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?
No. That’s not an uncommon thought. They probably shouldn’t have. My parents shouldn’t have, either. But they did, and we’re here now, and wringing our hands over it accomplishes nothing.
You exist now, in the present. That’s an immutable truth that you cannot change, so your only choice is to live now, and look forward to making a better future.