To ask what childless woman do to feel a sense of purpose in life?

[loserlikeme]

I've recently had a lot of tests to confirm that I'm unable to have children. Can I ask any childless women out there what you do to have a fulfilling life? I expect to get slated asking this, but I feel you grow up with the expectation of getting married and having children and now I feel a bit lost :( I think I just need a bit of inspiration and reassurance.

I'm sorry to hear you've had such sad news . I'm childfree by choice and I hope my answer to your question is helpful:

There are several things in my life that give it purpose. Being loved and needed by my family (parents, sister, husband, MIL) is the primary one. I get great joy from looking after my cats and dog. I also find purpose in creativity and other hobbies. Last, most definitely least, but still important is my job. I do, at a fundamental level, enjoy helping people and being of use - which my job gives me the chance to do.

I'll finally add that I think it's a mistake to feel you need to identify a 'grand' purpose in life. Most humans, whether or not they have children, lead lives which are not of any long-term significance - in 100 years' time, most of us will be forgotten - I see that as a very liberating philosophy. If you can be happy and avoid doing harm to others, that is an achievement in itself.

I truly cannot believe some of the responses here. Where is your compassion? OP is clearly having to face a future they didn't envisage, and is looking for support and instead gets jumped on.
OP if it helps here is my story. Was always undecided as to whether I wanted children or not, but met my DP and decided I did. Anyway, it didn't come as a surprise to me that I was never going to be able to conceive naturally. I knew that our new relationship didn't need the added stress of IVF and fertility treatment so made the conscious decision to close the door on having children. My DP has three children that I live with, and as their mum sadly passed away some years ago I have taken on a full time parenting role.
I do think though that if I had been single and wanted children I would have definitely looked into IVF and adoption.
I'm not sure what point I'm making other than it's tough to be childless but it's not meaningless. Or at least doesn't need to be. 

Sorry to hear your news @loserlikeme I would agree with others who have suggested professional counselling.

I just wanted to share the life of a friend who is child free; my understanding is that this is not by choice and I can't guarantee that these things would complete fill the space left by a child, but this may give you some things to consider.

Her work is helping other people, some of it paid, some of it voluntary

She is a person of faith and is involved in her faith community

She has a wide range of hobbies including sporting, meditative, music and craft.

She is a brilliant aunt, godmother

I hope you manage to eventually be at peace with this.

I recommend making a career in the arts, some industries or hobbies are really all absorbing and therefore what you need right now to keep you busy. Art is quite obsessive and the more you do the better you get, certainly my friends without children do much better and can do residencies is amazing parts of the world.

Are you on glue? You realise not everyone is artistically-inclined? Or can make a living at it? Or necessarily wants to move abroad?

So many huge generalisations and stereotyping on this thread.

What about those of us whose children have grown? Hey, why aren't you out there adopting, become the next Lucien Freud and living in a Ben Fogle episode of 'Into the Wild'?, after all, you don't have kids at home!

Are there really still women out there whose only life goals are to marry and have children? Wow

Yes. So what? I actually didn't think I'd ever get married or want children, then I met my husband and I wanted both. Unfortunately we couldn't have children and I lost my husband.

Purpose is a funny word. As is fulfilled. It is so subjective and can vary a lot within a persons own lifetime. Workwise I feel pretty fulfilled at the moment as I'm doing a job that I enjoy and earning enough money to pay the bills amd have enough left over for a bit of fun. However I have to work really hard and long hours and thar means I have less time to do my voluntary work with disabled children which is what I feel gives my life purpose at the moment. I also felt I had purpose when I worked in the NHS years ago. I think that's because for me, my life having purpose involves helping people.

My life feels empty however, without children. I don't want to feel that way, but I do. Maybe if I hadn't lost my husband I would have come to terms with not having children by now, but I did lose him and so my life feels emptier and lonely.

It's ok to grieve for the life you thought you would live and the children you thought you would have. All of us on here have had fertility treatment and considered adoption. In our case we were refused because of my husband's mental health issues and also because we were a mixed race couple.

So, take your time. Hang out here with us if you want. Get some real life support and just take each day as it comes. Good luck

'l'll finally add that I think it's a mistake to feel you need to identify a 'grand' purpose in life. Most humans, whether or not they have children, lead lives which are not of any long-term significance - in 100 years' time, most of us will be forgotten - I see that as a very liberating philosophy. If you can be happy and avoid doing harm to others, that is an achievement in itself.

This is wonderful - thank you Screaming

Since reaching the end of the road with our IVF treatment, I've struggled with feeling like I need to do something 'big' and meaningful, to leave a legacy in some way, if I can't have children

I think that's one reason why I decided to try and write a book (about the experience of infertility and pregnancy loss, and finding a meaningful life without children), given that I didn't want to go off and become Mother Theresa or a CEO or climb Kilimanjaro.

I find this incredibly comforting - I hope that it helps OP too.

How is the book coming along bananafish81 ? I remember your recent thread asking for experiences.

OP I so wish you had origionaly posted anywhere other than on AIBU ! It would have saved you having to endure reading the unnecessary shite some posters seemed fit to post.

I sincerely hope and believe that in your own time comments like some of the ones you've had to read here will be water off a ducks back. Until then - i join some of the other posters in despairing of MN sometimes and i send you a bloody great ((HUG)).

Bloody hell OP I read the first page and couldn’t believe some of the responses you got.
I’m in your boat. I can’t have children. I have a career, a partner that I love and a pretty active life (which includes the much recommended ‘charity work’) but there’s still a gaping hole in my heart.
I have no wise words for you, I’m three years in to this journey and I still struggle to imagine the life that I will have vs the life I thought I’d have. Not because my only purpose was to have a child but because I value family so much.
I don’t have much advice for you. I just tell myself that the feelings will get easier over time (and they do). I still find myself crying big silent tears at the slightest thing.
I guess the one thing I wish I had done differently was to talk to my friends and family about it all. To tell them how I felt and how I’m feeling and to challenge them nicely when they made those insensitive comments about egg donation, how lucky I am, how children are hard work, how we should get a dog etc.
Not being able to have children is an insurmountable loss for me. It’s not something that I’ll get over and it makes me desperately sad. That said I’ll keep on going, I can still love and laugh and I can see that I have a future that is exciting and happy (even if there’ll always be one dark cloud in my sky...)
Good luck. My final bit of advice - delete mumsnet

bananafish we sound so alike, I too feel the need to do something big and monumental. However a lot of people (most I imagine) don't do anything like that, so why should we!

And thank you ScreamingValenta, that's such a comforting thing to hear. I have a big issue with being forgotten about once I'm gone as I won't have family to remember me.

To answer everyone else's questions, I'm 29 (nearly 30) and I've been with my DH for 6 years. I work as a secretary for a solicitor, so not really fulfilling.

I think I feel it all quite hard at the moment as so many of my friends have toddlers and newborns. I want to have an impact of someones life, I know my DH loves me - but ultimately he would be fine without me. I feel like I need to be needed, if that makes sense.

When I didn't have my DS and my long term partner didn't want children. I had the most amazing garden.

I started with pots of flowers and I didn't know anything but just experimented with things I liked the look of. You can do winter baskets with pansies, cyclamen and ivy this time of year. Garden centres are lovely to look around etc.

I would love to adopt, but I admit I have major struggles with our DS and I know many adoptions are challenging, the process and the placement.

Having children is not easy, but I totally get the biological want. It's easy to say once you have a child that it's totally different to what you expect.

There is a fiction about having kids are another poster mentioned and it's not all glory moments, but that's everyday life too. We are not always on a glamorous holiday and we don't get a new car or dress everyday.

I think I would look to start my own business if I had remained childless. I imagine something fashion like women's clothing, designing it and getting it made to sell.

Go easy on yourself OP.

but most kids irritate me and I'd hate to be stuck with an asshole child. I also do not want a daughter so until there is some way to guarantee a male child, I won't be risking it.

Oh Christ... it's definitely best if you stay childless wrenika

Give yourself lots of time OP. There's no rush to decide how you feel. No time limit. There's no right or wrong way to feel. Also your feelings will change month to month, day to day.

Try to surround yourself with people you can be honest with and who will understand. Or who understand you may not want to talk about it!

Are your family mainly supportive and reasonably sensitive people? I couldn't really talk to my DM because of her 'stiff upper lip you must be over it by now at least you're not starving in Africa' attitude.

How does your DH feel? Can you talk honestly with him? When DH and i went through our struggles we were in it together but we had different approaches. I felt i risked dragging him down at times when i wanted to talk/be sad and he was blocking it all out 'just getting on'. Tricky times.

loser this shit is really really hard!

Stuff I can recommend that I've found helpful

1. Counselling - esp with a trained infertility counsellor. Check out BICA and the National Fertility Society to find a registered fertility counsellor, who will be very experienced in helping both individuals and couples in similar situations.

1. Find your tribe. Gateway women is fantastic. Fertility network UK also has a community called 'More to life'. If you look for CNBC (childless not by choice) there are some fantastic communities online - pm me if you'd like details of some FB groups. There's one called the non Mums network which is UK based and describes itself as 'not-mums-net'. There's also a cracking thread called the uber barrens here in the infertility section

1. Counselling

1. Writing. It can be really helpful to keep a journal or just use writing stuff down to get stuff out of your head. I found once I started I couldn't stop! It can be quite cathartic to get stuff down on paper. Interestingly, quite a few people who've filled in the questionnaire on my website to share their story to contribute to the book I'm writing have said that they found it really cathartic, as they'd never written this stuff down before. You may not find this helpful, but I'd recommend giving it a try in case you do.

1. Did I mention counselling?

1. I found the books I mentioned earlier super helpful. Jody Day's is particularly good - check out her TED talk as well

1. At a session at Fertility Fest earlier this year, about involuntary childlessness called 'The Unborn Child' , I asked the women on the panel about this need to feel like I had to do something big, to leave a legacy. 2 of the women did mention gardening / simply planting stuff and nurturing it to grow as something quite symbolic that they had found helpful. Forget me nots are the symbol of World Childless Week. This post is specifically about this issue (the person in the audience who asked the question about leaving a legacy was me) - Leaving a Legacy

1. Take your time. Be kind to yourselves.

I'm actually writing an op-ed for the Guardian about infertility and female identity - and the conflict between my rational beliefs as a 21st century feminist that a woman's identity & worth isn't being defined by having children - and the sense of failure that unless I become a mother, I feel my life is somehow incomplete, and questioning my place in society.

You are NOT alone. And I've spent some time immersing myself in the academic research around infertility and involuntary childlessness and these feelings are completely normal. Whatever you are feeling is valid and real and this shit is hard enough without beating ourselves up about feeling that we 'shouldn't' feel this way.

I'm also wondering if it might be helpful to start a thread somewhere for dealing with involuntary childlessness, that's not in AIBU but also not in infertility (to include people who are childless by circumstance, rather than due to infertility, as well as people who have moved on from TTC and therefore aren't visiting the infertility boards either)

We've had a few threads about dealing with involuntary childlessness and they tend to get shat upon in AIBU, so wondering if just having an ongoing thread for us to have as a safe space would be helpful, as there seem to be a fair few of us!

Would anyone be up for that? If so, where do we think - maybe on the relationships board?

Yes, I'd like that.

AIBU attracts lots of generous and kind posters, but also some really insensitive ones. Someone actually posted on page one of this thread 'Buy a horse'. That kind of sums it up, really.

Ooh also a great great book that's not about involuntary childlessness, but about grief - and involuntary childlessness IS a grief, but disenfranchised grief that society doesn't recognised, as you're mourning a future something that never was

It's called 'It's OK if you're not OK', by Megan Devine

The gist is that grief isn't something you need to 'get over', as though you should be expected to put sadness at a loss in its box and forget about it. But rather you learn to live with it

It's like a wound - over time the gaping wound will heal, and the scars will fade - sometimes from time to time something will bump up against the scar and it may bruise, and will get sore, but it will become something you accept and live with, and the searing pain does lessen over time

I found that very comforting - and the grief book was a bit of a light bulb moment.

The gist is that grief isn't something you need to 'get over', as though you should be expected to put sadness at a loss in its box and forget about it. But rather you learn to live with it

That is very good advice on the whole.

I'm glad you've found some help among the arsehole comments, OP.

bananafish great idea, definitely think about putting a thread up like that!

Has anyone been on any of the gateway retreats? I'm thinking about getting Jody Day's book as well

I'm glad you found my comment helpful, bananafish and loserlikeme. bananafish writing a book about your experiences is a wonderful idea; I'm sure that it will bring comfort to many, as well as being a focus for you.

Oh I feel for you OP I can't imagine how being told you can't have them would feel.
I myself have chosen not to have children.
I crave them though, I wish I could have them and feel something is missing from my life, but unfortunately extreme mental health issues run in my family and I'm not sure that a) I could support a child due to my own and b) pass on hereditary mental illness that could have been avoided.
It doesn't stop the feeling of emptiness though as you describe.
I think you have been given some really good advice on this thread and I think I'm going to take on board some of this for myself also. 💐

I haven't got any children. I lost a baby boy at 23 weeks in my first marriage. When I got married again I was too old, well maybe not physically but yes, too old. My husband was 17 years older than me.but I have stepsons and grandchildren who I love. I never thought I'd have this when I was so bereft over my boy.
What I mean is is that you don't know what can happen in the future. You could adopt. My grandsons are adopted. Or foster. Work with children. You don't have to actually have any to be with them and love them. It can't be like that or I would feel like shit and I don't.

Or you could chose not to adopt, foster or work with children and have just as meaningful and wonderful a life as anyone else. I wish you well, OP, and I really hope you find more support.

bananfish, I applaud you. You are one amazing, sharing and giving person.

Laiste thank you so much! I'm just at the proposal stage - my agent wants to aim to submit in Jan and hope a publisher bites!

If anyone on the thread has experienced infertility and / or pregnancy loss and would be up for contributing their thoughts & feelings, please please do consider filling in the anonymous questionnairee on the book project websitee - as I really really want to represent as many different voices as possible (whether current or past, successful or not).

I also recorded an interview for the Fertility Podcast (which I think is going up next week) where I talk about the importance of forums like MN for finding your tribe - and how valuable peer support is at every stage of the journey.

OP apols, I don't want to hijack your thread! I've not been on a Gateway retreat but I've heard good things. I think as with lots of these things it's about trying different things and seeing what you find helpful. Don't feel the need to rush into anything yet - I can highly recommend taking some time just to 'be' and let the dust settle. Reconnect with each other, with the world. Don't feel you have to make any big decisions or major changes immediately (I would encourage you very much not to do this!)

Be kind to yourselves, above all else.



OK so if we have a childless-not-by-choice thread, where should it go? Relationships? Anywhere else?

Maybe somewhere where some of the ruder people in aibu can't find it?

Unless the thread goes in OTBT it will always pop up in most active but I think it was the title of the thread which caused so many replies.