AIBU to think having a great time in your youth can be a lifelong curse?

[IrregularMo0n]

Just as the title says really. AIBU to think that a very lively and fun youth can often be a curse for many people who then struggle to ever settle down and have much stability. Holding down jobs, less time for travel, more time spent at home supporting children/household/partner. Or for those who do manage to achieve this but are then plagued by depression, like their dopamine levels have been permanently affected by the highs of their heyday. Is this a thing? I don't mean through drugs.... but just a sense of dissatisfaction and boredom with things and that the best of life is gone forever...

Ok, seems I am wrong here!! Although, this didnt occur to me before, but the people who inspired this post were/are all male

I spread my wings when I was 17...between 17 and 18 I had a fabulous time, working away, travelling around, and I loved it.
My early 20's were spent experiencing life, married at 27, and life settled down, which I was ready for.

I would not trade those teen/20 years for anything.

Not true for me either OP. I did the "work hard, play hard" thing in my 20s - out drinking and clubbing every Friday night, travelling to South America, Asia and Africa, earning well and no dependents so plenty of disposable income. Now I live in a village with my DH and three DC, work in a less high flying career and like to be home by 11pm after a night out! No regrets, just different phases of my life.

The opposite is my experience. Misspent youth and very settled now. I’d never have the energy now happy to have a very settled life now I definitely got it out of my system.

Really? Most of the men I know, who all had a lot of fun in their 20s and early 30s, seem to settle quite happily into the world of Parkrun, cycling, fishing and a quiet drink in the local!

I had a great time in my late teens all the way to mid 30s. I had a good job, and house. but spent my free time travelling or partying. Travelled with my job at times too. Never in my house much and it was just a base.

So much of a good time I was late to settling down. For last 10 years built my career, got a better house and enjoy being at home more. I was lucky I found a partner in my 40s who likes travelling as much as me. Replaced partying with restaurants, and gigs but will still go out and party occasionally. Just takes longer to recover.

Dont regret it at all. Probably appreciate the slow pace and can afford to do better things

YABU. Totally disagree. It all depends on the character of the individual.

Interesting.

It’s something I am going to think about tonight.

It's lack of maturity, not because they've had a great time when they were young. I had a great time when I was young. I loved school. I loved uni. I loved the years travelling and partying. And I've loved what's come after.

Immature people are always thinking about what they could have had, or should have had, or wish they had. Mature people realise that live changes and they have made choices for good reasons and that is why they are where they are now.

I've met people over the years who have CHOSEN not to stay in one place and have children and "settle down" and they'r ehappy because that was a choice they went into with their eyes wide open. So it's not liek you can only be happy if you settle and have children and all the rest of it. The bit that is the problem is when you don't take responsibility for your choices and appreciate the outcomes accordingly.

I had really rough childhood and early adulthood. I managed to build stability but I am already so drained I just wish I could just live.

The issues I have seen with some people who had it all lively and great is not that they can’t settle down, but that if something adverse happened (which always does because life), it destroys them. They don’t have the resilience or skills to navigate. Don’t appreciate things they have because it often was given. I have a couple of friends/family who had the dream lives and everything was sunshine and rainbows and a loss completely destroyed them and brought them to their knees in depression and addiction.

It really depends on the person/character, I think.

No, I don't think that is necessarily so. That may be true for you, but that suggests to me you just haven't found quite the right balance of motivation and lifestyle to suit your personality.

Sounds like you are just a star shaped peg trying to cram yourself into a square hole!

As one star shaped peg to another, I had a pretty crappy, abusive childhood and 20s. That has been difficult to recover from and has held me back in so many ways. Like you though, I definitely have a different worldview and I don't do "normal" very well 😅I am more adventurous and tend to think outside of the box.

Have you considered working with a life coach or counsellor on this? Could be fun and help you to find greater levels of satisfaction and a lifestyle to suit you!

The happiest time of life is early on in life and then it worsens, rising again in retirement. The mid-life part of life is the lowest in terms of wellbeing. I think it dips an all time low in 40s apparently! Urgh.

No, because what people want changes. And I don't think it's a male female thing either. I used to travel)party etc in a large mixed group. We're all married, most have kids. There's been no divorces, so everyone seems happy with the lives we now lead.

So me and DH are the inverse of this. We both had challenging late teens/early twenties plagued by more family issues and ill health worries than most people in that stage of life. It stopped us both moving out for uni, partying or doing any kind of travel. Even now (mid 30s) we’re much more tied by family responsibilities to older generations as most of our peer group are starting families. We’re also very aware that those older generations won’t be with us forever and do actually want to remain close.

However, as a result, we’ve both decided we don’t want DC. It would be nigh on impossible to add childcare into our current schedule without letting others down and due to ages there would be no way of us having a break, we’d need to crack on. Neither of us fancy starting 18 years of child rearing after 15 + years of caring!!!

So we’re doing it backwards. When these responsibilities end we will travel, maybe even move to some places that take our fancy and have the carefree lifestyle that neither of us had in our twenties. The benefit of being tied currently is that we are building careers so can financially prepare for this

I did all those things in my 20’s, settled down in 30’s and now lead a happily boring life in my 40’s. It’s better to get it out of your system while you’re young.

Yes I'm voting YANBU. Totally get it.

I get what you mean.
I bounce. I can hold job and long term, but I move a lot location wise. Happily married to similar person. It is dopamine hit from the adrenaline of change and new experience imho.
I am probably the only person at work excited when new projects where I have to learn or create something new come in...

Lots of escapades in my youth. I don’t envy my DC their fun years now as i’m more than happy staying in but I would like to feel a bit less responsible though. It feels like life and people ask a lot of me and sometimes it would nice to feel ‘free’ like I did before work, bills, partner, kids, aging ailing parents & pets came along. I wouldn’t change my life but there’s never time to get bored now, always something needs doing or worrying about!

Yes, in my experience, fun loving people do get lots if itches to move from country to country and can't hold jobs. Not all are the same but most are volatile or unsettled.

I think it's a version of this. Maybe most people will mature in their late 20s/early 30s and genuinely be happy with the slower pace of life & trappings of family living. I know I am.

Others know themselves & will live the lifestyle longer (sometimes until they stand out like an embarrassing sore thumb?)

The biggest mismatch is when people 'settle' for settling down because they've been pressured to in some way. Either by a partner who got their sooner than them, or by family expectations, or by society - or even by recognising that they are the embarrassing older sore thumb, but still not actually wanting to part with that lifestyle?

I suspect OP is right & it's broadly more prevalent among men than women. They don't have a biological clock in the same way. And while I appreciate not all women feel that, it does subtly shift what many of us focus on as we reach our 30's 🤷🏼‍♀️

Yes I think this too. I often hear people who settled down very young say they’ll do it all in retirement, not considering that they will have less energy, tolerance, a dodgy hip/knee/back, maybe very old parents and be less likely to be impressed by places they visit.
Do it when you’re young, I have drummed this into my DS.