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Posts Tagged ‘single mom’

Long, rough road to travel

16 Mar

I had absolutely no idea how long it had been since I posted here last and I have to admit I am more than a little shocked by how much time has passed. I started this blog in a rather desperate hope and attempt to deal with everything that was going on in my life. I was completely lost and generally felt completely isolated. I have absolutely no family in my area and while I do have friends they all have their own lives, with their own problems and I didn’t want to ask them to deal with my problems in addition to theirs.

My son was quite young when everything happened and I had been a full time stay at home mother his whole life. While I had worked full time prior to his birth his father and I had decided that not only did we not want him to essentially be raised by a daycare, but that financially speaking daycare wasn’t worth is since it would take more money than anything I could bring in for him to be in daycare 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It is a decision that means more to me now than I had ever thought it would. It has been a very long and generally difficult road to get to where I am today. I have struggled through more bad days than good, but I have made it through. The journey continues, one day at a time, although to be honest there are days where I honestly feel like I need to take it one minute at a time in order to get through.

Here is a bit of what has been going on since I last posted.

  • My son has recently, officially, become a teenager. Something that neither of us were really prepared for to be honest. While I have tried dating since my unwanted divorce and was even in a relationship for a period of time it is still just my son and I against the world. He remains the center of my entire universe and my reason for everything. I have shared custody, but because he spends more than 50% of his time with me I have majority custody and primary placement. My son doesn’t seem to enjoy visiting his father, but he still goes. Over these past years being without my son has become both easier and more difficult. I no longer spend the time that I am at home without him hiding in my bedroom (something that I used to do while my son was gone, leaving only to go to work, make something to eat, use the bathroom and so on – it was something that made the time he was gone a bit easier to deal with), but I definitely do not feel as social when he is gone. I will occasionally get together with a friend while he is gone, but for the most part I tend to keep to myself when not at work.
  • As I alluded to in the previous paragraph, I have tried dating off and on since the divorce and was in a relationship for a while, but it didn’t last and all the other attempts to find someone have been failures. It’s extremely frustrating that every time I have tried dating that the same thing happens. I state upfront that I am a single mom and that my son comes first, especially considering that I do not have any family in the area to help me with anything. I state that I am looking for a serious, committed relationship and have no interest in playing games. That I want to find and build a deep, emotional connection with someone and that I do not want to rush into a relationship. Every time I find someone who says they are looking for the same thing and that they understand they will start making things sexual long before I am ready for it. (At the fastest this has happened within 30 minutes of us chatting and at longest within 2 days of starting to chat.) When I tell them that I am not ready for that they get upset, often insulting and stop communicating. At this point I have pretty much given up on trying to date for the foreseeable future. I don’t discount the possibility that I will find someone, but I’m not going to be making a concerted effort again any time soon.
  • My ex has stopped paying me alimony and so I have lost quite a bit of income that I used to be able to rely on for paying rent, bills and so on. He still pays child support, but that is all that he is paying and as a result money is always about ten times tighter than it was and it was already really tight. With my work schedule being built around when my son is in school I am not able to work full time and with not making much more than minimum wage, despite being with my employer for about ten years, most months there is serious concern about whether or not I am going to be able to pay my rent. I have tried repeatedly to get rental assistance and have never been able to because they say that I make too much money and/or they don’t have the funding. I honestly don’t know how much longer I am going to be able to do this without having to find a second job. I am more than willing to work two jobs, it is something that I did for years prior to Covid, but I can’t go back to the work schedule that I had when I was working two jobs. I would work twelve consecutive days, have two days off, my Saturday and Sunday with my son, and then start the next twelve days of work. That kind of schedule would be very difficult to be able to maintain and honestly should not, in my opinion, be necessary, but of course only time will tell what will have to happen on the work front. I have been trying to find another job for almost eight months now, with no success. I honestly have never had so much trouble finding a job, let alone getting an interview before and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I also don’t know what I am going to do if I can’t find another job soon.
  • I have been struggling with some mild depression and a fair amount of anxiety, specifically social anxiety. As a result I have not kept up on some of the things that I used to regularly do, including chores around the apartment. I have recently been able to make some serious strides in being able to get things back on track, but I still have a long way to go and with the potential for various family and friends visiting this Spring and Summer I am fast running out of time to get back on top of things. I have thought about starting to take Sertraline again as it has been helpful to me in the past, but I don’t have health insurance right now and have no idea how I would be able to afford that medication on top of everything else. As it is I have been struggling to be able to afford the migraine medicine that I absolutely have to have to be able to deal with a migraine attack when I get them.

As I said, it has been a long and difficult road, but somehow I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Each day is filled with learning something new about being a parent, how to deal with my ex, how to keep moving forward and/or how to find something, even something small, to make the day just a little better. It’s not a perfect world and so many of the things that I would like to be able to wish for will never happen, but I do my best to make the best of what each day presents me with. Before I am ready for it I’ll find out what tomorrow holds, but I will deal with that when I get there.

 
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Posted in General, Wonders & Ramblings

 

I’m still learning…

08 Jan

Ok world be advised — my son is not giving me a hard time, he is having a hard time. Let me say that again. My son is not giving me a hard time, he is having a hard time. This applies to anytime he has any kind of negative and/or inappropriate behavior. I am NOT in any way excusing his inappropriate behavior, just trying to remind everyone out there, particularly those of you that are not parents, that children are little humans. Saying that they are smaller versions of us is not a joke and it is not because it is cute of fun to say, but because it is true. Children of all ages are just as much an individual personality and just as emotionally complex person as we adults are. The major difference is that they do not have the knowledge and experience base to be able to appropriately express those emotions like we as adults are (supposed to be) able to do. They have good days, bad days, tough days and down right hellish days like we do and while most adults may not realize and/or won’t admit to is that we are quite often part of the problem and making things more difficult for them. We expect them to have the emotional maturity that we do with not even a fraction of the experience that we have. (Something else that most adults don’t realize and/or won’t admit to is that the majority of adults out there who are a lot less emotionally mature than most of the kids they know. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the general world of politics.)

Like I said, I do not condone or excuse any of my son’s inappropriate behavior, but I am not one of those parents that will immediately implement a punishment or consequence as soon as my son starts to have inappropriate behavior. I will actually give him a chance or two to try and turn his behavior around because I firmly believe that the ability to regain control of your emotions and behavior and therefore regain control of how a situation is unfolding. If he can not (because let’s be honest we all occasionally get so worked up about something that there is no coming back from it) or does not regain control then I certainly will implement consequences, most commonly starting off with a Time Out. After a certain period of time I will go and talk to my son to discuss what happened for him to end up in Time Out and determine whether or not he can get out of his designated Time Out spot.

Now, here is something else that I would like to tell you (if you don’t already know this) — My life is not what I wanted or expected it to be. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that when I was pregnant if you had asked me what I thought my life was going to be like when my son got to be this age the last things that I would have expected to tell you would be that my son was still an only child and that I am a single mom. My ex is (for better or worse) still involved in my son’s life, but as far as he (my ex) is concerned I am the enemy and even just the idea of trying to work with me as a person, alone the other parent is completely unthinkable. No matter what I do to try and take the personal out of this so that we can do what is best for our son my ex is constantly trying to bring all the things that have nothing to do with our son back into the mix just because he wants to torture me as much as he possibly can. What does this most recent piece of knowledge have to do with this entry? Essentially it is this — I am still learning how to be a parent. I have never been a parent before and I am essentially learning how to be a single parent at the same time. My son was less than half the age he is now when his father decided that he was going to force me through a divorce so the majority of his life I have been struggling with major and mostly unwanted life changes and I have been having to come to terms with all of them by myself.

Everything above has lead to this final point of thought — the next time you see a child (or even children) with his/her/their parent(s) and the little one(s) are having the kind of behavior that makes you think “If that was my child…” or give the parent(s) a judgmental glare STOP YOURSELF because you don’t know them. You have NO idea what they have been through, what they are going through or why they are behaving and handling things the way they are. You could be that parent’s best friend in the world and have all kinds of insider knowledge about their life experiences, but you are still not that parent and you have not had to live through their life and there is no one in this universe who has the right to judge the interactions between a parent and their child/children. I can promise you that the struggling parent needs your encouragement support more than they will ever need your opinions and judgement.

 
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Posted in Letters to Everyone Else, Wonders & Ramblings

 

Today – 1st day of Kindergarten : Tomorrow – High School Graduation

03 Sep

Like many parents this week my son’s summer vacation came to an end and he had his first day of the new school year. Again, like many of the parents it was my only/oldest child’s (in my case only child’s) first day of Kindergarten. So, not only was it a big first day for my son it was a big first day for me too. It was something that I had been both looking forward to as well as dreading, sometimes for the same reason!

It was both a good morning and a difficult morning for me, the difficult part being a result of the fact that my ex was — well, he was himself. A slightly more subtle version of himself, but himself none-the-less.

(Now I’m going to be honest and say that at this point in my writing I am feeling somewhat compelled to instinctively go on the automatic defense of myself by saying things like “I knew that my ex would want to be there for my son’s first day of school. I knew that my ex would most likely bring his girlfriend with him and I would never have done anything to stand in the way of that.” All of those statements, and many more that I could make, are true, but it is frustrating and exhausting to always feel like I should have to try and preempt people’s potentially negative judgements of me, so I am going to try and convince myself that I don’t need to do that and try to continue writing.)

As you might imagine the good portions of my morning were seeing my son who was nervous and excited be nervous and excited to start school. I was pleased that he was excited for me to make him a lunch (so that he could use his new lunchbox that matched his backpack), and that he gave me many many many hugs and kisses and told me that he loved me many times before he headed into his classroom. While I had expected to be at least a little emotional and maybe even cry a little bit when dropping him off for his first day of full-day school (Kindergarten in our area is full-day) I did not experience that and that was a little sad for me. That was one of the lesser things that made the morning difficult. As strange as it may sound, particularly to a non-parent, to be a little disappointed by the fact that I was NOT emotional, but I was.

I have little doubt that the only, yes only, reason that I was not emotional was the presence of my ex and his girlfriend. I truly believe that if I had been there alone or if my ex and I had still been together that I would have been at least a little emotional and even shedding a few tears when dropping the center of my universe off at his first day of big boy school. Sadly, nor not sadly as the case may be, I was too on edge because of some of the comments that my ex had made when all of us met up before my son’s school day began as well as his general attitude toward and treatment of me.

Despite the fact that there was some tension and stress when dropping off and saying goodbye at the door of my son’s Kindergarten classroom the encounter with my ex was relatively civil. This fact is almost as shocking as the fact that my son is old enough to already be in Kindergarten. How is that even possible?!?!?!? How could so much time have passed and with everything that I have gone through over the past 3 years how can it feel like that time has gone by so quickly? While I try not to think too far ahead regarding my son’s growing up I can’t help but feel like this week was his first day of Kindergarten and next week will be his High School graduation.

 
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Posted in Wonders & Ramblings

 

Struggling in Iowa

12 Aug

Struggling Reader in Iowa,

Recently someone that we both know, we’ll call her Ms. D, told me that you have been going through a tough time right now. While I know how little this helps I am sorry to hear that you have been struggling. As I understand it you have been reading my blog, so you probably know by now that I am someone who hates the cliches and platitudes that we so frequently hear as we are trying to adjust to this MASSIVE change in our lives, even so I want you to know that you are not alone and that I can completely empathize with the struggle you are going through.

Am I correct in understanding that you are also adjusting to becoming a single mother? I don’t know about you, but it is an adjustment that I never thought I would have to make in my life. I have only one child and the adjustment to being a single mom has been tricky in ways that I both anticipated and don’t think I ever could have anticipated. Through it all my son has been my driving force. He has been my anchor and my greatest, and at times my only source of comfort. I imagine that most women going through situations similar to ours feel much the same way. How can they not?

I don’t know how much of my blog you have read, but I sincerely hope that it has helped you in some way. If in no other way I hope that at the very least it has helped you feel less alone and isolated, which are feelings that I have been struggling with myself. I do not know everything and I am still going through the process myself, but if there is anything that I can do to help I will.

I don’t want to give you unsolicited advice, however, if you will permit me I would like to say that I know just how easy it is to be hard on yourself while trying to navigate through everything that this nightmare involves. It seems like it is almost a default response, but please don’t allow yourself, or anyone else for that matter, make you feel like you are wrong in how you are processing this. There is no specific time table that you must adhere to and then you have to be ok and ready to move on. You are in the process of grieving. You have suffered a loss that is significant and the length of time that you need to process and adjust to that loss will be different from the amount of time that someone else might need. Do your best to give yourself a break. If you ever feel like you want or need to talk to someone I am more than willing to listen.

You are not alone.

 
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Posted in Letters to Everyone Else

 

Out of my nightmares and into reality

17 Apr

One night before bed in the early Fall of 2013 my husband, a man whom I have loved for going on 16 years, told me that just a few nights before he had allowed himself to get drunk and in doing so to have sexual contact with another woman. (His only regret being that none of it had happened while he and the other woman were sober and therefore capable of doing more.) It was difficult to hear, to accept, to know how to react and so on. I spent, as one would imagine, the next few days trying to figure out what to do next. In the end I decided that despite my hurt and anger that I still loved this man who I had devoted my life and love to and wanted to try to save my marriage. I stated my desires and intentions to my husband only to be informed that he had decided he wanted a separation and most likely a divorce. My pain, anger, fear and desperation only doubled with this newest revelation.

All of this happening within a couple of months of my husband requesting that we start trying to get pregnant with our second child and having actually starting to try!

Eventually I stopped fighting against what he was forcing on me, and our young son, since my wants and desires were of no importance and no longer mattered to him.

This blog, which in most cases will generally be written in letter format, is intended to help me come to terms with what I am currently going through (not just the separation, impending divorce, but also the fact that I am now a single mother), make sense of what I am feeling, coming to terms with a situation that has been painfully and callously forced on me and, hopefully in the long run, even move on.

 
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Posted in General