Firstly: {{{{Sel}}}} Other women manage childcare without grandparental drudgery, so I prescribe a trip just for you, for starters. Sometimes to be effective one also has to be selfish. Giving is a 2 way street and you have so much credit in that dept it's perfectly reasonable to demand some back imho....
stevenw888 wrote:I'm sure that it doesn't but I'm interested in finding out why.
I think it largely depends on one's own family, psychology, circumstances and for me, age. My perspective: I couldn't wait to leave my parents house to grasp the world with 2 naive but eager hands, being responsible for myself. I had no desire whatsoever to fall into the marry the boy next door cliche - he did try
I felt wholly ill equipped to swap one dysfunctional house for a possible other one. I wanted to explore and understand my inner and outer worlds and mature before committing myself to anything or anyone. Living communally I learnt how important making one's own space is. When I first lived alone, in a tiny flat that I owned, it took quite a while to overcome what Emma identified:
Emma wrote:It doesn't help that living alone and being single, especially if one has always been single, still carries quite a powerful social stigma, and often seems to invite pity.
However, the joys of living alone and my growing personal strength overcame that. It was only when the biological clock started ticking deafeningly that I shared my home with my daughter's Dad. It wasn't a good place for me, I still longed to be alone. Now in my mid 50s, as I said in my first post in this thread: "the times I am alone I relish with great enthusiasm." Perhaps I'm selfish, but I do know I'm a far more relaxed and nicer person for extended periods alone, and I'm hugely looking forward to downsizing to a completely new place when my youngest finishes school.
It perhaps might have been good to have met a soul-mate and lived my life differently, as many of you have. But I didn't. And I don't miss it because I've learnt the difference between being alone and being lonely, and I am never the latter...
we really need that smug bastard smilie