to ask how single mothers stay afloat

[PeppersTheCat]

If you have a young baby and no family support, how do you manage the following things:

• a career/money
• hobbies
• friendships/a social life
• physical health/exercise
• a love life/dating

I've got terrible pnd so perhaps that is colouring my thoughts, but I can't see any happiness in being a single mother.

OP hope you are ok.

Had two glasses of wine and sent this email to him:

The woman you first met is certainly not the woman you have today. When we met, I was bubbly, optimistic, fit, confident, attractive, playful; I was an upgrade on [ex]. Since then, I've diminished in so many ways, now any shred of remaining self-esteem is just bobbing around in the ocean, struggling to keep afloat. There are zero ways I am a better person now than when we met, and many, many ways I am worse. I look worse (stress and having a baby have aged me). I feel worse (I'm on a higher dose of antidepressant than I've ever taken in my life). My career has stalled; I have less friends; I have less hobbies; I have less money. [ex] is definitely a better catch than I am today, and it feels unjust and degrading. I'm not a good catch anymore. I am a burden and a mess. It's a struggle to carry on, and it's a struggle to be reminded of her superiority and of her being better suited to you than I am. If we are both honest, this whole relationship has been conducted in the shadow of your union with her. No holidays. No stable home. No money. She deserves your money. I understand if you feel regret in leaving her. I make her look good.

Today CPN asked me a random question: "What are you good at?" I replied "writing", because you mentioned it yesterday. She said "what else?" And I paused and thought. All I could reply was "If you asked me two years ago I could reel off a list, I used to love myself; but now, there's nothing really". I feel I've diminished in value so much that I'm so, so close to the scrap heap. Very close to being dumped at my mams. Close to sinking into nothing. Mental health is scary and elusive.

I'm sorry for who I have become. I don't know how to get better. The more I lose, the deeper into depression I slide. I've already lost most of my self-respect, and all the things mentioned above. There are very few good times anymore. No one to talk to, nothing to laugh about, nothing to look forward to. When I start talking your eyes glaze over, you look at your phone, or you change the subject. No one is thinking about me, looking forward to seeing me or wanting to spend time with me. You often remind me that my kids would be better off without me. And you're probably right - in my current state, I'm little use to them. And little use to you. [ex] has got her shit together, and is now a way more attractive prospect than I. The shred of pride I have left finds that extremely hard to swallow. Like any female, I like to be the "top" woman in my man's life. And I don't deserve that slot in your life anymore. She is better than me. Yes, she lost her PhD, but I'm very close to doing the same. It seems she shares the same parental values as you, and (as you remind me) she can cook and likes cooking for you. And your 2 friends like her. And you're not embarrassed of her. And she's skinny. And she speaks Russian. And she's [daughter]'s mother. The list goes on.

I can totally understand the need to get rid of me and go back to [ex] or otherwise find someone of a higher standard. As I said in the opening sentence of this email, I am not the woman you first met. I can honestly say I have never fallen so far from grace, in such a short space of time as I have in these past 2 years. Before we met I never had zero friends. I never had an abortion. I never had a psychiatrist! I'm a really shit catch now.

All I ask is that you help me through the PhD so I can find a job and give [our son] a reasonable standard of living. Can we at least agree to stick to the plan to enable me to achieve that? So you carry on taking [our son] for 2 hours a day (spread into 2 slots) so I can claw my mental state to par enough to satisfy my academic responsibilities, and we do the lab trips as originally planned. I will crack on with the driving lessons and do whatever it takes to get me to a standard where I can fend for myself and be an acceptable and independent mother.

What I'm saying is that, this lifestyle won't be forever. This time next year, you will be free of me and probably have an upgrade lined up - someone bubbly, confident, attractive, ambitious, playful, like I used to be. So please don't feel disheartened. Something has obviously gone very wrong with us/me in the past 2 years and I'm not pinning the blame on anyone. It is what it is. I've fallen so far in value that we are now mismatched, and you know you need to get someone better. Just let me find my life jacket before you cast me adrift. That is all I ask of you.

I think you need to be in a place where you’re strong enough to have some perspective.
Assuming everything else is ok, It’s a very little bit of your life that DCs are small for. You tread water with the other things (hobbies/career and even friends a bit) until they’re older and you can pick up the stuff that’s still relevant.

Oh no!
Ignore my last post.
This man sounds awful. There’s something you and his ex have in common - you both became ‘less of a catch’ in your own minds when you were with him.

I'm a mess now. As I was saying to my CPN today, "I'm a hollowed out shell". I feel sorry for my kids.

Seriously become a single mother. Why Why Why would you want to bring your child up in an abusive household - your obviously thinking about it as you have posted your thoughts on here. Get out and get out know or you will regret it for the rest of your life. Your child did not ask to be born, you choose your child, so give it the chance it deserves not because it will be tougher on you.

I was a single mother for similar reasons, yes it was tough, no money, lonely, ets.. but went back to college and made it better for my son and I.

12 years on, happily married to a wonderful man and a now happy and well rounded 21 year old - would not have been the case if i had stayed with this man

Please keep posting everyone. I am very lonely and aside from my mother, you are all the adult contact I have.

You need to cut your abusive ex out of your life not depend on him for childcare!

You need social services support. They may be able to provide childcare for you.

My exH left me for OW when our son was a few weeks old. I was devastated (he wasn’t abusive).
It was really tough and there were some difficult times but I got through them and now 20 years later, my life is awesome. I have the most incredible relationship with my son, of whom I am immensely proud as he moves through his life into a fine young man. I now am in a very happy relationship for last 9 years with the best man I have ever known.
My career is going really well and I have lots of lovely friends.

Take one step at a time and revel in the simple things. Play with your baby, read with her, go for walks.
Complete your studies safe in the knowledge that it will lead to a good career which will bring financial security and a social circle. These things will come, just don’t try and do it all at once.

I was a single parent. I managed to work full time. Tax credits pay towards childcare.
I exercised by running or by doing it in the house when the kids were in bed.
I had a social life when the kids were at their dads of paid for a baby sitter.
I met my new partner whilst I was on a night out. It's really not as hard as people make it out to be.

Don't send any more emails. Stop drinking.

Are you sure there isnt homestart?

I'm in the north east.

• a career/money- got 9-5 job and used tax credits to pay for 8-6 childcare
• hobbies - did hobbies at home
• friendships/a social life- invite friends over and socialise online
• physical health/exercise- dvd fitness videos, long walks with pram, kicking football in park, building snowmen, running around after a toddler!
• a love life/dating - planned babysitting and did babysitting swaps with another single mum and made the most of nights out

www.home-start.org.uk

Im a single mother of two, youngest is still a baby so obviously it can be tough. Social life revolves around the DCs but have made some wonderful friends at baby groups, nursery and now school so largely we socialise with the DCs.

Career plans/dating are "on hold", I genuinely have no interest in dating at all and career plans will work as and when I can around DCs until DC2 in school when I plan to retrain.

Its tough and can be lonely (especially the evenings which I pad out with girly films, crafty bits etc.) but I am so so much happier, all of the above struggles are not a patch on how miserable he made me, I don't miss him one bit and me and the DCs live a much happier life without him in the house.

On a side note though please seek help if you are feeling suicidal, your little one needs you

there is no home start in the north east.

If you are at newcastle uni they do have accomadation for families - could be a starting point. Also it's not weakness to tell you tutor you need to extend, I'm guessing your phd is on pause due to maternity leave? pnd is not that unusual, they will understand.

www.ncl.ac.uk/accommodation/university/couples-families/

www.ncl.ac.uk/students/wellbeing/about/studentparents/index.htm

The shackles of the burden your son's father is to you now, at your lowest ebb, will feel so much lighter when you break free of him. There are difficulties, hurdles to deal with, yes, but it's a lot easier to tackle when you don't have that dead weight keeping you at your absolute lowest.

Look at your current situation, from a purely practical perspective & see where you can change the circumstances bit by bit to make the bigger stuff easier to cope with. If he helps ease the burden so you can do your PhD, is there anywhere else you can get that help? Funded childcare (as a lone parent, not your current situation), help from your university, any student support? Is there a period you can realistically take off to let you settle as much as you can where you can delay/ hold off the work/study to go back when you feel you are rewady? Don't look at wholesale changes but think about small steps that get you closer to where you want to be.

It is hard at times to deal with the loneliness but there are ways to cope. My on line connections got me through the worst of those times when my DC was smaller.

Focus on you, what you want, what you need & where to start with moving toward that goal. Initial upheaval from ending the relationship - if you can either take a break from study/PhD for 1/2/3 months to just focus on you, your DC do it & look at how you build up a new routine/set up to then get back to the PhD - whatever helps you get through things.

You need to give yourself a huge break, just do what you feel able to & let everything else sit back & wait for you when you feel able to look at what is needed.

Take care

Go to your unis welfare department and ask for help.

I dont ! constantly plugging holes in sinking ship but dcs have life jackets so i know we be fine.

Tax credits really make a difference. A colleague who is a single parent works 3 days a week but tax credits bring her income up to that of a full timer.

I did it and am doing it and I can say that whatever difficuties you face as a single mother pale in comparison to staying with an abuser. Finances are better for me as I had to pay for everything anyway and now I work PT and get child tax credits and went to CSA for child maintenance.
I love it being just me, my child and my baby. It's very hard at times like when they are ill or teething but those phases pass.
I don't have hobbies as such but do things with the kids that we all really enjoy. I go to baby groups where I have made friends with people in similar situations to me. Whenever the kids are in bed I watch a film and sometimes have a couple of glasses of wine. Running around after the kids is exercise enough for now.
Your baby needs you please don't have thoughts of leaving them with the abuser. Like others have said seek advice on the issues you need, call gingerbread, womens aid, things may look impossible but there will be a way. Take control of your life and bring up your baby. You two could have a lovely life together despite the inevitable struggles that all single mothers face but you will be so much better off breaking free.

OP, firstly you are indeed an amazing writer. What a message you've sent him, and how well you've expressed your feelings. How did he react to it?

I am in a very different position to you, but I can fully sympathise with that feeling of not being yourself any longer and the frustration and fears that come with it. It's a hard place to be at.

In my case, I'm a shell of who I used to be because of chronic fatigue and probably the perimenopause. At least that's what I put down my feelings to as no other medical issues have been identified to explain how I feel. I can relate to what you've written in terms of not being the person you used to be that made your OH so proud to be your partner. When I first started to go down, DP was also very judgmental in his response to my pleas of understanding. All he could see was that the person he married because she was fun and making him feel good as turned into a demanding, unresponsive woman who constantly made him feel guilty for not being as miserable as she was.

In our case, it took my health deteriorating so badly, having a fit once as we were both out together and scaring the pants of him, to finally realised that I wasn't just being difficult to punish him. Since then, he has been more understanding and supportive, but still battles with the feeling of helplessness, guilt and frustration that life with me is not as it used to be.

What I do believe and hang on to is that it WILL get better, but sometimes, time is our only friend. In the end, no relationship go on happily ever after without any difficult times. The rare ones who do as just abnormally unlucky. If your DP can't understand this, and think that his mission is to replace any broken parts with new parts, then he is aiming for a miserable life himself. One day, he will be the broken part and no-one will be there to help him getting fixed.

What you need to hold on to is that getting fixed can be a much quickly process than becoming broken was. It's amazing what the relief of a particular stress in our lives can do and influence the other issues.

I struggled terribly when my two children were little, both suffering from terrible colic for years, meaning that life was just a case of survival day after day. This feels like you own being is destroyed, both because of the fear that one day, you won't make it through the next or that your life will forever be of hope to make it yet another day/week.

As you know, you can't control others, so if your OH is incapable of opening his eyes and accepting that he too needs to be patient and that soon enough, he will get his wonderful partner back, preferably with his help and support, then there is nothing you can do. What you can do is climb one mountain after the other until you finally reach the shore, doing so with the trust that that shore really does exist, you just don't know how far off it is.

Hang on Peppers, things will get better, either with your OH or as a single mum.

I've been where you are. My first marriage went horribly wrong and I felt incredibly depressed and trapped. It was like I'd fallen off the lovely road my "real" life should've taken and was scraping together an existence on an awful parallel road.

I looked ahead and saw nothing, just blackness. I stayed because the thought of being a single mother was terrifying.

Eventually then-DH initiates our split and I was in bits. He wanted to live together in the same house for the sake of the kids, but luckily I vetoed that.

He loved out. I started claiming tax credits. We had 2 kids, 6y and 18mo, and I found a lovely local childminder for the youngest so I could work.

I got my cousin to move in with us. I lose 3 stone, joined a gym, socialised when the DC were with their Dad, started a hobby, dated online and met my now 2nd husband.

It was about 3% as difficult as I'd thought it would be. Life is SO MUCH EASIER when you are not living in the shadow of someone else's constant disapproval and disappointment.

You shouldn't be asking how you can live without your partner. You should be asking how much longer you can live together.