Widows vs Single mums and divorcees

[IfIGoTiAnotherWedding]

I am a divorced mother of 3. My ex husband was financially abusive and emotionally absent: when we split my sons were 4, 2.5 and 4 months respectively. He moved back to his home country U.S,A and has never seen the children since or sent a penny. Obviously it was hard. And still is.

I know a few widows. Some were friends of mine before they lost their husbands, some are new friends as we move in the same circles and have things in common, mainly solo parenting obviously. Like them, I have my children 24-7-365. In fact some of them have better family support (from two sides of their family), all happen to be in a better financial situation (whereas my ex left me with significant debts), but obviously they have gone through trauma and the death of their loved one, where I have not. I give them full credit for keeping going. It’s very lonely.

They never planned to be alone.
They never chose it.
I have utmost sympathy for both my widowed acquaintances, and for their children.

My AIBU is is it ok that there is SUCH a difference in how society approaches us. I have never received any offers of help or money. Obviously. My own parents are talking about offering a young widow who lives locally a few hours childcare once a week so that she can go to the cinema and have a break.

This was not something offered to me. I am listening to this thinking eh? They hardly know this person. I also am not sure if this widow would want such charity. She certainly wouldn’t if she knew that the sympathy is very much dependent on the term widowhood and not single mum.

Friend in question has already a rota of helpers.

Fundraisers, paid holidays - I don’t want them, I don’t begrudge my friends this.

I am just struck by the contrast between the “worthy” solo mums (widows) and the rest of us (unworthy) - Ditto for the children. This is not internalised stigma, the net difference is impossible to ignore.

My widowed friends are lovely people, they are devastated about losing their husbands and have no idea that there is this disparity in treatment.

The disparity feels like a throwback to more religious times and is akin to worthy poor versus unworthy poor. Anyway it sucks to be in the second category.

I lost DF when I was late teens. My DP’s parents were getting divorced. I’ll never forget when his mother said to DM that she knew how she felt now as they were in the same boat.

I was seething. It’s not comparable. I could never look at her in the same way, tbh. Don’t undermine death by comparing it to a useless fucker, fucking off.

And yes, the signs were there. She just wanted to be married with DC, so she stuck her head up her arse a long time before that.

I find it positively shakespearean how mumsnet switches into 5th gear to make women responsible for EVERYTHING. As if men walk around with a sign over their heads denouncing to the world if they will turn into absolute abusing @$$€$ as soon as DC are in the picture. And if the woman does do the responsible thing of removing children from the abusive situation, the inevitable "where is the father" gets trotted out. I hope your righteousness tastes just as good when you read about some of the consequences of staying with the father results in.

Instead of supporting each other, women here cannot get in fast enough to get the boot in. Almost like you are the acolytes of Andrew Tate. Be ashamed of yourselves. Genuinely.

OP, my sympathies.

So you are saying its her fault..?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I do think you have a point @IfIGoTiAnotherWedding .

I'm a single mum. Ex fucked off. Met someone new. Had more DC. Stopped seeing ours. He was flaky before then.

My friend is a widow.

We both recognise that some parts of our situations are similar. Only parent, only one income and so on.
Others are different. Her DC are heartbroken that their Daddy died and they'll never see him again. Mine are heartbroken because their daddy lives 10 mins away and chooses not to see them. They are both painful situations. Both leading to upset children. Are hers worse off? Maybe.

She definitely gets a lot less crap from the wider society than i do though.

Well I’ve been divorced and widowed so can I be the control group? Yes definitely people are nicer to you if you are widowed… for a period of time and then you are left with silence that goes on forever. Divorce - rough too but in different ways and unfortunately all too common when in early middle age. And IME much easier to recover from. I’ve also had a Lot of judgement as a widow for starting a new relationship.

Ahem - fundraisers, free holidays, sympathy, family support. There are four big, fat assumptions there.

I don't want financial support, I don't think of myself as 'deserving' of financial support, either, thanks. I also dont want to waste my life comparing myself to others. Your post is absolutely disgusting.

Ahem - fundraisers, free holidays, sympathy, family support. There are four big, fat assumptions there.

I don't want financial support, I don't think of myself as 'deserving' of financial support, either, thanks. I also dont want to waste my life comparing myself to others. Your post is absolutely disgusting and deeply offensive.

I think being a single parent is so hard, whatever the reason. I find being a parent hard enough some days and I've got an ok partner.

I think it's more difficult a single parent who doesn't have someone to cooparent with.

I do understand what you are saying OP. There is still a stigma around being a single mum because the relationship didn't work out xxx

Yes definitely people are nicer to you if you are widowed… for a period of time and then you are left with silence that goes on forever.

Yup. Friends were supportive for about a year. Then they disappeared. Or at least the coupled ones did. As a widow you become a bit of a parish when it comes to couples. And unfortunately nearly all my friends were coupled, and knew us as a couple.

For the record, OP, I agree with you. Anyone who becomes a single parent through the complete disappearance of the father, is essentially in the same boat when it comes to practicalities, whatever the cause. I'm sorry your parents are choosing to help a random widow over their own daughter.

There really is no comparison between being widowed and divorced. A widow isn't just dealing with solo parenting- she is also dealing with the grief of bereavement and the difficulty of parenting bereaved children.

I think this is really too simplistic. I know two families, one where the father died unexpectedly in an accident and the other where the dad just moved to the other end of the country for another woman. Both situations unexpected, both devastating, both women left having to parent solo. The majn difference is the children who are bereaved know they were utterly loved and cherished by their dad who wouldn't have left them given the choice. The other children are bereft that they've been abandoned.

The bereaved family were left with the dad's insurance policy and will be fine financially, and the mum has been able to reduce work hours.

50% of marriages end in divorce, so knowing divorced parents is not unusual, it is far more unusual to be a widow or widower when you have young children and so it's going to attract sympathy- most people are horrified by death and so can't imagine being in that situation. Offering to 'help' seems like the least they can do, but I don't know any widows who have other people looking after their kids regularly or fundraisers or free holidays. I did have lots of emotional support early on, then as @Nextbitoflife says, it all goes quiet. I just bang on about my husband anyway now, I hated not mentioning him, it was like he never existed.

The other thing is that with parental death, the children will have seen in many cases their parents get sick and die, possibly over years. Accompanying your children to the hospice is traumatic. There's lots of other types of trauma in childhood, but it's generally agreed bereavement is gutting, even when you are an adult. I don't know how my kids have coped at all, I find it very hard.

I don't see how any of this comparison is helpful. Lone parenting (where there is no other adult) is shit all round. I don't want to be a lone parent and I'm sure you don't either.

But they are not assumptions about the people I am talking about. They are facts.

You clearly have no understanding of emotional and financial abuse. Or even any comprehension (bafflingly) that women can end up pregnant against their will

OP I've been a single mum for 13 years.

I take no notice of the uncharitable presumptions of others, I throw myself into my life and make sure ds & I have as much fun as possible. I don't discuss my status with anyone. It's no-one else's business.

In 13 years I've had one sneery comment about being a single mum - and that not from anyone worth listening to.

But my married friends are now getting divorced. They're discovering their husbands want half their houses & pensions after giving up work. Several wives have come to me asking how I 'manage'. Suddenly I'm the lucky one.

Try to see the good parts - the freedom, the closeness of your relationships with your children, the lack of conflict, no need to compromise. The absolute certainty your partner is not about drop a nasty surprise on you.

Your parents are being astonishingly unreasonable to consider offering her help when they don't help you.

You are speaking as though this is the norm...but keep doubling down, why don't you?

I think the explanation is that a lot of the time people react on a primitive level rather than a rational one.

It's the same with the huge visceral reaction people get when someone has a cancer diagnosis (even if very treatable/curable) compared to how they react when you have a condition they don't understand (even if a quick Google would tell them it could be devastating)

Is some of this area specific? There is still a massive stigma attached to divorce in my part of the world. It means there are areas in which I have to other myself and my children because we are automatically less than. A widow would not have to live with these restrictions, and would be supported by the community. Saying that aloud does not mean I am jealous of a widow!

My friend was widowed a couple of years before my divorce. I tried very hard to be a good friend in that two year period but I have not been able to do anything other than offer support by text and email since my divorce because it would not be respectable for me to be out and about with her or visiting her. This is just the way things are.

I am in no way jealous of anyone who has been widowed. It would be nice if I could join in with activities such as mums meeting up and it would be nice for my kids to do activities too. Saying that does not make me envious. I would hate to go through what she has been through. I hate my own life too.

What a weird comparison to make. I raised DS alone all his life and don't think I have ever compared myself to a widow. Later had DD whose dad is still around, although I split with him. Stop comparing yourself!

More food for thought. In this instance, I guess what I’m wondering is to what extent is the visceral actually socialisation /cultural/ethnic mores etc. What are the blueprints for seeing the opportunities to help others. There have been really superb posts. It could be just my parents and my friends and my neighbourhood and my community, but then others have found similar.

i have no envy of my married or widowed or single friends, I only have my life to live.

This post is so selfish absorbed.

Their kids have likely seen their father either get extremely sick and die. Or they have had him snatched away in a shocking end uncontrollable event.

They themselves have not gone through a messy breakup but had somebody they still love disappeared from their lives with no explanation it justification.

A man who is a shit, at least you can hate him. At least you can blame him. At least you don't lay in bed and beg for him back, or if you do it's with the knowledge he's the man who he is, who would choose to abandon and hurt his family.

You speak like somebody who has never lost somebody. Which is incredibly privileged in its own right.

There is a difference between a woman and her children asking every day how a person could be so cruel, and how the world could be so cruel.

There is different between escaping a bad man having a good man taken from you.

My sister was widowed a year ago. There is absolutely no comparison,,,unless you’d like to share her experience of grief?

Sorry you have a shitty ex and family

Obviously both categories you have described are incredibly difficult. But I would prefer either of these situations to being divorced from an abusive ex who does stick around and continues to control the mother via the children. I wouldn’t cope in that situation at all. Whenever I hear stories of women having to hand their precious children over to horrible ex partners a few days a week I really feel for them. But it’s not a race to the bottom, all these mothers are deserving of help from society.

The US and UK have a child maintenance agreement in place. If you know his address contact the child support department of the state he lives in. Most states are very vigorous about getting deadbeat parents to pay.

This is my life. But actually that is incomparably better than when I was still married to him. That was the bit where I felt most alone. And of course he pretended to be the dream husband in public so noone knew I needed help. Even when I was so ill I was crawling around the house after our toddler while my ex's contribution was to sit on the sofa and scream and swear at me for being so useless.