My life feels empty and I feel so alone - how did this happen

[Yourstrulyjudy]

I just had my 29th Birthday, 4 months after my relationship ended with my ex of 3 years. We had lived together but I rarely saw him over the last year due to him electing to work away a lot. I'm not sure how I feel about it being over - very confused I think. He proclaimed to want his life with me but acted in the opposite way. In the end I think I cared more for his happiness than mine, because there was no room left for me to want anything in the relationship - he always did what he wanted at whatever cost to us (mainly the trips away with work and a reluctance to follow through with any plans we made, big commitments or small practical plans).

The reason I am posting is because I feel desperately alone. This summer I have watched two woman from my group of friends get married, and another 3 are marrying this year as well. I am happy for them, and I love a good wedding! But I feel very left out. Even chatting in a group, it's talk about weddings, engagements, babies, honeymoons, etc. I don't even have a partner. My friends are kind to me, and wouldn't make me feel left out, but I still feel that way. Even my wider circle of friends are all in relationships of some sort.

One thing in particular that I find hard is that I don't want to go out clubbing or to bars. I actually prefer to sit with my coupled up friends over dinner or at their homes discussing new wallpaper, than hanging round a club until 3 am. It worries me that many of my friends met partners while out getting drunk - I have nobody to do that with now and even if I did I feel past it/wouldn't want to.

My other concern is that I recently bought a house in a very small town. I work in a city but commute quite far. This leaves my evenings very short - home, eat, bed! And at the weekends I have felt particularly consumed by loneliness. Literally everyone seems to be with their other half and if they're not, I will be squeezed in (still lovely to see them), but I know I'm just a filler while their partner plays football, sees his own friend etc. That feels hard as well.

My reasoning for living where I do, in the country, is because I lived in cities up until last year. It's not what I like anymore. I used to love it, but now I enjoy having a little garden and some space from city life. I have a deep fear that I am cutting my opportunity to meet someone, however, and then I blame myself for being alone. I feel so conflicted. I was so ready to buy a home with my dp and settle exactly how I am now... I have it all, but the only difference is I am alone.

I feel so sad and miss being with someone. I hate it when people tell me to get a new hobby etc because I do have hobbies. I do try and meet people. I'm chatty and I will go out for a drink and have a laugh. I just feel like out of everyone, I'm the only one who has messed up so they're alone by the time they're 29. It makes me think it's me that's the problem - everyone else is settled and happy and many are married with kids... And I've just started to get over a break up. It's making me feel so downhearted and everyday feels like a struggle to put on a brave face.

I feel lost.

Hi OP. I can't offer many pearls of wisdom, other than I'm the same age, same broad situation.. I feel the same emotions you do!

I often feel left out/ hurt / rejected / lonely (especially on a Sunday, what's with Sundays!)

Anyway, hand holding and keeping the faith with you (my ex was an abusive rat , I had the 'everything' according to the tick list, but it was all bull and a front). Rather alone than unhappy.

I also agree with some of what has been posted earlier re getting married young, rushing in. While I understand some of these relationships really stand the test of time, several of my really happy (so I thought) married friends.. Divorced before the 5 year mark.

Thank you so much everyone. The support means so much to me.

I am just trying to keep the feelings of fear and sadness at bay. I keep looking back and thinking I should have done x, y and z differently. And I feel guilty for the times I got angry over stupid things, even though in my defence he got me in such a state in the end in terms of y trust in him (not cheating, other future-based stuff), that I constantly felt I was waiting for the next strange action that contradicted his words. I just really, really loved him and wanted more than anything for him to mean what he said and talk to me properly. He could never quite manage it and it was exhausting.

I've chatted to new men and it feels empty. Perhaps I should leave that a while. I am jealous of my friends for the first time ever and I hate feeling that way, too. I just want to feel happy and part of that stage of life because I was so excited for it and it was just taken away.

Whining over. I need to stop with the self-pity!!

Hiya, haven't read the full thread, I'm in my thirties and felt just as you do when I was the same age as you. I felt that I'd missed my one chance to be married and I was so ready to enter that stage of life that all your friends seem to be at. I also lived in a small town where people live to raise families, i.e., full of couples. And I was allergic to going out to get drunk etc.. I don't know if there is a way to avoid the loneliness of this stage completely. I filled up the spare moments by doing a taught post-graduate course that seems to attract people who are single and hoping to travel. That was great because they had room in their lives for relationships. I also did internet dating at a very brisk pace - and, as fortune would have it, ended up married less than a year after the long-term relationship had ended! Try and remember that there are many more people in your position than you think - and many people in marriages that may feel very lonely. Yes, your situation is really difficult in some ways at the moment, but it's actually full of possibilities, which is not true of every difficult set of circumstances.

Just read your last post. I felt there was something empty about meeting other men after the long-term relationship ended, too. But when I started thinking back over the reality of what the relationship had been like towards the end, I realised that however heartbroken I felt and however much I regretted past mistakes, being stuck in a bad marriage with my ex fiancee would have been ultimately much more painful. In my case, the emptiness in dating other people was because I was primed for love and life-long commitment - meeting other people was often just a reminder that I had to start all over again with someone new who I didn't yet love and who didn't love me. I had no time for the excitement of making new connections and first kisses etc. I was eventually able to accept that this was where my life was at and I didn't want to look back in ten years at one single missed opportunity.

I did the same as you when I was 31 - bought the house by myself, did it up, planted a garden, built up my own life without my ex. It did feel lonely sometimes - I remember one weekend I spent stripping wallpaper off the bedroom walls cursing that I didn't have anyone to help me do it - but on the other hand all the decisions I made were for me alone, I didn't have to compromise or please anyone except myself.

I also joined a book group, went to the theatre at least twice a month, travelled to all the places I most wanted to visit, did some volunteering and got involved with a cause that was close to my heart and that led to some amazing friendships and life-changing experiences. All that without having to set foot in a club.

Being single in my 30s wasn't my choice but I look back on that time with fondness now - I'm married with 2 DCs now aged 38, so I got my family life in the end, it is totally possible to do, but don't deny yourself other life experiences along the way, OP. Good luck.

OP you've had some great advice here, hope it helps. I prob should have ended my relationship in my late 20s but was too scared to. I'm ax fair bit older now, married to him, and lonely.

So, hand in there. You will be Ok.

Thanks everyone.

The thing I am struggling most with, is the idea that I won't feel that sense of comfort again...everything with someone new feels scary. Is that normal?

Also, I worry that men are too old now to have the truly romantic love-her-so-much sort of love, that you get in your twenties. Anyone I meet now I worry will be overly cautious and not open fully to love. I feel so anxious.

I don't think that everyone you meet will feel like that, I think that's a reflection of how you're feeling. It's still early days in terms of your break up.

Of course new is scary, but I think you're going to be fine, you sound like a great person

you sound like me a few years ago...

When I was 26 I think I went to 11 weddings in one year. It was as though some switch had been flicked and everyone simultaneously got wed, had kids and settled down. I was in a relationship (long term) and got engaged a year or so later. Long story short, I didn't go through with the wedding and found myself at 31 ish in a flat by myself wondering if that was that and it was now time to buy All The Cats.

I didn't like clubbing, never have, and frankly I don't think you stand a good chance of meeting a decent bloke in a club anyway.

My advice is to leave the dating for a bit and live for you. I threw myself into work, friends, life etc and for the first time in years I felt like me again. From your posts I think you've lost yourself a bit with your last relationship. Find yourself again, by doing what you want to do before you start seeing someone else. Maybe try to work from home a couple of days a week? Commuting is very tiring.

I really enjoyed those few years in my flat, and refused most attempts by well meaning friends to set me up (with their heartbroken divorced brother/ pervert cousin etc.) I went on a few dates but my heart wasn't in it. I lived how I wanted to. Did what I wanted to do, etc. it was great.

Fast forward a few years and I met the love of my life. Now hitched and pregnant and most importantly, very happy. And VERY glad I didn't marry chap no.1.

One last thing - don't compare yourself to married friends. Now I don't mean what I'm about to say in a " nur nur look at you all now" sort of way but quite a few of them who I'd looked at with friendly envy actually turned out not to be so happy after all. Their rich perfect husbands had affairs, or their marriages broke down. Sadly, several are very unhappy. Several have confessed that they wish they'd called their weddings off too. I had no idea, I'd thought they were all happy.

Comparison is the thief of joy, it really is. Maybe your friends look at you, free and single, with a bit of envy.

I think you'll be fine. Get a cat. Just the one though ;)

I don't know the answer to your question. I have a DH who I met in my 30s, so there is hope! However, I am not able to have children and I can relate to a lot of what you say from that perspective.

I have only a few observations that may note even help:

• I think true, deep friendship is very, very hard to find when you are older. I have been looking for it the last 15 years (I'm a tiny bit older than you), and have failed to find it outside of my relationship. People are very absorbed in their relationships and (later) their families, and only call when they are alone or need something. It actually gets worse, a lot worse, when they have children because it is like an entire world that you are excluded from as a non-parent. They don't mean to do it, but when the entire conversation on social media and in real life is about kids, it is very hard to take part (and emotionally difficult with infertility)

• You can meet a guy outside of a club. I met my DH at work. My friend met hers at evening classes! Don't feel that you have to be somebody other than yourself to meet someone.

• Dating never felt comfortable for me, but I think there is a difference between the discomfort of it being too early out of a relationship to take any pleasure at all in it, and the discomfort that is simply the awkwardness and embarrassment of getting to know someone.

• A lot of the people I know who got married, bought a house and had kids in their late 20s are not happy. The physical, emotional and financial burden of young children plus mortgage debt is mounting up. I can feel the first wave of divorces coming on. So those who appear to have things sorted at one point sometimes become those in crisis at another.

• Weekends can be hell. Made worse by the fact that it feels like everyone else is looking forward to them. I timetabled mine to within an inch of my life and they actually became enjoyable! I had activities morning, noon and night. It was fun, if tiring - I went to bed earlier in the week to compensate.

• You need a cause. I am just learning this now. You have to have something that you work for and believe in that is not a career. A charity, a principle, that you will work for and stand up for. Not just a 'hobby' or a 'career'.

• Freedom is scary, but also amazing. Use it. Travel. See the world. Do all the things you can't easily do with kids.

29 and no ties? Summer just around the corner? Oh the opportunities! If you can possibly figure out a way to afford to do so, volunteer here or abroad. Go on holiday on your own (much less daunting than you might imagine). Forget all about trying to find someone to 'be with forever'. I spent most of my 20s and 30s either on my own or mopping up one disastrous 'relationship' after another. Blind dates, friends of friends, mutual friends who'd always had a thing about me, idiots off dating websites. Dear god I could tell you some stories. I had a young son in tow and no support financial or otherwise from his father and I would have given ANYTHING to have been able to just feck off and see what the world could do for me! I eventually met my OH at the grand old age of 38 and with my bullshit detector turned up to 11 I was still bowled over by him immediately. Chin up love, things could be far worse!

Couple of other things, total 'yes' to the study something you're fascinated by idea. Don't make excuses if you live in the middle of nowhere, there's distance learning to consider which will probably offer residential study weeks etc. And in response to your concern that older men might not be able to be romantic/ make you feel special etc, the 'love her so much sort of love' didn't seem to apply to your ex or you wouldn't be posting! My OH friends (he was 40 odd when we met) told him they could tell immediately that he had found someone 'different'/ right for him and several (male and female) have taken me to one side over the nearly 5 years we've been together and told me completely unbidden that I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him. And his mum thinks I'm brilliant. God knows why, but you can't bottle it and it all makes me feel purdy special, and means I don't really need silly gestures involving bunches of flowers on 'key dates' or for him to remember exactly how I like my toast etc...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Such wise words!!! REALLY appreciate it.

I know you are all right about this. shovetheholly the cause is something important, I think. My outlook would change if I had more purpose.

I keep questioning my behavior with my ex and wondering if it was me that caused the problems. In a nutshell...

we lived together for over a year on the doorstep to his work, and when I got a new job I asked if he would move more to the middle, so our commutes were equal (mine still longer, actually). He was reluctant. He changed his mind lots, and we got to the point where we were about to sign for a tenancy in the middle of our places of work, and on the morning we were to do it, he changed his mind...again. I was devastated and was angry/upset. His reaction was to disappear to his parents' for 3 days, and to not see me at the weekend because he wanted 'space', all the while telling me he loved me and he wasn't re considering us, but the pressure had just got to him. I was left feeling VERY insecure, confused, hurt, etc etc and very lonely. If I had hurt him I wouldn't have been thinking about me..I would have been doing everything to make him feel loved and to show I was sorry for messing him about.

Anyway, we moved past that, (looking back I'm not sure how, as he refused to live in the middle and we lived apart), and he started being utterly shit at communication. Not in a nasty way, but from one week to the next I never knew when I was seeing him etc. He also started talking to his mum about things, and at one point, another woman, rather than me, which I found unsettling (big things, like where he wanted to live).

BUT, he did some lovely things for me. Buying dinner, always drove to see me, would say he loved me, cook for me, buy me treats etc. And when it all came to a head he said he felt pressured by me. This has made me question myself and who I am... was I wrong to expect my DP to move to the middle when my job changed? Was it unfair of me to be excited about still living together? Was I too intense? I feel like I acted normally, but him saying he felt pressured has made me feel the break up was all my fault. It's knocked my confidence in myself in relationships.

Sorry, that nutshell turned into an essay, didn't it!

Sounds like (as is so often the case) he was not ready too immature to be able to consider your needs and wants as equal to his own. I don't think wanting to commute less and equally to him was doing anything wrong!

Have a look at this book about enjoying singledom. It's a crap title but a good book