Can’t stand it when people say this

[emilysgoldskirt]

I’m a single mum and I hate it when people in marriages or partnerships say ‘maybe you should just have some time on your own’ whenever you fancy someone or have a date.

I really wish people would stop saying this. Usually people in my situation have endured a lonely marriage, and now spend every evening alone. It seems so excessively mean for people who are coupled up and have a constant companion to be dishing out this advice. Why shouldn’t you seek out company, sex, love, whatever if you want it?

Bit of a rant.

That is a good reminder to me to talk positively and without doubt about things I am into and sure of, then perhaps friends more likely to respond in kind.

I get what you're saying OP, and I think you are bring unfairly roasted on here. Maybe some of it is deflection. People perhaps in less than satisfactory marriages themselves slightly jealous perhaps that you have been brave enough to break off poor relationships.

I'm just working through this now as I'm newly widowed - and one good friend said I should wait four years before I'd be ready to head back out there.

FOUR FUCKING YEARS!!

I just spent three years in the cancer shit, why the hell should I further bury myself in loss and grief to serve some social sacred cow!

So yes, the people who comment with little basis on the individual concerned are out there.

Any spark of joy, hope and love should be treasured and encouraged - you're an adult, and sure we all have our blind spots, and the best of friends can spot these and suggest things, but it really is your life to live. I would listen to people saying be careful, and weigh it up with your internal lights.

I know on reflection my friend is probably right, I won't want a full blown relationship for a long while, but freedom, fun and new friendships - absolutely yes, I need a bigger life not a smaller one - and once I explained to my friend she was way more understanding.

That’s a good way to frame it. People can only go by what you tell them, and on the face of it, you’ve described your last three relationships as seeming to be characterised by being drawn out and fruitless: a dead marriage; a long-distance, underwhelming relationship where you saw each other infrequently; this latter slow-starting situationship which has taken a while to get off the ground. To somebody on the outside, none of these sound rooted in any particular happiness or enthusiasm - and if one of my friends was describing their relationships to me like this, my response probably would also be “is any of this really worth it? Surely being single is easier than this doldrums?”

Good point @ComtesseDeSpair. The present fellow I like very much. Maybe it makes me anxious to tell my friends that in case it doesn’t work out. Definitely food for thought there.

I’m sorry for your loss @Timeforabiscuit. You definitely deserve happiness and joy.

You seem to be down on your friends who have shagged loads of blokes previous to marriage and those who are burning their way through online dating - that’s kinda what your friend is suggesting. Have some fun, take time for YOU, meet a man, enjoy some dates, sex, throw them back. Why follow long term relationship with long term relationship when you refer to them as underwhelming and sound unhappy? Sounds like your friend had the right idea, play the field, suss out men you do like from the twats, have some fun, then settle down with a good ‘un. Sorry but that’s the ideal isn’t it?