Finding life as a single mum too hard.

[Bluu]

Emotionally I am struggling, I crave a man around the house to love me and be a father to my daughter. My daughters father and family are not around.
My own family live out of town with hude pressures and commitments so we rarely see each other.

I have been single for 3years and I have spent a very large part of it celibate which is something I am very new to and also struggling with. I am 25.

I dont have any friends who call me or come over. I dont have a social life. I havent seen what the night life is like in 3years. There isnt any one around me to make friends with and I have spent the last year trying, as a parent everyone is very much older than me or my age and very much carefree.

I feel deep guilt that my daughter is picking up how low I feel...i try so hard. I searched playgroups and they are so expensive and I cannot afford it.
I am happy at being a devoted mother till pre-school years (one year to go) I feel like i owe her all my undivided love because family and friends are practically non-existant.

I feel so invisible.

I feel so awful like a bad bad mother. I feel nothing but a dull ache of pain and frustration. I love being a mum so much.
I wish for friends and a family.

I will definately be getting back to 'myself' when she is 3. I'm not in any rush thats why I am steadily waiting, that is just my personal way of parenting. 0-3 is a very special period to me.

I do have a good level of self-esteem and confidence, I just dont have any opportunity to go out and about alone and its just the questions about my lifestyle as there isnt visable diamond ring on my finger...

I'm not saying its not fair to consider work but I personally am not working till my child is of school age which I believe be the legal/expected requirement. I dont know if you are saying I should pay my dues for being on benefits or not but I appreciate the help given however I dont expect to be on my knees being told to 'jump' so to speak because of it. I am just trying to bring up my baby in the most affectionate, priceless way possible.

I love spending every day with her - I havent missed a thing. My local healthvisitor at the doctors promotes this (maybe its my culture being an Asian thing?)

Theredhen - Thanks for letting me know that...cant imagine waiting that long!

Thanks Cestlavie - think i will look into the surestart centres sometime.

as was pointed out - in fact there is no "push" til child is 7 so you dont need to worry about job centre plus interviewing you etc. if they do call you in - would only be to explore ideas...

i think what comes across is being the full time devoted mum versus also wanting to go out at night/see night life etc?

and i also think that while it is fantastic that you can devote yourself to her - she also needs other adults who she knows - so that if anything happens to you eg you get sick, need a hosp appt or whatever

• who can you turn to who can you leave her with for couple hours? who can take her when you go for a intimate test for example?

it also comes across that you recognize that too...it is hard to make friends, you ahve to be bold at talking to people at teh one o clock club or whatever, approaching people with simialr age child, inviting them to go along to the cafe or playground etc.
building the friendship til you can go to each others houses...

just being practical - we all need friends/nieghbours (if we dont have relatives) who our child(ren) is/are comfortable with so in an emergency (or just to ahve a few hours off) we can leave them there hapiily...

as a single parent i think it is important to build a support network of other people and ensure our children can trust them and be able to be with them for short or longer time when it is needed,

soemtime we have to make it our job to go out and find these people... and also these people can support you generally too.

aw i wish we lived nearer each other. anyway one thing which noone has mentioned yet is the meet a mum section on a certain parenting website (similar to this one's name but in reverse). it's the only place i've ever met any other mums my age. my 'mum dates' didn't work out but you should give it a go if you haven't already.
maybe mumsnet has this too i've not checked.

IT will be 5 shortly if it isn't already