As the title says. I’m a 35 year old man. I’ve been married going on ten years, I have three children, and a career that I’ve been in for the past 16 years. The issue is that I don’t feel like I am a 35 year old man. Me and my family are well taken care of and we do not go without and yet I feel unachieved and immature. I’ve reached out to a couple of my close friends about how I’m feeling and they too feel the same way. I feel like I suffer from some sort of “Failure to launch” maybe emotionally or mentally. I don’t know how to otherwise describe what I’m going through. I don’t know what I’m doing in life. I’m just doing it as it comes. I know there isn’t an instruction manual for life. Life isn’t some 3727 piece Lego set but I just feel lost and confused while navigating myself and my family through life. My kids seem happy and think I’m the wisest and most put together adult. All the while; I’m more lost than a LT with a compass in the field. I often think of the image of my parents at my age and I feel like I’m nowhere close to that. I say all this to ask one question.
Is it normal or common for me to feel this way?
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There was another post on this subreddit the other day that was very similar to this.
We’re all just trying to wing it. I don’t care who someone is, how much money, fame, etc they have. They don’t have a clue as to what they’re doing and they’re all just trying to figure it out from one day to the next. Look at all the celebrities who have all kinds of wealth, fame, success, etc. How many of them are completely screwed up? On drugs, in and out of rehab, married and divorced several times, commit suicide, thrown in prison, you name it? A LOT of them.
Just do the best you can to be the best you can and be happy. Nothing else really matters.
Feel the same to some extent. Wife, kid, another one the way, home owner etc.
Think I feel this because I’m not handy. My dad is, and I think we on some level look up to our fathers / society for what a man should be.
I’ve been to therapy and this was brought up. He said, “so what? Maybe you just don’t have a desire to be handy.. And that’s okay”. And then it clicked a bit.. I don’t have the desire. And that’s okay. Lol.
Ah. Imposter Syndrome. As a child, you imagined what and who adults, parents were. Then, you discover that you are as winging it as you must know, now, your parents were winging it.
And how hard it can be to feel in control when you know you aren’t and your kid think so well of you. Just wait, they will become teenagers.
The secret of being adult is that all you do, every day, is just the best you can, based in information at hand. I hope you have reassessed your parents and any of their perceived failures.
You will do the best you can, your children will become who they will be, for better or worse. What if you decide to chuck it all and go be an artist in Paris? Well, a new alternate universe opens up. How do you feel about you? Great? Bad? Finally grown up??
When did you discover who you were? Maybe you followed a “normal” path, but did you ever follow ElCangri’s path? Self discovery is much harder when you have to care for others.
Don’t ignore or bury this feeling you’re having. Use it to learn about yourself. Have you set goals? Or are you just going through the motions in life? Aim. At. Something. The confidence engendered by repeatedly hitting what you aim at will make this little voice inside you grow, until it’s screaming like Dan Peña: “YOU CANT FUCKING KILL ME!”
Don’t worry, it changes. I recently worked my way up to feeling 17 on a good day
Same. I think the fact that you’re asking shows the maturity you think you’re lacking.
Do not go without what?