I understand how conventional India is and here also.I do get your feelings.I am not sure what you can do about work but if I can think of anything I will get back on this forum.Re children 44 these days is not impossible.

When women beyond 50 are doing this at around 5000 pounds it is not impossible.

With a donated egg  if fostering or adoption is not for you or difficult.But you want a man to be acceptable.I get it and wish I had not felt the same as I would have been an ok single mum after all.You do need money for reproductive technology of course but perhaps your mean brother might be persuaded.Whatever happens do not waste your time with the 39 year old and believe it or not not all men want to have kids and women should really stop beating themselves up about their fertility or not.There are many unhappy people with marriage and kids but they are accepted and that is what we all tend to crave rightly or wrongly.

I am not sure what else to say at present but will come back if anything comes to mind.Maybe review your skills and go on a course or see if you could live with a relative or friend and share costs.But first of all start with thinking outside the box.I am not going to say love yourself or care for yourself because it is hard for some people and society is bloody bloody cruel and the pronatalist culture is quite evil in many ways….people who do not have kids are less well thought of and mocked in some societies and yet there is terrible cruelty to children and unhappy parents.but start with withdrawing your attention from this man and do not make assumptions about what men want.

Angelgirl,

Good that you have the self awareness to know that you have low self esteem and that you are working on it.

You feel betrayed that you have spent on this time and emotional energy into a man who did not appreciate that or you.

I offer that you were expending all this energy more from your desire to be liked.  This is what you learned in order to be considered caring and decent.  I believe those are great qualities but there is that part of discernment and judgement on how and with who to share that with.  You set yourself up to be a victim.  Consider this a learning experience and look back on when you should have cut him off.  Look at his behavior and see what red flags you have missed.  Try sitting down with a piece of paper and write down the chronology of this relationship.   Bring all those learnings to give yourself wisdom for the next time.

Wishing you gentle healing,

Mark

Dear Angelgirl:

“the friend with benefits- .. he came home to tell me that he values the friendship .. So I’ve left it there”- I don’t understand: by leaving it there, do you mean that you are still giving him sexual benefits (“friend with benefits“)?

I wonder how you feel about your mother visiting you for two months, that is a long time. I wonder how you will be spending the time with her…?

“What do I do about my overwhelming feeling of sadness? About being alone? Will that change when I meet a man or should I resolve my feelings and prepare to be alone in my 40s? And for life? .. Will someone love me one day? Or is that a foolish thing to think?”-

My answers: It is not foolish for you to think that a man will love you one day…. but you have to not act foolishly so that a man will indeed love you one day:

– If a man will not date you in public and want to see you only in your flat or his, do not agree to it.

– If a man disregards what you tell him that you want, says okay maybe, but then behaves not according to that okay, do  not continue with him.

– Do not meet one man and figure: this-is-the-one, I have to settle with this one. No, meet a dozen or more men (online dating I am thinking) and interview each  one, in a casual way, ask questions, figure out the man’s values, motivations and plans, see if you approve of those and if there is a match. Do so in a series of casual interviews/ first dates in a public place, such as a coffee shop, a restaurant, or one of those beautiful London parks.

No need for you to resolve to being alone for the rest of your 40s or for life- because there are men out there who are as sad and lonely as you are, and a few of them are decent people, trustworthy. Got to locate just one of those.

About your overwhelming sadness, tell me more about it, will you?

anita

Dear Angelgirl:

I am glad the sexual part of the relationship with this man stopped. When you do resume online dating, after your mother leaves, better do  it in a different way, the way I suggested. I know of the … imagined duty we have as adults to our parents, and I suppose we do have a duty to see to it that they are housed and fed, in case that they are not.

But if they loved us well when we were children and we grew up to be thriving adults, then we will do a whole lot for them later in life not because of a sense of duty, but because we love them back.

Regarding you being “a decent, genuine, affectionate woman. Yet.. have nothing in life”-

– there is noentity sitting above in the sky watching us and taking notes: this person is decent, I will give her a good life, a good husband and a child… this person is not decent, therefore I will give her a lonely, childless life.

No one is watching us taking notes and rewarding us for the good behaviors.

We have to live wisely, to choose wisely, to evaluate and reconsider and make changes where changes need to be made. We can’t make just anything we want happen to  us, but we do have some power to live a better life.

“Yet I have nothing in life”- but you do have life, for now. And so do  I, thousands of miles away from you, typing these very words. We think, we feel, we communicate.

How do you feel about your mother’s visit to come: any excitement, or is it something you just have to do, feeling that you have no choice on the matter… how did it feel for you before, her previous long visits with you?

anita