u/Queasy-Low-8446

So at some point I do want kids. I’ve been single my whole life and still desire to have a husband, children, and a family of my own.

BUT when I’m around my friends who have young kids, it’s such a shock to me. I love these little people who look up to me as Auntie, but my God, when it’s time for us to part ways, I get to be free from the terrible twos while my friends are still deep in the trenches.

I have a monthly get together with a couple of friends who have toddlers. I have them over, we do lunch with Prosecco, and just spend time together. By the end of the gathering, while I’ve thoroughly enjoyed their company and the sweet company of my nieces and nephews, I’m also glad to be alone.

Right now, I’m unsure if motherhood will happen for me. There’s still a part of me that wants it, but there’s also a very minuscule part of me that might not even care if it doesn’t.

Part of that is because my periods have become obnoxiously heavy. I’m 36 now, and my body no longer functions the way it did when my periods started at 12. They’ve become shockingly heavy. To the point where I’m soaking through tampons and overnight pads. I told my OB-GYN about it last year, and she suggested birth control. I had tried birth control once before, but because I wasn’t using it properly, the way it made me feel turned me off from ever trying it again.

Eventually it got to the point where I was wearing adult diapers to work and filling those up too. Sorry if that’s TMI, but I was tired. I finally went back to my OB-GYN and asked to be put on birth control. I chose Nexplanon, and it’s been fine.

I mentioned it to my mom, and the first thing she said was, “I guess you don’t want to have kids.”

Lately, the push for grandkids has been extreme. My mom raised my sister and me as a single mom. We have different dads. Lately, I feel like she wants a grandchild so badly that she doesn’t care how it gets here. It’s honestly kind of sick. She’ll randomly bring up the name of some guy I liked once and say, “Just go have a baby with him.”

I tell her I don’t want to be a single mom, and she’ll try to convince me that it’s not that bad. But I remember what it was like growing up with her. I know how hard it was, not just for her, but for us.

So lately, while I’d still love to have kids of my own and for a long time thought I couldn’t imagine my life without them, I’m starting to feel differently. I’d rather not have children and be okay with that than knowingly bring a child into a situation I never wanted for them. I’d rather make peace with not becoming a mother than have the life of another person in my hands.

I’m 35F, and I’m exhausted with life.

I was born into a life I never would have chosen if I’d had the choice. My father abandoned me, and my mother was emotionally unavailable and often cruel. She raised my younger sister and me as a single parent. Growing up, I was beaten, disrespected, and constantly afraid of her.

Her childhood wasn’t much different. My grandmother was the same way, if not worse, and carried a lifetime of her own trauma. My mother has two sisters and a brother, but she doesn’t speak to any of them. I don’t have relationships with them either, and truthfully, I don’t feel much toward them.

I was close with my cousins when we were young, but when our parents fell out, those relationships disappeared too. We’ve tried to reconnect over the years, but it’s hard to repair what our parents broke.

My grandmother was never loving toward me. My mother was the black sheep of the family, and I became the black sheep grandchild. She treated me differently than my cousins, so we never formed a close bond. She’s simply my grandmother. I’m fine when she’s around, but I don’t miss her or feel the need to talk to her when she’s not.

My mother has forgiven her and built a close relationship with her, but I haven’t. She constantly tries to make me feel guilty for not having the same relationship.

Recently, we had a conversation about how distant I’ve become. She told me she struggles with it, but she either doesn’t remember or doesn’t understand the things that happened during my childhood that have stayed with me. She doesn’t seem to recognize that my distance is a direct result of the way she parented me.

I make six figures, but money always feels tight. It’s just me. I’ve never had a partner to share life with, so every responsibility falls on me. It’s exhausting. Not only have I never had a partner, but it often feels like men either don’t notice me or, when they do, I’m disposable to them.

I attribute so much of who I am today to my childhood. I struggle socially and can be awkward. There are things I should have learned growing up that I never did.

I used to long for love, marriage, and children of my own. Now, most days I can barely find the energy to take care of myself, let alone imagine caring for someone else. It feels like I’m just existing.

I work, and that’s about it. I don’t have many friends who call or invite me out. When I’m not working, I’m home, and most of my time is spent sleeping. Sleeping and eating are, unfortunately, the things that bring me the most comfort.

Life just seems so gray at times.

When I wake up, I’m already looking forward to going back to bed. More and more, I find myself thinking of each day as just one step closer to the end that all of us will eventually reach. I need a rainbow at the end of a storm.

I have been depressed for as long as I can remember. I was constantly yelled at, beat, and manipulated by my single mother it made me become a shell of a human.

In school I didn’t have many friends. I lived in ny until I was 11 and I went to school with who looked like me and shared my West Indian background but then we moved to Virginia where I was the only student in the class who looked like me. It was easy to relate and make friends in ny but I struggled in Virginia.

I went away to school no one in my family went to college I was just told it was something I had to but I didn’t exactly know what I was doing so I did majored in communications. The major my advisor suggested and I never changed it.

I faired well in college. I made friends. I was away from my mom who I felt I had been a burden to and now she was wanting to talk to me all the time and asking why I never called.

I graduated got my first state job and then was climbed the ladder to becoming a CoS. My last job was very toxic. I was the black person in a room of white leaders and I was made to be seen an not heard. I was the diversity hire. After shutting down and falling in line with how they were treating me. I was threatened with a performance improvement plan or work at the agency for a few more months and then leave. I chose to formally leave 2 days later. Regardless of how I was treated I felt like a failure.

A friend of mine was building out his office and recommended me to be his chief. The dynamic of being his friend didn’t work well with the role. He put me in another role to put a layer between us and hired a new chief. My office respected me but I feel like this new chief is going to take the office to new heights. I feel like I wasted my friends time. I feel like I failed to succeed the second time in this role. I lost my parking spot, office, and title. I’m now working at a desk not a cubicle in a communal space. I feel displaced. My friend/boss wants me to acknowledge the move as lateral but it hard to look at it that way. I feel like I failed again. I know longer know what to do with my career.

I’m turning 36, single, have never been in a relationship, lonely, and feel lost with no backup plan. In many ways, all of it traces back to my upbringing.

Today I cried in front of the new chief of staff. Everything was coming to a head. I’ve been crying for days now.

I’ve tried therapy. I’m on medicine. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I wish I could’ve been loved right.

I’m tired.

Broken

I have been depressed for as long as I can remember. I was constantly yelled at, beat, and manipulated by my single mother it made me become a shell of a human.

In school I didn’t have many friends. I lived in ny until I was 11 and I went to school with who looked like me and shared my West Indian background but then we moved to Virginia where I was the only student in the class who looked like me. It was easy to relate and make friends in ny but I struggled in Virginia.

I went away to school no one in my family went to college I was just told it was something I had to but I didn’t exactly know what I was doing so I did majored in communications. The major my advisor suggested and I never changed it.

I faired well in college. I made friends. I was away from my mom who I felt I had been a burden to and now she was wanting to talk to me all the time and asking why I never called.

I graduated got my first state job and then was climbed the ladder to becoming a CoS. My last job was very toxic. I was the black person in a room of white leaders and I was made to be seen an not heard. I was the diversity hire. After shutting down and falling in line with how they were treating me. I was threatened with a performance improvement plan or work at the agency for a few more months and then leave. I chose to formally leave 2 days later. Regardless of how I was treated I felt like a failure.

A friend of mine was building out his office and recommended me to be his chief. The dynamic of being his friend didn’t work well with the role. He put me in another role to put a layer between us and hired a new chief. My office respected me but I feel like this new chief is going to take the office to new heights. I feel like I wasted my friends time. I feel like I failed to succeed the second time in this role. I lost my parking spot, office, and title. I’m now working at a desk not a cubicle in a communal space. I feel displaced. My friend/boss wants me to acknowledge the move as lateral but it hard to look at it that way. I feel like I failed again. I know longer know what to do with my career.

I’m turning 36, single, have never been in a relationship, lonely, and feel lost with no backup plan. In many ways, all of it traces back to my upbringing.

Today I cried in front of the new chief of staff. Everything was coming to a head. I’ve been crying for days now.

I’ve tried therapy. I’m on medicine. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I wish I could’ve been loved right.

I’m tired.

I think I’m in love with my boss.

We met in 2018 when we worked in different offices. We became friends pretty quickly, and after about a year I admitted over text that I had a crush on him. But before I sent that text, there was this one time I had invited him over to hang out, or at least that’s what I thought it was. At some point he tried to mess around with me, but I stopped him because I didn’t want to have casual sex with him. I liked him too much for that. He stopped and never tried anything again for years.

We continued hanging out after that. I’d go over to his place sometimes, fully prepared for something to happen if he wanted it to, but he never tried.

After I eventually told him I liked him, he never responded to the text. He just carried on like he never saw it. I was embarrassed and fully prepared to never speak to him again, but he kept calling, texting, and showing up like nothing had changed.

At one point, someone asked him about me and he said, “We’re great friends and I don’t want to mess that up.”

Whenever I got frustrated by his lack of interest, I’d ignore his calls and texts, but he always found a way back and would ask where I’d been.

Over the years, he got to know my family, and I got to know his. Eventually he took a job in another city, and I threw him a going away party. At the end of the night, he kissed me on the cheek and told me he loved me. I didn’t think much of it I assumed he was just being sentimental.

Then later that night, around midnight, he called and asked if he could come over. We slept together for the first time. A few months later, it happened again, and then eventually life pulled us in different directions. We lost touch for a while outside of occasional check ins.

Even while we weren’t close, he still recommended me for two major jobs over the years. The most recent one became an incredibly toxic and mentally exhausting situation, and when I needed a way out, he hired me to work in his office.

Now I see him every day, and honestly, it’s a lot.

To be honest, when he first proposed the idea of me working in his office, I wasn’t happy about it, and he could tell. Initially, we had talked more about him helping me transition into a different office altogether, which I would have preferred. But at the time I didn’t feel like I had many options, and I needed to get out of the situation I was in.

We’ve both stayed professional and neither of us has crossed the line, but all of my feelings for him came flooding back, stronger than before. We’re older now, and there’s something more intentional about the way he treats me. When he talks about us, he says “we” in a way that almost sounds like he pictures a future. But I also feel like a part of me is being delusional.

Last week he casually asked, “If I moved back to my old city, would you come with me?” I immediately said yes. I still don’t know whether he meant for work or something more.

Recently, during a meeting about my progress at work, I told him he can be difficult to work with sometimes. He smiled and said, “You know it’s all out of love, right?” He’s super smart he’s already accomplished so much in his career and he’s no where near where he wants to be. In a way I viewed that statement as him just being a mentor to me so I can also be successful in my career.

Without even thinking, I quietly told him I loved him too. I don’t know if he heard me.

Part of me wants to finally ask him if there could ever really be an “us” so I can stop living in this in between and either move forward or let it go.

Any advice would be much appreciated.