in

England

What is your family life like?

So this is a bit random but stick with me. I’m curious to know what other people’s general social life is like? My partner and I are naturally a little more introverted. He works shifts and neither of us see family much, friends every so often but usually just me and my toddler will go and over time I feel like we’ve gradually become more and more isolated socially as a family, if you know what I mean.

Just living everyday with the same routine, not really seeing people too often and not ‘occasions’ or fun mega social get togethers, just like meeting up with a friend and their toddler with my toddler for an activity for the kids once or twice every couple of weeks. We rarely do social things as a family or with more than one friend. We also don’t see family much as our families are just not that close. This was just normal for us and I kind of accepted we had become home bodies since having a baby.

But I went back to work and at my new job a few of the women in my office have toddlers too and their social lives are booming. They have group dinners with multiple family members/friends in the week, have parties and get togethers most weekends, their partners get weekends off so always have family days out too and will go with other families and make an event of it. The women will also have nights out by themselves with friends or go away for the night with their partners alone while grandparents watch the kids.

I now can’t help feeling that we’re too introverted as a family, like maybe this isn’t normal to just not be doing lots of social type stuff. A lot of my friends have babies and toddlers too so it’s not that I don’t know anyone with kids. I don’t know if it’s where my partner is never available when others are, he is very fixated on his routine too so even if we’re both off- he will have to do housework, go to the gym, eat meals at home etc and then before we know it the day is gone and I’ve done something with our son alone for example. He’s almost unable to sacrifice his routine and ‘fun’ things come last or there’s different excuses/tired/can’t be bothered etc.

Is this normal? We have been having issues in the relationship where I just feel lonely and bored socially sometimes and emotionally. But I kind of put it down to ‘oh we just have a baby, this is what happens’. I always do fun activities with my son and love doing so, I love being a mum but as time goes on and my son is more able to get involved (he’s a toddler now) I’m realising it’s not that we’ve had a baby it’s just the lifestyle we have, and I wish I had someone to share it with rather than just send pictures to. We don’t have a ‘village’ or big groups of friends etc just individual friends that don’t know each other.

To add context, I’ve never been invited to meet any of his friends or their partners/families. They just go to the gym together or go and climb mountains together so not something we would get invited to.

Is this normal? Should we be having a more active social life? Is my partners attitude/lifestyle stopping us being more involved? Or is this the life you have to accept if he’s doing shift work- even on his days off etc? Or did we get stuck in the house too much postpartum and now struggling to get out again?

I just want to have a full life for my son to grow up in, he has everything he needs with us, we do loads with him, we go on holidays etc but just want him to grow up with lots of people around him and sharing fun times. I don’t want him to start school and think ‘our lives are boring’ or ‘why don’t we do all these things with people/have lots of family around’ 🫣

Is this completely normal or am I being unreasonable? If this is just a rut then how do we get out? Even if my partner is stuck in this way then is there anything I can do to create a bit more of a community for myself?

Thanks for reading 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼