Being a single mum is proper graft isn't it - come on in single mums

[Janeyscleavage]

And no you can't join if you 'feel like a single mum because your husband works long hours'

Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s my first as a single mum too, my babies only 3 months old. Having lovely cuddles this morning, her dad actually text me and bought me an Easter egg random wrong holiday 😂 better than nothing though. Hope you’re all having a great morning so far xx

I don't know what happened to my kids overnight but they've deffiently woken up on the wrong side of bed this morning. DS lost one of his school shoes, spent ages looking for it and then found it in the bathroom. DD1 took so long getting ready she missed her bus to school and I had to drive her. DD2 refused to get changed out of her PJs so she's still walking around in them. Can this week be over now?

ZigZagZombie
Not self employed, but have an excellent understanding employer.

btw, check your spam folder for some reason hotel emails end up there

Oh we had a battle about Fortnite this morning. WE DON'T EVEN HAVE FORTNITE!

He's 9 and I won't let him have it, even though most of his mates have and he tortures himself listening on the headphones.

One more such outburst and the Xbox goes away for a week.

And grrrrr at one of my book club Mum's saying she's screwed for parents evening cos her DH can't leave work early.

I know we all live our lives within the frame of what we have, but some tact would be nice.

nb this is a whatapp group of just 6 of us, so we're close.

Luckily (?) for me my insomnia meant I was able to slip into ParentMail at 2.30am when there were loads of slots available (and when my child will be at the childminder).

I refuse Fortnite too. Eldest wasn't interested at all - said he'd listened to conversations at school and it sounded crap. So obviously ex bought them a console for Xmas so they can play it with his gf's kids. Thankfully only once a fortnight (badoom-tish). Bollocks. My kids hate me because the console that lives with me (that my ex-mil bought natch) is only used once a week or so. I absolutely refuse to let them live in front of a console.

My ex keeps letting them watch horror movies saying "it's fine, it's normal" and that his mum let them watch them. Naturally all her children have turned out just fine (i.e., fucking useless twats without a qualification between them). Of course he doesn't have to put up with the nightmares which follow the week after. Utter cunt.

I'm seen as terribly stuck-up and up my own arse because I won't allow them unlimited screen time and access to anything.

Ex exposing DS2 to 18 films was put in my statement when I went to court to rearrange CAO. It was taken seriously.

That's good to know. I will put words to that effect in the handover book. I really don't want to go down the court route... don't know why - probably some daft notion that I don't want to be seen as being difficult or seeing revenge. :(

Also, I'm in Scotland and I'm not sure we have CAO here - does anyone know?

I'm also still considering whether to do CMS or not. Again - the fear of retributions.

I don't know about CAOs in Scotland, sorry.

I also dithered about going back to court. In the end it was kind of forced upon me when DS2 refused to see his Dad. It was awful but very, very worth it.

Same feeling for the CMS as well (are we living the same life?!). It has caused me so much anxiety, BUT the £23.01 a week I'll get from him (via his salary) will help pay for childcare so it's the right thing to do.

Happy Valentine's Day! My first in years without any danger of a gift!
I laid out a gift and balloons and confetti for the dds last night they were so chuffed this morning.

I'm fetching them and their chums from school and we are baking heart shaped cakes together. They are so excited.

I called in sick today. I've had a migraine for 11 days. My job is trying to kill me. That's another story though.

The girls will have a great time and feel like mummy made a big effort. No man is messing it up

How was valentines for everyone? I hibernated! My ex was clearly out with ‘someone’ so I went into big ole distraction mode and am in the process of gutting the house. There’s bleach and bin liners everywhere so it looks a tip, but keeping me busy. Family member who’s in hospital was told on Monday it’s terminal cancer, but the consultant came to see us this morning and said actually, they have received the scans and are going to try chemo / radio therapy and surgery. She’s being allowed home on Monday, so just taking it one day at a time,

All in all though, this week sucks balls and I am SO glad it’s half term!

So sorry to hear about your family member catscratch 😔

Thanks O4FS At the risk of outing myself because the situation is so unique, she’s only 35 but has mental age of about 10. It seems incredibly cruel at the moment given every challenge she already has had.

Oh the poor woman, how awful. Really puts things into perspective doesn’t it? I hope you are ok Catscratch?

The kids have been off school for 3 days and I barely have the energy to move any more. :( I know it sounds pathetic but at 19:28 I'm ready for bed... I may well crawl up in about 10 minutes with a book.

Tomorrow is the big birthday bash - I finally managed to get through to the hotel at around 1 today - whilst I was waiting for my meds at the chemist. I got through to "weddings" I think - but someone was at least finally willing to take my money. An hour later I got an apologetic phone call - I said I was pissed off and anxious that we'd all roll up tomorrow and they'd say "what party?". I also need to buy more chocolate for the goody bags because I ate my feelings and the kids' chocolate All I've done for the last 2 days is eat and I can actually feel my fat cells expanding and they hurt!

Upshot is I don't want to do anything Sunday. A local cleaner popped up on my FB earlier who lives literally in the next street - so I'm going to drop her a line and see if she wants more work - I'm guessing yes hence she's advertising! I know it's not insurmountable for me to clean up after us... but it's just another energy-sucking job draining me.

I'm so sorry catscratch what an utter fucking arse.

Do get a cleaner ZigZag. I have one, and I don’t think anyone understands how her help impacts in such a positive way. With no other support I know I would go under without her. I’d be awful. I’m happy to make other sacrifices to keep her. I don’t care if I never drink again, I don’t buy new clothes. The stress her help takes away is enormous. Takes a huge amount of pressure off, and that has a very positive effect.

Can I ask what contact arrangements you al have in place?

My kids are 4, 6 and due in June. I’ve made it perfectly clear that he won’t be having any unsupervised contact with the baby and that it will be staying with me and if he wants to see if he will have to learn to be civil and visit. It’s not in a babies beat interest to be seperated from its mother.

With the other 2 I was thinking one evening midweek and one day On a weekend with an overnight stay on the weekend when the kids are ready. Feels like every other weekend is a long time for them to go without seeing him even though he’s a bastard for doing this. He should suffer but not them.

The kids are used to not seeing him midweek as he works long hours but used to him here on weekends. What do you do about holidays? Birthdays and Christmas? I don’t want to give up Christmas, feel like I’ve done and will do the majority of the child rearing and j should get Christmas and him Boxing Day.

Agree with@O4FS @ZigZagZombie I recently got a cleaner for the first time in my life. It felt like such an extravagance but the mental weight that has lifted off me is massive. I work full time and have a full on job so often need to do work in evening where I am losing time for school runs etc. There was always this house needs sorting hanging over me and making me feel down.

She comes once a fortnight and house feels so much better all the time - I just need to maintain between those times.

Sorry to hear about your family member catscratch 😥.
Hope party goes ok zigzag .
Naps - I don’t really have agreed contact. My ex’s job involves shifts which makes it hard and they change a lot He does make the effort to see them though prob about 3 times a week average . Christmas we take turns to have them Christmas Eve to Christmas Day morning . Birthdays they have been with me and he visits .
One day in the weekend and one evening sounds reasonable to me .
When my youngest was a baby my ex used to visit and when she was bigger he started taking her out for an hour and extending from there .

I’ve just spotted this thread, I think. I’m joining the ranks.
DD has gone to her dad’s for the week. He has her as and when it suits him. She’s a teenager. She’s actually a pretty cool kid. And I have a week to myself.
Friday night (last night) was rock’n’roll, totes, I cleaned and did laundry.

The heaspace relief is amazing.

Same here O4FS it's the one time something is done that I haven't done myself. Sometimes it's overwhelming with the long line of responsibility and chores lined up in front of you and it's not melodramatic to say it keeps you from going under.
This last week was a real tough one with work and appointments etc but finally got a week off starting today
Yesterday I sat at my desk and just thought I've had enough, I just don't want to work anymore. But heyho.
Zig hope you're starting to feel better. Cats bin bags and bleach is one way to tackle it. We had a "Galantine's" Day, friend came over and we had a nice dinner with DD.

Naps just saw your post - thread hadn't refreshed when I posted. Ex sees DD probably once every ten weeks or so. He moved away.
I always have Christmas and give him New Year. He's never previously complained because at some level I guess he knows he's done a massive number on me.
This year I pondered on DD going to him (with me potentially going away). He got wind of it and texted in the most breathtakingly entitled way about requiring confirmation so that he could make plans (this was in January mind).
I said I wasn't making plans for Christmas in January but in fact I have booked DD and I on an all inclusive trip to the Caribbean instead! It will take me all year to pay for it but my take is that I already do all the hard graft whilst he has only fun and no responsibility whatsoever. If he wants to share Christmas he can damn well share the graft. No? Fuck off then.
Sorry, prone to venting on here

I'm a little apprehensive about the cleaner tbh - I've had cleaners before and they always start off brilliantly... then start taking the piss after 6 weeks or so by coming late/leaving early/not finishing. I don't think I'm overly demanding at all - but I do expect you to either do your full 2 hours or finish the bloody job! Anyway she's nipping around Monday to find out what I need done with a view to starting Wednesday.

My ex had them for the first time last Xmas - first time in 4 years natch - usually he refers to it as "that Christmas bollocks". This year I largely suspect it was to impress his gf. Because he's fucking useless when it comes to arranging holidays with them I lay down the law a few months ago and demanded he tell me when he was planning to have them 2019 so I could go ahead and arrange stuff - what he was doing before was letting me know a week in advance he'd have them for 10 days type thing. Which meant I could never go ahead and book trips away for us because I didn't know when he'd suddenly decide he wanted to parent.

He has them EOW from sat PM and he takes them to school Monday morning - he works 3am - midday on Saturday so it was pointless dropping them off on Friday night as he just shunted them off to my ex-MIL where they spent 24 hours enjoying second hand smoke and coming home stinking and wheezy. It also saves either one of us dealing with Friday night traffic which is horrendous.

amIreally That sounds amazing! I'm very tempted to take them away this Xmas - my ski legs are crying out for attention!

fencingwire My brain is currently soup... my youngest still hasn't stopped jibber-jabbering (I mentioned this the other day) - it's ramped up from daylight hours to him crawling into my bed and jibbering at me at night. I am a broken woman. I've done no work this week and I am behind with everything. School Monday and I can either crack on with work/getting life back to order or I can lie on the sofa gently weeping and reading a book. Really I ought to plump for the former.

Re: cleaners. If anyone's going to do a shitty job around here it can be me and I'll save myself 20 quid a week!

I am absolutely, completely, utterly overwhelmed. Everything is getting on top of me. Last night is up there with one of the rare moments where I thought I just can't do this anymore. I really could have just... dark thoughts...
For 3 years I have carried the kids since my exh and I split up - financially, emotionally, every way. It has been an endless battle of fighting, for the kids, over the finances, over contact. Everything. Just everything. My exh is very controlling and still tries to control things from afar. I've mentioned before how I have no family so it is just me.
It feels like everything is falling down around my ears. My job is in jeopardy because of a situation that happened between my DD and her dad, over a year ago. My kids ended up on the child protection register. And now MY job is at risk and currently I am not allowed to work while Ofsted investigate. Meaning I have no income. They can't give me a time frame of when they'll make the decision. There is no children's services involvement now and hasn't been for some time. I'm really struggling to keep going. It's one thing after another after another. I just can't keep going. I was never going to be rich but I have kept what was our family home going for 3 years for stability for the kids - because they have really been to hell and back. I'd like to downsize but need to stay in this area for my job, houses in my ideal budget are non existent. This treadmill of living in anxiety and worry is never ending. There is literally no one to help me,no one to step in and take over the reins or pick up the pieces.
And there I was, screaming inside, outwardly calm and smiling at the kids while cooking the tea.
I can't fucking do this anymore.