Widows vs Single mums and divorcees

With a widow, and especially a young widow which is what we’re talking about with solo parenting, there is a tragedy. Firstly the tragedy of that person losing their life too soon. Within that, young children who will not know their father.

This tragedy attracts a lot of grief tourists. People who mostly want to stand there and how say how utterly tragic it is. They want to watch the family fall apart because it adds to the sense of tragedy. They can go home and hug their own kids and spouse because by the grace of god it could have been them. So it attracts a lot more people, people want to be there in the tragedy. They want to feel good about themselves for watching the tragedy unfold and not being able to mind their own business, so they offer help or start a fundraiser. But they don’t care. Not really. They offer help but not fulfil those offers. They fade away quickly because they have their families and they’ve hugged them right now. On the surface, it may look like a widow has more help, more support but in reality they have people gruesomely pouring over their loss.

I’m sorry that your parents haven’t offered help with your kids. They won’t actually help this widow though. It’s just something they say to make themselves feel better.

OP likely will have no bloody chance!

It's what single mothers used to do back when they would be really cast out by society.

And judging by some of the comments on this thread people still judge single mums and feel they brought it on themselves, despite all the awareness raising around abuse and how manipulative abusers are.

Jesus Christ.

Hmm

A child whose father has died can deal with that fact its a final fact an inescapable fact as hard as that fact is it will never change

An abandoned child never has that they have what if? What if they come back? What if they die? What if they get hurt and need me to help them and cant find me because mom made me move house (genuine argument from a 7 year old whose mom moved because she couldn't afford the home after he left) what if what if what if there is never any ending never any final chapter then there is the blame no wonder he left your a horrible mom you were bad to daddy he left because of YOU its YOUR FAULT (while thinking what if its my fault) if I'm a good child they will come back no-one wants a bad child but if I'm good he will come back right? Right?

Both scenarios are the absolute worst thing to happen to a child yet we have more sympathy fir widows and their children than ex wives and their children even on this thread "you shouldn't have had do many kids with him" "just get child maintenance" (seriously they want addresses work details etc) my so called real life friends want me to force my ex to have his children literally waste money taking him to court to see his children (like that would ever work ffs) when he did have them he would ring and demand I take them back their big idea was to say no because me abandoning them with him wouldn't scar them at all would it

There are no answers

This is beyond sick

You are not wrong op.

I should have invented a dead husband.

There's definitely different categories of single parents and whether society deems us as 'at fault' or not.

I'm a single parent after a very brief relationship, the dad has no involvement and I've raised dd on my own. I think my category comes underneath the divorcees tbh.

At the end of the day though it doesn't actually matter why you're a single parent, it's all hard in its own way.

Oh I agree, the visceral reaction is absolutely based on conditioning /media etc rather than anything purely "natural".

This is my life. But actually that is incomparably better than when I was still married to him. That was the bit where I felt most alone. And of course he pretended to be the dream husband in public so noone knew I needed help. Even when I was so ill I was crawling around the house after our toddler while my ex's contribution was to sit on the sofa and scream and swear at me for being so useless.

The US and UK have a child maintenance agreement in place. If you know his address contact the child support department of the state he lives in. Most states are very vigorous about getting deadbeat parents to pay.

Obviously both categories you have described are incredibly difficult. But I would prefer either of these situations to being divorced from an abusive ex who does stick around and continues to control the mother via the children. I wouldn’t cope in that situation at all. Whenever I hear stories of women having to hand their precious children over to horrible ex partners a few days a week I really feel for them. But it’s not a race to the bottom, all these mothers are deserving of help from society.

My sister was widowed a year ago. There is absolutely no comparison,,,unless you’d like to share her experience of grief?

Sorry you have a shitty ex and family

This post is so selfish absorbed.

Their kids have likely seen their father either get extremely sick and die. Or they have had him snatched away in a shocking end uncontrollable event.

They themselves have not gone through a messy breakup but had somebody they still love disappeared from their lives with no explanation it justification.

A man who is a shit, at least you can hate him. At least you can blame him. At least you don't lay in bed and beg for him back, or if you do it's with the knowledge he's the man who he is, who would choose to abandon and hurt his family.

You speak like somebody who has never lost somebody. Which is incredibly privileged in its own right.

There is a difference between a woman and her children asking every day how a person could be so cruel, and how the world could be so cruel.

There is different between escaping a bad man having a good man taken from you.

What a weird comparison to make. I raised DS alone all his life and don't think I have ever compared myself to a widow. Later had DD whose dad is still around, although I split with him. Stop comparing yourself!

Is some of this area specific? There is still a massive stigma attached to divorce in my part of the world. It means there are areas in which I have to other myself and my children because we are automatically less than. A widow would not have to live with these restrictions, and would be supported by the community. Saying that aloud does not mean I am jealous of a widow!

My friend was widowed a couple of years before my divorce. I tried very hard to be a good friend in that two year period but I have not been able to do anything other than offer support by text and email since my divorce because it would not be respectable for me to be out and about with her or visiting her. This is just the way things are.

I am in no way jealous of anyone who has been widowed. It would be nice if I could join in with activities such as mums meeting up and it would be nice for my kids to do activities too. Saying that does not make me envious. I would hate to go through what she has been through. I hate my own life too.

I think the explanation is that a lot of the time people react on a primitive level rather than a rational one.

It's the same with the huge visceral reaction people get when someone has a cancer diagnosis (even if very treatable/curable) compared to how they react when you have a condition they don't understand (even if a quick Google would tell them it could be devastating)

You are speaking as though this is the norm...but keep doubling down, why don't you?

Your parents are being astonishingly unreasonable to consider offering her help when they don't help you.

OP I've been a single mum for 13 years.

I take no notice of the uncharitable presumptions of others, I throw myself into my life and make sure ds & I have as much fun as possible. I don't discuss my status with anyone. It's no-one else's business.

In 13 years I've had one sneery comment about being a single mum - and that not from anyone worth listening to.

But my married friends are now getting divorced. They're discovering their husbands want half their houses & pensions after giving up work. Several wives have come to me asking how I 'manage'. Suddenly I'm the lucky one.

Try to see the good parts - the freedom, the closeness of your relationships with your children, the lack of conflict, no need to compromise. The absolute certainty your partner is not about drop a nasty surprise on you.

You clearly have no understanding of emotional and financial abuse. Or even any comprehension (bafflingly) that women can end up pregnant against their will

50% of marriages end in divorce, so knowing divorced parents is not unusual, it is far more unusual to be a widow or widower when you have young children and so it's going to attract sympathy- most people are horrified by death and so can't imagine being in that situation. Offering to 'help' seems like the least they can do, but I don't know any widows who have other people looking after their kids regularly or fundraisers or free holidays. I did have lots of emotional support early on, then as @Nextbitoflife says, it all goes quiet. I just bang on about my husband anyway now, I hated not mentioning him, it was like he never existed.

The other thing is that with parental death, the children will have seen in many cases their parents get sick and die, possibly over years. Accompanying your children to the hospice is traumatic. There's lots of other types of trauma in childhood, but it's generally agreed bereavement is gutting, even when you are an adult. I don't know how my kids have coped at all, I find it very hard.

I don't see how any of this comparison is helpful. Lone parenting (where there is no other adult) is shit all round. I don't want to be a lone parent and I'm sure you don't either.

There really is no comparison between being widowed and divorced. A widow isn't just dealing with solo parenting- she is also dealing with the grief of bereavement and the difficulty of parenting bereaved children.

I think this is really too simplistic. I know two families, one where the father died unexpectedly in an accident and the other where the dad just moved to the other end of the country for another woman. Both situations unexpected, both devastating, both women left having to parent solo. The majn difference is the children who are bereaved know they were utterly loved and cherished by their dad who wouldn't have left them given the choice. The other children are bereft that they've been abandoned.

The bereaved family were left with the dad's insurance policy and will be fine financially, and the mum has been able to reduce work hours.