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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

Original poster

Help me accept that I don’t have the life I planned and wanted

102 replies

PollyAnnaSky · 19/07/2020 13:30

All I ever wanted was a family, home, husband.

I’ve got a decent job that I enjoy most of the time. I have a nice house, small because it is just me but I like it. I have a few friends and three very very good ones.

I am desperately lonely that I don’t have a family and a husband. I’ve dated over and over, had a couple of long term things many years back, the last year had a horrendous break up with a miscarriage to add to the mix as well. I have now withdrawn totally from that dream and I want to accept my life for what it is.

I am having counselling. I don’t want a child on my own. So I just need to get to a point where desperate sadness for the life I’ve wanted since forever is no longer there. I need help with this? How do I get there? How to I smile at peoples milestones knowing that life is never going to happen for me?

Being proactive and positive minded about things has not led me to that life and it’s almost made me more unhappy. I have plenty of hobbies etc but this has just never happened for me and I so want to learn to accept it rather than cry myself to sleep half the days a week and feel like empty hole that isn’t filled.

Anyone managed this?

OP posts:
FortunesFave · 19/07/2020 13:57

OP, how old are you? Why are you giving up on the idea of a family? Even if you were in your 40s, there's no need to give up.

But first, you need to accept that a family doesn't mean automatic happiness.

It just doesn't. Look at the relationship board on here...it's FULL of miserable women...I know that wanting a child is a very, very strong pull.

I just wonder if you're giving up due to trauma of the miscarriage? I feel very sympathetic towards you...that must have been deeply traumatic. x

queenofknives · 19/07/2020 13:57

Hi, I totally empathise with this feeling like what I wanted from life is not how it turned out. I am nearly 50 and tbh very much thinking of making some radical changes in my life. I don't think it's too late although a little voice keeps nagging me that I'm too old... but lots of women make new lives after menopause etc.

May I ask how old you are? I'm just wondering if that's why you've given up on this dream, because there's not enough time left for kids? It sounds like you've had a rough run of things but if you still want to meet someone and have a family, I don't see why you have to give up on that idea?

cheezy · 19/07/2020 14:05

I am in a similar situation OP.
What helps for me ruthlessly practicing gratitude. It’s SO easy to feel hard done by, sort for myself, a victim of circumstance. But this is a total dead end. So I have to turn it around and consciously look for everything I am grateful for. It doesn’t deny the pain and disappointment but it somehow changes it.
I also like to have lots of ideas for things that are fulfilling, exciting, enriching because I do think it’s possible to have a rich and meaningful life as a single childless woman (though I have to work at convincing myself sometimes)
Also there’s the community Gateway Women for people such as us. Flowers

cheezy · 19/07/2020 14:05

That should say sorry for myself

Original poster
PollyAnnaSky · 19/07/2020 14:19

Thanks for the helpful posts.

I want to give up and let it go because I have tried absolutely everything to obtain it, including taking time out and ignoring it entirely for a while. It just hasn’t happened. I’ve recently got through my last exes and wish I had settled with one of them. At least I wouldn’t be lonely now and would have had the chance of experiencing family life even if it didn’t last.

My life feels so empty and that’s because I am constantly feeling lost because I don’t have those things I always longed for. I know it doesn’t mean happiness, that’s not what I mean. I mean I haven’t had that experience and that makes me sad. I’m sure that life brings all sorts of stresss and sadness in its own way, but I will never know.

Thinking of it and missing it and wanting it ...it’s too much. I just want to accept that I won’t have it, others do, and that’s life. But how I get there, I just don’t know.

OP posts:
BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted · 19/07/2020 14:44

When I was much younger I assumed I’d meet a nice man, buy a house and have a couple of kids. I never achieved the former so didn’t have the latter two either. I never countenanced having a child on my own after I observed the hardships endured by some of my friends. This was probably the best choice I ever pro-actively made for myself. Now I’m in my mid-sixties and still on my own I can look back and appreciate all the wonderful things I’ve managed to do and all the lovely friends I’ve made along the way. There is life outside marriage and children! Carry on with the counselling and I’m sure you get there.

Abi47 · 19/07/2020 14:57

Am in a similar position. Lockdown has been hard processing reality of a life likely to be without children. Some really helpful and supportive responses on here though. Am early 40s, and felt like this in my early 30s. I didnt do anything about it and am kicking myself for not being more proactive. Thinking of you OP

MarioPuzo · 19/07/2020 15:05

@BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted

When I was much younger I assumed I’d meet a nice man, buy a house and have a couple of kids. I never achieved the former so didn’t have the latter two either. I never countenanced having a child on my own after I observed the hardships endured by some of my friends. This was probably the best choice I ever pro-actively made for myself. Now I’m in my mid-sixties and still on my own I can look back and appreciate all the wonderful things I’ve managed to do and all the lovely friends I’ve made along the way. There is life outside marriage and children! Carry on with the counselling and I’m sure you get there.
What a lovely post @BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted

OP There are lots of wonderful things in the world, it's not a tick box list of achievements you have to experience or you've somehow failed at life. When a person is desperate for certain thing it has a blinding effect so you can't see the wood for the trees. Instead of focusing on what you lack, focus on the things you want more of in your life.

You broke up with your exes for a reason, it does no good to look back at the past with rose tinted glasses.

It's never to late to make a new life. Flowers

Namenic · 19/07/2020 15:39

I know several single women who have very close friendships and relationships with nieces, nephews, godchildren. Their friendships are so close, relatives also become good friends and it draws people in. It does take quite a bit to cultivate and keep up the friendships, but they are wonderfully supportive.

Original poster
PollyAnnaSky · 19/07/2020 15:43

Thanks again.

I think trying to replace it by being close to friends children etc is not helpful personally for me because it just makes me feel like I’m trying to fill that void.

Where I want to get to is the idea that I no longer have to cover the cracks because I don’t want that life anymore. I want so badly to not want these things. To not wake up everyday craving that future.

I am so sad about it.

OP posts:
AIMD · 19/07/2020 15:46

I imagine not having a husband and child when you desire them is a really difficult thing to come to terms with. When I had fertility issues the thought of not having a child really bothered me (wasn’t overly bothered by the partner/husband). Be kind to yourself. You can’t make yourself feel differently but maybe you can shift your focus to all the other great things you have in your life and look at what other things you might like to do.

vikingwife · 19/07/2020 15:49

How old are you? You don’t mention this & it feels significant to know your age here.

It’s unconventional but I can personally highly recommend marijuana.

NotNowPlzz · 19/07/2020 15:50

I really feel for you OP.

I have also had to give up on a dream, on my heart's desire really, and try to move on and find new hope and a new life. Well, really, I'm in the thick of it now. It's really hard.

Original poster
PollyAnnaSky · 19/07/2020 15:51

I’m 36, 37 in February.

I have been dating on and off since 29. Had a couple of short term things. I hate it.

OP posts:
sundaysundaysun · 19/07/2020 15:54

I can understand how you feel. I am in my early 50s and sometimes I think I've made a wrong turn in my life. I ask myself should I have ended up where I am single with no children?

I think you should try and appreciate what you have and grasp as much happiness as you can from life.

AIMD · 19/07/2020 15:56

I would say that I know a lot of friends who have started relationships in their 30s after meeting people online. They seem to all have great relationships and their relationship have progressed quicker than people who I know that met when younger.

Obviously you need to accept where you are now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever meet someone you end up in a long term relationship with.

sundaysundaysun · 19/07/2020 15:56

P. S it's never too late for you to find a husband and you could still have a child in your late 30s/early 40s. You don't know what's around the corner although I know the dating can be soul destroying.

bluesapphirestars · 19/07/2020 15:58

It’s hard op and people saying oh well, married women are miserable too is SO unhelpful. I sometimes think if single women popped up on threads where someone’s marriage is struggling with at least you have a husband people might realise how unhelpful it is.

I think I’d set yourself a point in the future as a deadline. I was older than you when I met my partner and got pregnant but I also understand you don’t want to be assuming it will happen either.

Original poster
PollyAnnaSky · 19/07/2020 15:59

I know that it can be around the corner but I have spent nearly a decade believing that.

It isn’t for me, for whatever reason. I want to accept that and learn how to rather than cling onto the idea that it is still going to happen. It most likely is not

OP posts:
Original poster
PollyAnnaSky · 19/07/2020 16:00

And yes I am not saying marriage and kids would have made me happier, just that all I wanted was that life full of it’s struggles and challeneges.

OP posts:
RaisinGhost · 19/07/2020 16:02

Reading your thread title I was going to say that I don't think anyone has the life they planned and dreamed. But your situation is a hard one so I'm sorry you are feeling really down.

Is counselling helping? I've never found that it does help. It always seems to be the counsellor just relpying to everything you say with an unhelpful, shallow brush off. "I'm sad because I don't have a partner" - "Oh that's nothing to be sad about". Gee thanks, perhaps this is true but the problem is I am sad which is why I am here!

Sharkerr · 19/07/2020 16:05

This thread from the other day has lots of useful replies

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3965950-What-the-fuck-am-I-doing-so-wrong-i-am-so-sad

vikingwife · 19/07/2020 16:06

Ok you say you want a family / home / husband.

Well you have the home ticked off! Whereabouts does your family live? Close by? Do you have friends you consider like family? You don’t mention any pets? If you own your home why not consider a companion animal?

It’s important to remember that a husband is not a cookie cutter thing - you could have a husband now & he could be a bad one, you would be feeling trapped. A bad, or unsatisfying relationship is worse than not being in a relationship.

Plenty of people are married & they don’t even like their spouse, or only with them for lifestyle/financial reasons. You aren’t tied to someone you don’t want to be with!

Also you are confident enough to not be desperate & settling for the next bloke you swipe right with on tinder. Good for you!

It is cheesy but in the 90s Oprah Winfrey recommended a “gratitude journal” where you write down at least one thing a day you’re grateful for.

What I will say though is that if this has “always” been your dream & you had a traumatic breakup + miscarriage it may be possible you have experienced a trauma & this is your mind’s way of coping with it - by pretending you don’t want something you really do. It’s good you’re having counselling,

Gorganzolabrie · 19/07/2020 16:07

@RaisinGhost speaking as an experienced counsellor and psychotherapist, I can assure you that no decent counsellor would ever say that.

queenofknives · 19/07/2020 16:08

I think if this is what you really want, you are giving up too soon. Maybe instead of trying to come to terms with a future you don't want, you could look at different ways to create the future you do want. Could there be techniques or approaches you haven't tried - not necessarily like a new hobby or online dating, but things you could work on with yourself to make a good relationship more likely to be a possibility? Maybe by focusing so much on what you lack, you're not showing people what you have got to contribute? Maybe working on making yourself feel happier and more 'complete' will be the key to meeting a new partner. But if not, you will at least still feel happier! Maybe you just need some support and advice about how to go about meeting someone nice who is good for you.

I wouldn't give up, OP, and resign yourself to a life you don't want. It's never too late to make a life you truly love. I wouldn't even rule out husband and kids while you are still young enough for this to be a possibility.