I have wasted part of my life

“I decided to have a child, although I knew that it would ruin my everyday life. There was no pressure from the partner. It was not an impulse either, but the effect of long reflections. I read many articles in the psychological press and I liked the vision that I would pass my values on to my child”, says Natalia. “I thought I would get attached to him or her. I didn’t think it would be so bad.”

A nice boy

Natalia is a lawyer, she has been working for the same company for 11 years. While she was pregnant, her career began to develop unexpectedly quickly. She went on a sick leave just before giving birth, and when her son appeared in the world, she did not find herself in the role of a mother at all. “My biggest dream was to leave the house – without him, go anywhere. I felt redundant, I had the impression that important and necessary things were happening next door, and I was doing something anyone could do: changing nappies and giving the bottle.”

The first weeks after returning from hospital. The baby cries at night. Usually, Natalia’s partner wakes up first. He changes the nappy, feeds the baby. She is still sleeping. “On the rare occasions when I woke up first, I pretended to be asleep and waited for him to get up. He left for work in the morning, so I had to take care of the baby. I was very dissatisfied, I was doing what was needed, waiting for the little one to fall back asleep, going to bed myself or playing games”, says Natalia, who never uses names during our conversation. “I didn’t know how to take care of him to keep him from crying. At some point, I stopped doing anything. I put my headphones on and waited for him to stop.”

The fear was the worst. “I was scared of things I had no control over, like cot death or that a hornet would fly in and sting the baby. I read articles about such mishaps and I panicked. I had the feeling that I would either end up in a psychiatric ward or go to jail.”

She returned to work after three months, and her partner went on paternity leave. She stayed in the office as long as she could. “Then we started to quarrel about my constant absence or that my son did not know me. I was tired of hearing these reproaches, so I stayed at work even longer to come back after they were asleep. And when I saw that the lights were on, I kept walking around the estate”, she admits.

She did not seek the help of a psychologist, nor did she confide in anyone for fear that it would turn against her. Only once did she have an honest conversation with her mother. “She didn’t say it outright, but I realised she had regretted motherhood too. She did nothing about it, because she had no room for manoeuver. Those were the times when a woman almost always got parental rights after a divorce. If she admitted that she didn’t want it, people would destroy her. For as long as I can remember, there has been coldness and bad emotions between us. This conversation gave me a lot, we got closer to each other. My mother is a wonderful grandmother. She prefers the child to me, that’s for sure. It quickly turned out that my partner does too.”

Natalia became jealous and more and more often noticed behaviours that she did not like or did not understand. Once she had an argument with her son about a toy. He was two years old then. “I was transplanting flowers on the balcony, he kept taking my shovel. Eventually I took it from him and he cried. When my partner intervened, I said it was my shovel”, she recalls.

At work, not everything was as it used to be too. “I was satisfied when someone got the maximum sentence. Earlier, in such moments, I had dilemmas, I was able to empathise with his or her situation. Now I was satisfied with a job well done.

Quarrels at home became a norm. When her partner hit her during one of them, she took the cat, her laptop, some clothes and moved to her old apartment. “I should have done this a year and a half earlier”, she says. “There was a moment that made me realise everything. I went to a business training and suddenly, after months of numbness, I began to enjoy the little things, being with other people. I found out that not everything was broken inside me after all. I should have left back then instead of dragging it out. I have wasted part of my life waiting for something to change.”

After leaving home, she went to a psychologist and wanted to try couples therapy, but her partner showed no interest. Natalia regrets the end of her relationship the most. “Before that, it had been very good, and we had been together for four years. I don’t know if our relationship would have been spoiled if there had been no baby. But surely these conflicts, caused by everyday life, have ruined everything”, she says.

She also gave up her passion. “I danced in a band, we had rehearsals every week. They overlapped partially with my partner’s training. Before the baby, it was fine. Then we agreed that he would come back so that I could leave for my classes. He was late, which made me late too, and the band leader had a grudge against me. We argued and I left. I gather my strength to apologise to her because I would love to come back.”

Natalia left home 11 months ago, when her son was two and a half years old. She does not regret this decision. “It’s better for everyone”, she concludes. Her son lives with his dad, she visits him once a week. “I usually come for two hours. My son is happy to see me. It’s nice, I don’t look at my watch. He is a nice, cheerful boy. I even started to like him”, says Natalia. She admits that she is not doing very well when her son is looking for closeness. “When he wants to hug, I do not push him away, but I try to withdraw a little. I read that at such moments strong emotions were supposed to occur. And I feel nothing.”

Moving out did not restore her former life. “I certainly don’t want to be in any relationship. It is only good when no one is at home except me. The first reason is that nobody wants, demands, or reproaches me. And the second – that I do not feel threatened.”

Second job

“For my work colleagues, I am a source of recipes for a good dinner, not a business partner. I am not taken into account in the professional community. I can see that I miss this flair”, says Agnieszka, who has been working in advertising for two years now. Previously, for 12 years, she took care of the house and raising children. She got pregnant while still in college, gave birth right after graduation and did not have time to go to work. Her husband had a career from the very beginning. There were no talks about the division of responsibilities, about what she wants professionally. “It seemed clear that Jacek needs to develop, he had a good job and promotion in perspective”, says Agnieszka.

At first she felt no discomfort. “I thought that if I devote my time to the children, we would have a great bond. It seemed to me that this closeness would allow me to avoid educational problems”, she says. “And now, when I look at my friends who return to work after their maternity leaves, I do not think that their relationship with their children is worse than mine. Maybe it’s not about quantity at all, but about quality? It’s not like you wake up every day with a smile on your face that you will spend another beautiful day with your children.”

Agnieszka has always liked being around people, she draws energy from contacts with others. For 12 years, her life was mostly limited to the company of two daughters and a son. Zuzia was born right after graduation, Marysia two years later, Michał is five years old. “I’ve always tried to find the golden mean. I was convinced that if everything else worked out, I could think about myself. And that if the family is happy, so will I. Today I know that it is not true, but this belief has remained, and it is difficult for me to change anything”, she admits. “I am 35 years old and for employers I am old. Preparing my CV was a big challenge, because I sat down in front of the computer and I had nothing to write.”

Agnieszka adds that her relationship with her husband contributes to the feeling of defeat. “Jacek’s focus on his career, and mine on home and children, meant that we began to live in separate worlds. We have no common topics”, she says. Today, she would have managed her life differently, but she can’t say what she would do if she got a second chance. “I finished Iberian studies. I do not know what kind of job could be fulfilling for me, I did not have the opportunity to prove myself in any field. I started working in advertising as a trader, because I managed to get it thanks to acquaintances”, she confesses. “If I could make my own life again, I would be bolder in pursuit of my own dreams and I would travel more. I also do not know if I would like to implement this different scenario with the same man, because life has shown that we have drifted away from each other.”

Aga has no plan what to do next. “I have the feeling that I am still needed at home, because the children are still small. Taking a flexible job was like taking a second job, because my family is still my first job.”

“He liked that the next day I felt like shit”

In high school, her parents controlled even her timetable. There was no question of parties, she did not go to any eighteenth birthday. Therefore, when she left for another city and started her studies, she felt unlimited freedom. “As if someone let me off my leash”, says Justyna.

They partied every day in the dormitory. There was alcohol and marijuana, sometimes ecstasy. She was high on drugs and got drunk unconscious. She missed classes, but in moderation, because she always passed the exam sessions. And when she came home from time to time, she played a diligent student. “I am a master of masking”, she says. “Probably looking at me, you can see a person full of energy, satisfied with life. And I’m depressed.”

In the fifth year she got pregnant, she married the father of the child for a few months, but he left her before the birth. He had a problem with alcohol too. She returned to her hometown, her parents helped her raise her daughter. She would leave the baby with her grandparents at weekends and relax by going to parties or away, and she would drink during the week.

Occasionally there were glimpses that she might be addicted, but arguments against it were quickly found. “I drank good wine and only in the evenings, I did not stand in front of the store”, she lists. She was also reassured by the fact that her friends did not see the problem. “My friend said that I exaggerate and opened a prosecco”, says Justyna. And the second husband, whom she married four years after the birth of her daughter, bought her alcohol himself. “At weekends I drank two bottles of wine, during the week one, and sometimes even beer to top it off”, she says. “He didn’t drink, he just sat in the room and accompanied me. Now that I’ve been sober for 11 months, our relationship broke badly. Robert must have liked the fact that I used to apologise to him for my drunken rowdy behaviour every morning. That the next day I felt like shit.”

Five years ago she decided to go to therapy, but then started drinking again, and that was until last August. Until a suicide attempt. She went to a mental institution, left after a week in a closed ward. She was supposed to go to rehabilitation, but they said they were unable to provide proper treatment due to staff shortages. They advised her to continue the sessions with her therapist. She obeyed and started going to meetings. She chose NA, i.e. Narcotics Anonymous. “There are younger people here, and there is less emphasis on trusting everything to God than in AA groups”, she explains. Justyna is a teacher. She was afraid that she would meet a parent or one of the former students. “It happened, but not in my city, it was after I went to the meeting a hundred kilometres away. I don’t care anymore. What struck me the most, however, was that very few women come to the meetings. It is difficult to talk about addiction when there are a dozen or so men in the group, so from September I would like to start meetings only for women.”

Justyna’s mother, instead of being happy that her daughter is putting her life in order and has been sober for almost a year, accuses her of going to meetings with “those people” too often, that she neglects her daughter and husband.

Justyna believes that she has wasted over 20 years because of her addiction. “My greatest regret is that I was not the mother I wanted to be. My daughter is now adult. If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t have screamed at her and let her see me drunk”, she confesses. “I also wasted my time for myself. Due to my addiction, I have a problem with my feelings, I have been learning them all over again for almost a year. I used to help people to feel good about myself, better yet – to get something in return. Today I do it selflessly. I used to like to gossip, and now I will first consider if I would be able to say the same to this person. I am less nervous and can appreciate the little things. Most of all, I learn that I am important.”

Master of Arts

“I come from a small town. My parents had a vision that I would finish my studies, have a master’s degree and become a clerk. I succumbed to it. And today I don’t know if I would have continued my education at all after graduating from high school. For sure, after high school, I would take a year off and think about what I really want”, says 34-year-old Klaudia.

In 2006, she began studying administration at the University of Gdańsk. There were only about ten hours of class per week, so she thought she would perfect her CV and went on to study business management at the Maritime Academy. “I thought it would be wow – two day courses at good universities. I believed that these studies would give me a good future”, she says. Reality brutally disappointed her. “I applied for the position of an assistant in a company selling bedding for the European market, but I knew too little German and they didn’t accept me. I applied for a job in various public institutions, to no avail. When I was offered employment at the reception desk of a hostel, I agreed because I wanted to earn money for myself”, she says. She thought she was overqualified, but it turned out to be the norm, and in many places a requirement.

When the possibility of going to Norway appeared, Klaudia did not hesitate too long. “I decided that I will not make a career in Poland”, she explains. After moving, she met a Norwegian career counsellor. He admitted that the fields of study she had finished are not very promising. He helped me find a job at a hotel reception, despite the fact that no one with higher education works here in such a position.

Klaudia regrets the time wasted on studies. “Back then everyone studied, no matter what course, what mode – you had to study”, she emphasises. “It quickly turned out that these two fields of study are the only things I have in my CV. Because when it comes to professional experience, I can only enter a job in a press salon when I was making extra money during my studies, in a hostel and in a hotel.”

Klaudia’s husband tells her that it is never too late to study. But she doesn’t want to go to further studies. “Those years passed, I wasted them on courses that gave me nothing in my life. I lack determination now. I have no plan what to do next.”

Potatoes with dill

“I met him when my self-esteem shuffled on the ground. I was 16 and he was 19. When he came to pick me up from school by car, I felt great”, says Monika. “On the one hand, it was a love like from a film, because in love since high school, there were no crises during the 13 years of the relationship. On the other hand, I have no romantic or passionate memories.”

When they lived together in college, their everyday life was based on sharing space. Dinner together, watching a series, a walk. “Dominik accused me of not talking about serious topics. So we decided to start telling each other what doesn’t suit us in our relationship, what we want to change in ourselves, and what should be improved by the other party. We have never put this plan into practice. Me because I was afraid he would leave me. He – I don’t know why.

He stated that he did not want to get married or have children.” Monika accepted it, she had no pressure. “Only later did I realise that it was not the only matter in which I succumbed to Dominik. I have subordinated my whole life to him”, she says. “When I bought some crisps, I was afraid that he would think that I didn’t take care of myself because I have a tendency to put on weight.”

He was jealous whenever she went away or went out alone. When she went for a beer with her classmates during studies, he wrote a dramatic text message.” She thought the relationship was over. A few years later, when she was already working and went to the company barbecue, they had two quiet days after she returned. “But when he was going out with his friends from work, I waited until three in the morning to pick him up”, she says.

For 13 years she did not eat potatoes or boiled vegetables because Dominik did not like them. Why did she quit eating them too? “I don’t know”, she wonders. “The first thing I did when we broke up was to cook myself some potatoes with dill.”

They broke up against Monika’s will, although today she admits that it was the best thing that could happen to her. “Dominik found another woman. She worked in a bakery, and I was glad that he was so eager to get us fresh rolls. He got married to this new girl, they have a child. I told him it was low.”

Monika found out about the affair some time after the breakup. When Dominik wanted to end the relationship with her, he said that it did not work out. “Some time later, he proposed a couples therapy. I agreed, carefully prepared for the visit, in the office I took out a long list of errors and conclusions. And it turned out that he didn’t mean to work on anything. He dragged me there to say in front of a witness that it wouldn’t work.”

Monika ended up in individual therapy, it opened her eyes. “First of all, I realised how sick the relationship was and how good it is that I am not still stuck in it. And I know that if it hadn’t been for the betrayal, I wouldn’t have had the courage to finish it. Previously, I was so helpless that I cried into my pillow or in the shower”, she admits. “I wasted 13 years. I do not completely cancel them out, because it was a lesson, but I lost my teenage years. I didn’t have a date in high school, I didn’t cry on my friend’s shoulder after a failed love, I missed being a teenager.”

After parting ways with Dominik, she tried to make up for this time. “I was single for eight months. Lonely vacation in Turkey, night car rides, parties until four in the morning. When I felt like it, I went to the forest or lay in bed all day on Sunday”, she says.

When she made an appointment with a boy from a dating site for the first time, she felt like just before her A-levels. “I was awake all night and I had prepared the dress the evening before.” Two years ago she met her current partner. “Our relationship is completely different. There are feelings, passion, we can talk about anything, but we can also argue over a slice of bread. I have no problem telling him what does not suit me, he does the same. And when I buy crisps, I am not afraid of what he will think of me.”

Author:  Izabela O'Sullivan

Illustration: Marta Frej

The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 21 August 2021