Feeling guilty for feeling jealous

[Alaura5]

This is more of a vent than anything. One of my closest friends just had her 3rd baby today, a long-desired girl after 2 little boys.  She has a wonderful husband, and this was a 3rd natural childbirth that went very much the way she wanted and planned.  I am SO happy for them, and yet talking to her and hearing her joy has left me absolutely miserable. 

Does anyone else ever feel this way? Obviously I know no one's life is perfect, and everyone has hard times no matter how great their life looks from the outside, but I'm having a moment of feeling like mine is so far from what I wanted it to be, and has been since the day my son was born.  It makes me feel terrible, guilty, and like a very bad friend to feel jealous of them (never mind a bad mother for feeling unhappy in spite of having a healthy, wonderful child), but I can't seem to help it.  

Ugh. 

[hillymum]

Can I one up you?  My children came home from their weekend with their dad announcing that they had a baby half sister! Our divorce was finalized in May, and they already have a baby! A girl! I have three boys and always wanted a little girl! Right now I am soo angry with him for not only dumping this news on myself and my children, but for having a daughter!

[rubelin]

I get it. I have 2 friends who went and had girls after their 2 boys and it was around the same time that XH and I had been planning to have our #3, which we hoped was a girl. Instead of having a third baby, we got divorced =P

[Alaura5]

Thanks for the validation.  It was a rough night...I've been getting along pretty well recently, but everything (disappointing birth, husband who checked out and had an affair, impending divorce, not knowing when/if I will have another baby, knowing my son might not get to be a big brother, etc, etc.) sort of caught up with me last night into an overwhelming feeling of this not being the life I wanted.  Of course it's the life I have and I have to make peace with that, but sometimes it just plain sucks.  This is the 5th person I know who has recently had a baby, and watching so many people joyfully expand their families when mine is falling apart really stings.  

Hillymum, I am SO sorry to hear about your news from the weekend.  I can't believe your ex didn't have the decency to tell you himself, or let you know before the baby arrived, but instead let your kids find out by finding a baby at his house.  Good grief.  That isn't fair to them or you.  

[provocativa]

I get that overwhelming feeling often, that this is not the life that I wanted.  It hits me hard sometimes.   Nothing else to do but breathe and accept, and try to make my life better.  But generally I feel overwhelmed with the day to day and powerless to do this.  Hard to change your whole life when you can't get the floor picked up or dishes done!
 

[FarmerFemme]

It is really hard. While I'm so happy for my coupled, parenting friends, I also find myself picking apart their marriages or being so incredibly jealous. I wish I could just have joy for any love anyone can find, but it is so hard to share that kind of emotion when it's coming from a hurt, bitter place. I find myself staring at couples in line at the grocery store, sitting together in a restaurant, whatever, and thinking "How did they do it? How did they find each other and make it work?" Jealousy is ugly and completely self sabotaging. Being unhappy at someone else's happiness only hurts us and the friendship, kwim?