u/Just-Story-9077

My husband and I recently got married and we came to the conclusion that he makes enough for me to stay at home and be a homemaker. I am SO grateful. I absolutely prefer being at home to ANY job. I've worked so many different jobs and come to the conclusion that I would much rather be at home than anything else. However, what I'm finding is that the days are going by really fast. After cleaning, cooking and grocery shopping, my husband is already home and I had no time for me. No breaks. No time to reflect and live. I was really hoping that staying at home would mean I get time to do the things I want to do like workout, go on walks, work on personal projects. Instead I cook and clean all day and I don't even have kids. How is this happening?!!! Anyone else expirience something similar?

My husband and I recently got married and we came to the conclusion that he makes enough for me to stay at home and be a homemaker. I am SO grateful. I absolutely prefer being at home to ANY job. I've worked so many different jobs and come to the conclusion that I would much rather be at home than anything else. However, what I'm finding is that the days are going by really fast. After cleaning, cooking and grocery shopping, my husband is already home and I had no time for me. No breaks. No time to reflect and live. I was really hoping that staying at home would mean I get time to do the things I want to do like workout, go on walks, work on personal projects. Instead I cook and clean all day and I don't even have kids. How is this happening?!!! Anyone else expirience something similar?

I am completely burnt out on the idea of having a village. I'm curious if any of you also experienced this.

We live in a culture where people online are constantly talking about how everyone needs more community. A lot of people genuinely feel lonely. And I hear the phrase all the time "everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager."

Now, I used to be a huge proponent of the importance of community. I used to repeat that phrase all the time. I used to talk about how you need best friends to do life with. And I used to have friends I would hang out with all the time. We would go on vacations together. We would spend multiple days a week together. We would be the first to call each other we needed anything. In a lot of ways it was great, but over time, it was really overwhelming. I started to feel claustrophobic. I started to feel like I would be seen as a bad "villager" if I wanted to not give so much of my time and energy away.

People have really high expectations on their fellow villagers. They want to spend lots of time together. They want to have the same lifestyles. They want it to sort of be this perfect combination where everyone is doing life together. But over time I found that being a villager is not conducive to having my own financial goals. Being a villager is not conducive to having a healthy, balanced life where I prioritize my own regular workouts and cooking my own nutritional meals and having sacred peaceful alone time. Being a villager is not conducive to prioritizing finding a spouse and spending lots of time with that person. In fact, my community often got in the way of my romantic life. Often, whoever I was dating would comment on the fact that they didn't get as much time one-on-one with me because I spent so much time with my friends in the name of having good community.

Now I'm in my late twenties and I'm feeling really burnt out. I feel like I just spent most of my twenties, which is supposed to be the most healthy energetic time of your life on other people. I don't want to be a villager anymore. I love my friends, but I'm happy with seeing them once a month. I want to spend most of my time either by myself or with my husband pursuing the things we want to pursue together.

While so many people dream of having a "village." I think it's completely overrated. I think life is better when you have a few friends you see every now and then and you spend most of your time pursuing your own goals. I actually regret not being more selfish. I regret not protecting my peace more. Now I'm staring down the barrel of my upcoming 30s and wanting to finally live for myself and my husband.

So if you want a village and you feel like no one wants to be your villager, I recommend evaluating your expectations for your villagers. Because at the end of the day, people want to live their own lives.