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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Your husband "working away sometimes" does not mean you are virtually a single parent!Argh!!!

270 replies

MyMushroomsInATimeSlip · 03/03/2017 12:41

I've heard this a few times from people I know and several times from the same person. Just in case anyone is ever tempted to utter this phrase to a single parent please bear in mind that single parenting involves a lot more than taking care of your home and children by yourself for a few days of a week.
Try considering holidays, children's birthdays, Christmas, Easter, special o ccassions on your own. Half the income. No help if you're ill, no lie in. Ever! The stigma of being single and a single parent - not especially helped by the media and politicians, constant guilt about not giving your child a bigger/better family. Having no-one to talk to about your day. The fear of your child ever being I'll and needing to take time off work. Again. As no-one else will do it. The fear of being so ill/hospitalised that you can't care for your child and no-one else will. Or even worse - dying and leaving them all alone. Having no-one to share your child's achievements, milestones, funny quirks and comments with. Making do with cuddles only from a small person and knowing that this won't last. The terribleness of online dating, or just dating in general! Feeling crap every time you can't make it to a school event which seem to happen every other day and having no-one else to ask. Being solely in charge of another person's emotional, physical and social well-being. Oh, and not forgetting having no photos of yourself with you child as there's never anyone there to take them!!

Rant over.

OP posts:
TitaniasCloset · 03/03/2017 19:09

Agree with you OP. I too have a friend who's partner is on £75 grand a year, who plays an active part in the kids lives and will do work round the house, Cook, pay for holidays etc and she compares her situation to mine and calls herself a single parent because he works away a lit. She also has her mum living in the same street who will babysit and helps her financially too.

Apparently our finances are the same too- I'm on disability benefits, and she has no sympathy for my loneliness because either she doesn't feel Luke sex and men are hard work anyway or I'm different apparently because I can be on my own and she and a mutual friend can't.

Yeah, made of steel me.

TitaniasCloset · 03/03/2017 19:11

Sorry I really should have read that through before posting, hope its somewhat legible.

Kewcumber · 03/03/2017 19:14

I am a lone parent to a child who has some additional needs. When people tell me that DH is away so they are "a single parent for the week" I smile nicely and say "that must be difficult" - because really what else are you to say?!

Lets be honest the people who say this are NEVER the ones who are struggling with abusive husbands, husbands on deployment somewhere etc are ALWAY the ones who's DH's are away on business for a week but who normally drop the kids off at school on their way to work. Otherwise they wouldn't be moaning about how much their workload has increased with DH away - it's because their DH is normally helpful. Those with piss-poor DH's who do nothing tend not to moan because they've given up expecting anything and they have my sympathy.

I do resist the temptation to say "Did he take his salary with him too them Shock ?" because it makes me sound like a bitter loon and I'm not really. Just a little empathy would be nice.

TitaniasCloset · 03/03/2017 19:17

Exactly!!!! kewcumber

FriendofBill · 03/03/2017 19:18

And the thread is not abusive husbands V single parenting!

Kewcumber · 03/03/2017 19:18

And sayong that it is very hard being a single parent does not mean that other people don;t have it even harder or that other situations might be as bad. The requirement for single parents to acknowledge their life is not unremitting misery in order to get some empathy is irritating. You don;t say to parents of children who have a disability or additional needs of some sort - "Yes but others have it harder"

Have a heart - a simple "Yes I can imagine it's tough" is just fine without making us publicly declare that it is only the 7th circle of hell rather than the second or whatever.

MrsTarzan1 · 03/03/2017 19:19

I'm guilty of thinking this, but I hadn't considered a lot of what you said OP and now I have, I'm sorry. It's definitely not the same. xx

Frouby · 03/03/2017 19:24

I have been a parent in an abusive relationship. A single parent. And a parent as a couple.

Without a shadow of doubt the hardest thing is being a parent in an abusive relationship. He stopped working, stopped doing anything in the house, started being emotionally, physically, financially and sexually abusive.

Being a single or lone parent was a walk in the park compared to living like that.

Being a parent in a couple is easier in some ways. Harder in others. When DP was literally dying in hospital, it was tough. He was the wage earner. He was the one who paid for everything. I would have coped eventually but it would have been tough.

Being a parent is hard. It doesn't matter what your set up is. It doesn't matter what your relationship status is, the grass is always greener or greyer.

Rinoachicken · 03/03/2017 19:29

I have recently separated form my abuse exDH. We have 2 sons and he sees them every Saturday and every other weekend it's a sleepover so he has them Saturday and Sunday. He pays no CM towards them and we have very little contact with each their besides contact arrangements.

I am the only one working. I have no family nearby (mostly in other countries!) and no friends that are close by, all require at least 2 buses or car (don't drive) or train to reach.

So am I a single parent or lone parent? Genuinely asking.

Rinoachicken · 03/03/2017 19:29

*abusive

Kewcumber · 03/03/2017 19:31

The grass really is greener in some places though. You can't pretend that some situations are not more difficult on the whole.

The fact that some children are more disabled than mine does not mean that a degree of empathy for what I do have to deal with is not appreciated.

The people who's grass is pretty fucking green should be more sensitive when comparing their lush grass with a temporary wee spot to those of us who's grass is covered in moss because its in the shade.

Only an idiot would look at both lawns and pretend that one really doesn't look better. The fact that the woman next door has a swamp doesn;t mean I have to put up with some plonker with lovely grass moaning about how dreadful it looks.

I've stretched that analogy just about as far as it can go...

Squirmy65ghyg · 03/03/2017 19:35

Exactly Kewcumber.

Empathy.

Great post.

ItsNachoCheese · 03/03/2017 19:36

A single parent is just that a parent that does all the work 24/7 365 days a year with no help. I didnt ask to be a single parent but thats the way its turned out. People who say oh i know how you feel have no clue what it feels like not unless you have been a single parent yourself

Original poster
MyMushroomsInATimeSlip · 03/03/2017 19:37

Kewcumber ("Swampy?") great posts and way of explaining it.

MrsTarzan - thank you - this was the purpose of my post. I'm certainly happy to have my eyes opened to others situations that I haven't experienced too.

OP posts:
Viviennemary · 03/03/2017 19:38

I agree with everyone's situation is different. Depending on how many children you have, their different ages and needs, how much money you have, how much support you get from grandparents and on on. I've known single parents who have said life is easier without a difficult, abusive, controlling or even just a general pain in the neck husband,

Frouby · 03/03/2017 19:38

You don't have to put up with it though. Just change the subject, move onto something else, call them on it.

It's just chat. People say things without thinking it through. People want to create a common ground.

Someone somewhere has it worse than you.

Applebite · 03/03/2017 19:56

Since having DD, my eyes have really been opened to how hard and relentlessly exhausting it all is, however much we love them. Anyone who does it by themselves is a fucking hero IMHO, and I am horrified that some people are insensitive enough to make comments like that.

nonameinspiration · 03/03/2017 19:59

Yanbu. I was a single parent for 5 years. People who say that need to get a grip

Natsku · 03/03/2017 20:02

Agree Frouby being a parent in an abusive relationship was a whole lot harder than being a single parent. When I was with him I had to do everything with DD while at the same time trying to make sure she didn't wake him up or make too much noise, and cook and clean for him and all that shit while being berated all the time. At least when I was a single parent I only had to worry about me and DD.

wildpoppiesanddaisies · 03/03/2017 20:04

Flowers Kew

Might start a hashtag. #yourswampmygarden

angelcakerocks · 03/03/2017 20:16

YANBU - it's different because as well as all the practical stuff you have to make all the parenting decisions alone (or sometimes with a difficult ex trying to make life even more difficult for you) and you have the extra emotional burden of the upset of the dcs at not having the other parent around. Plus the stigma of single parenthood which sadly still does exist.

So no, it's not the same. As a long term lp what surprises me is the amount of times people say this to me, or just complain to me that dh is away for a few days or something. It doesn't bother me especially though as I know they haven't meant to upset me by it, they just don't realise.

Headofthehive55 · 03/03/2017 20:36

I think people do look for common ground. It doesn't make your struggle any more or less, but can help you empathise.
There is often a difference in what you think and what really happens.
Although I have a DH so you might imagine that he's there on tap, ready with the support etc, no, I was on my own when I was told our child was brain damaged, and couldn't even get hold of him on the phone.
So I hugely empathise, because I get a glimpse of what lone parenting might be like for some people. Yes to the worry over becoming ill or dying overnight, how would anyone know? That used to worry me when my kids were small - DH worked out of phone range remote place.

Shenanagins · 03/03/2017 20:45

My oh works away a lot and whilst I realise that I'm perfectly capable of coping in my own ( and do) it's the emotional support I miss.

But and here's the big but, I know that he'll be back so I have that safety net and that makes it very different to actually doing it day in day out all the time.

So hats off to single parents, it must be bloody tough.

chitofftheshovel · 03/03/2017 20:55

I would rather be on my own (which I am) than lonely in a relationship.

And I prefer just knowing that I had to do everything because I'm on my own rather than having false expectations that another adult will help out. Best off single for sure.

wildpoppiesanddaisies · 03/03/2017 20:57

But why SAY that chit!

'My child has autism. It's really hard.'
'I would rather have a child with autism than one with Down's syndrome.'

I mean, in any other context it doesn't work, so why are lone parents supposed to be so grateful they aren't with a twat?

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