really found anyone since. I'm now much older.
i think some of meeting the right person is luck and it does happen late in life for some people.

You may benefit from anti depressants / they may lift your mood?
OR 5HTP tablets - I think they help me.
Also gratitude meditation every morning - visualising the good things and how the wrong person could wreck this equilibrium as we see in so many threads.

There are also examples of many people - incredibly beautiful and famous and seemingly kind (Jennifer Anniston for one) who just don't meet the right one. And then others who do. I genuinely think it's a bit of a lottery.

Finally I just want to say well done for being in such a good place with work and friends and general living. You are doing brilliantly and you are still young. I got pregnant at 39 for the first time (single mum and although I was happier when DD was little - it's been bloody tough more recently and not a recommendation)

But my point is the joy of life is you just don't know what will happen xx

YANBU to feel as you do.

Maybe you can stop feeling this way. When my life took a swerve that I could do nothing about I suddenly realised I could mourn the life I had expected or make the absolute most of and love the life I had.

Also, there's no reason to assume it cannot happen. A friend of mine married for the first time at 55. They are blissfully happy 15 years on. Total soulmates.

I'm single, albeit divorced. A single friend of mine said that it makes a difference in perception. I've "been there and bought the tee-shirt" so to speak.

I suspect she's right. Given the choice of being single and re-marrying, I have taken every opportunity to remain single.

Like you, I travel a lot and so I understand the "yearn". Life is set up for couples. As a solo, I can feel very outnumbered at times.

On the other hand, I think we women were sold a lie - just like the filtered picture of a bucket list tourist destination. From the moment girls are born, it's assumed we'll marry and live happily ever after. It's so ingrained as a trope in popular culture.

Worse, historically women who do not marry were treated with scorn, and that hangover runs and runs.

Whenever those head monkeys pipe up, I find reading witty quotes by women who defied the convention a surprising antidote to it all.

Here's some Victorian ones..

NOT MARRIED:

BECAUSE men, like three-cornered tarts, are deceitful. They are very pleasing to the eye, but on closer acquaintanceship prove hollow and stale, consisting chiefly of puff, with a minimum of sweetness, and an unconquerable propensity to disagree with one.

BECAUSE I do not care to enlarge my menagerie of pets, and I find the animal man less docile than a dog, less affectionate than a cat, and less amusing than a monkey.

BECAUSE I have other professions open to me in which the hours are shorter, the work more agreeable, and the pay possibly better.

I didn't vote, but @cetaphilgirl I think I would feel the same. I hope this comes across the way I mean it. There's a lot of pressure on women to get married and have kids. I'd have felt "unworthy" if I didn't get "picked" by a man. BUT:

1. I know this is misogynistic crap.
2. It hasn't cured the issues I had before I married. I still feel inadequate and unlovable and still don't trust anyone and etc etc etc. I'm married to a lovely, kind, handsome, clever man who tells me all the time that he loves me, but at the end of the day, you're still just you, with all your demons.

I have no advice on how to get past how you're feeling, but I do understand and, fwiw, marriage and kids is unlikely to fill whatever lack you're feeling.

Has any of this helped OP? Obviously you're not going to 'get over' your feelings just from a simple MN thread, but there are people on here who have genuinely got passed these feelings and learned to appreciate the happy, fulfilling lives they have.

Do you at least believe that it's possible?