Ian in same boat me and my disabled husband don't have children not by choice but by circumstances. We wanted. Children so much but because of his disabilities and my mental illness we would not be able to look after them for world childless week. Last year I wrote this and it was. Published
Lisa
We are a married couple living in the UK, both in our 40s and 50s. We do not fit in — not in the way most people expect adults to. We do not have children. We do not have jobs. We do not own a house. And society does not know what to make of people like us. In fact, some people can be cruel
My husband has lived with multiple disabilities since childhood. He is partially sighted, has epilepsy, a deformed arm and hand that he cannot use, and mild learning difficulties. He has never been able to work — not because he did not want to, but because he could not. I have my own struggles. I live with serious mental health issues, and those issues made trying to get a Job worsened my mental health. All the job rejections. Took all the little self confidence and esteem I had.
Then I became my husband’s full-time carer.
Now, I am not just trying to keep my own head above water — I am also helping him navigate each day. It is not a job that comes with a salary or holidays or promotions. It is love. It is exhausting. It is invisible. And it is 24/7.
We wanted children. We talked about it. We dreamed about it. But the reality is, with our circumstances — my mental health, his disabilities — it would not have been fair So,we are childless not by choice, but by circumstance. That grief never really goes away.
When you live outside the so-called norms of adulthood, people tend to stop seeing you. Or worse, they see you through the wrong lens. We are often judged — seen as “lazy,” “scroungers,” or “failures.” There is this relentless pressure in society to tick the boxes: get a job, buy a house, raise a family. If you do not, you are treated like you did not try hard enough. But that is not our story.
We did try. We still try, every day.
We try to live with dignity. We try to support each other. We try to find moments of joy and peace in a world that does not offer us much room to breathe.
We exist in the gaps — between services, between systems, between people’s understanding. Even when help is technically “there,” it is often hard to access, full of red tape and impossible standards. We spend our days filling out forms, attending assessments, being made to prove — again and again — that we are not lying, that we are not exaggerating, that our lives are as hard as they are.
There is a profound loneliness in feeling like you do not belong anywhere. We are not part of the workforce. We are not part of the parenting world. We are not “retired” . And we are not seen as valuable by a culture that only values productivity and picture-perfect success.
But here is what we are:
We are strong. We have endured. We have stayed together through pain, poverty, loss, and judgment. We support each other. We love each other. We have not given up.
This is not a story about giving up. This is a story about surviving in a world that does not make space for people like us — a world that needs to do better.
If you are reading this and you have ever felt like you do not fit in, know this: you are not alone. You are not worthless. You are not the sum of your job title or your bank balance or your ability to have children. You are more than the boxes you did not tick.
You matter, even if the world does not always show it.
And so do we.
https://worldchildlessweek.net/sat25/on-the-outside-looking-in