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?

They sound so ill informed too. I mean I thought it was widely known that domestic abuse can often be triggered by pregnancy? That often previously completely stable men suddenly decided it was ok to start attacking and abusing their wives at that time? I didn’t think it needed to be spelled out that other types of less overt abuse or even just bad behaviour might also be triggered…

@LondonWolf

They sound so ill informed too. I mean I thought it was widely known that domestic abuse can often be triggered by pregnancy? That often previously completely stable men suddenly decided it was ok to start attacking and abusing their wives at that time? I didn’t think it needed to be spelled out that other types of less overt abuse or even just bad behaviour might also be triggered…

I think that barely anyone knows this.

I think NAMALT comments, and comments about women leaving their children just aren't helpful here. I'm pretty convinced that the issues facing single parents are gendered. 90% of single parents are women. Many of the male single parents are widowed and in different position.

It's also pretty rubbish to victim blame. No one has a child with a partner knowing they are going to be rubbish. And even if they are rubbish and have been in the past, the man is also responsible for the pregnancy and the child and he has to take responsibility for parenting and providing for that child. In fact it is a legal obligation (as well as a moral one) to provide for his child. That is HIS responsibility not the mother's and it's pretty unhelpful to victim blame.

I’m not a single parent but anyone who isn’t one and is coming on here to somehow suggest its the
fault of single mothers (who are overwhelmingly women) needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

If that’s your attitude then you have likely raised one of these men and might end up an estranged grandparent. Great parenting

The definition of rubbish is so generous, though, too. Ex sees the kids one weekday and EOW, pays the statutory recommended amount and that makes him AWESOME. What a champ. The fact that I buy all their essentials, their birthday parties, do the day in day out tedium and yet he expects me to stump up half the cost of their passports because HE wants to take them abroad (I have zero plans to). He takes them ice skating, to the cinema, gives them sweets and cakea and fizzy drinks despite the fact i have repeatedly asked him not to because one is diagnosed adhd with behavioural sensisitivies to too much sugar and I am a little concerned about the other one's BMI. This just means I have to be even more of a hard arse about no sugar, no cake, no sweets, etc. Plus even if I could afford the ice skating etc that he does with them, it's hardly a treat when they just expect it as the norm. The 6 year old came back from her contact weekend yesterday and asked me where her present was. What fucking present?! She expected one because daddy gives her presents. She loves daddy. She doesn't like me, I'm mean and don't give her anything.

I'm doing OK and on the whole our co parenting relationship is amicable but that's almost entirely down to me giving myself an ulcer not saying all the things I've wanted to say to him ever since I stopped being heartbroken over his affair and started being pissed off over everything else.

And apparently, despite 15 years together, he didn't love me and wasn't sure he'd ever loved me. Not sure how I was supposed to see that coming considering he'd clung to me previously. But I do appreciate the snide remarks and victim blaming. Think it might say more about the posters it's coming from than the ones it's directed at, mind.

[quote youtown]@Mumoblue most (not all) men that run away from their children were useless before the child arrived. Continue to be in denial about that if you want to but I know a lot of single parents and each and every one of them has a useful father that just got more useless free the kids.

Perhaps society does need to take some accountability but often so does the parter that chose to have kids with the useless.

[/quote]
What portion of single parent do you know and know their lives in such detail that you are 100% certain of this? 80%, 90%?

Let's say you are right. Does that absolve the absence parent? Does that help raise the child? Stop the child having any emotional fall out from it? Does it make it any easier to be a single parent? Does it absolve the absent parent? They were shit before so it not their fault they can't be arsed?

You posted on a thread thats clearly for support. Why? If you dont want to offer support?

Because you felt the need to. Maybe you need to look at why you feel the need to go into a converstation that's for support and throw some blame the posters way? That's not decent behaviour.

Is it because you feel the need to remind everyone else and yourself that you 'choose well'. Trying to reassure yourself that your OH wouldn't change if you had a baby? Or that if you split, he won't lose interest when he finds somewhere else to park his dick? What are you feeling insecure about that made you think, your opinion had to be heard when it wasn't asked for or required?

I get angry. Latest was an argument I had with the CMS where they told me ex wasn't abusive as he'd paid CM until recently 😡

She admitted the CmS are reluctant to move to collect and pay, so they just leave it a few weeks, call him, ask him nicely to pay, he does. Rinse and fucking repeat. I've got a complaint in against them, and my MP involved. Financial abuse, and abuse of the child he has access to are the only means of abuse he can inflict on me now, so he pushes that as much as possible.

My ex whom I was with 14 years and had a kid with after 7, said I was the most beautiful woman in the world etc, bought me nice things, protected me in the street from a drunken idiot and said he would die for me.

fast forward a few years to after our child was born and he was questioning if the child was his, said I was only with him for money ( the twat worked zero hours by that point and was getting housing Benefit), he called me a parasite and a burden, after he forced me out of work by flat out refusing to change his life to centre the child or pay anything towards childcare.

The people saying oh shouldnt have had kids with a loser are the same sort of people who claim a woman who got attacked/killed must have been asking for it somehow due to dress/behaviour/body language.

its all BS they tell themselves so they can live in blissful ignorance convincing themselves it'll never happen to them, same crowd probably believe in the undeserving poor and that the more you work the more you earn, thus low paid people must be lazy or stupid to be low paid etc

The trouble is it's all fantastically clear when you are not in the fog of an abusive relationship. You think it's all your fault you try harder, tap dance on egg shells. You are juggling the safety of the kids, your safety, pets safety and all the while trying to keep up the illusion for the outside world. It's exhausting and you don't sleep well probably due to being always alert for danger. Not to mention trauma bonds. So no I did not see it coming. Thank God the relationship did end due to his affair as it very probably saved my life.

I had a conversation with someone a few years ago now that saw me in a work capacity (yes, work, yes, full time) but not that often so as to share personal details really.
He found out I was a single parent and was amazed, because apparently I'm 'not the type' because I'm so 'capable'
And I think reading this thread, that's the problem, single mothers have been so denigrated by society, the media and at times, the government, that there's the assumption that to be one you must be of poor moral standing, lacking in some way, because a man would never leave a 'good' woman, or they so generously accept that some men are shits, but do some mental gymnastics to absolve them of any responsibility for that by insisting that the woman, yet again, is somehow lacking because she didn't notice before things went tits up.
Some people really don't like that belief system challenged, maybe some of them have men like that in their families, who have partners or husbands that have done it to ex partners and they can't admit someone they love might not be the person they thought they were, that maybe they got it wrong too, so much easier to blame the women.

It's a real shame that people in similar situations, looking for support from and offering support to others has yet again become them being told how wrong they are and how they need to take responsibility (when they already are by being a single mum, it's the whole reason the thread exists!) Because of people that can't stand seeing their belief system questioned and need to let the single mums know that.

My point is women do abandon their kids and they abandon them to abusive men, I know as a society, we don’t like it, we don’t want to accept it, acknowledge it,,but my reality is they do, it doesnt matter if it’s predominantly men v women, gender is irrelevant, sometimes a female parent abandons their child to an abusive male parent. There is no gender stereo types, it doesn’t matter if it’s ninety percent male versus female. Both genders do it.

An uncomfortable truth, but a truth none the less.

This isn't about "gender stereotypes". It's about cold facts based on the person's sex.

I'm so sorry to hear about your childhood. Really. It sounds awful and so damaging.

That said, as posters have pointed out, 90% of single parents are women. Them they are vilified and financially penalised for it. This has nothing to do with stereotypes (what they wear or how the dress or whatever) and everything to do with the fact that in 9/10 cases it's the biological man, the male, the father, who abdicates parenting responsibility and leaves the woman to do everything. Often resulting in those children growing up in poverty.

Yes, there are exceptions as there are with anything. There are great single dads whose partners vanished and left them to it. There are also abusive men who children were left with when mother's vanished, like happened to you. It's all awful. And yet, we shouldn't be told that we can't discuss what is happening to 22.5% - so over 1/5 households in the UK (25% being headed by a single parent and 90% of those being women so 22.5% of the total) - because somebody may have had a different (but equally horrible) experience.

[quote Mumoblue]@LondonWolf

It is kind of funny when they rock up with “maybe you have responsibility” like there the first person to think of pointing the blame at single mothers. What a revolutionary idea!

Seriously, the thing I heard again and again after my ex cheated- both from my family AND his was “I can’t believe he’s acting like this. This isn’t him.”
But apparently I should have seen it coming! 🔮[/quote]
Same. My family, his family, all of our friends, totally shocked by his behaviour and couldn't believe it.

But yeah, must have just been me being naive.

In other words OP, while I genuinely have sympathy for the situation perhaps society isn't to blame here and you have to take some accountability for who you decide to procreate with and walk away before kids when you're with someone clearly useless

My ExH was great when DD was born. Very hands on, did everything you would expect a good father to do. It all came crashing down when after he decided he would rather be with the woman he had been having an affair with for 6 months, something he hid very well. Was I responsible then for his affair? No I was not. I was not accountable for him leaving me and his DD alone. He went from being a great dad to a thoroughly shitty one, once he left. How was I supposed to forsee that?

Do =DD

Absolutely haaaaate being a single parent. The continuous struggle. Mentally, financially etc. No support or help from anyone. Ex who is useless and has never been interested in his own child. Never has paid a penny towards him. Honestly, I love my little guy, but being a single parent is really, really grim when you never get help from anyone.

@ThackeryBinks

The trouble is it's all fantastically clear when you are not in the fog of an abusive relationship. You think it's all your fault you try harder, tap dance on egg shells. You are juggling the safety of the kids, your safety, pets safety and all the while trying to keep up the illusion for the outside world. It's exhausting and you don't sleep well probably due to being always alert for danger. Not to mention trauma bonds. So no I did not see it coming. Thank God the relationship did end due to his affair as it very probably saved my life.

I would describe at as your thought patterns are like a menu with the options list getting smaller and smaller, but you cant remember what the missing items were or even that they where there once.

it really is brain washing, you need at least 3 months out of it to start finding yourself again.

I consigned myself to death, thought well if he's gonna kill me, he's gonna kill me and I thought our son would be better off without me because everything was my fault, without me there things would get better.

funnily enough it was depression that saved me and made me reassess everything and see it for what it really was i.e him, I just woke up one day and felt nothing it was so liberating, no more fear, no anxiety, no love, latterly no fucks given.

*literally

I've just caught up having commented right back on page 1.
I do get angry about being a single parent, although rarely. The only person my anger hurts is me.

But what does make me angry is all the women who are so quick to blame the single parents for being single. Just fuck off.

How the fuck was I meant to know he'd be a useless prick of a Father BEFORE HE WAS A FATHER. Ffs.
I mean, we could* argue that if he walks or on his wife and their 3 DC then she can't moan as she knew what he was like as a father to my DC. But he wasn't a father when I met him so I didn't know he would turn out to be a shit. (And actually, while he'd never win "Dad of the year" he was a good dad. Until he met his now wife)

*We could but I wouldn't, no doubt she was fed lies about me being the mad ex who wouldn't let him see his DC. And, from what I've seen/heard he's a better dad to his younger dc than he is to our teens.

@FanGirlX

But if my daughters are in reasonably paid jobs that mean that they can carry on working if the father of their children fucks off, or which mean that they afford to get out of abusive, unpleasant or crap relationships, then that is a positive.

Exactly this. I have 2 sisters, we are the products of a single mother family. All 3 of us are degree, MSc, post grad, professionally qualified. We are all higher earners and little sis and I didn't have children until mid-late 30s because we were establishing our careers and accruing financial security first. Big sis doesn't have kids. All of us will be fine, men in tow or not.

This is exactly what has saved me and my children from poverty (so far). I would never have wanted to be a single parent but am so glad every day that I made sure I was financially secure in my own career and could provide for us alone if I needed to, before I had them. That is probably the best decision I ever made - I dread to think of the alternative life we'd have if I hadn't - and I will very much encourage my daughter to do the same. I hope she'd never need to fall back on being able to do it all alone, but it makes a HUGE difference to know you can if you must.

@CiaoForDiNiaoSaur

I've just caught up having commented right back on page 1. I do get angry about being a single parent, although rarely. The only person my anger hurts is me.

But what does make me angry is all the women who are so quick to blame the single parents for being single. Just fuck off.

How the fuck was I meant to know he'd be a useless prick of a Father BEFORE HE WAS A FATHER. Ffs.
I mean, we could* argue that if he walks or on his wife and their 3 DC then she can't moan as she knew what he was like as a father to my DC. But he wasn't a father when I met him so I didn't know he would turn out to be a shit. (And actually, while he'd never win "Dad of the year" he was a good dad. Until he met his now wife)

*We could but I wouldn't, no doubt she was fed lies about me being the mad ex who wouldn't let him see his DC. And, from what I've seen/heard he's a better dad to his younger dc than he is to our teens.

its a reflection of them, nothing to do with your children, these idiots cant stand their own sense of guilt and shame over their behaviour so they run, they lie and they shun.

but they cant run from themselves.

@VelvetChairGirl yup. He's missed out on 2 of the most amazing funny teens on the planet. And it's his fault.