I'm a parasite to life and I want this to end

[user57424]

After various relationships throughout my twenties and into my thirties, I am still alone. Nothing ever seems to fit.

I've done it all. Dated, been open minded, joined clubs, travelled. And I'm fucking fed up of smiling at the sidelines while people get married, have kids, buy houses together. I don't think I can actually do it anymore.

I'm the odd one out. My parents are happily married, my younger sibling is marrying this year. My parents can't wait to be grandparents and that's all they've talked about all day.

My life is fucking meaningless. I have a job, a home, friends and LITERALLY NOTHING fills the void of wanting a family life. Having a child alone is not what I want and makes me feel so frustrated when people suggest it (I know they are trying to help).

Despite having gone down the career route, deep down, the real me is cooking, cleaning, running a home (I know that isn't for everyone and Im not at all saying it is a woman's 'role.' But it is a role I personally want.

I've started feeling angry about it this weekend. it doesn't seem fair. I don't want to live my life like this. im sick of suggestions that I haven't got out there and haven't given people a chance or im too picky. I have tried, I just haven't found the right out. If I could leave this world right now, I would. I feel so low and useless and like my life is an endless fake show of getting up and going to work all for me. I'm bored of it. I have had enough now.

I don't know why I am posting really. I haven't felt this low in a long time. is there a way out of this that doesn't end with some patronising suggestion that ive done something wrong to be living my life alone.

As LegoPieces says, you can go on holidays and days out with your child - no more solo hols. Then working and your pay will be for more than just you.

A few years ago I went through a (quite long) period of feeling like you, OP. A bit different as I was a divorced single parent and felt I had massively failed in life. Everyone else was coupled up, all my old friends were SAHMs, and I was working full time in quite a successful career, had 2 great kids, but just felt so lonely.

5 years later I am married and we have a new baby. I will be going back to work but am enjoying mat leave for now and think I'll enjoy work when I return.

You never know what's round the corner and if you'd told me 5 years ago that I would be where I am today, I would not have believed you. Hang in there. Most things do get better, and as many PPs have said, what you perceive as other people's perfect lives rarely are. Be kinder to yourself.

I didn't meet my ex until my late 30s.Married had a daughter.
Now 20 years on I have an abusive relationship to look back on, financially much worse off,career stalled and now too old to do anything about it.
My DD is fantastic but she will be off in a few years time.
The difference is that in my 30s I accepted that I might never meet someone so that didn't get in the way of the good things I had.And now I love that I come home to a home with noone else's expectations (bar a ravenous teen that I rarely see these days).
I am sorry that you are feeling so low and maybe your siblings happiness is pushing this feeling.

My sister felt as you did. She met her husband at 37 and had a baby a year later. They married when she was 39. My cousin met her husband at around the same age.

My other cousin just had a baby at 42. Met her partner at 41!

I had a baby at 40, thought it would never happen after a failed marriage. Unfortunately I’m no longer with the father of my child and I’m a single mum but I’m happy now on my own, and tbh with a young child and work I don’t have time to be lonely much.

You say you’re worthless, (you’re not), but have you thought about volunteering for a animal charity or the elderly, anything really. It might give you a different outlook and feel like you are making a difference to someone. Xx

I have felt like this, I still do but all you can do is get yourself to a good point. I have friends who I love dearly who are single, without children and they bring so much to my life. I would never view them as worthless, or as a parasite, and so I try to give myself the same kindness.

Not everyone follows the same path and we have to make peace with what we have, and keep going! I wish you lots of happiness.

In my mid to late 30s I could have written this post word for word. Every single word.
On my first date with my now husband I told him how I was past it and had missed the boat for children ( I know- attractive, eh?). Luckily he saw beyond that.
The truth is that there is no guarantee you'll meet someone and get the things that you want- but don't rule it out. If it doesn't happen you will need to get some help coming to terms with it. It is possible. I am in my 50s now and have a couple of friends who had to mourn the lack of family life but have found a good way of living with it. Xxx

^OP has rose coloured glasses on and thinks that what she is missing out on is a cookie cutter perfect life with a white picket fence and 2.2 cute children with an adorable smudge of chocolate on their button noses.

The reality is that the odds of that great cookie cutter life are really low.

You have no idea what your life would be like

That's not to say no one with children are very happy - but that life is not perfect^

Agreed with SomethingIdNeverThoughtIdSay

OP you need to see things as they are. At the moment it is very black and white in your head; family=100% happiness, no family=0% happiness. That's not how life works and you know that.

There are people out there who never met the ones or can't be with the one for some reason or another, who still managed to create their own custom-made lives (not cookie cutter ones), be interesting women/men, made differences to people around them. They still live their lives to the best of their ability regardless.

Equally, there are people with failed marriages, difficult children, women who woke up at 60 realized that they had been very busy with raising the children, taking care of the husband and the house, dealing with difficult in-laws dynamics that they did not get a chance to improve themselves.

SomethingIdNeverThoughtIdSay - you are very wise indeed. I wish someone told me this when I was 18.

I'm not sure if this helps or not but I was in the same position as you. I actually completely gave up on dating and decided I was married to my hobby.
I went into work and organised a transfer to Hong Kong. Got it approved & had everything planned,ready to go. Met my partner like a month before leaving. They were in exactly the same position.
Still don't know what would've happened had I ended up there.
I know it doesn't help when you are in the midst of those feelings but honestly. You've no idea what the next roll of the life dice leads, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

Create your family by adoption or sperm donor. My friend who is single ‘took the bull by the horns’ and adopted a baby. You could look into the adoption of a child with additional needs. There are so many beautiful children with mild, moderate and major challenges who need loving homes.

ALovingSpirit - much the same happened to me. I met my OH when I had given up on men and was planning to go on a trip .

You should adopt a child x

Hi OP I hope you’re feeling a bit better today. You are definitely not alone in feeling the way you do. I still hold resentment that I dated a totally unsuitable man in my 30s and this decision- just because I wanted a partner- meant that I had no more children. He didn’t want children. I didn’t want him but was too stuck. Things for me changed radically recently and I adopted. My life is chaotic for all the reasons you crave. I have been through such awful and dark times. I’ve never lived with a partner. I have no real family to support me. I have few friends. I’m very much alone in the world and I’ve also never had much of a career. However my life has now changed in a way I could never imagine. I’m 54 years old. I’ll always be without a man. But I do have children and that’s what I wanted.

Honestly I have had so much sadness and despair in my life so I truly feel for you. Try to enjoy what you do have and then make a plan for how you will go about achieving the other things- family- that you want.

And it’s so lovely to read the comments and responses that you have received here. It is wonderful to see so much support and so many people can relate. It helps me too.

You will be ok and things will get better. People care and people understand.

Thanks for writing this OP, you are not alone