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.

I think saying you're lonely has triggered some people @Sonervousimgonnathrowup . Like it's not a choice to be single, it's often luck. Same with kids.

I think a lot of people don't want to accept that sometimes there aren't easy answers and like to play armchair psychologist. If there was an easy solution you would have thought of it!

You came here for moral support not tone deaf platitudes.

I would say, when I went through a really lonely period I had a breakdown, I came through it though. I'm sorry you're having a hard time OP.

I was there at 36 and so I got a cat. Luckily I had no desire for kids so avoided that issue. I took a break from the dating apps as it was just relentless and draining. I accepted I am the type men date and stay friends with but not settle down with.

I did read lots of books on settling. Which I suppose is working out what you want and going for that -if kids then look into going it alone, maybe its companion etc.

I did go back to the dating apps after a year and met someone nice and we moved straight in. He would not be most women's cup of tea (nerdy, likes programming) but then neither am i really.

I would not say there is something for everyone but I accepted had options (from tinder shag to fwb's to just suitable men who I didn't "fancy" whatever that means) and I could chose those types of relationship if I wanted to.

Yep, I know this situation. There are a few things I'd suggest, in no particular order.

Find something which gives your life meaning - it might be volunteering, study. A partner and children are an easy way to give life meaning, but if that's not your path, you need to find something else that provides the same meaning.

There's an organisation called Gateway Women, for women who are single and don't have children - the woman who set it up has also written books on the topic.

Consider what you've held back from doing 'until you have a partner" - in the same way that we think 'when I'm slim I'll....', then do those things anyway.

Let yourself grieve, feel bad, get bitter - rant on online forums, thrash yourself at the gym, but let the grief out, and it gradually will run it's course.

Have a friend edit - anyone who is patronising or dismissive about your situation needs to be put on the cooler.

Try and make new friends when you can.

Therapy, to understand your own feelings.

Great advice @Speedweed

I think for me, I didn't envisage at 54 being single and childless and feeling like a bloody failure... it's not as though I have invented a medical cure or wrote a best seller.
I seemingly have a great life, beautiful flat, relatively in shape, well paid jobs, holidays, friends etc but actually I feel really alone. I understand OP. I am sorry that you have had a hard time on this post. If I had children I think at least for most of us that would be one of life's goals and a source of love.

I'd get another dog OP - maybe even two. They'll keep you so busy they'll take your mind off things for a bit at least.

It is hard, and the ‘must have the last word’ posters don’t help.

I have one and honestly it makes a difference

I think, from the responses and your subsequent responses, OP, you are going round in circles when you need not be.

When you say you are single, not by choice, I don't think it's a huge stretch to therefore assume you do want to be in a relationship. But you say this can not happen. The posters saying the cliché "when you least expect it" are not saying this out of thin air, they are drawing on their life experience when they were in your position, were adamant they would always be single, then randomly and unexpectedly, they met someone. Whilst this doesn't help you find someone, because it was just pot luck, they are just trying to show their experience and that one day, you may find what you are looking for. They are trying to share hope. Not clueless and not understanding your thread.

The other advice that you have been given, is in general, many ways to keep busy, or to find companionship, that falls outside the remit of a relationship. But you seem a bit annoyed, in that it's not a substitute for a relationship. It won't be. But again, it's what those in your position did and it worked for them, so they can only share their lived experience.

It's a bit, you're adamant you will never have a relationship, but nothing else suggested will do as an alternative.

You need to find true acceptance of being single, and there have been many suggestions on this thread as to how you can help with that. Try some?

It's a bit, you're adamant you will never have a relationship, but nothing else suggested will do as an alternative

Quite. I think if a person abdicates responsibility for solving their problem, they need to learn to accept the status quo. Otherwise it just creates an additional internal disagreement, and one that's impossible to resolve.

Exactly this

I think in your position @Sonervousimgonnathrowup , I might ask myself what would I have been hoping for from a relationship/kids ie what would I have got...not practical things but ideas like "sense of self-worth", "a meaning to my days", "a shared goal to aim for", "the feeling that I'm important to somebody".

And then once you have your list, maybe move on to how you might get those things from other situations, whilst being single and not wanting to be in a relationship.

So for example "the feeling that I'm important to somebody" might suggest ideas of helping other people, maybe you visit elderly people, or befriend a family that needs some practical support; all of these would need you to go through an agency I imagine, rather than randomly finding someone who needs you - unless you know of someone of course.

"A shared goal to aim for" might lead you to join a local environmental project or campaign to save the local hospital or whatever, and in the process you will meet other people who can enrich your life, and you theirs.

I wonder if, in that way, you could build your day-to-day life to feed you with all the emotional nourishment that you feel is currently missing?

Yes, I know it will.
I haven’t been ready yet.
But dogs (pets) are wonderful, and there is the build in reason to do evrything, at least for me.
Readon to wake-up and come home and go for a walk, take care of someone, someone’s happy you exist and wants to spend time with you.
I’m always looking shelters and dogs that need adoption, I want another rescue dog at some point.

what would I have got...not practical things but ideas like "sense of self-worth", "a meaning to my days", "a shared goal to aim for", "the feeling that I'm important to somebody

The thing is, with this sort of stuff, which is really important, lots of it can be done by you, for yourself. Feel important, for yourself. Give meaning to your days yourself, give yourself a sense of self worth.

It's not always healthy to rely on someone else for these things.

Maybe, but if I look at my family member who is approaching 60, never cohabited, never had children, never went on a holiday together, doesn't have parents anymore, no siblings then I do feel that feeling lonely coupled with being so alone might be a more unique feeling than feeling lonely and mentally exhausted with kids. At least the future could be less bleak because you'll probably still have family dinners and birthdays and christmasses and such in a couple of years, whereas their dituation doesn't change.

I get your point that you can be utterly lonely with kids, or in a relationship, but I do think that being very alone as well is a different experience from that.

I don't know how old OP is. It's a dramatic statement to make in your 20s/30s, for example.

I spent years and years alone in my 20s and early 30s and assumed I would be on my own, wanted to be and did not want to have kids ever, after heartbreak but then life changed.

I've been single 5 years now after the end of a very shit marriage/relationship. It's the longest I've been single. I've dabbled in dating but at the moment I'm enjoying life. The loneliness does rear its head at times but I just have to remember that I actually have quite a fulfilling life and if I meet someone who enhances that then great.

I have cats they're my world they also love unconditionally, but I've also found a love for working out at the gym, riding my bike and I'm now doing a job I love so that keeps me busy. I meet friends for lunch or go out for dinner, I go for after work drinks. Some months I'm busy every weekend.

The single friends that I have are the most sociable people I know. They have more friends and they make more of an effort to see their friends, I assume because they have more time.

They go and see films, theatre, exhibitions just because they want to (and they don't have to spend all their money on kids/other people), they do lots of different activities, and they go on holiday either with friends or on their own – and they really enjoy themselves. They seem to have a great time. One is retired and just hasn't had a relationship for years, the other, who is still working, was widowed 20+ years ago.

The single friends you describe could be me. Tbh I do all these things but it doesn't stop the feeling of actually being alone.... It's actually quite exhausting, I miss having someone to have quiet times with.

@Changes17 that doesn’t mean it isn’t lonely sometimes though. Someone having an active social life does not equal not lonely, unfortunately.

@Livelifelaughter your post appeared as I was reading and yes!

It’s also expensive - especially when you (as the single one without children) have to travel. I get it, I do, but it’s a lot.

I think I understand OP
i describe me as being crippling lonely

I have never had a relationship or boyfriend/girlfriend let alone a partner or kids

I am disabled and no understand a lot and lived with my dad until he died then I had to move to a house by my own and been by my own ever since

I go to work but all my team are remote workers and wfh so I usually do no see anyone at work either and I got no family any where near

christmas, weekend evenings and bank holidays can be the worse cos everyone got time to spend time with

I cope by hitting the gym hard every day after work. I do gym classes every day and have made genuine friends there and we have fun. Actually I am actually looking forward to the may bank holidays for the first time ever cos my friend who is a fitness trainer is holding outdoors bootcamps on the Monday mornings by the sea. It is a good 1 hr walk there (I listen and sing to the radio as I walk) then a 1 hour having the best time working out with my friends then the walk home so that is the morning done and I am on a high which helps me the rest of the day

I have taken up going gym and running on the treadmill at weekends or I go gym and just do some stretching cos it gets me out the house

people really do no understand. I have a friend who has just split up with her partner and she message me to say it is good to be by you own. I replied saying I have only ever been by my own and it is no good for me ☹️ if I did no go out every day I could go weeks without talk to another human

i make sure my friends who care about me know how much I love and care about them but yeah the loneliness hits me so hard sometimes it makes my chest hurt

I think the first response to your op according you off being tone deaf was unfair.
You're describing your heartbreak and asking for constructive ways to approach coping with it.

It's not a comparison to other kinds of heartbreak, it isn't a denial that people in the situations you mention might not have their own struggles which may not may not look a lot like yours.

You just have a deep unmet need with no prospect of that changing. You have sorrow for that.
I think asking how one might cope, without having 'at least this or that' or 'well the grass isn't greener on the other side really you know' in the mix is perfectly reasonable.

I am not in your situation, but I have other issues which may have done synergy in helpful coping approaches.
For me it's connection, community and purpose. Whenever I feel like I'm subbing into the tar pit of a broken heart I try to make myself look outwards because the more I ruminate and turn in on it the worse I get.
So I try to help others, meet people, do things, make a contribution to something.

It's not a fix but it helps. Sometimes I think being human is so hard, we have these complex social minds and live in societies almost entirely geared to couple-dom and it is brutal.

I think smaller simpler societies where there is a community that you're part of that is there when you need it is more human. So I think try to look for groups that mimic that kind of you matter and belong, you're seen and appreciated feeling, is helpful.

Oh my, typo city... Hope you can decipher

Thank you!
So well said.
It’s not a competition on who’s the most loneliest, it’s just totally different worlds.
The pain may actually be same, but life, what’s going on and how the future is going to be are just vastly different.