Not meeting someone and therefore remaining childless

[readingintherain]

I suppose I am posting hoping for some advice and support.

I have toyed with adoption and sperm donation but I dont think either are quite right for me and so it is very likely I will not have children.

I would welcome ideas and suggestions for how to make my life meaningful without my own family. It might just be the stage I am at but most of my friends have young children so a lot seems focused on families right now.

For me to aspire to I mean

I have children but I'm not genuinely content as a single person. A goal would be to meet somebody. I can see how children are a both a distraction from the loneliness of not having met somebody and also, an obstacle to meeting somebody. All the things I could go and do if I did not have children!

Nope, I'm single.

I'm not making much effort to meet anyone at the moment because it doesn't feel essential to me right now - but there's no time limit on meeting someone.

I enjoy my life. I don't think it is especially "meaningful", it's just a normal life, but I think that's OK.

I very much do not think that a woman has to climb mountains or discover a cure for cancer or be a top human rights lawyer or anything like that to make up for not having children.

Soffy and Trills I enjoy my life too. But there is somewhere in me that longs for DC too. And do you compromise your life as it is now when you could be happy long term or halt everything on the offchance you might get lucky with donation or adoption. OP where have you gone?

I mean when today's happiness might be gone tomorrow? How do you decide?

You are awesome trills

Totally agree Trills

OP, there is a wonderful online community called Gateway Women. It's for women who don't have children, for all sorts of reasons. it's a really supportive group and I recommend it very highly

I know what you mean JK. I long for dc too. Your posts ring so many chords with my own personal situation. But I suppose I'm bracing myself for the reality that maybe it won't happen for me. And I don't want to be too sad about it.

No I don't want to be sad either. Trills has the right attitude totally

I agree, I remember Trills from the dating thread a while back now. I am not looking either atm Trills.

Trills. [rest of the bottle]

One thing I look forward to, and I see it opening up, is reconnecting with old single friends who don't have dc. For a long time I only really met the married Mums. And it was hard. Now I find friendships with single childfree women less of a mother/not a mother divide and those friendships are rewarding because they're based on personalities, not circumstances. I reconnected with a good friend from school only last weekend. The last time we met up she was with somebody and I had small kids. Now we're both single and my kids are old enough to be left on their own for an evening.
At the moment though I can't be arsed dating. Am enjoying my life instead......

trills has passed out on a Friday night from all the wine passed to her

Anyway, OP, hope the responses here are helping. You are not alone

Soffy it's Thursday 😂😂😂

I'd be a terrible mum! Just as well really

positive thoughts and big hugs all round and to OP

Thanks all :)

I don't have any advice on the big things in life, all I can offer is to look at the smaller things in your life that you do have control over, and make sure that you've got them all set up to be as nice as possible.

If you think "I'd like steak and dauphinoise potatoes for dinner" you can, you don't have to wait for there to be someone else there for it to be worth making a nice dinner.
If you think "I'd like cereal for dinner" you can do that too, because there's nobody to complain that they wanted a hot meal.

I'm sorry; I was trying to understand the situation better and not meaning to sound unempathetic. I did give some advice around focussing on other interests in my earlier posts.

No offence intended though

The first step is to stop thinking of a life without children as 'meaningless'.

OP my best friend decided not to have kids. She is married. She is the best "aunt" to her friends kids.

I on the other hand might as well have used a sperm donator. Accidentally got pregnant. Left the asshole when she was 1. She is now 8.

I knew I would be a lone parent and honestly it's great. The question I often ask myself is whether I would have purposefully done it like you are debating. I think me falling pregnant was the compelling event, I'm so glad it happened. I don't regret it. But I never felt compelled to have kids.

I'm mid-40s, single & childfree (as opposed to childless) and intend to stay that way for the rest of my life. It's simply right for me & always has been. I only wish I'd worked that one out earlier.

I'm in a similar situation. 38
separated a year, stayed for 10 years hoping we would have a child.
All feels a bit hopeless now. By the time I have met someone it's probably going to be too late.
as @JK1773 said, she's 10 months in and it's too soon to make those kind of life changing decisions.
Fuck! it's just one big ball of cuntyness.

The only advice I would give to anyone is don't bloody wait around hoping someone will give you what you want. You need to go out and get it for yourself.

I'm 34, childfree and single,

I think part of the difficulty can be thinking, well if I'm not going to be 'mum', what am I going to be?

I do a lot of music - I'm in 2 bands and I dj. I also (this might sound weird) have the time and money for a really fulfilling relationship with my own mother, I see her once or twice a week and we go on holiday together sometimes.

I plan and do a lot of weekends away and holidays with various combinations of people - new lovers, friends, friends and their kids, family, my sister, my nephews.

I echo Trills about 'setting the little things up as nice as you want them' - my home is really lovely, it's not a show home but it's so comfortable and just how I want it.

Just wondering out loud ... what is it about having children that makes your life "meaningful"? I've never felt that my life is meaningful - to me that's a religious concept, and I'm not religious.

I do think that you get something from having children, and that is the potential for a close, loving relationship with someone who will hopefully remember you as having been a good role model or having taught them something useful to make thier life easier. Is that being meaningful?

If so, well it's not only parents that make you feel that way. There are other people in my life that I've appreciated as having helped me or beig good role models. How about you, OP? What do you mean by "meaningful", and who else has been meaningful in your life apart from your parents?