Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Lone parents

Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

Original poster

Fed up with not having anyone to share the burdens with.

960 replies

Solo · 20/08/2014 16:46

Bit of a self pitying thread really, but it's taken me a very long time and I can now say with conviction that after being on my own for so long...

I am fed up with the burden of being alone.
I am fed up with struggling on my own.
I am sometimes lonely.
I have no single parent friends or single friends at all and my 'social life' ha! what a joke is visiting my widowed Mum or visiting my Brother.
I miss my Dad terribly.
I can't get a job.
Not one 'friend' has spoken to me so far this summer holiday (except one that lives on cloud fluffyland in her mansion and that really cheers me up because shopping is her passtime!).

I could write a very long list of problems and yes, I know we all have problems, but I just don't want to do it on my own any longer, I don't want to face the problems on my own :( I could cry right now and need a real 'man hug' and I don't care who knows it!

OP posts:
foslady · 26/12/2014 15:03

Oh that's rubbish for her - I think I'd be sending put reminders for her cards in next years Xmas cards! Hope the clutch makes it

meglet · 26/12/2014 16:43

foslady I'd be pissed off about the dress too. I have to steer my present ideas towards practical stuff. The dc's bought me some dangly jewelery for my birthday last spring but I haven't had anywhere to wear it.

misstiredbuthappy · 26/12/2014 17:13

Happy birthday toyour dd thefirstsolo my cousins birthday is on Christmas day and hardly anybody gets her anythink. Its unfair.

Its snowing here :) everywhere is coverd and its still coming down thick and fast !

TheFirstSolo · 27/12/2014 03:10

It is rubbish isn't it? I'm actually considering 'unfriending' them both in rl and on fb. The saddest bit is that my sons birthday is on the same date as one of the other kids and the other two are less than 2 weeks before Dd and you can hardly forget Boxing Day can you?!
Poor Ds gets a grand total of between 5 and 7 birthday cards. Dd has a total of 8 this year.

Different friends, but I was unlucky(?) enough to have my children a long time after most of my friends in my age group. So I had years of giving their kids birthday and Christmas presents etc, but once I'd had Dd, I had no income and had to say that I couldn't buy for their kids any longer. Do you think that they gave my children gifts after that despite in some cases me giving theirs for 22 years?! And Dd was a new baby too! No they bloody well didn't!

Bitter? moi? yes I am!

foslady · 27/12/2014 09:02

Wow First that really IS crappy behaviour, I would be feeling exactly as you are

TheFirstSolo · 27/12/2014 12:12

I feel better foslady that you say that as I thought I actually might be being unreasonable...

foslady · 27/12/2014 12:53

A friend of mine bought dd a pair of Primark PJ's this Xmas....... And asked for a spy kit and a DVD for her 2 kids after I'd already got DVD kid a set of expensive clothes designer pencils (and she was with me when I bought them!) and there's 2 v good incomes in their house vs my 1 crappy one......it's ok saying you don't give to receive/should add up cost and with family I don't but this one was so obvious it was was galling......

Original poster
Solo · 27/12/2014 13:39

I know what you mean! What I do a lot of the time now is buy what would be expensive gifts from M&S Outlet and TKMaxx. That way, they get fabulous gifts that cost a lot less than they would have done! My sil's gifts would have totalled about £50+ but I paid less than £20 and had she not actually asked for a particular thing after I'd already bought the first thing, it would have been under a fiver! she can't/won't accept smellies as she has eczema...and so will I if I use those bath bombs!

I haven't had so much as a kiss my arse from my brothers kids...time to stop buying for them I think.

People eh?!

OP posts:
meglet · 30/12/2014 18:10

bookmarking.

meglet · 30/12/2014 18:14

foslady I get the hump buying nice stuff for people with far more cash than me, especially when they can buy what they want. I have a mortgage free, working full time relative (no kids) who I am giving less and less to these days. I'm not trying to even match them halfway anymore, bugger that.

DancingCrown · 30/12/2014 18:30

This is absolutely the thread for me.

Today - final nail in the coffin with my friend/boyfriend (I called him on being a selfish bastard), messed around by ds' dad and my car broke down on the way home.

Tomorrow- if I can get there, to the doctors about a weird mole. I have been putting it off as cancer has killed off lots of my family and I just can't face another fucking problem.

I have a really painful ulcer under my lip so it hurts to eat or talk.

And I was mean to ds.

Original poster
Solo · 31/12/2014 00:49

Meglet it's horrible isn't it?! I know that my brother and sil have little money right now which makes it worse that they she wastes money spends on such crap. Give me a £5 gift voucher any day over crap.

On a + point though! today one of my brothers offspring actually text me to thank me. She hadn't actually opened the first gift though or she'd have found the second gift inside it.

Oh DC :) welcome!!
I have braces and have a very sore mouth at the moment, so I feel your pain. My car is broken and so is my tumble drier. Don't have a bf (hence the thread) and I am often mean to my kids too.

This is definitely the thread for us!

OP posts:
DancingCrown · 31/12/2014 13:07

Thanks Solo. Are your braces new? I had them as a teen and remember the shredded mouth.

Well the doctors went fine so phew. Boyfriend was too much like having an extra child so I am better off. But back to being alone. And New Year too, just fab!

Happy New Year to you all when it comes.

Original poster
Solo · 31/12/2014 15:29

No, I've had them for 18 months. I'm nearing the end but for some reason, every now and then, they shred my mouth...so so painful!! can't wait for the end!!

I have come to the conclusion that most men are like children.

At least you are going to be ending one year and starting another on your own terms and without having to please a naughty 'child' too.

Ds had a hospital appointment today. It's thought he might have Marfans Syndrome but we have to wait for further appointments! I hope not, but he does have Scoliosis.

Happy New Year to you all too!x

OP posts:
foslady · 31/12/2014 17:50

Happy New Year everyone - and I hope it's a damn sight better in 2015 for all of us! I'll say it now as I don't know if or to what extent I'll be on line later what with all the Facebook rubbish .....!!!

foslady · 31/12/2014 20:44

So far the best New Year in ages - dd back from her dads and Pringles and Indiana Jones together!!!

Original poster
Solo · 01/01/2015 02:11

Sounds fab fos :) I've also been with Dd, though she's been more interested in her Play Doh than anything else!

OP posts:
warmleatherette · 01/01/2015 07:54

Happy New Year everyone. I'm visiting a friend in the country to avoid staying in alone with kids on NYE. It's great and our kids get on but I have to fight feeling inadequate the whole time as she and her husband have a 3-bed country house with garden and I live in a 2-bed tower block with DD and DS. When I was younger I would comfort myself with the thought of great future riches but now, with 2 dc and a career I can't get back into, I think we'll be in our tiny flat forever. Still, better to feel inadequate than lonely and miserable, right?

foslady · 01/01/2015 09:34

Never give up on your dreams - I still tell myself the awful crappy job I do is just temporary, the thought of doing it until I retire in 20 years time would drive me over the edge. Before dd was born I had a v good but stressful job but only wanted to go back part time. I didn't think the job would work being done that way (still don't, the bloke who took over from me was asking how the hell I'd managed to do it all the time without cracking!!!) so dd's dad said 'it's ok, work pt in any job until you can go full time, I have a great pension........and now I'm left with a poor paid job I hate and as we were only married a year before we split (lived together for years) no right to that pension of his......and him now promoted a few times since he left........but I'm not bitter.........[stuff him emocon!]

Original poster
Solo · 01/01/2015 12:41

:( don't feel inadequate. I know it's hard, but don't.

I am never going to have the earnings that I had before as I have no qualifications, but as long as I can pay my bills and feed and clothe the kids, I really don't care. I would like to move so that I have a bedroom for each of the kids, and I may be able to do that, but I hate change really...My works pension will be payable in just over 9 years. It's not much due to the career break to bring up the kids, but it's better than nothing and my mortgage should be finished in less than 5 years after 36 years of having one. It will be a relief and that is why I never want to remortgage.

OP posts:
warmleatherette · 03/01/2015 09:17

thanks fosldady good old male privilege eh? i'm not sure how i'm going to get back into working but hopefully i'll get that sorted this year, now both children have finally started at school.

great news on the mortgage / pension situation solo - i didn't buy a flat or have children till my late thirties so i'm going to be raising them and paying it off forever!

roll on the new term. their father hasn't seen them all holidays so it's just me and the little ones, the house is a pit and i'm frazzled. no idea how i'll cope with six weeks at summertime!

weekend plans anyone?

foslady · 03/01/2015 09:35

All my weekend plans have gone on hold. Dad's not sleeping and has now got a virus. He rang 111 earlier this week, Dr checked him over, all ok. Last night he rang 111 again as he's now scared to go to sleep and they told him a & e this morning. My sister took them up there but says she can't see why, he's not ill as such...,,

And both live 10 miles away from them, they live 2 miles away from the hospital but won't get a taxi as they're too expensive DESPITE my dad getting DLA and having a transport element (I think that's what it's called!), and no money isn't an issue, it's just them. Oh, and my mother being my mother over it all well if you're going to the hospital you can take me to such and such a place on the way...,......

foslady · 03/01/2015 10:11

Taking down the Christmas decs, actually feel a bit guilty as I dislike Christmas and I know dd has not felt Christmassy this year. Hoping it's because she's gone from a month of Christmas excitement at Junior School to senior school and lack of Christmassy things. Planning to grit my teeth and look for new traditions next year....

warmleatherette · 03/01/2015 10:13

Oh no, how old are your parents? I'm dreading becoming part of the "sandwich generation", looking after mine as well as the DC. But I feel that now I've reproduced I'm going to get put in the category of designated carer, despite my two child-free sisters surely being better equipped in terms of free time. fears for future

warmleatherette · 03/01/2015 10:15

Oh bother, I forgot that doing an asterisk bolds stuff. Hmpf.

Swipe left for the next trending thread