Watching on the sidelines and feeling bitter for the first time. Please help.

[bittersweetyear]

How do you cope with feeling bitter?

I don't want to feel this way but I am SO FED UP.

All three of my significant ex DPs have got married and/or had kids. ALL my friends from school are settled down. Everyone at work has family commitments.

I've already missed sharing weddings and babies with 90% of my friends because even if it happened they are years ahead and it isn't the same. Yes there's always new friends, but these were MY friends, in our group, and I will never share and go through these moments with them. It is not simply about getting new single friends and I hate when people ever say this - yes new friends are always a plus, but I;m talking about feeling left out of life long friendship groups which matter to me.

Honeymoons...baby showers....christenings...weddings....birthdays.. engagements... anniversaries...mini-moons...first homes together... couples travelling...pregnancies...

I have had none of this. Not even one of those things. It feels so unfair.

I sound like a horrible miserable bitch don't I. I support my friends with all these things and (I hope!) they dont know I feel bitter. I don't think I show it. But why not me? Am I so different to everyone else? Feeling like shit and need a kick up the arse probably.

Are you trying to meet someone or trying to achieve the things that your friends have that you want?

I guess the grass always looks greener but you can bet 100 percent that none of these lives are perfect.

I'm a naturally jealous person by nature and I hate it, so I can see where you are coming from! What helps for me is trying to understand why I feel jealous and if I would still feel the same if I had everything I wanted (i.e more friends in my case), I bet I would still find something to envy as it's human nature.

Thanks nowifi.

It’s worse because I really want these things much more than my career and home and money. I would swap it all in a second for a family.

And yes I date! Just feel like giving up now!

I hope you meet someone, I guess it's that old chestnut you always meet someone when you least expect it!

Just remember that nothing is as it seems on social media, people only share the good stuff! And I would bet some of your friends secretly envy your life too! Difference with me is that I always tell people when I'm envious/jealous which probably makes me sound even worse haha!

It’s just hard, I feel I’ve missed out on all these things, these celebrations in life.

In the nicest possible way, you seem hung up on the ‘external’ celebration stuff like christenings, weddings, anniversaries etc — I’m married with a child, and the only one of those things I’ve done is pregnancy, as I doubt you’d count my wedding, which took ten minutes on my lunch break — and while I remember what month it was in, I couldn’t tell you the date for an anniversary.

I have a wide circle of friends, now scattered from Brazil to Beijing, and none of them has had a baby shower or ‘mini-moon’, and only two christenings that I can think of. Many aren’t married to their long term partners, some are gay, some are single, and the weddings which have happened have been widely separated in time, likewise the children. My best friend married sixteen years before I did. Her eldest child was leaving primary school when I had my baby. One close friend has a 19 year old, another has a newborn. One older friend adopted a baby from China as a single adopter in her 50s.

What I’m saying is that unless your entire friendship group is entirely homogeneous, there’s no realistic prospect of trooping from engagement through wedding to baby shower to christening etc at roughly the same time, even if these are things you want. People’s lives take different paths and rhythms.

Hi, I guess I am looking at the majority and across everyone. Everyone has done one of these things, only one has done them all.

I’m not usually the sort of person to focus on events and occasions at all. I think I just feel like they mark the things I haven’t got - a family. In reality I wouldn’t care about the list, just actually having a husband! Needn’t be a big wedding or parties.

So, if you want these things, you need to find a man to do it with or, failing that, consider becoming a mother by sperm donor.

Are you dating much? How old are you? Any idea why previous relationships havent worked out? If you are dating then make sure youre on all the Apps. Also make sure you go out A LOT in order to meet men/ people who could introduce you to men.

Ive never heard of a mini-moon or anyone having a baby shower.

I do date. Maybe twice a month I will meet someone from online.

Last relationships didn’t work out for more practical reasons really. It’s been a few years since I had anything significant.

Just fed up I guess. Seem to always be watching everyone else progress with life.

I’m in the same boat and, ironically, wouldn’t want a big wedding or do things like baby showers etc, but I completely understand how you feel.

I used to be the sweetest, “nicest” lovely little ray of sunshine and was always so happy when good things happened to other people. Somewhere along the lines I became bitter, sad and lonely when I realised I was the only one left and it hadn’t worked out for me. I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness, I just wish I was part of the club. I’m
sad most days about not having kids or a husband. You inevitably get some married people with kids saying it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and you are better off being single but...that’s completely unhelpful and condescending!

I feel I’ve done as much as I can as a single person and I’ve been ready to settle down for many years now (I’ll be 35 in a couple of months).

I don’t know how you avoid the sadness and bitterness. I just want you to know you aren’t alone in it. Just be as kind as possible to yourself. Hope you meet the right one soon.

I didn’t mean to sound unsympathetic, bittersweet. It’s hard to want something that feels out of your control to achieve.

All I’m trying to do is to address the bit of your OP where you suggest that even if you marry and have children, it won’t be the same because your friends are ‘years ahead’ — my friends I have done things at very different times, and in very different ways, and in different orders.

My first friend to have a baby is only now that he’s left home starting to consider looking for a relationship, aged 47. The friends with the toddler and newborn work in a badly-paid, unreliable, peripatetic (arts) field and will have to move around from project to project indefinitely, and unless one of them becomes very successful, are unlikely to ever own a house or flat. Another pair of friends after 20 years together, only got married to simplify a visa situation.

Don’t put pressure on yourself to keep up with other people.

Thabks posters.

I think perhaps I have most friends from privileged backgrounds so any small cause for celebration is quite full on. None of them struggle for money either so it’s akways quite flash and drawn out when anything worth celebrating happens.

Just want it to happen to me too. I hate admitting that. But I’m fed up of feeling like I’ve missed out.

How old are you?

35

35 a few weeks ago

Aww hugs to you.

But listen. I've an idea for you to try.

Try asking for and thanking the universe for having a family. Affirm that it is already there for you and you know and trust in this.

It sounds funny I know. I've been into things like this for years and during a rough patch a year, more, ago, I decided to give it another try.

Firstly, I asked and thanked the universe for a forever partner. Within weeks I accidentally swiped right on tinder for this man who has turned out to be exactly that. Sometimes I think about how he came into my life and I wonder if it had anything to do with my having sat there on work lunchbreaks, repeating that Soka gaki Buddhist mantra, asking for a relationship that would last forever.

I also asked and affirmed for some money and that came too.

I know it's hard to believe that something factually IS going to happen for us, since we have no proof of it, but just try it and see if it maybe works for you xx why the hell not eh?

I will try it. Thanks :)

I don’t know what’s come over me recently. It’s not nice to be bitter, and it’s very unattractive!

I feel for you. I felt bitter for a long time, but then I realised that the only person it harms is yourself.
I’m sure youve heard all the “you’ve got plenty of time” bollocks
But you do have time. Can you think about do things slightly differently in the new year? Maybe just one or two things that aren’t usual for you?

Thanks travis. I’m looking at going on a trip. I just about have the money but it’s one thing I’m terrified of! I’m very confident at work and in general life but travelling with people I don’t know scares me a little! I have always wanted to do it though so maybe that’s something I should push myself on.

God I am the same. I get the fear massively and then just go home and spend it on my own. Wishing I had what others have.
But I know next year I can’t do that anymore.
You don’t meet anyone sitting in your living room drinking wine.

I’ve got a party tonight and about 20 times I thought about not going. But what’s the alternative!
Like you all my friends have children and I feel massively left out a lot.

Hi bittersweet, I bet your friends are envious of your lifestyle. It's human nature to want what we don't have. It will happen when you least expect it. Good luck for the future maybe 2019 will be your year.

I feel for you and others on this thread: it's so hard, isn't it, when you don't have the life that you thought you would, or even the one you wanted. I'm ten years older than you, and don't have the answer - like you, I remind myself that bitterness only hurts me and doesn't get me any further, but it's one thing to remind yourself and another not even to have the feeling to everyone else who doesn't have the life they hoped for, anyway

OP i felt exactly the same at about your age. I’d been to seemingly endless weddings, christenings , bought cute baby clothes, looked at honeymoon photos etc.
I then met the man of my dreams, and felt that I was part of it all for a while, then it went horribly wrong when he announced that he didn’t want kids. I was devastated, we split up, and I went on to have two kids by sperm donation.
I’m now In my early 50s, very happily seeing someone, and many of my original crowd are divorced.
I guess what I’m saying is that there are always phases in life, nothing ever stays the same' and although it can appear that others have achieved everything, it doesn’t always end up that way

Go on the trip, you'll get over the fears and it'll get you out of your rut.

Thanks.

Just feeling like all the things that matter most just won’t happen :(