I’m so fed up of being me and having this life. I’m so jealous of those who have nice lives.

[Itsalongtime]

It’s not even a bad life I have at the moment. I’ve got things other people would like to have. I’m just so fed up of the life that has got me here. I lived through emotional neglect as a child then onto a 12 year abusive marriage. I’ve got good qualifications but never used them and I have my own house, a good partner now and 1 child and 1 baby.

Yesterday my partners brother came over and told us they are moving house. The sister in law is a lovely person. She had a normal childhood and met him young and have two lovely children and now buying a lovely big home. I’m so jealous. Although she never worked they are still young. She’s looked after the kids and they have worked up from a small flat to now a lovely big house. Why couldn’t that of been me. Why do I have to be 40 with all these awful memories and life experiences. I feel life is just one big fight. It’s left me with life long health issues and I’m tired. I’m never just going to be normal, I’m jealous of everyone who has nice lives. Why couldn’t that of been me, I had so much potential once.

Your last post sounds like you're craving validation from your mother. She won't give you this. That's more about her than it is about you.

You are causing yourself repeated stress by continually expecting something of her that she has shown you she isn't going to give. Accept that she isn't going to be the parent that you want or deserve and move past it.

Focus elsewhere, not on her, not on the past. Look up fixed vs growth mindsets and get back into counselling.

Ive kind of gone past expecting anything emotional from my mum. But when you tired your guards dropped and I suppose I say things and still get hurt by her response. She helps in some ways but not in the way I want I suppose.

I dislike this feeling of jealousy. I know why I have it but I don’t like feeling it all the time. I should be happy at others fortune.

OP you can be healed.
I suffered childhood trauma at thehans of my mother, and have never been close to her-even now.

Your lie is in your hands- literally.
We can't always control external circumstances, out past other people, but we can control our reactions.
And that is huge.
Ultimately our own joy is within us.
I am much older than you and healing deeply right now.

There will always be people who are better off and worse off than we are.
Life is too short to spend it feeling so unhappy.

You my never get that validation you seek.
But you can move on and find joy without it.

And then he called you a parasite! He seems to have been the parasite.

It is within your power to chang that.

I’ve done a lot of self talk over the years and recovered well from my ptsd which I think may be complex. I’m really tired at the moment as the baby has terrible reflux and hasn’t sleep more then a few hours at night for 5 months. I don't think it’s helping me mentally. It’s made me wish I had a supportive family. A colleague had a baby at the same time and has so much support. She’s up dressed full make up and out as her family help everyday. I took terrible!

I sit and dwell an awful lot. I can’t put her down at all ever. She won’t sleep unless in a sling as she chokes. I’d like to get out and do some gardening but I can’t. She cries every-time she’s in the bouncer. My mind is all I have and it’s not my friend at times!

It feels like you need to focus on the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards OP. The only person who really needs to be proud of you is you. It almost feels like you're dealing with FOG 'fear obligation guilt' cycle that a lot of people do when in toxic or traumatic relationships, past or present.

I feel where you're coming from. I had a toxic upbringing and haven't seen any of my family now for over 15 years and I had to drag myself up from the gutter being a homeless 16 year old sofa surfing and shacking up with deeply troubled men just to survive.

It took me until I was 30, to realise that I was simply repeating mistakes by marrying an abusive man, and kicked him out to be single in my mid 30s. This time was truly transformative when I worked on myself. What I wanted and focused on getting it.

10 years on my life is excellent, but i still have that occasional lingering nag that had I had a better upbringing it wouldn't have taken until I was as old as I am to get here, and that others will far more supportive families got to where they were much quicker. But on the flip side, being kicked out so young meant that i was working at 17, and managed to buy a house before the boom of the 90s for next to nothing and have stayed on the housing ladder, unlike a lot of my peers who have struggled.

Everyone has struggles you don't know about and life can really change in an instant. I hope this thread is useful for you to help you find some peace for whatever you need OP.

I know you say you do not suffer from depression - thats good, if true, but I can't imagine constantly comparing yourself to others will help your mental state. But you seem to know that already. I guess if its a good , cathartic rant you wanted to get off your chest, so be it. But it just makes me shudder, seeing you in such a hole and all you seem to do is dig yourself deeper, by the way you speak about yourself mostly.

Also comparison makes no sense at all, you really only see the veneer of what's outside. I am one of those women, I would never ever leave my house without being put together. It doesn't matter if there is an apocalypse or what not. Like your colleague who always looks put together even with a baby, some people just are like that.
Maybe her family is helping her out, maybe she just sees looking put together as a priority. Im sure you have priorities of your own.

I don’t envy expensive things. I envy the response they get from the people around them I suppose. I don’t see statues in the things. It must be amazing to have people proud of what you have achieved. For example the new house they must feel so good and then hearing all the family say how they are great people and parents. When they moved previous all the family helped. When my partner moved into my house from his and I was 6 months pregnant not one person helped.

I live in the house my mum was abused by her dad and I was abused by my husband. I’d really like out but I’m too scared to join finances with my partner. We could own a nice house together, it would make me feel better, even if no one else’s cares. He’s a good man but I’m scared he will get sick of me and I don’t want to feel like I’m using him to move. I could move without him so I wouldn’t actually be using him.

My ex said I’ve earned nothing in my life and I don’t deserve anything I have. He said I took it all from him. I still feel that I suppose.It was ordered by a judge, I just wanted to survive.

I envy the response they get from the people around them I suppose.

but that is so so so ... odd

So its not even substance of the matter that is an issue here (their relationships to their families) its the fact that on the outside it looks like they have supportive families - you mentioned insta posts and things like that
This tells me that your issues are more complex, its like you want someone to champion you, and thats just not very intelligent

EVERYTHING that comes from "outside", like validation through compliments by others, friends, partnrts etc, can ALWAYS be taken away. The only thing that is really yours, is how YOU see yourself.

Thats the realization you will have to come to eventually, hopefully in your case sooner rather than later

Life isn't fair . It sounds like you've a lot of unresolved issues which would beneffrom counse. Counsellors are so easy to find now you just go on google, and their CV s are on there to find one suitable . We found my husband an excellent telephone counsellor that way . Please stop comparing yourself to others. That really is the theif of joy . Think of 3 blessings every day. Hope you get to grips with finding your joy .

I'm proud of you.

I feel somewhat similar due to a chronic health condition, that I'm behind my peers and it's unfair. However, every time I am back in hospital I'm reminded how lucky I am to be born when there were amazing drugs I could take. It really is about perspective.

It's clear you've worked extremely hard to get to the same place that other people have as their default. That does mean you are surrounded by people with nice lives. Can you try and see that giving your children this life is a real achievement.

You now have people in your life that care about you, a functional family for you and your DCs. Be really careful not to be self destructive and say anything mean about her not working. Her family are allowed to be proud of her, they love her and she doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. It sounds like you have lovely people in your life now, let them love you as well.

@SkaterBrained thank you. I just feel in having to get to this place by experiencing so many hard knocks I’m out of fight. Others have it by default and it’s easy and they fit and healthy. Me I’m starting where they began decades ago and I’m so so tired now. I just want a little something from somewhere to help me get up. You can’t always do everything on your own all the time, especially when you’ve used it all up.

How could you take your parent's house off your husband?

Can you see with this logic when people say nasty things they are just not true. They are there to hurt and hurt alone. With no basis in reality.

Stop dwelling on others. Or their validation of you or anyone else.

@frozendaisy no it doesn’t make a lot of sense really. He wanted back all the time and money he invested in me trying to get me to love him more so he wouldn’t leave the house. I left because he said if I didn’t he’d do something to me he’d regret. He locked me out and installed cctv but the judge eventually ordered him out. But I guess his words haven’t been ordered out of my head. This feeling I don’t deserve it still sticks. Perhaps my partners bro and sisters life sting because they do really deserve it as they nice people and she chose a good man. I’m unsure what I deserve because I’ve had to fight for every little thing I have.

OP, as others and I have said, this is all in your power to change. It won't change the past (and plenty of us - too many sadly - have had similar experiences) but you can change how you feel about the present and the future.

I'm obviously aware of how different my life could have been.

I see the way my partner looks at his adult children with utter pride and love and I'm reminded that I never had that and never will.

I see my colleagues progress into management roles - some of them 20 years younger than me - and I'm aware that that will never be me and, even if I started now, I'd never achieve what they will.

I see plenty of friends, peers, colleagues who have such more than me. Not just materially but in terms of the family love and support you talk about. But I also see the sadness. The infertility, the loss, the stress, the failed businesses, the less than perfect (by a long shot) marriages that they hide so well.

I see people with long term healthy friendships and relationships. I don't have those experiences because so much of life was spent in survival mode.

But I don't compare them to myself. It's not about being happy for other people's good fortune, it's about recognising your own too.

You have a partner who loves you and wants to live with you. You have children when many don't. You are alive. You're not on street drugs to numb the pain. You are, presumably, young enough (I don't recall whether you've given your age) to make huge changes to your life.

One thing my brother said to me when we were in our early 30s and were really just starting to fully understand the impact of our upbringing (rather than just survive it) was that we couldn't change the past but we could change the future. We could be the parents for our children that we never had. We could create the family for our children that we never had. We could make sure we broke the cycle. And that's what we did.

My children amaze me. I see their confidence and their opportunities. Their self assuredness and the feedback they and I receive about them and that is my legacy.

Not a nice house. Not a long marriage. Not a healthy bank balance. Not climbing to the top of my profession. Not nice holidays. Not a new car. Not anyone feeling proud of me. None of the extrinsic rewards you are looking for or the successes you (and I) see in others. But knowing that they will never feel the way I feel about myself. Knowing they know they are loved.

In the very kindest way, you need to find a way of getting a grip and getting out of this 'poor me' mindset.

Yes. It was shit. You didn't have the parents you deserved or should have had.and that has had an impact. But now you recognise all of that, you need to be the one who puts it right.

@GreyCarpet Its such a new revaluation for me and I do know I need to get over it. I am ashamed that I feel like a 5 year old.

I know what you mean, and I have moments of feeling similar. But I recognise that the problem is also the way ahead — yes, I’m struggling because of the after-effects of awful things that were done to me in childhood when I had no defences, but only I can fix them now, and that also means I have some power to effect change.

Good luck.

Don't feel ashamed! Just remember that it's in you to change it. And, more than that, you owe it to yourself ❤️