My life looks glossy and fabulous but I'm so sad and feel like my life is a waste

[Purisett]

I'm 31. I have a beautiful home that I bought two years ago. My friends comment on it and I enjoy being in it. I love making it nice and homely. But I'm alone mostly in it and it hurts so much.

I have a good job and I enjoy it most of the time. This means I also have a reasonable income and have spare money to buy a new lipstick or go for nice lunches.

I don't have a great relationship with my family, but I know they are there.

Despite all this I'm so unhappy. Because all I've ever wanted is a family. I hate having spare bedrooms with no child in it. I hate that my beautiful home is just for me. I often feel guilty and sad about this. I don't need the extra space. I don't need an above average income. My life feels like a waste.

When I first moved in a few months ago I didn't mind being on my own. In fact it was great to do up my home and make all the choices myself. But last week I bought some cushion covers for the seats at the dining table and when I got back I just thought what's the point?? I'm here alone most of the time anyway. No child to care for. No husband to come back to. All my money is spent on me and I've started to feel guilty about this and I would do anything to have a proper family without all these plus points. I would swap the nice home and job and money for a family in a second.

I have some good friends but they are all married or engaged, or at the least live with their OH. I don't want to be told to 'get some single friends' as I make friends with people because of who they are and not whether they are in a relationship... Also despite what people think most people are in relationships by my age, that's just how it is.

I feel low. I was on Match a year ago and then when I bought my house i stopped. I didn't meet anyone I was crazy about and im reluctant to try it again. I did have some nice dates.

I don't know what I want from this really. I just feel like everything I have would be better given to someone who has a family and financial demands and can share it all.

I am 32 with a few young toddler DC. I rushed to get married at 29 to the first person who asked me. It was fine til we had kids and now it is like being a single mother, because he does nothing.

I had a career which is now dead. I had a social life and went out for drinks with friends. I now don't. I was creative and intelligent and now I can't even think of an idea or remember the names of people I know because of baby brain.

I long to be alone, I long to meet up with a friend for a drink. I long to have a day or an evening stretch out before me where the possibilities to do things for myself are endless (like eat well, sleep well, go to the gym, write that book,) rather than clear up shit or vomit or comfort a DC who is up all night screaming. I long to go into an office and have an adult conversation about the news or something. But knowing me I probably won't be able to remember anything I've read even five mins before. I long to sleep through one night. I long to go for a shit without the pain from piles that never went away from having several DC back to back.

Those chairs you've bought, just "waiting" for a family to sit in them would not be "sat" in, exactly. Rather you'd have DC, climbing on them, spilling food on the cushions, bashing their chins on the table as they slip off, or dragged around the house, splitting the grains of the floorboards.

Don't wish your life away. Hold on to the boundless freedom you have as long as possible.

I agree with suggestions of getting a rescue pet or renting out a room of offering a room to an asylum seeker.
I think its a good plan to do something for others who are less fortunate when you are down, it helps put things into perspective and give life some meaning.
And take up singing/dancing/running/skiing/language lessons, fill your lovely with friends and supper parties!

your lovely house I mean

I would also never assume never. My very wonderful married-to-the-job secondary school headmistress retired age 65, and gave a lovely speech to us all about how while she'd enjoyed her career, she was looking forwards finally to some time to herself walking, painting etc.

She came back to visit us a year or so later, bringing her newly married husband . . . (I assume she did still get to do the walking, painting etc, just in company!)

178,412 loads of washing
Ermahgerd you counted them.

But seriously, get a pair of kittens - something to come home to! And 31 is young. Really.

Sadik I love that story!

I know, Snazarooney, it was so funny but in a lovely way :) She said of all the things she'd expected might happen to her, that really wasn't included!

My sister was in a similar boat to Op.

She was pushing 32, same thing, nice house, car, great job but something was missing.

Anyway she eventually got a dog, and HAD to go out walking the animal every single day. She got talking to lots of people, as that is what people with dogs do! But it was quite superficial. Then one day.... one of the dog walkers was chatting about things, and mentioned orienteering she did every second weekend. She asked sis if she would like to give it a try. She did.

She met someone there and although it's not at the moving in or marriage stage yet, she is very happy now. Fingers crossed.

Some things happen for a reason, some things happen because you are not even trying. Some things happen because you DO plan.

Not being smart, but get up off your butt, try meetup, try fostering a dog, get out there. It will not come to you if no one knows who you are or where you are!

Best of luck love. I really hope it works out for you. But as others have said, it can be a balancing act between a fab single life and a life of loving the kids, but oh the tiredness and the restriction of it all.

PUSHING 32?!?!

32 is not an age you push.

Trills,

It's a term we use here when someone is coming up to a certain age.

And it most certainly can be an age you push in childbirth I would have thought.

Very sorry to hear the term upset you so much as to make you post a frownie.

You don't push 18 though. You don't push 25.

You only push ages that are "older" or ages that you are not looking forward to approaching.

You say - she's pushing 60. Not 32!!

Mind you, maybe she was not happy to be 32

Even if she were unhappy to be 32, by using "pushing" you would be legitimising the idea that 32 is something to be unhappy about. Which is unhelpful in the context of the thread.

She was approaching 32 and unhappy about it because of course you are not old or past-it at 32, 32 is a perfectly lovely and fine age to be. :o

That got you all hot and bothered over nothing.

And VERY glad to see that you are all in great form tonight aswell. It's a bank holiday tomorrow. Hope someone, maybe you... is "pushing" the wine bottle towards you all LOL. Enjoy.

*unhappy about it but shouldn't be because...

This is not hot and bothered. My threshold for "bothered enough to type on MN during an ad break" is really low. I only need be very mildly bothered. :o

(Sighs wistfully)..... I used to have a glossy and fabulous life OP, now I am living a life of thankless drudgery with a husband and young kids.....

From my POV, albeit I have the luxury of knowing what having kids is like, my advice would be make the most of your awesome single life because you sound wonderful, and soon someone will snap you up, and you'll be back here in a year moaning about your thoughtless husband/permanently crying babies.

Don't wish your life away. Just try to enjoy how good things are now. --And how tidy your house is.

I say this but felt exactly the same as you before I met my husband. Try not to waste time worrying about whether you'll meet someone and have children, it won't happen any faster.

You've achieved a lot and don't ever forget that

I was you at 31. Lovely flat, great job, busy but often no weekend plans. I felt sad too. I kept busy, decorayed everything including the shed, joined a gym, did Match.com for two years. I met my partner at 36, had children at 38 and 40, have a lovely home covered with handprints and paint chips and being bored is a luxury. I do miss my old life and my neat and tidy flat, at times, but when I was 31 I wanted this life. I am happy and grateful for what I have but I wish I'd known at 31 that I would eventually get the family life I wanted and to relax and enjoy being 31.

I met my DH at 35, moved in together @ 36, two dcs 37 and 40. Met online so worth persevering with it. Its a numbers game you just have to date, date, date til you meet someone you like.