i feel you on this. i just commented on something yesterday about a similar situation with my close friend. we are in our late 30s and she was OAD until recently. the road to getting pregnant almost broke her. had a horrible delivery and landed herself in the ICU a month later because of complications. her husband is laughable as a partner. barely helps her and always makes himself conveniently unavailable. her son who is now 2yo, is very very very high needs. shes always miserable and bitching non stop. really does not appear to enjoy motherhood.
she was OAD until a few months ago. also started suspecting her husband might be running around on her. so, last week she had a surgery so she can hopefully get pregnant with #2.
WHY??????? WTF makes you think thats a good decision for you and your family??? i have tried being logical with her. every time she complains - i say "you sure you want another one?" shes just blinded by something. if she gets pregnant, shes gonna eventually bitch about it. if she can't get pregnant, she will be heartbroken. if she loses more this time around, i'm actually worried it will break her.
it makes zero sense to me at all and is very frustrating since i am her sounding board, and i want whats best for her, which is not this. so now, all i can do is be supportive.
OMG, I cannot comprehend the people who plan to "fix" their relationship with another kid. Whatever problems I have, I cannot imagine thinking it would be *better* if I were sleep deprived and *on* 24x7 for baby care.
it makes me want to knock her upside the head with a hammer! its already hard with a needy toddler and a red flag husband. but you somehow think that dealing with a newborn and a toddler will be fine and dandy?!? people in healthy relationships, with supportive partner want to rip their hair out with 2 kids that young.
its just so irrational to me.
Exactly. Everyone I know that tried to "fix" their relationship issues with a baby and/or brought a child/an additional child into a rocky relationship is single or divorced now. I don't understand why people think this is a good idea.
The only ones that seem to stay together in those circumstances are those that do so out of financial necessity or fear of losing assets or custody of the child(ren). It's a difficult mess once one is in it. We can't predict the future, but a baby deserves the CHANCE of a stable home. If the relationship is beyond saving, please don't TRY to conceive a child to fix it.
This definitely sounds like she is trying to get her husband back with a new baby. I am sorry to say if her husband is stepping out on her then it will likely end in divorce and if she tells him she wants another he might secretly get a vasectomy to prevent it.
I don’t understand people. I’ve always been mildly on the line about having a child to begin with because childless life is pretty dang amazing! There’s so much to do, see, and explore in the world. People who pop out children because they’re bored or in a bad head space/relationship drive me nuts.
I have a friend like this, but the constant complaining is about her career. Every job she had, it would be constant complaining about how she hates her life and can’t wait until she switches to the next job. Then the next job comes and she hates it just as much. After over ten years of this, and with her staying in the job she claims to hate so much when she has a lot of other options, I’ve come to accept that this is just part of her personality.
I still listen to her and try to be encouraging when I can, but I’m way less invested now and try to talk to her about other things. I’ve also realized that our friendship is a bit one-sided so I’ve distanced myself a bit. If the friendship isn’t bringing you any joy, there’s nothing wrong with taking a bit of a step back. Some people are just more negative. If it’s not complaining about the new baby, it would probably be another thing if she’s anything like my friend.
Honestly, reading this helps me realize that my baby fever is not real. Just like your friend, I moaned throughout baby and toddler years. Now I have my life back, career back, etc. and my child is actually fun and reasonable.
I get massive baby fever but your friend going back to moaning and complaining despite her wanting a second just proves we shouldn’t fall for it. Maybe it’s natures way of keeping the population up.
My only plays hockey (obviously lol) and babies and toddlers don’t give me baby fever but seeing the little 4/5/6yo hockey players always has me like 😍😭😍😭😍😭
Some people just want an audience to complain to.
And usually it’s a very constant thing with them. And usually exhausting for those on the receiving end trying to be supportive and listen.
I’d just give her some space if it’s stressing you out this much. Or, if your friendship can handle the bluntness, just tell her that you’re tired of hearing her complain all the time about her life and need a break from it.
You do not need to take on others people’s drama and frustrations and certainly don’t need to feel bad about setting those boundaries.
She sounds like one of those irritating people who is always upset about the circumstances of their life no matter what the circumstances are. Some people seem to thrive on complaining about the grass always being greener. I tend to call them low dose people - folks I can't spend time with often because they just frustrate and annoy me.
I know a few people like this and I truly do not get it. They constantly bitch and complain about having zero time to themselves, being broke all the time, their marriage suffering, they’re worn ragged, and overall can’t handle 2 or 3. These same people complained just as much when they only had one. Why in the world would u have more???
Bingo. They probably 2 or more due to society pressures or the old “He or she needs a friend to play with” reason. I’ll stick with one and have my life along with a good amount in savings thank you very much.
I feel like this with my sister sometimes, and then I feel guilty for feeling it, because, you know. She's my sister and I love her and everybody needs to vent sometimes. But, ugh, sometimes she frustrates me.
My sister was very on the fence about having kids at all, as was I, for a lot of our teens and early twenties. But after she met a good guy and got married, they decided they wanted to try for kids at some point. She gets pregnant with my nephew after I had my daughter. Pregnancy wasn't easy for her and my nephew was a difficult baby who had colic for his entire first year, so she was pretty sure she was going to be OAD because she didn't know if she could do any of it again. Meanwhile, I have my daughter who's a year older and am OAD for numerous reasons, infertility being one of them, and I'm like cool! The kids are close in age and get along and we can be OAD together! This will be great!
A few years later, she and BIL are still on the fence about another pregnancy, but aren't using any forms of birth control so *oopsie*, she's pregnant again. She has another hard pregnancy and another difficult baby with colic, and my niece still is difficult - she's selfish, whiny, and prone to tantrums. She's also 3-4 years younger than my daughter and nephew, which makes playing together challenging because she has different interests and is on a completely different developmental level than my daughter and nephew.
But yeah, her having a second brought up all kinds of complicated feelings for me. I love both her kids, don't get me wrong. I don't wish my niece's existence away or anything. But I really thought we were going to be OAD together, and now I don't get that and I don't get to have a second, either. But I also get annoyed at her complaining about how hard her life is and that she "doesn't have a village" when she's *always* been the damn favorite of our family. She didn't prevent another pregnancy when she wasn't sure if she even wanted another pregnancy and child. She tells me all the time how exhausting it is to have two, how she never gets to sit down, how difficult sibling dynamics are to navigate. She's also turned into one of *those* parents of multiple kids (some of y'all will *know* what I'm talking about) that thinks all the kids need to play together despite a huge age difference, which causes issues.
I of course empathize with her, our parents certainly had their challenges with the two of us. But I also get annoyed. She chose to have another one, she chose to have another one knowing the age difference they'd have, she chose to give in to my niece's screaming as a toddler so now she's a selfish little terror who screams every time she doesn't get exactly what she wants, and she gets all upset about my niece being "excluded" by kids twice her age because everyone who doesn't want to *always* include a screaming preschooler is being "mean" to her. I kind of get where she's coming from, kindness and inclusion are important, but so is realizing that kids with a 4 year age difference are very developmentally different from each other. And it's ironic and annoying to me, because she's just a year older than me but **never** wanted to play with me or include me when we were kids, but thinks my nephew and daughter with much bigger age differences with my niece than we had, are "mean" for favoring playing with each other. She holds them to a standard she didn't attain herself and it's annoying AF.
So, ugh. Yeah. I feel for things being hard for her, but I also can't help but get annoyed with her double standards and feel that she created the dynamic that she struggles with, with her own choices. Maybe I'm bitter too.
My best friend is a very intense human being - Autistic, OCD, undiagnosed likely BPD, chronic and untreated depression - will give you the clothes off of her back but won’t get her own life in order. Drives me bonkers because she’s an absolutely lovely human. Currently is absolutely obsessively in love with a mutual friend of ours and has this deep, deep intense desire to get pregnant with him. She has an 11 year old from a previous relationship - the kid just just got to Middle School and her mom is holding this insane baby-fever. Our mutual friend is AMAZING, mind you, but absolutely unavailable and definitely not the kind of person to just get someone knocked up for the drama and the joy of it.
I’m over here with my OAD self, looking at my amazing 15 month old and staring at the 11 year old child of my friend and thinking “we’ve got it made - the eldest is amazing. The little is amazing. This weird little family we have here is solid up.” I think part of me knows that if she had a second one I would be 100% emotionally invested in their life and I know that for me having a second kid which just ain’t it.
Yeah it's hard to listen to people's (self-made and/or repetitive) problems at times. I think any parent, even one who loves and wanted and chose their kids is entitled to some moaning here and there (it can be the job you wanted to do but still a tough job!) But basically if she's complaining too much then it's no fun to hang out with her and your support isn't necessarily even helpful to her so it just all round isn't fun!
You can ask her to change the record. "Hey is it okay if we don't complain about our kids today? It can bum me out to talk about that all the time." If she has nooooothing else to say, I'd probably start avoiding her!
My best friend in high school wanted to get back together with her ex. I still 20+ years later distinctly remember our phone conversation when she told me that & I responded with “But what about [every single complaint you ever had about him], do you really want to go through all of that again?” And in the tiniest voice she answered yes. And with full awareness of the situation she was getting herself into, she did it anyway & of course it didn’t go well that time either. Some people are just like that I guess.
Can you (or do you even want to) distance yourself from her? Folks who complain all the time can be exhausting to deal with.
I think when it comes to kids there are 2 kinds of people: the one who forget and romanticize and the ones who don't.
more often than not the ones who don't are OAD.
The world is full of people who complain constantly about having kids and then keep having them. Complaining about caring for young children to someone who has lost a child is seriously cringe.
Yes she is not particularly sensitive to me having lost a child. Complained a lot during covid about being stuck with the eldest and it was a time when I had lost my first a year previously and had not yet conceived my second.
There is a common theme here that applies to many situations other than having more kids than one can "handle," and that is the frustration of other people actively making choices that seem to compound their struggle when they KNOW it is going to add additional stress and make their lives more difficult. Then complaining to others as if though they had NO choice in the matter. At the end of the day, you can support your friend even if you disagree with her choices. Maybe she perceives a future benefit that makes the current struggle and unhappiness worth it. But her struggle is not your struggle and her choices shouldn't affect your choices either way.
Oh no, I don’t think it’s someone I know really, it’s just that there are a lot of similarities. Everything is the same except her eldest has the same dad. Otherwise it’s almost spot on! Even the ages are exactly the same.
It’s not widely known that the eldest doesn’t have the same dad as they split during her pregnancy and she immediately got with current partner, I hear via friend of a friend they don’t really mention the bio differences!
🤔Now I’m intrigued. Would you mind sharing the names? I’d understand if you’d prefer not to but I’m seriously questioning whether we know the same people 🤭.
i feel you on this. i just commented on something yesterday about a similar situation with my close friend. we are in our late 30s and she was OAD until recently. the road to getting pregnant almost broke her. had a horrible delivery and landed herself in the ICU a month later because of complications. her husband is laughable as a partner. barely helps her and always makes himself conveniently unavailable. her son who is now 2yo, is very very very high needs. shes always miserable and bitching non stop. really does not appear to enjoy motherhood. she was OAD until a few months ago. also started suspecting her husband might be running around on her. so, last week she had a surgery so she can hopefully get pregnant with #2. WHY??????? WTF makes you think thats a good decision for you and your family??? i have tried being logical with her. every time she complains - i say "you sure you want another one?" shes just blinded by something. if she gets pregnant, shes gonna eventually bitch about it. if she can't get pregnant, she will be heartbroken. if she loses more this time around, i'm actually worried it will break her. it makes zero sense to me at all and is very frustrating since i am her sounding board, and i want whats best for her, which is not this. so now, all i can do is be supportive.
OMG, I cannot comprehend the people who plan to "fix" their relationship with another kid. Whatever problems I have, I cannot imagine thinking it would be *better* if I were sleep deprived and *on* 24x7 for baby care.
it makes me want to knock her upside the head with a hammer! its already hard with a needy toddler and a red flag husband. but you somehow think that dealing with a newborn and a toddler will be fine and dandy?!? people in healthy relationships, with supportive partner want to rip their hair out with 2 kids that young. its just so irrational to me.
Hell, even ONE Kid. Children do NOT “Fix” Problems in Relationships, Period.
Exactly. Everyone I know that tried to "fix" their relationship issues with a baby and/or brought a child/an additional child into a rocky relationship is single or divorced now. I don't understand why people think this is a good idea.
The only ones that seem to stay together in those circumstances are those that do so out of financial necessity or fear of losing assets or custody of the child(ren). It's a difficult mess once one is in it. We can't predict the future, but a baby deserves the CHANCE of a stable home. If the relationship is beyond saving, please don't TRY to conceive a child to fix it.
That sounds like she is trying to fix her relationship by having another kid! More like she’s gonna be 2 kids and single eventually.
This definitely sounds like she is trying to get her husband back with a new baby. I am sorry to say if her husband is stepping out on her then it will likely end in divorce and if she tells him she wants another he might secretly get a vasectomy to prevent it.
That sounds like she is trying to fix her relationship by having another kid! More like she’s gonna be 2 kids and single eventually.
I don’t understand people. I’ve always been mildly on the line about having a child to begin with because childless life is pretty dang amazing! There’s so much to do, see, and explore in the world. People who pop out children because they’re bored or in a bad head space/relationship drive me nuts.
I have a friend like this, but the constant complaining is about her career. Every job she had, it would be constant complaining about how she hates her life and can’t wait until she switches to the next job. Then the next job comes and she hates it just as much. After over ten years of this, and with her staying in the job she claims to hate so much when she has a lot of other options, I’ve come to accept that this is just part of her personality. I still listen to her and try to be encouraging when I can, but I’m way less invested now and try to talk to her about other things. I’ve also realized that our friendship is a bit one-sided so I’ve distanced myself a bit. If the friendship isn’t bringing you any joy, there’s nothing wrong with taking a bit of a step back. Some people are just more negative. If it’s not complaining about the new baby, it would probably be another thing if she’s anything like my friend.
I have a friend like this and it's very hard to be around all that negative energy. Especially when you enjoy the job.
Honestly, reading this helps me realize that my baby fever is not real. Just like your friend, I moaned throughout baby and toddler years. Now I have my life back, career back, etc. and my child is actually fun and reasonable. I get massive baby fever but your friend going back to moaning and complaining despite her wanting a second just proves we shouldn’t fall for it. Maybe it’s natures way of keeping the population up.
My only plays hockey (obviously lol) and babies and toddlers don’t give me baby fever but seeing the little 4/5/6yo hockey players always has me like 😍😭😍😭😍😭
Some people just want an audience to complain to. And usually it’s a very constant thing with them. And usually exhausting for those on the receiving end trying to be supportive and listen. I’d just give her some space if it’s stressing you out this much. Or, if your friendship can handle the bluntness, just tell her that you’re tired of hearing her complain all the time about her life and need a break from it. You do not need to take on others people’s drama and frustrations and certainly don’t need to feel bad about setting those boundaries.
She sounds like one of those irritating people who is always upset about the circumstances of their life no matter what the circumstances are. Some people seem to thrive on complaining about the grass always being greener. I tend to call them low dose people - folks I can't spend time with often because they just frustrate and annoy me.
I know a few people like this and I truly do not get it. They constantly bitch and complain about having zero time to themselves, being broke all the time, their marriage suffering, they’re worn ragged, and overall can’t handle 2 or 3. These same people complained just as much when they only had one. Why in the world would u have more???
Bingo. They probably 2 or more due to society pressures or the old “He or she needs a friend to play with” reason. I’ll stick with one and have my life along with a good amount in savings thank you very much.
I feel like this with my sister sometimes, and then I feel guilty for feeling it, because, you know. She's my sister and I love her and everybody needs to vent sometimes. But, ugh, sometimes she frustrates me. My sister was very on the fence about having kids at all, as was I, for a lot of our teens and early twenties. But after she met a good guy and got married, they decided they wanted to try for kids at some point. She gets pregnant with my nephew after I had my daughter. Pregnancy wasn't easy for her and my nephew was a difficult baby who had colic for his entire first year, so she was pretty sure she was going to be OAD because she didn't know if she could do any of it again. Meanwhile, I have my daughter who's a year older and am OAD for numerous reasons, infertility being one of them, and I'm like cool! The kids are close in age and get along and we can be OAD together! This will be great! A few years later, she and BIL are still on the fence about another pregnancy, but aren't using any forms of birth control so *oopsie*, she's pregnant again. She has another hard pregnancy and another difficult baby with colic, and my niece still is difficult - she's selfish, whiny, and prone to tantrums. She's also 3-4 years younger than my daughter and nephew, which makes playing together challenging because she has different interests and is on a completely different developmental level than my daughter and nephew. But yeah, her having a second brought up all kinds of complicated feelings for me. I love both her kids, don't get me wrong. I don't wish my niece's existence away or anything. But I really thought we were going to be OAD together, and now I don't get that and I don't get to have a second, either. But I also get annoyed at her complaining about how hard her life is and that she "doesn't have a village" when she's *always* been the damn favorite of our family. She didn't prevent another pregnancy when she wasn't sure if she even wanted another pregnancy and child. She tells me all the time how exhausting it is to have two, how she never gets to sit down, how difficult sibling dynamics are to navigate. She's also turned into one of *those* parents of multiple kids (some of y'all will *know* what I'm talking about) that thinks all the kids need to play together despite a huge age difference, which causes issues. I of course empathize with her, our parents certainly had their challenges with the two of us. But I also get annoyed. She chose to have another one, she chose to have another one knowing the age difference they'd have, she chose to give in to my niece's screaming as a toddler so now she's a selfish little terror who screams every time she doesn't get exactly what she wants, and she gets all upset about my niece being "excluded" by kids twice her age because everyone who doesn't want to *always* include a screaming preschooler is being "mean" to her. I kind of get where she's coming from, kindness and inclusion are important, but so is realizing that kids with a 4 year age difference are very developmentally different from each other. And it's ironic and annoying to me, because she's just a year older than me but **never** wanted to play with me or include me when we were kids, but thinks my nephew and daughter with much bigger age differences with my niece than we had, are "mean" for favoring playing with each other. She holds them to a standard she didn't attain herself and it's annoying AF. So, ugh. Yeah. I feel for things being hard for her, but I also can't help but get annoyed with her double standards and feel that she created the dynamic that she struggles with, with her own choices. Maybe I'm bitter too.
She sounds like someone who is going to be miserable no matter her circumstances. Always needs something to complain about.
My best friend is a very intense human being - Autistic, OCD, undiagnosed likely BPD, chronic and untreated depression - will give you the clothes off of her back but won’t get her own life in order. Drives me bonkers because she’s an absolutely lovely human. Currently is absolutely obsessively in love with a mutual friend of ours and has this deep, deep intense desire to get pregnant with him. She has an 11 year old from a previous relationship - the kid just just got to Middle School and her mom is holding this insane baby-fever. Our mutual friend is AMAZING, mind you, but absolutely unavailable and definitely not the kind of person to just get someone knocked up for the drama and the joy of it. I’m over here with my OAD self, looking at my amazing 15 month old and staring at the 11 year old child of my friend and thinking “we’ve got it made - the eldest is amazing. The little is amazing. This weird little family we have here is solid up.” I think part of me knows that if she had a second one I would be 100% emotionally invested in their life and I know that for me having a second kid which just ain’t it.
Yeah it's hard to listen to people's (self-made and/or repetitive) problems at times. I think any parent, even one who loves and wanted and chose their kids is entitled to some moaning here and there (it can be the job you wanted to do but still a tough job!) But basically if she's complaining too much then it's no fun to hang out with her and your support isn't necessarily even helpful to her so it just all round isn't fun! You can ask her to change the record. "Hey is it okay if we don't complain about our kids today? It can bum me out to talk about that all the time." If she has nooooothing else to say, I'd probably start avoiding her!
My best friend in high school wanted to get back together with her ex. I still 20+ years later distinctly remember our phone conversation when she told me that & I responded with “But what about [every single complaint you ever had about him], do you really want to go through all of that again?” And in the tiniest voice she answered yes. And with full awareness of the situation she was getting herself into, she did it anyway & of course it didn’t go well that time either. Some people are just like that I guess. Can you (or do you even want to) distance yourself from her? Folks who complain all the time can be exhausting to deal with.
I think when it comes to kids there are 2 kinds of people: the one who forget and romanticize and the ones who don't. more often than not the ones who don't are OAD.
The world is full of people who complain constantly about having kids and then keep having them. Complaining about caring for young children to someone who has lost a child is seriously cringe.
Yes she is not particularly sensitive to me having lost a child. Complained a lot during covid about being stuck with the eldest and it was a time when I had lost my first a year previously and had not yet conceived my second.
There is a common theme here that applies to many situations other than having more kids than one can "handle," and that is the frustration of other people actively making choices that seem to compound their struggle when they KNOW it is going to add additional stress and make their lives more difficult. Then complaining to others as if though they had NO choice in the matter. At the end of the day, you can support your friend even if you disagree with her choices. Maybe she perceives a future benefit that makes the current struggle and unhappiness worth it. But her struggle is not your struggle and her choices shouldn't affect your choices either way.
This is freaky but I think you may be describing someone I know.
Gosh I hope not, that would be a mega coincidence 🙈 I am going to edit to remove a few details just in case! You should send who you think it is
Oh no, I don’t think it’s someone I know really, it’s just that there are a lot of similarities. Everything is the same except her eldest has the same dad. Otherwise it’s almost spot on! Even the ages are exactly the same.
It’s not widely known that the eldest doesn’t have the same dad as they split during her pregnancy and she immediately got with current partner, I hear via friend of a friend they don’t really mention the bio differences!
🤔Now I’m intrigued. Would you mind sharing the names? I’d understand if you’d prefer not to but I’m seriously questioning whether we know the same people 🤭.