Looking for some advice! Panicking!

[James637]

Hi,

I’m a 34 year old single male and looking for some advice regarding having children. I’m hoping someone will be able to help.

Basically I’m frightened that I’m getting older and it’s getting too late for children. A lot of my friends are starting to have them and it’s giving me sleepless nights. I suffer from really bad anxiety and panic attacks and struggle with committing to something long term. In past relationships I’ve sort of always had one foot out the door and was hoping this would change as I got older but I still don’t feel I would be able to be ‘at peace’ in a relationship, and especially with children and the stress etc.

I don’t know how anyone makes this decision, it’s such a shot in the dark. It’s a lifelong commitment and I feel a lot of people just don’t think about it. I would want to be the best dad and husband if I went ahead so the pressure to make the correct decision is suffocating. Im also seeing my parents get older and thinking of being alone is a scary thought. I’ve done therapy and stuff before to try and work through this and have medication for the anxiety but I feel like I’m cursed. I’m seeing a lot of studies on the internet that are saying that couples without children are happier but I just don’t want to regret it either way. These studies to comfort me a little bit but then you see the Xmas family pics with children and people look so happy. I don’t want to feel an emptiness later in life. I’m quite attached to my parents, my mum especially and I guess they are my comfort.

I’m so stressed, my stomach is burning with the anxiety and I feel like I need to act right now!

Sorry it was a bit long winded! Please help 🙏

James

Wow that sounds like a difficult place to be in.

You are right that people should think carefully about becoming parents because it’s a lifelong responsibility. However realistically I don’t think many parents do really think in that much depth before having kids. I’m sure much less people would have kids if they did put that level of thought into it. I think maybe it’s your mental health making you worry and think about it so much.

Do you think you actually want kids, or is it the fear of regretting not having kids your worried about.

Do you have a partner? If not I suppose one way to look at it is that you can’t have kids without a female partner anyway. So I guess that is the decision made for you???

I would recommend counselling and focusing on finding your own peace - you can’t hope to commit to a relationship unless you have a good relationship with yourself. Counselling might be slow, but it’s the best way to work through the panic/anxiety and what’s holding you back from commitment. Anything faster/quick fixes will be more of a surface sticking plaster that won’t really hold.

Look up Owen O’Kane on anxiety.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes it is difficult and I feel like I’m just ‘kicking the can down the road’ in regards to not making a decision.

I’m single at the moment and mainly the reason is because as soon as I get in a relationship all these thoughts start about if I’m wasting the girls time, when she will want children etc and it just takes away my peace, and I end up just finishing the relationships.

In terms of knowing whether I want kids, I don’t understand how anybody can possibly know for sure. It’s a huge commitment and the idea that I might regret it/or not love the child is a massive worry. I wouldn’t be able to relax or sleep if I got to that point!

Thanks for your reply.

So I did counselling/cbt last year and it was ok but still hasn’t let me relax about the whole thing. I don’t understand how people can’t have anxiety over such a huge decision, like no one can really know what it’s like the other side of the fence. When I read about childfree couples being a lot happier, it scares me as I’m like, what’s the point if I’m going to be anxious and even ‘normal’ people are statistically less happy.

CBT is a surface level type of counselling. It sounds like you need something deeper like psychotherapy to address the anxiety. It sounds like there’s some sort of alarm stuck in your body which you’re channelling into the children decision, but it’s more likely it stems from bad experiences of relationships in your past or something that’s made you feel so unsettled.

Have you tried writing out your thought process to see where it’s coming from? Requires no judgement, total compassion, just write every single bit of the train of thought in your mind.

Thanks for your advice.

I think the root cause is I don’t handle things in life that don’t go as planned very well and children is the one thing that you can’t undo. The idea of having the child and then regretting it seems like a prison sentence to me. I don’t think I would be happy again. I don’t know if there’s more to it in terms of thought processes. I can’t understand how everyone doesn’t think like this.

I’ve also got a very strong conscience and feel guilty quite easily. For example, I could never cheat and just carry on with my partner. To me, that is insane. I saw pictures of Wayne Rooney posing in front of the Xmas tree with his kids and wife and I was thinking life how on earth do you sleep at night.

Then again, I guess there’s some envy in a weird sort of way that people can just live and don’t give a damn, it would certainly stop all this stressing.

have you tried any anxiety medication like propanonol or something that might help? This sounds very stressful for you. I hope you manage to work through your worries and feel at peace with what you decide.

CBT is like s sticking plaster. You need proper counselling.

Yes I‘ve been on anti depressants for 10 years and use propranolol and diazapam occasionally. The anti depressants aren’t ideal though as they numb be a little so I’ve been reducing the dose over the last year very slowly 🙁

What is the difference? I did it with a qualified psychologist but just assumed it was CBT. It was along the lines or talking and challenging beliefs etc. Thanks for the advice.

I think the root cause is I don’t handle things in life that don’t go as planned very well

That isn’t a root cause - you need to ask yourself why you don’t handle things well when they don’t go to plan. How did your parents cope with stress when you were little? That would have given you a template for how you cope with stress. Do you have any perfectionist traits? If something doesn’t go as planned (isn’t perfect) it sounds like you’re anxious about that - why is that? What happened when you were little if you got things wrong? Did you get shouted at, punished, any consequences? Or was there someone around who was patient and compassionate with you when you made mistakes? Did anyone help you work things through when they went wrong? It’s possible to have ‘growth mindset’ where you use mistakes to grow as a person, to teach you things, to use mistakes as learning experiences and to find the resilience to pick yourself up and have another go if something doesn’t go exactly to plan. All good skills that you could bring to parenting if you were to have a child.

I’ve also got a very strong conscience and feel guilty quite easily.

Why is that? Where does the guilt come from? It sounds like you might have had overly harsh consequences for getting things wrong when you were little? If you look back now, were those consequences fair? Are they consequences you need to carry with you now or fear now that you’re older and you’re in charge of your life?

These are the kinds of questions some depth counselling/psychotherapy could help you work through to get to the root and really resolve what’s going on for you, rather than the surface CBT you’ve experienced so far.