Relationships - Are they worth it in the end

You do sound bored, ethel, but when you get back to work perhaps you can expand your network of friends and acquaintences and find a bit more joy in life. Good luck with that!

see the tread re 'great canal journeys', why cant my neighbours be like timothy and prue.
I realise not everyone can afford to have holidays as I cant but it does prove that some 80+ years old can get out and about.

I do need to be at work I am crying as I write this, if my treatment is not going well I don't think I can stand week after week of this enforced lonliness, trouble is that when Im at work I will forget about making new friends and go back to being a workaholic.

ethelbags1 lots of groups/activities where I live. From WI to a local walking group to dance classes and aqua classes etc etc. I have met loads of interesting women from a wide range of backgrounds and different ages since moving here 3 years ago. Seek and ye shall find!

Over the last 40 years or so I have joined sewing classes, art ,life drawing, therapies, knitting, reading swimming excersise, yoga tai chi and many more. yes I have made friends, my friend who now lives 200 miles away was my constant companion for 5 years till she moved. I find that this works during term time and I can meet up for coffee etc with other students but when term ends they all have their own families and its the same with weekends and I am alone its the same with having an affair, the man goes off with his family and I am left.
Oh yes I have sought and found !

ethel you told us only last week that your treatment is going well!

It might be good to stop this wallowing and worrying and get on with your life, but there again, if it helps to have a moan on here feel free!

Where are you?
Are you near any of us?

I carried out an experiment recently. I realised that now I'm a widow I do 99% of the contacting with my sons. I decided to give it a rest ....

It was ten long days before they contacted me. It was a rather depressing experiment to be honest but it taught me a lot.

I've joined lots of groups and they are mainly retired women and we have interesting conversations. Sometimes a couple of us have a bit of a chat in French!!! I go to the TWG the Mothers' Union and a Knit and Natter group.

I think that's the way forward - join things. My next move is a keep fit group for the elderly. Think I may be on the young side 68 but I can't do vigorous exercise these days.

I even went to a free lunch for the elderly at the local church but I was too young. I spoke to one of the women having lunch and she agreed with me. She said come back when you're 70 . Maybe I'll wait until I'm in my mid seventies.

I was emotionally very dependent on my sons for two years and I'm beginning to realise that it can't go on. They have their own lives to lead and would be there in an emergency.

Op sounds a wee bit low and I hope this is a temporary state that will pass.

I do agree that families come with stresses. Me time is important.

What does OP stand for? I've looked on Acronyms and can't find it.

Original Poster

I couldn't be without my family but I have sometimes thought that just for one day I would like to be on a desert island with all my troubles left on the mainland

Have just found a local art group nearby so I will try and join asap.
we do need our families but need to be ourselves too. Im a bit more philosophical today.

ethelbags1 - I didn't realise you were still working. It must be hard not being able to go to work. I still miss work a lot although I've been retired for 7 years.

I think what has hit home with me is that I am very in-tolerant of what I might call un kind thoughtless people.

Falconbird, I can understand what you're saying. After my DS went through a pretty bad time (of his own making, but nevertheless he was hurting badly and as a consequence, so was I).
I found that now, 5 years on, my overall happiness relied on knowing that he was ok. If he was ok, then so was I. If I hadn't heard from him for a good few days, then I began to become really anxious, and one day made the mistake of texting him and saying something like, "I'm alright, by the way - are you?" He replied quite snippily, saying he was perfectly fine. Later that week his partner told me that my trying to contact him like this made him really angry, because he felt I was checking up on him - which I suppose I was.
I now leave him to contact me. As he said, there was no need to be always in touch, as long as we're 'contactable'.
This isn't really what the OP was getting at, I know.
There have been times when I've felt that I'd like to have a wee cottage, of which no-one knew the whereabouts. I could go there when I needed to get my head together. I think many of us feel like that at times. I would always need to be able to leave it, and come back to them all, though.

Marelli I've often fantasised about having a secret place to disappear to. I once thought seriously about renting a room which none of my family knew about.

Falcon - it really does seem as though you are doing really well - I take my hat off to you.

Thanks Mishap - likewise regarding the hat .

My main problem is establishing a sensible relationship with my adult children, 5 of them including Dils.

It was tricky when my DH was alive and much trickier now. It seems to be the rule that you're there for them 24/7 but you can only appeal to them in an emergency.

They don't want you to be needy but on the other hand too much independence is often seen as coldness.

I agree with the OP that sometimes I just want to give it all a rest and they will have to accept who I am (whoever that might be.)

Any Grans out there who are really experienced in this area and think they've got it right. I'm going to a Counsellor tomorrow to talk it through.

Falconbird: I don't think there is a 'got it right'. We of a certain age, experienced many of the first post war changes in society. An example; being teenagers and having more freedom than our parents.

We now are a new breed of grandparents, not quite fitting into the 'old person' , pensioner, grandparent mould that went before. Probably having to find a different path to follow from our parents/ grandparents image of ' granny in the corner chair'!

You are quite right that we are here 24/7 for our children, but that's what they are used to. Would we not want to be there for them?

You do sound an interesting independent person, I hope your counselling goes well. Enjoy the activities you are involved with. I liked the story of the luncheon club! x

Thanks J52

I hadn't thought of it that way. As usual I guess we are establishing a new way of being in the world.

My Dils don't understand that the people born after the war helped to forge the path that they are now enjoying.

My own widowed mum and my in-laws were extremely needy and demanding but they thought it was their right to be like that - partly because they had been through a major world war.

A generation I really get on with are my female 2nd cousins who are in their early and middle fifties. They are not old enough to be my children, but old enough to have a good understanding of relationships.

It will be interesting to see what the Counsellor has to say because he is not much older than my eldest son who is 45.

And each child has their own personality.

One of my DD's is loving and supportive to a fault - she sees herself as taking care of us.

One is less hands-on, but quietly considerate.

The other is further away but in constant contact.

I am going to be a Pollyanna here. We notice all the relationships that go wrong because people talk about them and seek help.

I am sure the majority of people generally have quite happy and content relationships with their families, occasional ups and downs but nothing serious. Certainly when I look around the people I know I do see families with problems, and I feel sad for them, but they are not the majority.

On the question of friendship, I think advertisements and sites like Facebook create an illusion that most people have lots of close friends and are always having girly evenings in and lunches out, getting together at the weekends with large mixed groups etc etc, but look round when you are eating out, you may see two friends lunching or dinnering together, you will see couples and nuclear families but you do not often see the kinds of groups beloved of advertisers, except when they are works outings.

I have four close friend. Only one lives anywhere near me, and even she isn't that close, we keep in contact by phone and email. But I do have several groups of individuals who hover between acquaintances and friends. We belong to the same interest group that meets up monthly. We do meet up for lunch at the pub that provides our meeting venue on activity days, we know all about each others lives and families, but do not meet socially outside the group.

I disagree with some other posters who said 'we are here 24/7 for our DC/DGC'. I am most certainly not. I do have the advantage that I do not live close enough for them to make demands on us and, yes, I am always there in an emergency. I practically lived with DD for two months after a serious road accident and have responded to DS and family in an emergency as well but I have my own life, my own hobbies and interests and my own friends and just as we fit in with our DC over when we visit, they have to fit in with us.

I need to make new friends. I went to a social event last night and have been absolutely buzzing ever since; alas there won't be another one till October/November time. I'm still missing the contact I had with people when working [although still not the work itself]. Phoned my daughter today for a chat but was soon told that she needed to check on the children [ie you're boring me!]but that my son and his family had dropped in on her yesterday and they'd gone to the pub [I didn't get an invite]. Maybe they'd remembered that I said I was going out last night [but I doubt it]. However, going back to the OP I wouldn't be without any of it but I must stop living my life through the happiness of when my kids were still at home and seemed to like being with me .