Due to the very private content, I will delete this after a while. So please do not quote.

I come from a highly dysfunctional family setting. My father was spinning plates already in the 70ies. He doesn't like women, he doesn't like feminism. He doesn't have frame and apart from being dominant and angry he does not lead, just rants and rants and rants with little understanding for normal human challenges. Don't get me wrong. I love him and for many years he was how I wanted to be and I was always seeking for his approval, yet never truly managed to ear his respect.

Apart from having clear (not clearly expressed) expectations with respect to me knowing my place as a women (below him) he treated me like a boy, encouraged knowledge and critical thinking. I love our extended conversations and I will always remember them. They have made me who I am today.

Yet, he always encouraged me to be ambitious and achieving and gave me the most ill advice he could have given me, by telling me that I should not concentrate on finding a partner but building a career and "wasting" my prime years without commitment.

In some sense I was the son he didn't have but couldn't earn his respect because, well, I am a woman. In another he couldn't overcome the fact that I was a women and I was put down whenever he felt that he could sense something like "feminist entitlement" in me.

It took me very long until I could overcome the fear I had and his verbal aggression with that he can leach out at any moment as soon as a situation doesn't run smoothly.

Anyway...

My mom and my father were never married. They have two kids, me and my sister. My mom is the typical AWALT. Nagging, emotional unstable, manipulative, and always expecting the worst of others. I believe she always wanted to feel loved and taken care of, yet she is stubborn and always insists on things getting done her way. Of course she and my dad didn't make it for longer than few years. I love her as well, yet I cannot respect her because of the incredible irrationality she shows. Sometimes I ask myself if she is insane and unable to think logically. However... she respects me and I guess I could give her part of the love and forgiveness she was always seeking. So our relationship is settled as well. She was never mom for me. I had to be responsible quite early.

She left him when I was 4, my sister 2, and moved hundreds of miles away. My childhood was a nightmare. I won't go into the details, but it was a nightmare. Already at the age of 5 I had suicidal thoughts and just wished that me an my family we would crash at the next tree, such that it would all be over. My sister turned (single) mother herself when she was quite young. He was a true alpha, with all the traits that can make alphas successful but also quite antisocial.

To me - for whatever reason - it was always clear that I didn't want to put that nightmare on my kids as well. Neither did I want to raise my kids without father nor did I want to have kids with someone whom I didn't respect. I decided that I had to grow up first.

I never wanted to be single mom, I always wanted to have a stable family. I was missing my father so much, that I never wanted to do that to my kids. How could I want to do such horrible thing to something I love? I feel that I succeeded in growing up. The last bit I needed was to find and understand TRP and manage to overcome my fears. I could protect myself to some extend, but well, there is a lot of confusion outside and there was a lot of confusion in me. I managed, but I also got hurt deeply.

So I never got pregnant. I was in one LTR for five years, but we were young and inexperienced with lots of power fights. He didn't know how to lead and I was not giving in. Although the loyalty and the responsibility and caring we had for each other were great and probably rare to find. Then I fell for someone who - in the language of TRP - probably plated me for five years. I got broken and it took my until now to recover that I have something to give and that I want to give something. Men were always only causing pain in me. I never experienced how it is to feel protected. From the first day of my life, I was always on myself.

I had help from the man whom I am currently dating. Not in terms of extended conversations. He just helped me by being a man that was kind and respectful and patient. I truly admire him for who he is. Well, he is 8 years younger than I am. He doesn't want family now. I am certain that at some point he will find a wonderful woman with whom he has kids. He just has everything he needs and I hope that I could give him back at least some of the good that I have received from him.

I want family. I am still in shape. So I guess I cannot stay with him for longer. I wish I could. It is the first time that I fully trust and have faith in who someone is.

All I did. All the self-improvement, all the work, the fights. I did it because I wanted to be a better mom than my mom was. I wanted family... Now I will not have any at all? At max I have 6 years left. At my age, many men are broken. Particularly in my country feminism is quite strong. An intuitively RP-male will be either already married or he will probably search for a much younger woman than I am. I am sure that I am a wonderful partner. However, well, let's be realistic. I still get lots and lots of looks and advances, but my time is more or less over. Even the best Vitamin Cocktail won't stop the decay.

I don't know what to do. I do not have much time anymore. Was it wrong to wait so long? Should I have gone the way many other went? Is it better to not be a mom instead of being a single mom?

All I tried was to avoid the mistakes of my parents and to turn into a better person, such that my yet unborn children wouldn't have to pay for my BS, as I had to pay for the BS of my parents. And now? Give up? Life will be so empty? But with this enormous amount or pressure and longing I have in me, everything will just radiate "desperate/needy". Which I am not. I just know that the situation I am in is quite pressing, if I really want to make my family real. And then? What about the insanity out there? So I need a rational, caring, kind and clever husband, who will help to raise the kids into grown ups that thrive.