I [31 M] am having problems with my mother [56 F] and the rest of my family due to my decision to stay single.

I guess I should preface this by explaining a little about myself and my background. My parents are divorced and my father and my stepmother are supportive of my decision and understand why I made my decision to stay single. My mother and the rest of the family on her side on the other hand are always giving me grief about this and it is making me not want to be around them as much as I used to.

I by no means have had a tough time meeting and finding women in the past. When I was much younger, I was in a band and did a fair amount of touring. Picking up women was pretty easy back then and that confidence I established during those times made it easy for me to meet women in college and after. I still have a fair amount of female friends that I talk to on a semi regular basis so its not like I am afraid of women or anything like that.

So I'll get to the meat of the problem. In the past few years I have made a conscious effort to stay single mostly as a way to get my life on track and to be able to focus on myself first and foremost. It turns out that not worrying about relationships and what comes with them had made me a much happier person. I used to suffer from extreme depression and the reason for that was the terrible situations I put myself in and the toxic relationships that came from them. I started to do everything in my power to put myself in a place where I can rely on myself and my efforts eventually paid off. I have a good job with an amazing salary, I have the place of my dreams in the best apt. complex in town, I have been able to save a good deal of money and pay off all of my debts while bringing my credit score back up to a good rating, and I have been able to finally BE HAPPY! I have great friends and people I care about but my mother and her side of the family have started to bring me down. Its especially tough for me because I took a new job in a different state just to be closer to my mother and her family. My grandfather isn't doing to well and I wanted to be closer to him in case anything went wrong as well as be able to spend time with some family that I haven't been able to spend time with in a long time due to college and my previous job.

Whenever we get together for family events, my grandparents constantly bring up the fact that I am single and that I NEED to be with someone to be happy and to have children. I constantly tell them that I do not want children and I am happier being single but they just don't understand. I know its a little strange for someone to not want to be with anyone but I was hoping they would be as supportive as my father and my brothers. Its getting to the point where they will praise my cousin and his girlfriend constantly while berating me for my life choices. I love my family but whenever they have family get togethers now, I make an excuse not to go or I do whatever I can to leave early. It hurts the most when my mother and step-father (who are extremely religious) tell me that what I am doing is unnatural in gods eyes and I am robbing them of grandchildren.

I don't know what else to tell them anymore and I feel like this constant pressure from them will never stop. I want to spend time with my family and to cook for them like I used to when I first moved out here but now it just feels like its not worth it anymore and it hurts that my own mother who raised me as a single mother for 11 years would tell me that I am a bad person for wanting to stay single.

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tl;dr: Mothers side of the family is not supportive of me wanting to stay single and make it difficult for me to want to spend time with any of them.

Submitted November 15, 2018 at 04:53PM by needmorelove https://ift.tt/2QNezGt