coping with empty nest syndrome, menopause with absent husband

[longpathtohappiness]

I feel totally on my own a lot of the time. DH is here but either at work, talking about work or sleeping!

I struggle to cope with it all sometimes and feel totally on my own

You poor thing, menopause is hell when it hits bad. I haven't read the last few pages of posts but keep going with the gp trying different doses of hrt etc... have you tried magnesium? Are you sleeping ok?

Ds is talking about moving away again. I feel sick in my stomach. It triggers all the other family losses ive had. I wish i was stronger and more resilient. Im wanting him to do whats right for him, id never stop him. I hope it works out for him too, hes had a lot of knocks as well.

Osory no I haven't tried magnesium. Any recommendations? Sleeping is tricky due to the hot flushes and getting up for a wee in the middle of the night

I haven't tried magnesium either... But I was sleeping very badly and since last summer have resorted to using melatonin and piriton to help with sleep... Don't take them every night but maybe twice a week. And it got me back into good sleep habits... Makes an enormous difference to sleep ...
hrt at the right dose is a game changer too.

hope your feeling a bit better xxx

DH finished work early yesterday then fell asleep on the sofa all afternoon. Went to pickleball last night, youngest at 53! Ha ha

Decided to have the mindset that I'm a single parent

Can I have a bit ranty moan please? (Certain posters may wish to look away now…)

I’ve just been feeling really flat recently, can’t seem to shake the feeling that DH and I are just treading water as we wait for our youngest to finish school and our retirements to start (he was a late baby). Nothing seems to be happening, it’s just the same old, same old. I meet friends and we have things planned but in between it’s just drudge. The crap weather isn’t helping either.

DS1 is coming home for a fortnight’s holiday soon - haven’t seen him in almost a year and we were going over the plans for when he’s home. He’s booked things with his friends which is completely understandable but I can’t help feeling a bit pissed off that a part of my precious annual leave is going to be spent hanging about waiting for him. Well, not hanging about as I’ll make other plans but I had hoped we’d have more time with him. DD (25) seems to have regressed to her teens - her weekends are spent pubbing and clubbing in what looks like her underwear and then sleeping off her hangover on the Sunday. No point in arranging anything with her, she’s usually in a bad mood with a sore head and spends her time on her phone messaging her friends. It’s very rude and I’m beginning to dislike her.

We’re involved in a very bitter battle with my a-hole of SIL over MIL’s estate - she’s refusing to engage at all so we can’t get the house cleared and on the market or the estate wound up. Had to get lawyers in so god knows how much this is all going to cost.

I want to tell everyone to fuck the fuck off and move abroad to an apartment in the sun where we can walk the dog on the beach and spent our retirement pottering about - but can’t because our youngest will need a home here for a few years. Utterly, utterly fed up, tired and pissed off 😢

And no, I can’t take HRT.

I get it @SirChenjins , i so get it

If only hrt was the answer to this stage, I'd be hoovering it up

I saw your other thread about oooking for a rental ssd. Are you thinking of running away?

Its for ds, i couldn't be bothered explaining the whole thing so i just wrote me.

Ha! Yes I thought it might be that.

Does anyone else get fed up arranging and buying everything? I mean in their house. Over the last 30 years I've been the one who decides what we have ,goes out to choose it, figures out the best way to save money on it and buys it. Everything in this house, down to the toothbrushes, the flour and jam, the plants, bed covers, everything I've bought it. Dh is great but hasn't needed to sort a bloody thing for this house. I'm the sorter and organiser and buyer for everything.
And I'm bloody sick of it.

I feel your pain. I organise EVERYTHING. I tried to get husband to look into a trip he wants to take. He looked for ten mins then gave up all stressed. I’ve toyed with the idea of just never going on holiday again unless he organises it…

Yep, holidays too. Where to stay, how to book it etc. Its another thing to do I'm sick of. Dh was asking me the other week why we never go abroad...its cos its something else to save up for I'd need to organise. And i can't be bothered.

I’m so stressed by the time we go on holiday it takes me days to wind down. I do all the packing, all the organising, all the lists about what to remember, lock the house, turn everything off. I’m shattered and I am too old for it now. I’m beginning to slip up and that scares me, so I get anxious about that . It’s all too much. He drives the hire car. That’s it.

And no, I can’t take HRT

Me neither and I don't think it's the panacea Davina McCall et al make it out to be. In fact, I wish she and many vociferous MNetters would stop banging on about it!

I used to - and then I sort of stopped some years ago when I went full time, hit perimenopause and became too knackered and too fed up to organise stuff after spending years doing it all. Now I mostly just turn up to stuff and it's brilliant.

I like the thought of just turning up to stuff. I like it a lot. But who is the chief organiser now @SirChenjins ?
I worry without a woman in the family it'll always be left to me.

Last weekend, Dh wanted to do something extra with me and DS. He looked expectantly at me, and I carried on reading. So he went off and organised dinner and a play. I turned up. He does some of the work for holidays too, as I refuse to do it all.

He has a very busy and stressful job, but he WFH most days post the pandemic, so I told him he now has time to do it.

I'm going to step back, see what happens.

DH does our finances (which makes absolute sense given his profession) and everything else is a case of working out who needs to do what plus scaling 'stuff' back. Our eldest 2 are grown up and have places of their own so it's just the teenager at home now and he's in 6th year so perfectly capable of organising himself. It's funny but I found that stepping back from stuff meant that they came to realise that they needed to do it if they wanted it done - it's been quite a revelation!

I have put "Step back" on a Post It and stuck it above my desk. Not saying it's always easy, mind you. But I try.

We have some family visiting, and we are doing some day trips away. DH is booking tickets for that too. He does it in the 30 minutes he saves by not commuting, all from his phone. We went away to Paris a few months ago. I organised the Eurostar and the hotel bookings, but he organised the itinerary and where we ate, what we saaw etc. We attempt to divide these things.

I do the finances here too but I'm mote clued up than dh. Mainly because I've always had to be. What worries me is if i don't organise stuff, dh would book things without checking if there's a better price elsewhere. We are low paid and need to search around for deals and I'm the only one who does this. Especially with the shopping, dh would buy it all in the local shops at £££ if left to it.

I just can't be bothered anymore.

Ditto

I think in your case it makes absolute sense for you to do the finances@ssd - but that shouldn’t involve all the organising as well, iykwim. For example, your DH should be responsible for researching the location, the travel, the activities and so on and then you do the actual financial purchasing.

However, I have to confess that after years of planning our holidays I now leave it all to DH as I really cba. I think it’s that perimenopausal brain fog again.