My parents have had a terrible marriage for basically as long as I can remember. I have been anticipating their divorce on some level since I was about 11 (I’m now in my late 20s), and I don’t know why they don’t just pull the plug. In fact, I don’t even know why they got married in the first place; they don’t enjoy each other’s company, they don’t have congruent ideas or tastes on basically anything, they’re basically incompatible in every way.

I think they both would have been better off if they had split up early, never gotten married and never had children together. They should have married different people, or just not gotten married at all.

The obvious implication of this, of course, is that I shouldn’t have been born. This does cause me some existential discomfort. Thoughts occur to me like, “Why do I care so much about the future? Why do I pay so much attention to politics? What’s the point of advocating for socialism or trying to work towards a better future? I don’t have kids, I can’t have kids*, I don’t think I should have kids, and I don’t even think my parents should have had me. In a better timeline, I wouldn’t even be here anyway.”

*(I had a vasectomy a few years ago)

I would like to feel a bit more assured about all of this. What do you think?

  • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    6 months ago

    I think this post feels very sad to me, and I would like to try to offer you some comfort in the form of trying to reframe things.

    I understand why you look at your circumstances and think that your parents should never have gotten together and that you shouldn’t exist - their incompatibility really shines through the matter-of-fact way you talk about their dead relationship and opposite worldviews.

    That sucks. Everything they’ve collaborated on has gone to shit, and that has to make you feel pretty fucking terrible about yourself.

    You’re not their project, though. Why should it matter what hand they had in creating you? You’re loose on the world now, and you’re your own person. Maybe they shouldn’t have procreated! Sure, ideally, all children would be born to stable parents in stable situations with good resources, but that’s never been the standard for any species ever.

    So. You started out in a very much not ideal situation, with parents who were wildly incompatible and probably didn’t show the greatest standard of care to you while they dealt with their own shit… And here you are today, on a commie forum, posting with the other sweetiepies and carebears and lovefools who just want a better world. You came through emotional hardship, and it didn’t harden your heart and make you selfish; if it had, you wouldn’t be part of this community.

    I’m sorry you feel weird about you. I think your very existence as the person you are is a victory.

    ❤️❤️❤️