Anyone join me in being really angry theyre a single parent?

[coodawoodashooda]

Today I have been in such a bad mood and that's why. I can't shake it off. Bastard and his meagre child maintenance that wouldn't even buy a bloody pair of shoes. All the friendships that I have lost. I am so lonely, fed up, skint and angry. Anyone else?

Fuck off with your ignorance and judgement of single mothers

I actually can’t believe you just attacked me that way when I wrote I was raised by a single parent and had one abandon me. What’s actually wrong with you?

I actually think it’s really weird and nasty to come on a single parents thread and say well you should have known better, didn’t you spot the red flags, wow as if you are so much better than us because you “chose” better, my ex isn’t around as he has severe mental health issues (and no he didn’t have them before we had children they can happen to anyone at any time) he has been sectioned on a number of occasions, sorry I didn’t have a crystal ball, this happened after the birth of our youngest. There’s always married women who think they are far more “superior” than us “stupid” single mums who didn’t pick as good as they did, like that makes you better, and yes I’ve seen bluntness posts and she is married, never been a single mum.

@forinborin

also many men can not square the lover/mother triangle, their attitude towards the family they thought they wanted changes when faced with being parents and the cognitive dissonance they have between the societal image of a desirable woman and the image and stereotype of a mother. the "catch" suddenly becomes the "ball and chain" in their minds. This is very true. All single mothers in my circle have roughly the same story:

• Met at work, someone in a similar career / seniority / earning level.
• The guy tried really hard to get with her, the catch or the office and the belle of the ball.
• A relationship starts and goes on for a few years. Both were building their careers, supportive of each other and generally happy. All things very equitable financially.
• A baby (or two in quick succession) comes when the mother is mid 30s.
• The father cannot reconcile himself to the fact that (a) he suddenly becomes the sole earner (b) nursery fees eat up all the free fun money (c) babies suddenly demand ridiculous mental resources both from him and the mother. He starts working late and the mother returns part time and still runs herself into the ground.
• A new belle of the ball joins the office, and "understands" him oh so well. One business trip later, there's a happy couple and a single mother.

I heard the same story, with little variation, probably a dozen times over.

so very true. My ex left me with a 2 year old, waltzed off with the ''love of his life'' who also left her spouse. Both myself and the other spouse were left to pick up the pieces and parent these children while they resumed living like single people. 8 months down the line ex decided he wanted ''contact'', cue very acrimonious court action that went on for years. He pays the bare minimum, and only because there is a court order obliging him to do so. We were equal earners until I took maternity leave, at which point my career nose-dived. Being a single mother to a toddler only compounded that. Watching him swan off on his holidays and grow his career thanks to his new found freedom was intolerable. 10 years down the line he remains a complete disney daddy, who has made zero contribution to our child's upbringing, prioritised himself at every point. He owns a huge house worth near a million, takes 5 holidays a year and spends money like it's turning on the tap. I on the other hand continue to fund 99% of the cost of raising our child, have been unable to progress my career as I would have been had I had a partner to share the load with and basically will never afford to buy a home of my own. The worst part is the damage he has done to our child (social services call it ''emotional abuse'') through his selfish, neglectful ways. He is life a child in adults clothes, selfish, spiteful and unable to reconcile that the child who once worshipped him (an endless supply of presents / sweets / expensive outings works up to a certain age) now looks upon him with nothing but contempt. I've never badmouthed him, nor did our child know until 10 years after we divorced that her Father had an affair and basically bugged off not bothering to see her for months on end - she only knows because she asked me directly if he had had an affair and I felt unable to lie. She learnt who he really was from the way he treated her, nothing else.

I resent the fact that his freedom to walk away when he actually needed to contribute something to our relationship left me bearing the consequences for the rest of my life.

I thank my lucky stars I am no longer married to him, and I much prefer being alone, however it is fundamentally wrong that he lives like a king and is able to abdicate all responsibility for his own child. Society encourages it, laws enable it and unless this changes men will continue to behave this way.

So sorry to hear this OP. Not me but my SD's partner of 9 years and father of their 3 children buggared off with someone else and decides when he wants to pay and when he doesn't, leaves the kids sitting on the sofa in their coats crying as he hasn't turned up. SD went to CSA and got them involved and money to be taken out of his wages so he keeps leaving jobs and doing cash in hand to avoid paying. The woman he left her for has now just had a baby and CSA wrote to her to say she would get less money now because of the new baby (when half the time she gets nothing anyway). You are right, there show be laws against these feckless fuckers breeding all over the show and shirking their responsibilities. It makes me sick

I actually can’t believe you just attacked me that way when I wrote I was raised by a single parent and had one abandon me. What’s actually wrong with you?

Have you ever asked the single parent who raised you if they saw the “red flags” before and if they did, why did they go ahead and have a child with them?

The CSA told me they couldnt get my ex to pay maintenance as he'd moved abroad and then sent me a bill for their services. But I actually feel lucky that we never had to go through the family court system after hearing some of the horror stories that come out of there.
This is the man who insisted on being on his child's birth certificate.

@Sowhatifiam

BUT we should absolutely make it so that it's massively looked down on for a man to have abandoned his kids

One of the biggest issues, and very much 'hidden', is the fact that self-employment/owning a company allows men (usually men) to hide their incomes within legal parameters and pay next to nothing (or in my ex's case, nothing at all but he's not legal, just tax dodging) in maintenance. At the same time, these men will see their children regularly and are therefore assumed by those around them to be doting fathers. The law doesn't allow children to be 'pay per view' (and I agree 100% that this is correct) but the assumptions here are always that no maintenance = never seeing the child and for many of us, that simply isn't the case.

Societal values: that we raise daughters to give such men a swerve! I shall certainly make sure my daughter is very suspicious of any man who is an absent father

How about we raise our children of either sex/gender to be good, decent parents who grow up understanding what their responsibilities will be towards their future children? How about we stop accepting shite behaviour from men and actually shun them from our lives and society as a whole? I have said it many, many times on these threads: abandonning your children either financially and/or physically needs to be as socially acceptable as drink driving and smoking over new born babies. Only then will we begin to see a shift in attitudes.

Saying 'I'll teach my daughter to avoid men like that' is utter bollocks. They don't come with it written on their foreheads or a pinned on badge. My ex is a charming, charismatic man who would tell you, if you met him socially, that not supporting children is a terrible, terrible thing to do. He would also tell you how he would never do such a thing and how he gave me 'everything' to ensure that his children could live their best life. My question to you is - how would you know he was lying? What is it about a middle-class professional man in a suit, buisness owner, with a fancy car and a nice house that screams 'child abandonment'? Why do you think it could never happen to you? Because very clearly, many, many women posting here about their negative experiences didn't marry men who said 'fuck it, if you ever get pregnant I'll leave you and the child and not pay a penny'.

Sorry if my post came across wrong: I totally agree it should be totally unacceptable for men to behave like this. I am raising my son in such a way that I hope he would never do that. I just meant that I will also impress on my daughter to have nothing to do with men who have already abandoned one family. It's impossible to tell in advance that they will do this, but if they've already shown they are capable of it no woman should even be prepared to date them. That's what I mean (probably badly expressed!).

Yet you still come onto threads about the difficulties being a lone parent to blame single mothers @Bluntness100? What's wrong with you?

What annoys me most is when none single parents don't give you the benifit of the doubt because their partner works. But they still get the company, or someone to text, or someone to share the load with/days out with on days off... or even just having someone to listen. They don't have to live in anxiety because of their ex or miss seeing their children on Xmas morning. They have no idea but because their partner works away all week (which I am NOT denying the challenges of that).... they think that they are just as worse off.

That REALLY bothers me.

@LondonWolf

I actually can’t believe you just attacked me that way when I wrote I was raised by a single parent and had one abandon me. What’s actually wrong with you?

Have you ever asked the single parent who raised you if they saw the “red flags” before and if they did, why did they go ahead and have a child with them?

Yes. One of my closest friends is also a single parent. Why are you attacking me exactly? I simply said sometimes the signs are there, sometimes they are not, exactly what part of this are you taking issue with and lashing out at me for?

Yes. One of my closest friends is also a single parent. Why are you attacking me exactly? I simply said sometimes the signs are there, sometimes they are not, exactly what part of this are you taking issue with and lashing out at me for?

No one’s “attacking” you or “lashing” out of you. Stop that emotive language that is intended to place you as the victim here. You were judgmental and casually thoughtless on this thread. These claims seem to be classic reversal tbh. Many of us on this thread will have seen such tactics before.

@Pinkyxx
Very similar story here.

What I cannot understand is the logic of women who knowingly get into relationships with men who have already shown their colours by abandoning previous children. My ex has a much younger (~25 years younger) girlfriend at the moment who he plans to start a family with, and I cannot for the life of me understand why she thinks he's a good bet - she's been there when I tried all possible ways to get any maintenance from him at all, including courts and so on - and she clearly knows that he has money, so it is unwillingness to pay rather than inability.

What did your parent and closest friend say when you asked them why they’d gone on and had children with these men who displayed all the red flags?

What part of telling me I’m ignorant of single parents and telling me to fuck off is not lashing out and attacking. Usually I ignore stupid attacks, recognising the issue is the posters, but not this time. This isn’t ok.

@Bluntness100

Fuck off with your ignorance and judgement of single mothers

I actually can’t believe you just attacked me that way when I wrote I was raised by a single parent and had one abandon me. What’s actually wrong with you?

That doesn't mean you have a clue about how it is to actually be a single parent.

You really don't.

Maybe one day if my children - hopefully in happy relationships with two parents to share the load - have children of their own, they'll get a glimpse of what I've done since they were babies, alone. But they'd only ever really be able to understand it if they had to do it themselves, the relentnessness of it. And I hope that never happens to them.

BUT we should absolutely make it so that it's massively looked down on for a man to have abandoned his kids

People in this echo chamber wholeheartedly agree with you. How do you propose influencing wider society to agree with you too?

There's a lot of "we should", "everyone should", "people should" on this thread but limited acknowledgement that most of the people on this thread have a lot of skin in the game but wider society / the electorate don't care. Until you can get wider society / the electorate to care, nothing will change. Perhaps start by looking at why they don't care.

@Bluntness100

What part of telling me I’m ignorant of single parents and telling me to fuck off is not lashing out and attacking. Usually I ignore stupid attacks, recognising the issue is the posters, but not this time. This isn’t ok.

I've not been rude to you. I don't believe it's ok to lash out at people online. I do think your comments were poorly judged given the purpose of this thread and your lack of experience in actually coping with this life.

Mines fucked off to another country and seems to think that because he pays to take them over there some holidays that he doesn't have to pay maintenance.

Obviously moved to be with a women, I can't understand how she could want him knowing he left a 7 and 5 year old to see just occasionally and not support

@Bluntness100

What part of telling me I’m ignorant of single parents and telling me to fuck off is not lashing out and attacking. Usually I ignore stupid attacks, recognising the issue is the posters, but not this time. This isn’t ok.

This is a fair response to you stumbling on to a thread which such stress and pain on it to point out that “it’s women’s own fault too you know”.

Well not being told to fuck off, that wasn’t me and it’s not something I would ever say.

I've not been rude to you. I don't believe it's ok to lash out at people online. I do think your comments were poorly judged given the purpose of this thread and your lack of experience in actually coping with this life.

This.

I bet she wouldn’t be your closest friend if she knew your attitude towards her 🙄

@FanGirlX

BUT we should absolutely make it so that it's massively looked down on for a man to have abandoned his kids

People in this echo chamber wholeheartedly agree with you. How do you propose influencing wider society to agree with you too?

There's a lot of "we should", "everyone should", "people should" on this thread but limited acknowledgement that most of the people on this thread have a lot of skin in the game but wider society / the electorate don't care. Until you can get wider society / the electorate to care, nothing will change. Perhaps start by looking at why they don't care.

I don't know. That is not my forté. I am autistic and a very private person, aside from the fact I'm barely keeping our heads above water. I suspect part of the problem is that single parents generally are mostly too overwhelmed to campaign for change. What can we do? Another petition to Parliament that they'll ignore? I can't afford to become an MP even if it was guaranteed I'd get the job and it wasn't a short-term contract! How can we change it?

My lack of experience in coping with this? Are you having a laugh? Do I need to detail my childhood?

Shameful posts.

Usually I ignore stupid attacks, recognising the issue is the posters, but not this time. This isn’t ok

Always the other poster’s issue? Very telling.

@Bluntness100

My lack of experience in coping with this? Are you having a laugh? Do I need to detail my childhood?

Shameful posts.

YOU were the one who said what you said. Why are you trying to reverse this into an attack on YOU? And no you don’t have any experience of a life as a single parent, with abandoned children and being entirely responsible for food on the table, roof over heads, clothes on backs and also ensuring you’re raising well rounded, emotionally, healthy children who will go onto have healthy relationships themselves. It’s a very different kettle of fish to be the one with all the responsibility. That is not to detract from the difficulties and pain you must have experienced but it’s completely different.