Grant me the peace to accept the things I can’t change,
the courage to change the things that I can change,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Dear Liz:

“I am now 67 and have tried to accept the fact for more than 45 years that I will never know the joy of my own family” – meaning that you believed at 22 years old that you will never have children? Was it a medical event, at 22, that made it impossible to get pregnant and give birth?

You don’t have to answer, of course. Not this question or any other. Answer if you choose to answer.

“I have no friends or siblings in the same position and therefor feel that nobody TRULY knows my pain” – I wonder what your pain is truly about.

“I have had a good and happy life. I have a loving husband, we have travelled, we have a lovely home by the sea and in truth want for nothing material. But inside my heart I will never come to terms with the loss” –

– Do you mean that you had a good and happy life on the outside/ materially, but not on the inside/ emotionally?

“Being the admiring aunt eats me up every time a new family member is placed in my arms…   I recall an incident when his grandchildren were small being told by their ‘other granny’…’don’t try to pretend that they are YOUR grandchildren, because they are not’” –

– reads like you are angry, that you feel cheated out of happiness, envious of your nieces who are mothers, angry at your husband’s ex-wife for rubbing it in your face, so to speak, that you do not have children and grandchildren.

“The prospect of going into old age with no close family terrifies me” – if indeed your life was good and happy on the outside/ materially, but not on the inside/ emotionally, it may be that as you observe the natural deterioration of the material body, aka aging, you are becoming more focused on the unhappiness inside. Is this the case?

“My husband, I am sure doesn’t know how I feel but we never talk about it. I know he would get angry and say something like ‘it’s about time you got used to it’. He has children and grandchildren from a previous marriage” – He is aging too. His heart is aching too, as he experiences his own aging. The fact that he has children and grandchildren does not shield him from emotional pain. Just as if you had children and grandchildren, you’d still be in pain.

“Nobody TRULY knows my pain” – what is your pain truly about? I would like to know.

I am aging too, but my pain is not about the fact that I don’t have children and grandchildren. Much of my pain is about the sorry state of the world, climate change, rising autocracy, Ukraine being perhaps the beginning of World War 3. Scary things. Personally, I think that it’s a good thing that I didn’t bring new people into our world, with so much unnecessary suffering happening and yet to come.

anita

Dear Liz:

I apologize, I forgot to return to your thread… for 10 days, and I regret it. I have no explanation as to how I forgot other than that it must have been very busy in the forums on March 8.

In your three posts you described your life as “a good and happy life“, having “worked hard and enjoyed the comforts that hard work affords“, traveling and having a home by the sea, wanting for nothing materially. And you have a “loving husband“, but emotionally, you feel pain about being childless, and you feel alone with this pain because none of your friends and siblings is childless. The pain is intensified because at 67, “the prospect of going into old age with no close family terrifies me“.

* You shared that your husband has children and grandchildren from a previous marriage, but clearly, you do not consider your husband’s children and grandchildren as your close family.

You shared that long ago “very expensive treatments” to get pregnant failed, and that by the time you lost all hope to get pregnant, you and your husband were “dismissed as being too old to adopt“.  You then found some comfort in treating yourself to “a very special and very expensive kitten“, Ben, whom you loved, but he died within five weeks of you having him, and your heart was broken.

You shared that you took care of your mother for the last 15 years of her life. After she tried to commit suicide (“a very messy failed suicide attempt“), “she became totally reliant on me“, as you spent your time, from about age 51 to 66, “running around after her and spending every last ounce of my resilience making sure she wanted for nothing“. Eventually, she was taken into care, but “her demands didn’t stop until she took her final breath” last year.

At one point, you found out that your brother “has ‘schooled’ our mum on how to commit suicide“, but she botched the attempt and “paid for it for the rest of her life“. You felt great disgust and disbelief about what he did, but he “remained untouched by the misery and heartache he had engineered“.

“My own mother died only last year BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, the final 15 years of her life would have been utterly miserable had she not had me… If and when I can no longer care for myself there will be no one looking out for me” –

* More of my thoughts: I don’t know your brother’s motivation or motivations behind suggesting to your mother how to kill herself. It was definitely irresponsible (and illegal, I figure), to teach an old woman who was not in her right mind how to kill herself. But what was his main motivation? To help her avoid further physical pain (suicide as an act of mercy), or did he want her gone so that he could feel better. Maybe he had your well-being in mind, wanting you to stop running around after her.

I don’t know. I can’t ask you these questions and receive answers right now because we are not communicating at this time, but I hope that you will be reading this and tell me what you think.

If he indeed “remained untouched” by her messy suicide attempt and how it negatively affected her and you, if he seemed and felt indifferent, it leads me to think that he was very angry at his mother, and for a long time, ever since he was a boy.

*** A child’s years long, ongoing anger at his mother is never an indication that there is something wrong with the child, but an indication that there is something wrong with the ways the mother treats the child.

You wrote that being childless you feel “cheated out of happiness, yes, when it comes to seeing the joy that children can give“, and you referred to being childless as the loss: “Inside my heart I will never come to terms with the loss“.

It is a possibility, and only a possibility, that your brother and you were cheated out of happiness by a demanding mother, one who was demanding not only in the years before her death, but before, when you and your brother were children. It is possible that she robbed you and him of the joy only a good childhood can give.

It is therefore possible that the loss you were referring to is the loss of a joyful childhood, one that you did not have. Maybe you invested so much time and effort in those 15 years trying to earn the love of an aging, unloving and demanding mother. In which case, the loss is a mother’s love that was never there.

* The absence of a mother’s love => the absence of a joyful childhood.

I would like to communicate further with you, and I will make sure that I will not forget to reply to you again!

anita

I’m really sorry for your pain Liz.  I had 2 aunts who circumstances prevented then from marrying and having children of their own, but they were such an important part of our family.  One did when I was still a child, but the other passed in her 90s just a few years back.  I can tell you that she changed my life for the better – much better, and I a m eternally grateful.

The “other granny” sounds to me that she was jealous and felt threatened, that she sees genuine affection these grandchildren have for you.  I was only able to have one child, and he and his partner have chosen not to have children. So I did get to have a child of my own, but it seemed to go very quickly.

Fortunately for me, whilst my income is modest, and I don’t travel, I have a little home of my own.  I live alone with my 2 dogs who are like little children to me.  My son and I live quite a distance away. We only get to see each other a few times a year but speak on the phone for a short while each week.

I bet that you are a very especial aunt and that they all love you so much. I did become a great aunt in the last year but haven’t gotten to meet the little one yet as my famiIy are all interstate.

Aunts c a n be special and so are many step-parents and step-grandparents – and those kids most likely j u st see you as granny, not step-granny.

How are you, Liz?

anita