Hello and Welcome Back to The Therapist Diaries,
Today we're hitting a taboo topic... and I know I'm probably going to get some stick for writing it, but it's something that's been coming up a lot recently, and I think it's relatable for a lot of us. So, taboo or not, today we're talking about how much it genuinely sucks when everyone else is having their moment, and you're the one still on the path towards yours.
Generally speaking, we’re taught to celebrate the people we love, to clap for their milestones, to smile at engagement photos, baby announcements, house purchases, promotions and all the beautiful moments life brings them. And often, we genuinely are happy for them. Deeply happy.
But sometimes, underneath that happiness, there’s another feeling quietly sitting there too. Grief. Jealousy. Loneliness. Frustration. Even resentment.
And honestly, that combination can feel incredibly shameful.
There’s a strange emotional conflict that happens when your heart holds two truths at once. You can adore your friends and still feel devastated for yourself. You can celebrate someone’s wedding whilst crying on the drive home because you thought your life would look different by now. You can cuddle your friend’s newborn and simultaneously wonder whether your turn will ever come.
That doesn’t make you bitter, or mean, it just means you have feelings and you're feeling them.
In therapy, we often talk about how comparison thrives in silence. The moment we start measuring our timeline against someone else’s, our brain begins collecting evidence that we’re somehow behind, failing, unwanted or doing life incorrectly. We tell ourselves things like, “I’ve worked so hard”, “I’ve done everything right”, or “Why does it happen so easily for everyone else?” And the longer those thoughts go unchallenged, the heavier they become.
What starts as disappointment can slowly evolve into resentment if it isn’t acknowledged properly. Not because you’re a bad friend or a selfish person, but because unprocessed grief has a way of leaking out sideways.
And yes, grief is the right word here.
There is grief in the life you imagined for yourself. Grief in the relationship that never happened. Grief in the baby you haven’t had. Grief in the job you lost out on or the degree you haven't used yet. There is a grief in feeling left behind whilst everyone else appears to be moving forwards. Society often reserves grief for bereavement, but therapists know that humans grieve many things; lost futures, unmet expectations, different versions of ourselves, and timelines we thought we’d reach by now.
One thing I see particularly often in my women's counselling sessions, is the quiet exhaustion that many single people carry. There can be this unspoken societal expectation that single people should endlessly show up for everybody else’s milestones. You attend the hen parties, buy the wedding gifts, celebrate the pregnancies, babysit the children, support everybody emotionally and financially… yet your own achievements can feel minimised or overlooked in comparison.
A degree. A promotion. Buying your first home alone. Travelling independently. Healing from trauma. Starting over after heartbreak. These are huge moments too.
But sometimes single people are treated as though they’re simply waiting in the wings until “real life” begins. As though partnership is the ultimate marker of success and everything else is secondary.
It’s understandable that this can leave people feeling invisible.
And social media rarely helps. We’re consuming highlight reels all day long, watching curated moments of joy whilst comparing them to our private moments of uncertainty. What we don’t see are the struggles behind those photos. The relationship difficulties. The fertility challenges. The financial stress. The loneliness within marriages. The anxiety behind the smiles.
Comparison convinces us everybody else is happier, more fulfilled and further ahead than we are, but comparison is rarely rooted in the full truth.
One of the most important things I encourage clients to do is stop treating their emotions as evidence of failure. Feeling jealous does not make you toxic. Feeling sad for yourself does not make you ungrateful. Emotions are information, not identity.
Instead of judging yourself for those feelings, try getting curious about them.
What is this emotion actually telling me?
What am I longing for?
What part of me feels left behind?
What do I need right now?
Sometimes the answer is compassion. Sometimes it’s boundaries. Sometimes it’s stepping back from social media for a while. Sometimes it’s allowing yourself to admit, honestly and without shame, “I’m struggling with this.”
There’s also something powerful about widening our understanding of what a meaningful life looks like. So many of us have inherited very narrow ideas of success; marriage, children, income, home ownership by a certain age. But life is far more expansive than a checklist.
A beautiful life can include deep friendships, purpose, creativity, healing, travel, faith, community, laughter, peace, freedom and growth. Your life does not become valuable only once somebody chooses you romantically.
And whilst it sounds cliché, life really does unfold differently for all of us. Some people meet their partner at twenty-two. Others at forty-two. Some people become parents. Some don’t. Some completely reinvent themselves halfway through life. Some discover happiness in ways they never originally imagined.
Very little happens exactly when or how we expect it to.
I think part of emotional maturity is learning how to hold hope without punishing ourselves for where we currently are. To trust that somebody else having their moment does not mean you’ve missed yours or that yours isn't on it's way.
There is enough room in this world for everybody’s joy.
And if you’re in a season where everybody else seems to be moving forwards whilst you feel stuck, then know this; your life is not on pause simply because it looks different right now.
You are not behind.
You are not failing.
You are not less worthy because your timeline looks different.
Sometimes life unfolds slowly. Sometimes the chapters that feel the loneliest become the ones that shape us most deeply. And sometimes, the life we eventually build looks nothing like the one we originally planned, but somehow still becomes exactly what we needed.
As Granger Smith says, “Don’t you love it when the good guys win? Don’t you love it when a ship comes in?”
I think eventually, in one way or another, it does.
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