How do you accept that you’re going to be single your whole life? How do you get used to the loneliness?

[Sonervousimgonnathrowup]

So, I did start this on aibu, but it literally went wrong with the very first reply and turned into a pile on. Pretty much the only (hopefully) good advice I got, was to ask for it to be deleted and start over here.

I could really use some advice before my mental health and all around wellness suffers too much.

I was looking for some single support threads, but most of them seem to be by people who love being single and the good points are basically happy no one is watching tv shows they don’t like or stinking up the bathroom.
And or by people who already have been married and have kids, so they are not actually alone.

Anyone else out there who had to made their peace that it’s never going to be them?
Spring time is here and this has always been the hardest time of the year for me when it seems every couple seems to pop-up into the world and just have to be so happy.

So to be clear, I’m asking if anyone else had to learn to be on their own, actually alone, not with kids or have many options and can’t be bothered or MN classic that relationships are bad and lonely etc.

I’m asking how you deal with the broken heart of being single.

Thank you for your kidness @MyEyesAreBleeding

The therapist made the same mistake many did here.
She thought I wanted advice how to find someone, or that I wanted useless platitudes.

I want to deal and get over the longing.
I want to be heard and believes that it isin’t going to be me.

I do the best that I can to not get triggered, I avoid couples and people with kids, but that does mean that I spend more time alone.
And I’m carefull of what I watch and listen to, I don’t consume media about / with relationships, so I won’t hurt myself.

And I exercise so much that my body is breaking.

That’s so far what I could think to do to help myself.

I haven’t read your entire thread, but I think for the majority there is loneliness in a long term relationship too. Loneliness of a different kind maybe, but a more frustrating kind of loneliness.

I’m of the view that none of us can avoid it. It’s an existential state that, whatever your relationship status, needs to be worked at in whatever way you can. Maybe by joining groups where you have a common interest or by doing other things that satisfy you.

Fairly newly single here. I’m retraining so keeping myself busy with course/new friendships. I intend to join the gym/running club. I think it’s about getting yourself in a place where your not lonely but doing things for you. That way you may meet people with similar interests. Also having a pet definitely helps.

Sonervousimgonnathrowup

I have a really good therapist now
she’s a psychotherapist
but for the first time ever I’m looking at my childhood and how it shapes my behaviours now
painful stuff !!!

but I’m more than 50% through life now and I want it to be better in some ways

but to get to accepting situations the why really helps you understand yourself

ive also had therapists who are a bit crap

id say given your responses in this thread and how posters have upset you ….

making peace with your situation is beyond what a MN can provide

Maybe a grief counsellor would help more? I'd assume they don't encourage people who have say lost partners to be hopeful and try and meet someone new (unless that's what the grieving person wanted to work towards)

@burnoutbabe
Grief counsellor?
Can they / would they work with topics like this?

I actually wanted to talk through the same that I was asking right here, and it oretty much went like here.
That I can’t never know, get out of comfort zone, bla bla bla.
So that was that.

I would try other therapists until you find one that fits. Well, to a degree I'd try it. If you keep trying and don't find one, I'd start asking if it's something in you. You do need to make sure you get a therapist who suits you, who you can work with. They can't get on with everybody and the patient-therapist relationship is very personal. Since you are grieving for a life that you don't or can't have, it probably is worth looking for some kind of grief counselling.

You are being very defeatist and closed off though, OP. And one of the key ways of coping with situations does lie in opening up and listening to stuff, even if or perhaps especially when, it's stuff you don't really want to hear.

As for coping with being around couples, I found a couple of things helped. One was to remind myself that my ex and I were walking around hand in hand, looking happy, until 24 hours before he dumped me by phone, so you can't really tell what's going on in other people's relationships, or what they're about to face. The other, rather more positive thing, was to think well good for them, that's nice. At least there is an alternative, even if that's not for me.

Oh, and I always spent Valentine's day watching horror films. Valentine's day is an utter pig.

Not all couples are happy, as a PP has said there is no other loneliness like being alone in a bad relationship.

The loneliness I feel now as a single person is different to the loneliness I felt when I was married but they are both feelings of loneliness.

But you sound like you've made your mind up that you'll never be in a relationship so you now need to get used to your decision. By avoiding people you are making yourself less sociable and only exceberating your loneliness.

You are being very defeatist and closed off though, OP. And one of the key ways of coping with situations does lie in opening up and listening to stuff, even if or perhaps especially when, it's stuff you don't really want to hear

agree
anyway I’ll hide thread as whilst it’s been an interesting and sad read
it’s also frustrating

I did (still do) some if that.

I don't watch TV programmes or films where the focus is relationships or human interaction on an emotional level. When I felt at my worst, I was recommended a roscommon by a male friend who said it was really good. It was over lockdown and I was desperate for something to watch. It made me so angry and hostile that, when a friend called after it had finished, I couldn't answer the phone to them.

I think you underestimate how many people who are replying to you understand where you are coming from and your feelings whilst maybe not your unique experience.

You know, it's possible that you are right. Not everyone is able to meet someone. Maybe not everyone is cut our for love or relationships. Maybe there are people in the world who will just never firm a connection with anyone or be attractive to anyone.

I've never met one though.

I've et many people who feel that way though. The only ones who continue to struggle are the ones who are self sabotaging or putting other people off with their words, beliefs, actions.

But OK, I accept that you will never have a relationship.

I cancel that you are already doing things to stop yourself being triggered.

But that isn't helping you to cope with your feelings because it's consuming you.

You cope by following the strategies people who have also felt like you have done. Not because you might meet someone if you do but because those things will benefit your life and your mental health generally.

You think fuck it. Fuck off cruel world. I don't give a fucking shit if I'm never going to have a relationship or a family. I'm going to fucking enjoy the life I do have.

You stick two fingers up to societal norms.

And then you do all the things people on here have suggested.

Or you at least try some of them.

But at the moment the only posts you're responding positively to are the ones that don't offer advice or ways of coping but just sympathise and empathise.

You're more cross about people giving you what you ask for (advice and suggestions and what worked for them) than you are about empty platitudes and sympathy that don't even try.

I think that speaks volumes.

Whatever the mysterious reason OP believes is preventing them from forming a relationship, I believe the underlying and more serious cause may be an attachment issue. An inability to form attachments.

The good news is, unlike solid physical issues, attachment can be worked on… have you informed yourself about attachment theory, OP?

But… the person has to want to work on it, and has to to be open to the idea an improvement is possible.
Both of which seem to be completely lacking at the moment.

A massive amount of courage is needed for this. Much easier to give up, be miserable, and get angry at people who try to show you the way and ego may actually be very experienced and know what they’re talking about?

Are you interested in a challenge? It’s exciting to have a challenge!
imagine the thrill if you achieved some.

As long as we are alive, we can always imprison something, learn something, even small things. Stagnancy is a terrible place. Do not condemn yourself to that.

I hope at least one or two words from other posters sink in… but you seem to want to stay in your own self enforced, echo chamber, torture loop. Give yourself a break, it’s as simple as that.

I wish you all the happiness, or at least contentment / peace.

By avoiding people you are making yourself less sociable and only exceberating your loneliness.

But it’s too painfull to spend time with couples or people who are in relationships / have kids, at least the one’s who talk about these things a lot.

What am I supposed to do, torture myself?
Last time I did this, it was with my cousin and her husband, quiet night at their home, watching movies and it took all I had not to burst into ugly crying. Made it through, cried to whole way home.
I can’t put myself through that anymore.

I get that my situation is unusual and that is why people really can’t wrapped they heads around it, but I’m not just bit sad, or turning down offers or having my single gal weel/month/year.
It’s my life, my whole life I’ve been alone.

I get that my situation is unusual and that is why people really can’t wrapped they heads around it

actually I can
and I have compassion , what you said about being at your cousins is so sad

I still think this is a challenge that is beyond the collective MN wisdom , really

and in the hands of the right MH professional you could untangle it

childhood , life , brain wiring , ND does a number on us all op

The thing is OP, that people naturally want to help.

If a friend tells us a problem, we like to try and help to fix it or to offer suggestions.

It takes a very confident friend who is secure in your friendship to say 'actually, yes, this is shit and history suggests that you might not meet Mr Right.

A friend did say this to me once. Mid-thirties, she said to me, 'I was so sure you'd meet someone when you went off to uni and then when that didn't happen, I was sure you'd meet someone when you were working in London. It's just unbelievable that you haven't and I've run out of things to say to you about it'. Most people wouldn't say that because it feels more comfortable to them to make positive suggestions on things you could do.

People haven't bothered making all the suggestions to me because it would be silly to tell someone who was out every evening after work either doing a hobby or just in the pub and who was friends dotted around the country who I visit to 'get out more'. You can't get out more than I was getting out nor can you do a wider variety of stuff than I was really. As well as being out with friends I would happily go to the cinema, galleries, walks on my own. And I online dated, treating it as a project for months on end. I've done the stuff people suggest. I have actually had little bits of interest here and there but nothing that developed.

It helps me to hear from time to time people saying they're baffled that I haven't managed to meet someone as there's nothing wrong with me as for me the most uncomfortable thing about it all is the deep down sense that there must be something amiss as otherwise surely I'd have met someone.

And the irony of it all is that
” actually, yes, this is shit and history suggests that you might not meet Mr Right ”
saying that, letting what is just be what it is and allowed to be honest of it all, is exactly what is needed.
If I could say this out loud, like I scream and cry about it into my pillow. And someone just hearing it and say yes, it is fucking shit and it’s unfair….
I honestly think that would be all I need, that would be healing.

The having to be a brave little soldier, carefull what I say so I don’t get called bitter, you never knows - that I can’t see how they could be true…
All that garbage is just exhausting, I’m too tired for those.

I suppose it would take a very individual person who would actually agree that it will never happen.

I'd agree that is hard to find soneone and it may not happen, being luck,

But I'd be unlikely to agree that say someone is too ugly to find someone. I have watched "undateables" and they tend to do okay.

If they are say a nun then I could agree it's impossible. Or have such bad allergies that they have to live in a bubble. So really it depends what your impossible thing is. Which I assume your friends know so can comment in a way we can't.

I get that my situation is unusual and that is why people really can’t wrapped they heads around it, but I’m not just bit sad, or turning down offers or having my single gal weel/month/year.

As I said in my first post on this thread OP, as the result of some particularly pernicious childhood bullying I knew, really deep down and fundamentally, that I was unlovable and would always be alone. It took me 30 years to overcome this and although I'm in a relationship now, I know that that's partly to do with me doing a lot of work on myself but partly just luck.

To be honest, I think it's pretty fucking obvious that not everybody can or does meet someone who is right for them. Yes, there are billions of us, but your choice is actually quite narrow. So not all of us will meet someone. And of those who do meet someone, they will still sometimes be miserable as it won't be the right someone.

But I think you've been given lots of good advice on here about how to cope with that knowledge. You may or may not want to hear it.

I think that you might need to accept that you can't see into the future. You don't know if you'll be single in a year, or 2 years, or 5 years. Even people who have decided to be single sometimes end up not being single, because they meet someone by chance.

You can't despair about a future that hasn't happened yet. Well, you can, but it'd be a waste of a potentially perfectly happy life. It's your choice.

I know that that's partly to do with me doing a lot of work on myself but partly just luck

either way I can’t help but be pleased that your work yielded results (in terms of you feeling clearly better about yourself )

says she having weekly therapy 😬
notquitethereyet 😂

I haven’t read the whole thread, so apologies if this has been mentioned before, but I found the book ‘The unexpected joy of being single’ by Catherine Gray very helpful.

It’s not massively deep but it does challenge the ‘we are made to be in a couple’ idea, and helped me get over that awful ‘alone / not in a couple feeling’. I won’t lie, I do still find it hard sometimes, but on the whole life feels better.

I guess you could argue that it may be easier for people who have been in a relationship because they have some perspective on the downsides, they know what they are not missing. On the other hand there would be a grief for the bits that were good.

Sorry not to be able to do a link to the book, I didn’t have the patience to figure it out as today feels like a hard to be single day, it’s the bank holiday…an extra day of having to, you know, keep your chin up!

I think the key is accepting a situation you can't/ don't want to change and find contentment within yourself " inner peace" if you like You can " ice your heart to others" if you wish, but actually I think it's not a key to happiness, it's a journey to bitterness.
You may think " what do I know"?
Believe me, I get it
I live a happy single drama free life
Am I'm now content.
Nobody else can't find that for you
I suggest counselling to get to know your inner self

Thanks @Thisisworsethananticpated You know the old joke about how many therapists it takes to take a lightbulb? Answer, one, but the lightbulb has to really want to change. Well, it's funny because it's true.

I want ice my heart, so I don’t give a shot anymore.

I didn't find that really helped OP. The feelings just bubbled up somewhere and not necessarily where I wanted them to. I found it better to direct them somewhere. Having an animal to look after and care about can be great. Getting out in nature and realising we're all part of something much bigger was also great. It just helped me gain some perspective on where I was at.

A friend of mine died recently, at a comparatively young age. She had no partner and no children. I've been sharing stories with mutual friends and the thing that comes up time and again is that she changed our lives, sometimes quite dramatically and always for the better. So you can influence people in ways you might not be aware or, but not if you block out all feeling.

You can " ice your heart to others" if you wish, but actually I think it's not a key to happiness, it's a journey to bitterness.

At this point ’bitterness’ is the least of my problems, I don’t care if I turn into one, why would I?
I just need this pain to go away already.
It’s gotten worse and worse over the decades.

If you re read the rest of my post
The key to happiness and contentment is looking inside your self
Think about what would make you happy right now and take steps to achieve it
To do this you need to accept your past and find a way forward