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Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

1 2

Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

Lone parents

What was your 'this is actually going to be ok' moment as a newly single parent?

45 replies

RedStripeIassie · 26/12/2016 17:26

I finally left my h this month and I'm swinging wildly between tears and being a bit excited about a new future that doesn't involve him. My 3yr old dd does not miss him a bit and had been saying for a while that she didn't like Daddy, only Mummy. So all the sadness and fear is coming from me.

What was your first surprising happy thought or thing that happened to make you think it's wasn't just going to be ok but it was going to be good?

OP posts:

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RedStripeIassie · 26/12/2016 17:28

I should probably start with mine! I'm loving a bed all to myself (till dd comes in in the early hours). And a bed being just for sleep.

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smEGGnogg · 26/12/2016 17:34

It was when I started to look like me again.

For years I'd made myself into what he liked and expected, hair, face, weight etc. I'd hidden behind a persona that he created. A dowdy, frumpy, trodden on piece of a human being.

I got a hair cut, colour and had my nails done, bought an outfit that was what I liked not what he liked and I looked at me in the mirror. After 8 years, it was really me looking back.

Then we managed to get through a major event without him ruining the day and I knew I could be happy again.

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AllTheBabies · 26/12/2016 17:38

I was single from the start with dd1 so there wasn't really a single moment, just a gradual realisation. Of course there were shitty moments but we did it on our own for nearly 4 years and it was crazy, fun and full of love.

I have a partner and 11 month old dd2 now and am pregnant with dc3. To be honest sometimes I look back wistfully on the simpler (and quieter) time of just the two of us!

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AllTheBabies · 26/12/2016 17:39

Posted too soon sorry.

I remember the feeling of pride in telling people I was doing it on my own. Because you should be bloody proud!

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Makemineacabsauv · 26/12/2016 17:50

I took my dc to Venice on holiday and was ever so slightly freaking out about it till weunpa Jed and a Roman came over to me and said she could see I was on my own with dc and if I wanted company they were there but wouldn't be offended if I didn't want company. Made me feel everything was going to be ok and we had the best holiday ever!! Since then I have always said the same to other single parents I see on holiday. Has resulted in some amazing friendships over the years!

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user1482778885 · 26/12/2016 19:16

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

RedStripeIassie · 26/12/2016 19:40

Aww, these are lovely!
smEGGnog I feel like I don't look like me either. Ready to look after myself in the new year.

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DancingDragon · 26/12/2016 19:45

What does that mean user? Changed your name on the ticket to his? Surely he'd have a ticket already? Or was the waiter male?

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DancingDragon · 26/12/2016 19:46

Oh I am slow: waiter = male. Thats nuts. Not the male thing. The ticket thing.

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user1482778885 · 26/12/2016 19:52

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

DancingDragon · 26/12/2016 20:00

Bless you. That is shocking.

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RedStripeIassie · 26/12/2016 20:01

user

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Aussiemum78 · 26/12/2016 20:08

It's a series of it will be ok moments mixed with lots of holy shit moments.
Some ok moments:

Buying a car (ex refused me one when I left)
Getting a job (I worked in family business before)
Getting my nails done, buying new clothes.
Booking a holiday without him
My next moment will be buying a new home for me and Dd.

I'm 9 months in and slowly the ok moments are bigger than the teary moments. First Christmas without him was a holy shit moment but I feel ok about it.

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FetchezLaVache · 26/12/2016 20:17

On the list of reasons I left ExDH is the fact that he's a compulsive hoarder. I moved to a rented terraced house that was narrow but long, so four rooms one behind the other on the ground floor. I remember watching DS, then 2.8, taking huge delight in running from one end of the house to the other - just because he could. And I knew then I'd done the right thing.

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HappyHedgehog247 · 26/12/2016 21:44

Waking up in a rented house with just a mattress on the floor (furniture came the next day!) but sunlight streaming in and no feeling of walking on eggshells or having to be quiet and DC coming into bed with me. Heaven.

Lots more since. Buying my own house (on a big mortgage!) was a very proud moment.
Doing Christmas.

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Frith2013 · 29/12/2016 16:13

It was just 3 days after I left my ex. We were in a refuge (sons and me) and I had been crying/trying not to cry for the whole time.

I decided to listen to his 50 or so answering machine messages. 1 was detailing how he was going to commit suicide by crashing the car. This was complete with revving noises. Then the following messages were that he was "putting the house on the market". Well, he's not dead and I now live back at that house! He lost his hold on me with those messages. I took my sons out and we had chips sitting in the railway station (they were toddlers but still love trains!)

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iluvshoes · 01/01/2017 13:29

I think for me it happened when I finally realised that his dad didn't deserve to have such a gorgeous little boy in his life. I tried to change him and despite my best efforts the man is still a massive waste of oxygen. You cannot help people if they don't want yo be helped. My main focus is my son and I will never put up with being treated like that ever again.

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Disappointednomore · 01/01/2017 16:18

Going on our first holiday without him. I was dreading it but we just took things at our pace, no one striding along in front or telling us what we could or couldn't do. I was also impressed with my self that I managed all the logistics of the airport and getting around a foreign country on my own with DD. That's when the old me started to re-emerge - in common with what many on here have said. The second was on the anniversary of him abandoning me when I looked back and realised I'd single parented for a year and DD was happy and settled.

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MissWimpyDimple · 01/01/2017 23:04

For me it was when DD was actually born and she felt so familiar and so much a part of me that I knew we would be ok and would muddle through.

Before she was born, during the pregnancy etc I was shitting myself!

It's many many years on and we still just muddle through but she's an amazing human and that's down to me.

Her dad reaps the benefits too of course, but I know (and DD does too) that it's really just the two of us

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Iizzyb · 01/01/2017 23:14

They are lovely posts. I am just about to book our first abroad holiday just me and ds(4). We've had a "practice" in the uk & it was our best ever holiday (always been with other family or friends before). Feel even more determined to get us on that plane now

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RedStripeIassie · 01/01/2017 23:23

These are all really heartwarming and hopeful.

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Boogers · 01/01/2017 23:36

H and me separated for a few years, before we were married and before DD was born. It was difficult because I moved 180 miles away with DS.

My moments of 'it's going to be ok' slowly dawned on me: getting a good job and making friends that I still hold dear today; renting my house and buying all my own furniture with only my own taste and sense of decor to go on; teaching DS to read, write, count, use a computer and constructively fill 20 hours without power in November whilst still keeping him fed and warm.

You'll be surprised at what you can do. I know it sounds clichéd, but it's true. It's a whole new journey. Very frightening, but exciting at the same time. You left your husband for many reasons. You're different without him. You're solely responsible for running a household, but with that you also have freedom that you possibly didn't have with your husband. You are your own person.

P.S. When DS went to his dad's of a weekend I sobbed my heart out, especially in the first few months. I got used to it (I still sobbed) but I did the things I couldn't do with 18-month-old DS in the house: I had long, languishing bubble baths, I went out with friends, I had dinner parties, I stayed in my pjs and didn't speak to a soul for 36 hours.

It does get better, honest

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spaceyface89 · 02/01/2017 10:53

Thank you for such a lovely, helpful thread.

Boogers, your post was particularly special. My partner asked me and our 7 month old baby boy to leave our house 6 days ago. It was a bolt out the blue. We have been staying with my parents and trying, slowly to rebuild. There is a mixture of shock, confusion, anger and utter terror as I look into the future alone.

I hope this time next year I look back and realise that things have gone ok and my boy is happy.

Thanks all.

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Boogers · 02/01/2017 13:45

Would you mind if I asked what he gave as his reason for ending it? Don't answer if you don't want to, I'm just prying. Sorry.

How are you doing OP? How's your DD? Obviously your DS doesn't have a clue that things are different, but how are YOU doing? Are your parents supportive of you and your DC?

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spaceyface89 · 02/01/2017 14:36

Hi Boogers,

Was the first part of that post to me? He said he doesn't want the responsibility of being a parent or having a girlfriend with a baby. He told me out the blue after a 35 hour bender and said he just wants to go back to party life, too hard to make a relationship work , can't be bothered etc.

The next day he apologised and I thought we could get back on track. Then he phoned me yesterday to say he's changed his mind again.

I'm not scared about looking after my boy alone because I did it alone when we were together. I don't feel that 7 months is long enough to make it work though when you've made a commitment to each other. Throughout the difficulties and the sleeplessness, I had faith that we'd keep going and come out the other side and be happy together.