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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

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

43 replies

bittersweetyear · 30/12/2018 22:18

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.

OP posts:
bittersweetyear · 31/12/2018 21:22

Paid the deposit....

TERRIFIED!

OP posts:
ShadyLady53 · 31/12/2018 21:24

Go you! If you do the same crap you’ve always done you get the same results. Shake it up a bit in 2019 and you never know who you might meet x

bittersweetyear · 31/12/2018 21:51

Thanks! :)

Feeling scared but also like I am working on something and have a focus :)

OP posts:
category12 · 31/12/2018 22:00

Well done OP! I hope you have the best time.

Newlea · 31/12/2018 22:17

OP, what you have done in planning a trip is brilliant. I have been you. I was in a group of privileged friends. Their life went like clockwork. Uni, jobs, weddings, baby, loads of family events where their close extended family helped out, house purchase, cars, holidays.. you get the gist. I did everything on the list except for the people part. So no relationship or wedding or baby or close family. The rest of it I rocked. But no one cared about that. I was still quizzed on my relationship status a lot, I felt left out of the many functions and did feel better. I did support my friends though.

I am now married myself with kids. But in hindsight, I should have made a different group of friends as well so that I would have known that me being me was fine and there are loads of different ways to map out your life. But when you are only in a group that do stuff a certain way and you are different, it gets tricky.

You need to branch out and your holiday is a great starting point. You will find there are loads of different people who dance to their own tune.

LadyWonderland · 31/12/2018 22:38

I was you. I desperately wanted all those things and was 35 and single. I was very successful in my work but felt completely unsuccessful at all the things I really wanted. In my 30's I took a few months sabbatical from work and joined a group overlanding across South America. It was fantastic and I did a number of shorter trips after that. I then decided to date more frequently. After A LOT of crap dates I met my now husband on a blind date. Everything moved really fast. We were engaged within 8 months, married just after a year of meeting, had DS1 10 months after that and DS2 13 months later. Basically I was married with two children within 3 years and had EVERYTHING I'd always dreamed of. We've just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary.

I believe that meeting a little later in life made me more realistic and less rose tinted about relationships. I didn't expect a fairytale or something 'perfect' and I think it's made us stronger as a result. Hang in there. The cliches are true. It only takes one and it really can happen in a flash but for me it took a real commitment to dating as a kind of project and I had to spend a load of time on shit evenings out before I met the one x

PuertoVallarta · 01/01/2019 01:46

I was bitter at 35, too. Thought I’d never have kids and it turns out I didn’t. Thought I’d never be married again and it turns out I haven’t. But it is fine. Honestly fine.

If I could have one wish, it would not be for wedding or baby shower or motherhood. Those are lovely, but I would forgo all for proper finances with some disposable income.

Money can’t buy love. But it can buy peace of mind which I’m afraid to say marriage on its own does not.

notsodimwit · 01/01/2019 06:13

Op Smile how exciting and brave of you to be planning a trip Flowers all the best to a great 2019 Wine

Prettyvase · 01/01/2019 08:50

Happy New Year and in that I mean you have to do something New in the Year and keep doing something new and out of your comfort zone as the one you are in is closed off and has left you in a rut.

You have done the best thing possible: booked yourself on a trip. Good luck with that and use the experience to branch out socially.

Keep learning and keep experiencing new situations whether going on trips, signing up for a course and keep your sense of humour and be open about wanting to find someone: tell your existing friends that is your New Years' Resolution so that they can also take up the challenge and help you by introducing you to someone within their radar.

I have successfully match made for 2 of my single friends this way.

I found my DH over 25 years ago in my 30s by going back to uni and doing a postgraduate course.

He is my dream man, dream come true and it really is a happy ever after as I also thought I would never find anyone.

Do something drastic and different is my advice, and so much fun that it does matter if you are single or not next you are enjoying yourself and your life anyway: that is the phase in life I had when my DH came along.

If you are young free and single which is what you are now then make the most of every moment living what life offers.

Never saddle yourself with anything that ties you into closed off social circle and rut either mentally or physically if you are unhappy.

Good luck Flowers

Prettyvase · 01/01/2019 08:53

Typo should read: does not matter* Smile

Megwils · 01/01/2019 09:11

First time here and I don't really understand the lingo, but here goes.

Married for 4.5 years, together for 7. We have a4 year old daughter and desperately want another baby-have been trying for years. I never feel like having sex but force myself to do it every other day for 10 days around my ovulation period.

Anyway, feel like my marriage is a shambles and just need to express all the things that are happening to get some clarity as to what the hero is going on, is my husband abusive, am i controlling and are we better together o'r apart?!

So, in light of the start of a new year I want to try to start afresh and just state what is going on with us from this point forward. If you have any advice, encouragement, insight I'd appreciate it... If not, then writing it here will give me some much needed clarity.

New Year's Day 2019, 7:20am. After a late night DS is still sleeping as am I. DH wakes me up saying "Are you taking the dog out today? You need to take the dog out more, you've hardly taken her out over Christmas" I as answered then started to go back to sleep. DH says "aren't you ovulating? Comet on we need to have sex" I answer "I never get more than 5 hours sleep and you've just woken me up for no reason. Please let me sleep!" DH says "can you sleep in the spare room?" I answered no and asked him to let me sleep in my own bed and told him not to be selfish. He then starts to argue with me, telling me that he's had a shit Christmas, that he always has to do what I want and starts playing videos loudly on his iPad. With my eye mask on I try to sleep and ask him to not be cruel. After I ask him to use his ear phones he gets out of bed, goes to the spare room and tells me how selfish I am and says he is not coming to see MY friends with me today.

I don't want to state my opinion as I would like the facts only too speak for themselves. Do I speak with him about this later or do I let it lie and try to start the day more positively when we all get up?!

Kumali · 01/01/2019 09:23

Pp I'd start a new thread of your own, you'll get more responses.

Megwils · 01/01/2019 09:27

Thank you, I have done now... Sorry, just learning Blush

Kumali · 01/01/2019 09:28

Op have to say this time of year magnifies everything.. Its just horrible unless you appear to have the perfect family set up, social media is a bitch with all the #makingmemories crap too.
All I can say is you're not alone. I've had all the things you covet and from the outside it looked perfect. In reality it was a shambles and pretty much set the scene for the crap MH I have now. Be kind to yourself Flowers

Bittersweetyear · 01/01/2019 11:37

Thanks everyone! Keep thinking of reasons not to go.. need to snap out of that!!!

OP posts:
Katgurl · 01/01/2019 12:07

Aw OP I can relate, I felt exactly the same at your age. First there were non stop hens, weddings, engagement parties, then all the christenings, kiddie birthday parties. I am a naturally happy person who kept being happy for people and assuming my time would come. Then one day I wasn't happy or sure. I was just blue.

This coincided with me getting sick and being told I could probably never have kids. I was out for brunch with my two besties who both announced their second pregnancies. We talked of nothing else. In fact they were my conversations everywhere I realised - other people's news. And because everyone was retreating more into their family units I wasn't even really being included in plans so much anymore.

It dawned on me that I was left out. I genuinely through nobody else's fault WAS left out. I decided there and then I wouldn't feel obligated to go to kiddie gatherings or things that were going to make me sad. I knew my friends would understand if I explained. I only went to things if I wanted to (new experience for me). And I began doing lots of other things and got fussy about who I spent my time with (much more with single people).

I do know what you're saying about wanting to be with your own gang of good friends but those friendships won't die just because you do some stuff without them.

The other huge part of it is accepting your circumstances exactly as they are, right now. Everything changes for everyone all the time so all you can do is experience the current time. Yes it would be lovely to have shared pregnancies with your close friends but that hasn't happened. Accept it. Accept that nobody knows what the future holds.

I agree with the previous poster who talked about positive affirmations. Quite a lot of people think they are rubbish but I've always believed except for those few years where I began to panic and upsettingly I lost sight of what I wanted, my belief in myself and my own standards. In short, I became desperate and that is not attractive.

Anyway once I accepted the current situation it was massively liberating. I thought "well I have nobody to answer to but myself" and began filling my free time up with loads of cool things. I became really happy, fit, felt more attractive than ever and realised it was ludicrous to think I would not meet someone. I didn't know when I would meet him but I was happy with my life and if he came later and I never had a wedding or kids then so what. I knew inwasnt going to settle for any guy who didn't make me super happy either.

I really really became happy on my own. And then of course like all the cliches - I met someone. It's the best relationship I've ever had. I think if I'd met him earlier we would not have had the relationship we do. I had to figure out what I was looking for. We have a beautiful baby girl too. There is a definite upside to having a child after your friends - you don't buy anything and your baby is a novelty.

Keep the faith and be happy. Its also an emotional time of year.

Sorry this was very longwinded!

category12 · 01/01/2019 12:36

Don't chicken out, OP, you'll be proud of yourself for doing it.

I'd never been abroad except rarely and with a partner until a couple of years ago. Was lucky enough to get the chance to go away to India, but the people I was supposed to go with pulled out at the last minute due to illness, so I ended going as the sole adult. It was really nerve-wracking. Although I felt a bit "eek!" at times, I had a brilliant time. Plus incredible boost to self-confidence having done it. At the very worst it's something to new to talk to people about.

bittersweetyear · 01/01/2019 12:54

Thank you for these posts. They are so lovely to read.

I wouldn’t be doing this without having started this thread. thsnk you.

I still want the usual stuff but recognise that there’s no point moping and waiting. Got to get on with life.

OP posts:
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