Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spinster grandaunt who was a school teacher had a great life. No husband and no kids. A life free of responsibility. After her retirement she travelled a lot. Now, she is in assisted living in Georgia and happy as a clam. Very small carbon footprint too and no fear of climate change, pandemic, societal decay. When she is gone, she is gone.

That is an interesting way to frame things. Apart from being a school teacher and helping students that just sounds like a life of no meaning to me.

Pretty much anyone will leave no memory for future generations. We will be remembered by our kids, unless of course you are Nobel prize winner or built a University hall. Its not how others perceive the meaning of your life: it's how YOU feel about your life.

I know a married couple (also school teachers, and childless) who ended just like that - in the nursing home. They even opted for separate apartments there, so freaking tired of each other in 40 years marriage! They now enjoy playing chess with other patients.

I don't see how their contribution into society or their life was more meaningful vs the example of a single lady.

The idea that you must have kids to contribute to society is flawed. The world cannot handle more people. Why must we have kids or get married? The idea is perpetuated that a well lived kind life has no meaning if it is average. But the truth is that every single person who writes here has not even managed to have an average life. Most have contributed nothing but just consumed and polluted the world. Most have had personal and professional issues and have been unfulfilled. I think the life of a spinster, childless school teacher is great, just as the life of a childless couple is great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:This is indeed a very depressing thread. I've been both: a career person and a SAHM for 10 years. I don't understand what all these SAHM do after kids are off to college. My son is in high school, and his friends matter more to him now than either parent. Honestly I am SO BORED after divorce! My job is what's saving me from a deep depression: it's nice meeting other people daily, do some projects, be on calls.

I can afford not to work living off divorce settlement but I would be drinking big time or something just sitting home.

And yes, I had that noisy, happy marriage (initially until he started living double life) with 3 homes, 3 cars, international travel, dinners with friends, charity events etc. Its all gone in a matter of 2 years.

Having gone through this in my own life, I strongly recommend any educated woman not to leave professional field.

Hmmm...You are divorced. Your kid is with his friends (in a pandemic? okey-dokey). You were ultra rich (3 houses, international travel, charity events). So your lifestyle was certainly a bit different from my lifestyle as a SAHM.

I am with my DH and I have a happy marriage. My DH does not travel and he is home with me every day. He is an involved dad, our main cook, and we share our hobbies. We don't have a jet setting lifestyle (1 home, international travel together, no charity events), and our kids are really working their butts off in public schools in a rigorous STEM programs. When they hang with their friends, we know who they are.

Sorry, your narrative is the narrative of people with unhappy marriages and dysfunctional families. How easily you have said that your kids are ok with their friends and care more about them than either of their parents. Really? My kids would be a mess if ever mom-dad were not together and our family broke up. We are their rock.

There is a big misstep in your life and that misstep is not that you were a SAHM or gave up your professional life. In your case, you being in a job would not have stopped your husband cheating or your divorce. You being a WOHM would not have stopped your kid being not connected to either of his parent.

In fact, you may have reaped whatever you sowed. Your family life would have been what it is regardless of if you were a SAHM or a WOHM.

I only have one child. The divorce lasted for 3 years, and he did so tired of parents fighting that he doesn't want to be involved either with dad or with me much. He lives mostly with me: very academically oriented. Yes, he's in private school: the school is fully in-person now so he's back home at 4. Regardless of how my marriage would have ended, I would be still bored doing nothing till 4pm.

Dont judge your own or others marriage until you know: men are capable of all kind of things. I can write a book "my husband's double life" some day. The marriage didn't feel to me dysfunctional at all until probably 2 years prior to me finding out his affair. Everyone was shocked when we split after 18 years.

Men are indeed capable of doing a lot of things but so are women. For whatever reason your marriage was dysfunctional. It would have remained dysfunctional even if you would have continued in the work force.

Your employment status had nothing to do with how your life turned out. Your life is not a cautionary tale about the perils of being a SAHM. Being a WOHM would not have changed anything about your final outcomes. You would still have had an only child with no siblings who would witnessed parental fights and been distressed, You would have still thought of drinking big time if you had to be home, your husband would have still cheated, you would have still been divorced...

In short, lots of things about your life truly sucks. It would not have been different if you were working. A friend of mine passed away recently. For all her life she tolerated a jerk of a DH who had affairs and mistreated her and their children. She out earned him and outranked him. She was economically emancipated and yet unable to get rid of her DH. I lost all respect for her and all her professional accomplishments are suspect in my eye because she did not divorce him. Her life would not have turned out any different if she was a SAHM. Of course, she would have spent more life with her kids if she had the time to be home. She leaned in to her career because there was nothing to lean in to at home. Kids got raised by nannies though they still cried like babies throughout the memorial and funeral. Her life would not have ended differently if she SAH. Same shitty man who shirked all responsibilities.

Curious, are you as good a spouse and a parent as you were a friend?

Save your sanctimony. You cannot live someone else's life for them. As a friend, you stand by your friends and relatives through thick and thin. Seeing blatant mental and physical abuse, seeing an accomplished woman take that kind of heinous abuse when they have ample choice and means to leave, for their own sake and the sake of their children - you also undergo bystander's trauma. You do not remain unscathed either.

Her life choices will forever remain a cautionary tale in my mind. No one deserves to be abused in a marriage and no one must stay in an abusive situation. Should I assert that she was abused just because she was a WOHM? That, if only if she was a SAHM, her life would have been easier and her marriage better? Maybe, her husband would have been stable? Not given to violence? Maybe all he wanted was a hot meal when he came back home? Was he just HANGRY??? No. This is all nonsense. If you are married to a terrible NPD cruel person who gaslights you and your children all the time, the fault does not lie in your employment status. If that was the case, we would have only seen either WOHMs or SAHMs with terrible marriages.

So, why would anyone come to this forum, give anecdata to show that being a SAHM or WOHM is the sole reason for their marital and personal bliss or complete lack of? Take some personal responsibility and use some common sense. Sheesh!!

DP. Doubling down on being an awful friend, I guess. As said above: who needs enemies with friends like you?

Well, no one needs any external friends or enemies. It seems you can have your best friend or your worst enemy in your spouse. Your choice.

Anonymous wrote:Marriage seems to help men live longer, but not women. In fact, single women tend to live longer than married women, Dr. Friedman found, as did women who take action and leave unsatisfying marriages.

- https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/9-big-lies-about-longevity/5/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spinster grandaunt who was a school teacher had a great life. No husband and no kids. A life free of responsibility. After her retirement she travelled a lot. Now, she is in assisted living in Georgia and happy as a clam. Very small carbon footprint too and no fear of climate change, pandemic, societal decay. When she is gone, she is gone.

Your last sentence sounds like the most depressing thing to me. Most people want to leave something behind.

I disagree. I don’t think most people care.

Agree. I think your aunt’s life sounds great and meaningful. Most people here will end up in nursing homes with kids that don’t visit and that don’t want any of their stuff (except money).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The path to true happiness is to never marry, have a job where you work 9 to 5, and not have kids.

I never married, didn’t have kids, and do part time freelancing.
My life is definitely peaceful.

Let me tell you that people think that a peaceful life is no big deal. But the truth is that it is a blessing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spinster grandaunt who was a school teacher had a great life. No husband and no kids. A life free of responsibility. After her retirement she travelled a lot. Now, she is in assisted living in Georgia and happy as a clam. Very small carbon footprint too and no fear of climate change, pandemic, societal decay. When she is gone, she is gone.

That is an interesting way to frame things. Apart from being a school teacher and helping students that just sounds like a life of no meaning to me.

DP. Uh, wut? Being a teacher is a life of meaning. Do you think being a lawyer gives your life meaning? I personally think being a teacher has more meaning than being a parent.
- parent who is not a teacher

I’m a childless spinster and do meaningless work for the money I need.
My life still has meaning because it means something to me.