I’m surprised that your husband, who of all people must be well aware of how much the issue causes you concern, would think it productive to raise it as a criticism. You’ll find a practitioner with the help of your GP. Also consider cognitive behavioural therapy, which has been proved to have a beneficial effect on everything from menopause to stress.
#I AM SO LONELY SONG I HAVE NOBODY PROFESSIONAL#
Self-esteem is not something a pithy response from me will alleviate and if it’s at such low levels that it’s impacting on your ability to interact with your contemporaries then professional help should be taken. Husband, two kids and a closed shop is what you seem to have constricted yourself to and I can’t help speculating about whether there’s more to this than your short letter describes. At some point it has to have been a conscious decision to hunker down and go nuclear in terms of family life. It begs the question of why you are keeping others at arm’s length. If you’ve managed all of the above, you are certainly a survivor and an extremely capable person with much to offer those who manage to get close to you. I don’t want to make you feel worse, but when I consider the low points of my life to date, without the kindness, care and devotion of a small cluster of female friends to give me ballast, I wonder if I would have survived without seriously falling apart. In a society in which for many of us friends are in pole position and who at times are valued even more highly than spouses is, as you identify, certainly something to mourn. It may be that the terrain you’re occupying isn’t quite as bleak as you imagine it to be, but let’s come to that a little later. My instinct is that “zero friends and few acquaintances” could be more of a skewed perception of your situation than the harsh reality. To have maintained your marriage all these years without friends to offload your frustrations on to have raised teenagers without mates to empathise, sympathise and offer counselling, and to be a full-time worker without pals to moan to over a bottle of wine means you should be feeling very proud. You’ve negotiated your way through some of the trickiest stages of adult life without back up.
Mariella replies First, congratulations are in order. Please help me before I’m too old to go out and make friends. I’m terrified of being ‘outed’ to my colleagues and relatives as friendless – and I don’t keep any social media accounts because of this fear. My husband always comments on my lack of friendships, which makes me feel worse. I didn’t have good self-esteem and for the most part, still don’t. I had a lot of good friends in school, but I let them fall by the wayside as I felt I didn’t deserve them. I get tearful when I see groups of friends out and about. I want a group of girlfriends I can confide in and connect with – even a single friend would mean so much. My lack of friendships is making me feel inadequate. Spending time with my husband and children used to quell any feelings of loneliness, but that’s no longer enough. I have zero friends and few acquaintances. The dilemma I’m 40 and a full-time working mother of two teenagers.
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