Today is my 35th birthday and I don't know how to feel.....

Today is my 42nd birthday so i have a few years on you galaktoboureko89 :-) If it's any consolation, I am also single and childfree at 42, though in my case, it's mostly by choice. With regard to your career, the only advice I can give is keep at it. The worst thing you can do is get defeated and give up. Like you say, you're doing well to have a job at all in this economy.

I know this might sound trite but years ago, I was waitressing as a summer job. One of the waitresses there was Mexican and she was a qualified architect who was struggling to get work in my country. She once confided in me that she had applied for tons of architect jobs and had been rejected for all of them and she was actually feeling quite depressed about it. I advised her to stick at it. (I'm not going to lie. I felt quite shitty at the time. I really wished I had more insightful advice to give. Especially as I liked this woman and I really did feel for her). A few months later, this woman actually handed in her notice because she had landed an architect job! (I know this story sounds made-up but I swear it's true). The reason I'm telling this story is just to show that if you persevere, you will succeed. It might take a long time, but you will. The only losers I've ever met are the people who give up and decide to just live in their mother's basement and not bother to get a job. So long as you have some kind of work ethic and determination, you will not end up like those losers. I promise you that!

One other thing, try not to get too bogged down in comparing yourself to other people. Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Couples who seem happily married in public could be fighting like cats and dogs in private. Sometimes you might look at someone who has a nice house and car, not realising that they're in debt up to their eyeballs. For this reason, I advise not spending too much time on social media.

Happy birthday BTW!

Happy birthday to you!!

I'm in my thirties too and pretty much in a similar situation. I feel stuck. I don't make much money and live with my widowed mom. I often feel like I'm still nowhere I wanted to be. That the milestones I should have hit on certain ages, I missed instead. I think a lot of people from our gen feel the same way.

Seeing my friends, though. I'm grateful to be single and childfree. The way my culture treats women means my married friends are stuck having to cater to their husbands, doing almost all the childrearing, dealing with 98%+ of chores and cooking, and often working full time (50/50 financially too) on top of it all. Compared to their life, my life sounds like vacation.

Happy birthday!

I can absolutely relate and tell you that it does get better.

I'm 45, childless and single for 6 years (none of it by choice) and also moved back and forth between renting and living with my parents for most of my 30s. When my last relationship ended at age 39, I realised my dream of being a wife and mother was over and I had to face reality that my life was not going to turn out the way I wanted and it was time to start thinking about how it could look instead.

There is a deep, intense grieving process with this and working through multiple layers of shame. I spent a few years in therapy and did lots of meditating resulting in personal growth and deep healing. After that comes self-love and a level of confidence that I truly never knew I would be capable of.

At 42 I bought my first apartment (all on my own with an average income, no financial help from my parents) and at 44 I got head hunted for my current role and I'm earning the most I ever have.

None of the above is easy and I still have to work on myself (as well as deal with occassional bouts of loneliness and despair), but a solid foundation has now been built and everything is onwards and upwards from here.

I echo PP about not getting caught up in comparing yourself to others. Everyone's journey and luck in life is different and your story will play out differently too. I would have said that 5 years ago my married friends wanted to leave their husbands so they could meet someone else and now I would say they want to leave so they can be single. If you listen closely to their stories, very few of them seem happy.

Enjoy your birthday, 35 is still so young! A decade on you, I can tell you that the best is yet to come xxx

Happy Birthday!! Yeah I get you. I'm in a similar age range and I've been there. I think for me I realised a while back if its going to 'get better' it's up to me. I think it was Oprah who said something like if you don't know what your destination is then you don't know where you'll end up, or something to that effect. I would suggest getting clear on what you want and then committing to it. aka committing to yourself.

like really committing.

Also, we're in no mans land atm in terms of history unfolding collectively, so I would say focus on what you can control and go from there. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Happy birthday!

I'm in my late 30s. All in all, I feel the same about my life as you probably do about yours. I think my life is OK but not nearly as wonderful as I'd hoped.

Here are the things I'm happy and proud about:

Being educated, childfree, never-married, and financially solvent.

Here are the things I'm not happy about:

My career (it's something I'm working on), my finances (I'm not nearly as rich as I want to be), my social life (not enough friends in real life), and my personal fitness (I work a desk job, which, as we all know, is not healthy for your body).

If you live a long, healthy life, you'll have at least several decades to improve your life the way you see fit. You have time and good health, which many don't have.

If you don't like your job/career, can you go back to school so you can enter a field you want to work in? It sounds like you might need to change your life in a major way.

I'm in my 40s and even worse shape "financially," but that is a lot due to poor choices on my part. I have a dad and I'm grateful that I have a place to live because of him, but he's also toxic in certain ways. I wish I could say more candidly on FDS how difficult it is without a partner, let alone never having had one. It's getting harder to even leave the house because of that kind of loneliness, but I make sure to keep logic at the forefront by reminding myself of the problems women here have with scrotes. It's not really curing the problem though. 😥

Happy belated birthday. I've seen your account on here alot and you make alot of very helpful posts I think you're awesome!

I'm 31 myself and I have a degree but you really are right about the economy and job market changing. I'm glad you are bringing these up because on FDS we should be really discussing not only moids but how to financially level up.

This is the first time in history women have been able to have so much autonomy on a global scale. We are one of the earliest generations of women who have bank accounts. I think this is pretty huge tbh and scrotes don't fully realize it because men are not really that introspective they only care that they're not getting access to women anymore and the poorest ones implemented 50/50 to hold onto that access that access but it's just a farce.

Have you tried doing anything freelance? Online there's loads of ways to make money like selling graphic design, reselling goods, or e-commerce. They're honestly challenging but I honestly think women would be 500x better than moids because most of the products that are popular women are the buyers not men.

Happy birthday!🌞 Just want to let you know that I love to read your posts.