Vivian Rose Grace

So many times I’ve felt as though I’ve ended up alone floating down a viewless river with no way to get off, while my friends have been on a different, more picturesque route filled with family fun, laughter and love. I spent a lot of time and tears trying to work out how to get to where they were, eventually realising that it was impossible.

My relationship with my mother was probably the start: she was very caring but demanded very high standards. Crucially she had a very challenging relationship with her own mother which led to multiple mental health breakdowns. Her unfathomable sense of duty towards her mother (despite the problems it caused) became instilled in me. When my mother couldn’t cope I stepped in. I learned to push my own needs aside, and I learned to work hard and strive for perfection.

My schoolfriends learned how to prioritize their own needs, but I was not encouraged in this way. Many of the times my girlfriends were out with the boys they would go on to marry, I was at home trying to make my mother’s life more bearable.

I had relationships with people I met through work, but they didn’t work out. Then I made the biggest mistake of my life and got involved with a married man who turned out to be abusive. I fell into a deep depression, which I kept secret from all my friends because I felt so ashamed.

As my friends settled into married life it seemed they had much less time for those of us who were single: evenings out for couples tended to be with other couples. I got left out – and it hurt. But reeling from depression, and struggling with social anxiety and shame it suited me to not be so sociable.

The one thing I could do was work hard. I couldn’t even name my own needs, let alone pursue them. By now I was accustomed to putting everyone else first including the whims of an abusive partner and the demands of my job.

Gradually children started to come into the picture, and life changed again. Even less time for friends, unless they too had children. And those long term friends of mine found new friends through the other new mums they were now meeting. But for me, nothing new was coming to replace the old friendships that were ebbing away.

I moved jobs – often a chance to make new friends. However, most of the people in my age bracket had children and partners – and I just didn’t fit. Anytime I met someone new they asked if I had children, or were curious as to why I wasn’t married, and I often felt like a failure for not having achieved these very “normal” milestones in life. This just piled onto those feelings of shame.

A new thing started happening too – flexible working to support parents was more prevalent – and the rest of us were doing the extra to enable other people’s part time hours. When there are no children to pick up, and no partner to spend time with it is all to easy to do the extra hours time and again, and eventually people expect that you will. 

In truth, all that extra work felt like a useful filler. My friends who had once wanted to go out for drinks, concerts, meals, gym classes and so on, now couldn’t fit me into their busy schedules, and I had a gaping hole to fill. Instead of finding new friendships to fill the hole, I found work.

I never fell out with my friends. We still kept some contact. This change was simply that their focus shifted to their blood family. But it did hurt: it felt as if they couldn’t see me and couldn’t see my pain.

And something else changed too: when we did meet up, the conversations were different. Mainly they talked about the children – and mainly I talked about the stress and strains of full time work. We had much less common ground. They all told me I was doing too much work and should get out more… but who with? Could they not see my situation?

The worst nights out were girly get togethers – inevitably the mums in the group would be exchanging their mum experiences, while I was there virtually mute: I couldn’t join in the conversation in the same way as them. I would come home and sob my heart out. 

These tears were the start of my realising I was on a different route to them. I still had hope, but by now my friends were years ahead of me.

Given these were the friends who knew me best, I have never understood why on earth could I not tell them how I was feeling, and how completely sad I was that I couldn’t find someone to love me, and have the chance to start my own family. I might have “looked” like a career woman, but really the only thing I had ever wanted to be was a wife and  mum. Work was a very poor substitute.

Eventually I had to confront being childless forever: I needed a hysterectomy. It took me four years and a lot of counselling to be able to face it. I didn’t tell any of my friends I was having counselling until I had got to a point where I could face the surgery. And then I rather brushed over it for fear I would scare them off with the real story.

Post surgery I finally start to embark on a some new activities: things that would be better fillers than work, and where I hoped I might meet some new friends - maybe people in a similar situation to me.

But lo and behold, by now, my old friends’ children were almost grown up, and suddenly they had time on their hands and wanted to do things with me!

Conversations have changed again – there’s much less talk of the children, and my friends are more invested in their own working lives. This doesn’t stop evenings out being cancelled or delayed because something has come up with one of the children, but they are much more enjoyable times now.

And then it changes again – friends who have been at pains to spend time with me, suddenly disappear when a grandchild arrives on the scene. And once things have settled down with the new grandchild, I’m in vogue again.

Such are the ebbs and flows of my friendships and I have learned to accept these comings and goings. 

A lot of pain has been resolved, and I have found room to welcome new friendships, many of which have been with fellow CNBC women, who are, without a doubt the most loving, giving, empathetic, supportive, and inspiring bunch of people I have ever known. This river is deep – but the view is now much prettier.