7 year-
I was 34 when my marriage crumbled around me.
I have always wanted children, but I actually knew just after I got married to my ex that I would not have them with him. He had an awful drunken rage just after we got married and I had enough recovery underneath me that I was able to hold strong in that. I personally felt stuck due to my beliefs around marriage and we were together a total of 7 years also. I sometimes still get into shame about how long I stayed, but I don't regret my decision around children.
I had a lot of healing to do after my divorce. I have not actually been willing to date again, but am okay with that decision. I am just starting to come out of that now, and have the first stirrings of a crush which I am finding kind of fun. I am 41 now and I don't have biological children in the traditional sense, but I do consider myself a mom.
It is a long boring backstory but in a nutshell I took in a foster dog and I ended up unexpectedly with puppies and an extended human family as a result. I am second mom to a teenager, and the biggest father figure he has had in his life. P decided to stay with me when his mom moved back home, and he has lived with me the last three years. I have enjoyed it very much. It has helped me with boundaries, detachment, love, and oddly my spirituality that things have a way of working out. It has helped me to heal in ways I could not have done without being open to a non-traditional ideas, and in ways I could not even have considered without having given myself the gift of recovery.
I don't know in the big picture what that means for me but I suspect I will eventually adopt. It has helped me to realize how much I have to give when I am able to participate fully in the world. Without recovery I did not have those options, because I could not see.
I am NOT saying that it what it is going to look like for you but I am saying that giving myself space was the best gift I could offer myself. Digging into my hurt and hard stuff has ended up being so expansive.