What's a painful truth you've had to swallow?

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After seeing your new avatar pic does this mean you'll be bringing someone else into our online marriage? :p

Or, does it just mean I'll be paying double online spousal support? Ha! ha!
Lol think you can support all my alter egos? 🤣
 
That even though I disagree with society and the direction it's gone, if I want an at-least normal life and a relationship, I have to act pretty much the same as if I did agree with it.

There doesn't seem to be any way to disagree, in a way that actually improves anything. All you will end up doing, is hurting yourself.

All I know is, I don't like or agree with society. I feel like it's full of hypocrisy and lies, dysfunction, and is straight-up evil, rotten to the core.
At the same time I always knew I didn't want my life to be like how my parents' lives are turning out, either.
They weren't subculture members or anything like that, that actively went against society.
They just didn't pick good majors, didn't get good careers, probably at least somewhat hooked on media, and the situation just got worse from there, from "unfashionable/unglamorous but still at least livable" in my youth to "actually sucking" from the mid-2010s to today.
I don't feel like they had a plan, I feel like they just kind of winged it.
And just to be clear, alcohol, drugs, or crime were not factors at all.
But I'm afraid I can't do much better, even if I had a plan. I feel like any plan I could make would be ruined by inherent incompetence. I feel like I just won't be able to get enough things right, or I'll forget something, or do it in the wrong order, or won't be able to anticipate everything.

I think it put me off hard work, because I saw them work and get nowhere anyway.
I saw lots of people work and get nowhere anyway - everyone in stores, restaurants, other customer service stuff, the guys that mow lawns - even jobs that require degrees, but are just the wrong fields. Working on something just to not get paid, always seemed stupid to me - like why the hell would you go into something that doesn't pay anything? But it's a trap a lot of people seem to fall into.
Also, I never had anything that I felt like I could work hard and get good. I worked, and nothing happened. My input had no meaningful, significant effect.
It didn't seem to be just about working hard, it seemed like something else. I always thought that "something else" was "being born special/superior", "being born as the right kind of person with the right body, brain, mind, interests, personality" which I felt like I was not, WE were not, because we were basically behind everyone else here, except for the few that were doing really badly - basically we were doing as low as you could go while still living in a house instead of renting. But I never wanted this lifestyle either. I always wondered, why can other people get it together and get ahead, but not us? What the f*ck? Why is this who we are?

Life always seemed split into two groups: people who things worked out for, and people that life didn't work out for, and we seemed like we were in the latter camp. I wonder how much different our lives would be, or how much different I would be, if we tried harder. Was there any way we could have been successful, or were we always doomed to this misery? Maybe the other kids from professional backgrounds grew up feeling like the system worked, because it worked for their parents so they thought they had the same genes to allow it to work for them as well. I didn't have this. I saw us not getting organized, not getting ahead of our problems, not getting any traction, always struggling and getting nowhere and just giving in to screens. This, plus my own feelings that I lacked any sort of high cards that made me strong at anything/made anything particularly easy for me, made me catch on fast at anything, made me feel like we just weren't people that life wanted to work out for, and it wouldn't have mattered if we tried to do the right thing, to the letter - we just weren't competent enough. I've tried doing things in the past, lots of things, but I never felt any particular aptitude for anything. It's got to be one of the things I hate about myself the most, because it's made my life hell.

That said, my brother grew up in the exact same situation, and is now living a life that I considered reserved for "the better people". Or at least he is on track for it. He's already been living many times better than we ever have, for a while now. So maybe it is possible for me too, and this discouragement is all in my head. With me, I got discouraged, angry, and quit. Maybe it didn't affect him as deeply, or he responded to it in a different way.

I guess that's the thing. I'm afraid that I'm like this too, and nothing I could do will work. Therefore I am not inspired to try. Pessimism is like a drug, and I've been a lifelong user. Even as an elementary school kid I was pessimistic. I got it ingrained early, that if you weren't naturally one of the top people, it was hopeless and you might as well forget it/not rack your brains about it because it won't do you any good anyway.




Basically,
coming from an unsuccessful background where we struggled with things other people seemed to not struggle with,
combined with thinking I didn't have naturally strong enough traits to be successful at anything,
and that you had to be good to start with in order to be able to get better and I wasn't,
really f*cked me up, made me feel powerless, hopeless, and uninterested in anything,
because I felt like whatever, it's probably not going to work out for me anyway, we couldn't do it, other people can't do it, so what the hell makes me think it's going to go any differently or better for me when I don't feel special either?
 
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I don't have the courage to change my situation
-I gotta do it myself for myself. No one is coming to help.

^ I feel both of these, definitely.

Also - I always had to do a little extra work, and put in a little more conscious thought, to be able to be on par with my peers. Life was never going to be as automatic for me, as it seemed to be for them. They could just be the way they always were, and it was fine because their traits and "the way they were" just so happened to be the right thing, while my traits and "the way I was", was not. I always felt less than them physically, mentally, imaginatively, financially, etc., but my response to that was just saying I wasn't the right type of person, that I wasn't randomly dealt the right stuff by life, and then from there I gave up on life altogether, instead of getting on their level.

For a long time I stayed in either feeling insulted and humiliated that I had to do more work than them and wasn't just automatically "right" like they were, or unlucky and hopeless, instead of consciously trying to figure out how to get on my peers' level and just do things correctly.

I can only hope I can catch up now, and catching up is important to me. I've tried giving up, and I did because I thought it was all I could do, but I hated it, it was never the life I wanted - it was just what I was afraid was all I could do.
 
That I may never find a partner. I don't mind being alone but it would be nice if I knew I would find someone down the road.
 
That you can do everything right and still fail. Cliche as it is.

Since splitting with my abusive ex in 2018, I have done everything I could to get the life I want and there’s still so many setbacks and hurdles.

I’m grateful for where my life is. But the fact I can’t possibly do any more than I have to get the life I want sucks. Good paying job? Check. Wife and kids? Check. But I’m still being punished for past mistakes.

Like I can’t buy a house despite being able to afford one because I had to declare bankruptcy after I spilt with said ex. We make way more than I ever did with my ex and I pay rent higher than what my mortgage would be even with general repairs and maintenance.
 
That you can do everything right and still fail. Cliche as it is.

Since splitting with my abusive ex in 2018, I have done everything I could to get the life I want and there’s still so many setbacks and hurdles.

I’m grateful for where my life is. But the fact I can’t possibly do any more than I have to get the life I want sucks. Good paying job? Check. Wife and kids? Check. But I’m still being punished for past mistakes.

Like I can’t buy a house despite being able to afford one because I had to declare bankruptcy after I spilt with said ex. We make way more than I ever did with my ex and I pay rent higher than what my mortgage would be even with general repairs and maintenance.
We were in the same position once upon a time - my husband declared bankruptcy and we couldn't get a mortgage. Once the bankruptcy has cleared from your record (we were in B.C. at the time, so 7 years), that will all change. In the meantime, make sure to keep your credit squeaky clean - pay all your bills on time, every single month. A missed payment will set you back again. If you don't have credit—like a secured credit card/similar kind of thing—get one. That will start rebuilding your scarred credit record. We weren't able to buy a house until we were well into our 40's. It sucked, but there is light at the end of the financial tunnel.
 
I will never have a normal life, I will never earn enough money. I'll probably never get a good job. I can't even think of something real, where I can start. I can't even advice to my kid, what kind of education to get. I'll probably never manage to legalize. Whenever I have an opportunity to buy a real estate, I make a wrong choice it's something illiquid and it ends with losing money. I'm the black sheep...
 
Good topic.

For me it is hard to explain, but I'd say it is the realization that I am likely always going to be alone.
I've been alone for a long time. And the older I get, the deeper I get and the worse my chances are.
And also the realization that the women that I like, just do not really like me. Women do like me to deal with me in the workplace, as a customer, in some business-like relation, etc., because I am an honest, decent and respectable person. (At least I think so). But as far as someone to have a romantic relationship with, that just does not seem to be good enough.
I feel the same way as you. I get along w/ my work employees but to have a companion may be out of the works for me. I don't like anyone meaning I don't like any men that's in my area.
 
That it's not so much my lack of talent that is the problem. But my lack of consistent self discipline and addiction to creature comforts.
 

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