I've been lurking in these forums since April, and this is my first post. I'll try to give a condensed version since there's a lot of information to squeeze in.
I'm 29, female, and I've never had a relationship in my entire life; casual or serious. Not for lack of men trying to flirt with me, but lack of interest on my part.
I grew up surrounded by negative or failed relationships as far back as I can remember. The number of divorces and abusive spouses on both sides of my family leaves me wondering if I'm fated to end up like them. It makes me not want to bother trying at all.
My mother's side is the most obvious. She has four older sisters, all divorced and single. All of them married men that either had a drinking problem, cheated, or took drugs. My grandfather died of a heart attack in the home of a woman he was having an affair with. My mother divorced once then remarried... and chose the same kind of man without even realizing it. A lying drug addict who ended up in rehab while she was stuck at home with a toddler and a baby.
My father's family is no better, but they hide all their problems behind a nice facade. My grandfather was a schizophrenic, so most of them grew up without one of their parents, and my grandmother was too stressed to deal with all of them equally. My father's oldest sister got pregnant at sixteen and was kicked out, forced to marry an abusive man because she had no where else to go; she was also bipolar. I have two uncles on this side; both did hard drugs at some point in their life and one was arrested for stalking. The three remaining aunts are not in happy marriages, but they stay either because of religious ideology or financial reasons.
I'm sure this all seems unreal; it'd make a perfect drama series for cable TV. I can't afford to pay for psychiatric help and there's really no one in the family I can talk to about this. My mother is the one who told me about all these things. She's ill and miserable, but since she can't work she can't leave my father. She tells me all the time that she would have been better off staying single.
There's no way to tell what a person is really like when you first meet them. It takes years, especially if they're a good at hiding it like my father was. My mother isn't stupid, neither are her sisters, and yet they all went for horrible choices in partners; just like their mother did.
Would I like to be intimate with someone? Sure.
Do I want to end up like the rest of my family? I'd rather be a spinster.
Is there even a compromise between the two options?
I'm 29, female, and I've never had a relationship in my entire life; casual or serious. Not for lack of men trying to flirt with me, but lack of interest on my part.
I grew up surrounded by negative or failed relationships as far back as I can remember. The number of divorces and abusive spouses on both sides of my family leaves me wondering if I'm fated to end up like them. It makes me not want to bother trying at all.
My mother's side is the most obvious. She has four older sisters, all divorced and single. All of them married men that either had a drinking problem, cheated, or took drugs. My grandfather died of a heart attack in the home of a woman he was having an affair with. My mother divorced once then remarried... and chose the same kind of man without even realizing it. A lying drug addict who ended up in rehab while she was stuck at home with a toddler and a baby.
My father's family is no better, but they hide all their problems behind a nice facade. My grandfather was a schizophrenic, so most of them grew up without one of their parents, and my grandmother was too stressed to deal with all of them equally. My father's oldest sister got pregnant at sixteen and was kicked out, forced to marry an abusive man because she had no where else to go; she was also bipolar. I have two uncles on this side; both did hard drugs at some point in their life and one was arrested for stalking. The three remaining aunts are not in happy marriages, but they stay either because of religious ideology or financial reasons.
I'm sure this all seems unreal; it'd make a perfect drama series for cable TV. I can't afford to pay for psychiatric help and there's really no one in the family I can talk to about this. My mother is the one who told me about all these things. She's ill and miserable, but since she can't work she can't leave my father. She tells me all the time that she would have been better off staying single.
There's no way to tell what a person is really like when you first meet them. It takes years, especially if they're a good at hiding it like my father was. My mother isn't stupid, neither are her sisters, and yet they all went for horrible choices in partners; just like their mother did.
Would I like to be intimate with someone? Sure.
Do I want to end up like the rest of my family? I'd rather be a spinster.
Is there even a compromise between the two options?
Get The Newsletter
Comment