Anyone here feeling discriminated against?

[poshsinglemum]

I would say most of the time people are ok to my face but there has been the odd incident/comment and it's beginning to get to me.

I was bullied at work when pregnant and it was clear I was going it alone.
I've been called a spinster, someone is blanking me as she thinks I'm going to nick her man, someone else keeps going on about how fab marriage is. I could go on.
A lot of my old friends have drifted off.

I know there is no shame really but I'm fed up of feeling scapegoating, marginalised and ostracised by some people.

Some (not all) married people think that they are morally superior to single people.

How can I deal with it. It's affecting me psychologically.

I don't mean that to sound horrid to married people btw. Just some.

No. But all of your posts seem to have this attitude. Always down on yourself, always convinced you are being looked down on, when in reality I can almost be certain that people are not. I think you could do with some counselling tbh. I have had CBT and it did me the world of good.I used to be massively paranoid that (amoung other things) people were looking at me and saying bad things. A few months ago I was out to dinner with my new man and was convinced the 2 men at the next table were talkign about me and sneering. My CBT lady asked me why that was and I gave her a list of reasons, all very negative towards myself. At the end, she said, 'or, they could just be thinking, what's a looker like her doing with a guy like him?'
The point here is that you are 'mindreading'- assuming that you know what other people are thinking, and that it's all bad and directed at you. It isn't.

I do feel quite paranoid tbh. It's in my blood. Have had cbt but mabe do need more. I have probably more issues with being alone than anyone else does. Oh gosh- I do hope I'm not a total misery!

I think there are quite a lot of miserable, unhappy people out there, don't let it rub off on you. My favourite quote from my favourite book is "if your happiness depends on the actions of someone else, then you are in trouble" - I think that can be extended to "if you happiness depends on what what someone else thinks of you, then you are in trouble". Just rise above it, if someone is making you feel unhappy just consider that its because they aren't happy and have pity for them, but don't let it drag you down. Stop being paraonoid, stamp on the negative thoughts you have about yourself, don't even let them in.

agree with goinng for more CBT or beter still a divorrced and separated workshop eg www.drw.org.uk/ where you will meet others in same boat.

When I was married (and V unhappy) I remember envying friends who were on their own, who were going home to a place that they genuinely regarded as their home with noone else in it to annoy/upset them.
I wouldn't be so ready to see other people's negative vibes as looking down on you - it might just be the opposite.
Remember women have raised children singlehandedly for centuries - it's not really so unusual or uncommon, in the past or now.
IMHO being single is seriously underrated - I think it has alot going for it - for women and for their children!
Concentrate on enjoying life and every thing else (particularly your children's happiness) will flow from that. Nevermind other people's opinions - what do they know!

Generally i dont have this probably, just the odd occasion i do, like the hairdresser who cuts my sons hair, im sure his wife (also a hairdresser) thinks im after him

opps i mean problem

I had a woman telling me about why my friend's son was not a good influence for my son as he was "a child with no paternal figure", without realising my child also lives in a single parent household.

I don't think discriminated about, I just think the woman was an idiot with a very closed little mind.

I think some of my married friends sometimes feel a bit of pity for me. At the end of the day, they saw my life changing a lot after I separated from my high earner husband. I understand their pity, but I don't take it personally, at the end of the day, I also feel pity for those who are in very unfulfilling marriages but afraid to leave due to financial repercussions, so... we are even . I feel happy when they are happy in their marriages and I know that at some point, they have envied all the emotion and the butterflies of falling in love again being almost 40. :)

I hate it when people think they should wear a ring to avoid being looked down... I removed my wedding ring more than a year before I separated from my ex, as a personal and discrete protest, promising myself not to wear it until he started acting like a husband and not like another one of my children. Never happened, so my finger is not psychologically scarred. It had been just a ring, and one full of negative thoughts, for a long while.

Really, we are in the 21st century. This is not the 1950s, honest. Forgive yourself, people are not judging you.