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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

What's it all about?

1 reply

whendoesthecrapend · 29/05/2013 21:20

Just wondering. Does anyone else feel like this? I feel like my life is passing me by, each day pretty much the same and I feel I'm just plodding. I'm heading towards 50 and wondering what life is all about! Surely there is more to it than me just plodding on and being a 'mum'.

I feel very much alone. Some days I'm ok with this, others not. Divorced some years ago, dated but no real relationship since. Asshole of an xh who gives me grief at every opportunity. Toxic parents. Few friends, who are fantastic if I'm ever in real need, but don't see much of them as they lead busy lives. I have fantastic dc's and love them dearly but sometimes that's just not enough. Something is missing and I just want more out of life before it's too late. I don't know what I want, or how to achieve something that will give me a feeling of being satisfied in life. I am truly grateful and am lucky to have the life I have (financially I manage, no major health problems etc - I have no reason to grumble!) but I just need something that challenges me and feel I have 'achieved' something. My dc's are young and I don't have a support network though and wouldn't want to palm the dc's off, or could afford to pay for childcare, so maybe it's just not going to happen yet!

Just waffling now I guess - can anyone make sense of this and make any suggestions? - or just tell me I'm not alone in feeling like this?

OP posts:
MarlboroughMillie · 29/05/2013 21:38

I very rarely say anything on here, but your post made me think back to feeling exactly like that. I divorced nine years ago, and for ages I felt very much as you describe. I was mostly a SAHM, with a small business with a friend, but mainly just for interest and a bit of pin money.

When my husband left me, I felt like I didn't really know who I was any more, and I realised (after a long time) that I had come to define myself almost entirely in relation to other people - someone's wife, mother, daughter etc. It wasn't until I started to do things for myself that I started to feel more positive and gave myself new purpose in life.

I did have a couple of relationships, but my confidence and self esteem had taken a battering over the years, and they were ultimately doomed.

Getting out and working made a huge difference to me - only part time, but enough to see myself again as a person in my own right, outside the home, doing something I had created and earning not just financially, but self respect again. It wasn't about the money, it was about me. I did feel a bit selfish at first, and worried that I might be disadvantaging my children by not being at home with them as much, but they have benefitted from seeing their mum as the strong independent woman I always was inside, but had somehow lost sight of.

And my restored self esteem helped my relationships too. I met a man (online - as you point out, friends, though great, are busy and social life suffers) who is just lovely, treats me with respect and kindness, and has recently moved in. After 9 years living as a single mum, I never thought it would happen.

But anything is possible - just give yourself permission to discover, and then do, what makes you feel good about yourself.
Sorry if I've gone on, but you touched a nerve!

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