How do I learn to Live instead of just Existing

[TMJ]

Helo ,

I am new here and unsure if this is the place to be . Alot has gone on in my life recently relationship and family wise .Nearing 50 years old and I just exist ! Nothing makes me happy anymore . Loneliness and sadness is all I seem to know . There's got to be more to life than feeling this way ,I just don't know how to find it . I don't have anyone to talk to about this ,everyone in my life have their own problems and I feel like a burden to discuss my problems with them.  Aswell as the fact that my immediate family ie partner and kids are the number contributor to my sadness. 

[Whatsinaname]

Hi Guest,

Have you ever reached out to your GP to potentially talk to a professional?

Therapy can be a great way to unload what you don't feel like unloading on others, plus give you great coping tools.

I wish you the best and feel free to drop in at anytime.

[TMJ]

Hi there ,

Yes I have ,just trying to get the courage to do so .

Thank you for your message x 🙏 

[Whatsinaname]

I can't recommend it enough.

I struggled for years before seeing someone and wish I did it sooner. Not to say it will fix everything, but its a damn good start.

Talking is can be really cathartic for me, that's why I spend to much time on internet forums 😂 

[Fiatlux]

Hi TMJ,

56 year old girl her..

Hitting 50 was like I had been struck by lightning.

My children were all grown and leaving and getting on with their lives and I was so proud and happy for them. I had worked so hard in my business and career all while steering 3 young ones into growing into whole humans.

So, there I was feeling completely alone and left behind. My marriage was pretty much over but as it was quite an abusive controlling one, that relationship never really ever got started. Yes, makes you wonder how you could be married to someone for over 30 years yet never ever have a real relationship with them. 

In 2028 I felt strong and brave enough to say goodbye to that person and try to reinvent myself and actually start living my own life, without being told what to do or how to do it. Sure I was faced with some very large obstacles and people close to my husband were trying to hold me back and put me back down in my place, living in his shadow. 

In 2019 I had saved up enough money to buy myself a small apartment nearby to my children and workplace. I was pretty fantastic for a little while.

I faced a few tragedies with people who I loved passing away soon after and of course my husband was pretty determined to make sure that the move away and separation from him, wasn’t going to end well for me.

I am back in our family home, just barely cohabiting together with him and our middle child who is 27. The one saving grace is that my eldest and youngest are living independently and are happy. My middle child although doing so much better, went through a long bout of depression and self doubt. So I am back here, just being his mum the best I can be. I don’t have any life of my own.

If I can give you some advice, don’t be me. Don’t let them suck you back in, playing with your emotions and sense of duty. I love my children but I live just for them and nothing else. 🙏🏼

[TMJ]

Hi ,

Thank you for your message .I am sorry to hear you have been through alot . I do know what it is like to be in a relationship for that long too .Although he has grown and learnt from his mistakes he has grown apart from me . He blames me because I withdrew from our relationship when he wasn't a good person to me . I decided at the beginning of this year that I was going to concentrate on myself for once since I'd dealt with so much out of control behaviour from my teen and adult kids .I decided to concentrate on myself and my partner only to  notice he was pulling away and when I brought the conversations up I learnt he didn't feel anything anymore and just felt numb . He proclaims he loves me but has withdrawn all affection. I've cried and tried to fix us but it's failing . I need to learn to live life ( although every part of me wanted to live life together discovering ourselves again) I want to leave as I feel it woild make him happier however neither of us are in a good financial place at the moment so I guess I just have to live for myself whilst still living together. I am also going through the dreaded menopause stage and have no support from him in understanding I can't always control my moods or when my feelings come out my eyes regularly. 

Sorry for the long rant . 

Thank you again .

[Fiatlux]

Oh Dear TMJ,

That f******* menopause. Mine arrived late. Only last 2 years. I suffered severely with it until in November last year I started HRT and almost like magic it started to kick in and now 6 months into treatment I feel almost normal. I have reduced the dosage recently as I was responding well and it feels good to not be a raging hot desperate mess. It often had me in tears.

Husband is 61 now and he isn’t going to change any time soon. The DV and Abuse I have endured, ticks all the boxes on the DV check list so I don’t feel like I owe that man anything. 

*2028 should be 2018… but in 2020 after COVID etc. I don’t know why I let him talk me into going back. I was back and forth for over a year. I felt so terrible that my son was left behind living with his father who can be abusive even towards his children. He switches between being super sweet and caring to aggressive and hostile if those tactics don’t work for him.

My husband may regret some of his words and actions but he can’t take them back and definitely can’t and won’t change. 

If I was ever disobedient, he would tell that he couldn’t see us growing old together… I told him I felt exactly the same. As I would rather not be living with him than endure all his sh*t when he’s older and even uglier. None of us are going to get our youth back, that’s for sure.

I must add that my husband has been a malignant narcissist the entire time that we have known each other. I desperately tried to not marry him. I was 19 when we married. He’s always been nasty and mean and unnecessarily cruel. 

He knew that I wasn’t ever going to tell my family about the abuse so he got away with it for so long. 

[therising]

Hi TMJ

As you try so hard to make your way through this challenge or collection of challenges, I truly feel for you. I think, for a start, we need to be much kinder to our self while we're trying to work out how to live. One of the biggest revelations when it comes to major challenges is 'I don't know how to live under the circumstances because no one's shown me how to do it'. Winging it can definitely become depressing on occasion, with the occasional admission 'I have no idea what the hell I'm doing'. Sometimes, it even becomes the kind of admission you want to scream at people. As a 53yo gal, if I had my way, I'd resemble a ranting venting maniac, screaming from the rooftops 😅. Btw, nothing wrong with expressing our emotions through tears. Some things have gotta be cried out. Better out than in.

I've found nothing's a problem 'til it becomes a problem. Wondering whether you can relate. It's like 'My marriage is not a major problem because I'm so invested in my kids (a distraction from what's so depressing in my marriage)'. Once our kids start doing a lot more without us, it can then become 'Okay, where's my co-pilot/partner when it comes to this winging my way through life thing, without doing it on my own? Oh poop, I forgot that I learned to gradually emotionally detach so that I didn't have to suffer through all the fulfilling stuff they didn't want to do with me in life'. So, when emotional detachment wasn't a problem before (it actually may have served us from not feeling so depressed), now it's a problem.

While I've had blood tests which have not indicated perimenopause, all I can say is 'Oh my gosh, it certainly feels like it at times'. I can feel slight fluctuations in energy as heat, I'm an emotionally sensitive person now more than ever before, I can be intolerant one minute and compassionate to the point of tears the next (depending on the triggers) and the list goes on. With a interest in psychology and aspects of biology and chemistry, I also appreciate the soulful take on this part of my life. If the powers that be dictate 'Okay lady, now that you're giving birth, we're taking you to next level sensitive where you'll be able to feel more than ever before'. Then, at around 50 it kind of becomes 'If you think that level of sensitive was something, you ain't seen nothing yet sister. Hold onto your hat, we're going to a whole other level!'. So, now you can feel everything you shouldn't have to be tolerating, you can feel energy fluctuations within you and outside of you (energy in motion or e-motion, including other people's emotion), you can feel your thoughts, your inner dialogue and a whole lot more. The biggest thing of all to be felt can be the push to discover what it means to truly live. I've found that kinda stuff requires sensitivity and vision...

In recent times I can remember thinking 'What the heck is wrong with me? When I was younger I had great vision. I could see what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be. Now I can't see. I think I'm broken'. Then, in meditation, I met with something sage-like that dictated words along the lines of 'You've spent years conjuring visions for your children, in the way of what would serve them, what would lead them to joy or to suffer less. You've been their seer when they've needed a guide. While you're well practiced in being a seer and guide for others, you're out of practice in regard to being a seer for yourself'. Oh, thank goodness. I'm not broken, just out of practice. Time to start practicing. Pays to have people who are able to see for us, shedding light while leading us in the right direction. Sometimes, it's just so hard to see in the dark on our own, to begin with.❤️