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

[Solo]

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!

Dads 79 and mum a few years younger I know the next few years are inevitable but I'm dreading when it happens, also for selfish reasons, I don't want to have to cope without anyone being there for me. But that is what will happen

It's so grim for single mothers. I'm happy not to be with anyone but that doesn't mean I don't need love and support from other adults. I wish there was a way single mums could team up and help each other out, but it's so difficult when everyone is trapped in their little house and run ragged with kids / work / abusive exes.

Just got internet back!

It is good news for the mortgage warm but heck! I've been paying it for a long time! I first got a mortgage before I was 20...after divorce etc, I had to start again at 30...now I'm nearly 51 (eeek!), so really, I'd planned on being mortgage free at 44/45.

I didn't have Ds until I was 34 and Dd at almost 43. Took a years mat leave with Dd, plus 5 year career break during which time my Mum and Dad were reliant on me as Dad had terminal cancer...I was very glad to be there for them, but yes! it's hard work! I feel for you fos.

Feeling a bit left out here...just seen pictures of the other members of the 'baby group' all out having fun together...I wasn't asked :( and I'm really not a horrible person. Honest!

You got caught out as well re mortgages, Solo? My 1st mortgage was delayed waiting for me to turn 18. (Old gimmer me, could buy a 2 bed semi for £14k!). Married, moved, divorced mk1 and house prices crashed, ended up with £10k debt. Paid all that off, moved in with another bloke a couple of years later, then a couple of years after that bought again. When we divorced I bought him out and ended up with the biggest mortgage I'd ever had on the lowest wage, so apart from 4 years I've been paying for bloody houses all my adult life and not due to stop until I'm 60! I'm sure I'd have been better off renting......at least if the job hit's the fan you can get HB then and don't have to be worried about the bailiffs coming to get you. And it's no palace I live in either....

And I get where you're coming from re the tagging on a night out - happened to me, and ended up feeling crappy over it as well

Just checking in. V.busy at the moment, back to work tomorrow and IBS is starting to flare up due to anxiety.

warm there should be a way of teaming up for little things. Although I don't know about you but I don't always know which parents are LP's and which aren't. There's some who I assume are LP's but they never mention it and I don't like to ask. I'd like to try and get some LP's together so we can juggle young childcare and parkrun, I bet there's a few at the school but I can't really find out .

Yes I did fos . He wouldn't let me buy him out. I discovered a few years ago that he'd spent most of the money he got from the sale of the house on a mutual 'friend' . I have it on good authority that he paid her a lump of £7k for sex. I hope she wasn't too disappointed! then he told her husband, who thumped him for 'lying'. None of this surprises me as she is a grabby cow and he was a pervert. I'm just angry because I loved my old house; it had enough bedrooms and it would've been paid up long ago by now. It was £23k...3 bed semi. Lovely. Ho hum.
Second husband was a thieving git and I lost a whole lot more money there, but I did manage to get him to sign the house over not that he'd paid anything into it and it's all mine...even the subsidence is mine :(

Just saying hello, hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and a Happy New Year! We had a good christmas apart from DD having an asthma attack due brother's drunk SiL chain smoking outside our room

Feeling a bit like a shit parent at the moment as I left some of DD presents at home (two hours away) and she was quite upset as she was only receiving presents off me (she got some money of in laws and a voucher from my best friend). Then I took her on some stupid four wheel drive trip in a normal car where we got stuck once (heaps of ruts etc) and briefly lost - DD gets panic attacks in situations like this.

Sadly back at work, so if DD want to come into town (we live in the sticks with bus service) she has to leave at 8am and not be home till the earliest at 5:30pm. So unfair on her :(

Hi 1999 :) Happy New Year!!

Don't be so hard on yourself! It sounds like you do your absolute best in difficult circumstances. Your Dd is loved and she knows it :). How old is she?

I've survived the morning at work. Mainly because I've had some nice snacks to keep me ticking over. Really didn't want to be here today, DD work me up with a nightmare at 4am so I'm woozy and tired.

meglet no, you can't tell who's a single parent by looking! it would have to be some kind of voluntary membership... it'd be great to develop an app that single parents could sign in to and somehow earn credits for each bit of helping out they did. unfortunately i'm not techie to so no idea how to do that. for the moment i'm thinking that the best way to meet other single parents is to run a local branch of gingerbread, set up a meet-up group, or approach my local NCT as i don't think they have a single parent group. i'm quite introverted though so don't work well as a group leader, but might have to force self as this isolation is killing me.

solo what terrible war stories you have! we're sold this lie that the route to financial security is through a man, and then find out that if you manage to find one who's not an abusive, thieving, cheating cocklodger then - well, you're extremely fortunate.

Meglet I hope you are feeling ok today? and Dd sleeping better too...

It's true warm :( and unfortunately for me, I've had all three of those categories in my life. But we survive don't we?! we have to.

There is no local Gingerbread in my area either. Got me thinking now! but how to do it; where to do it etc...

I know everyone always say "there's someone for everyone in this world" and "you'll find him when you're least looking" but it feels like those words are actually just words thrown together to make single people desperately wanting to be loved, looked after, respected and cared for feel better and shut the hell up! :( This all feels like hell on earth...

how to do it (gingerbread group) is easy enough solo - they have forms to download, and then you have to get a registered childminder to sign them for you. but where is another problem - at least in the summer you could start off in a park but in the winter it's a bit more difficult. there's a community centre near here i could enquire about using i reckon but it's right in the middle of our grim estate so i don't think anybody would really make the trek. idk. worth thinking about though i reckon.

i genuinely don't want another relationship, especially not with a man. i was with the same guy from 17-31, who was lovely but very possessive, then was with a load of sociopathic dickheads, one of whom is the DCs' father. I just can't conceive of a relationship being anything but aggro at the moment - just more demands on my time and more of other people's problems to deal with. i have quite enough of that with the kids.

solo I've just eaten a bag of mini-eggs so I'm currently feeling ok. DD hasn't slept well for years, although it's usually because she doesn't sleep until late. But middle of the night wakings really knock me for six these days.

warm I've toyed with trying to set up a gingerbread group but have no idea when it could be held. Weekdays and sundays would be out, and I only get up for parkrun on saturdays, then it's home for pj's. It's only really a saturday afternoon thing I think. I shall continues to ponder it . Or maybe a facebook group would be better.

Hello all. How are you all today and what have you planned for the weekend?
I'm still car-less and I really don't fancy the 2 hour, 2 x bus journey to Dd's swimming lesson and then 2 hours and 3 buses home again. IABU? I think Dd thinks I am. The fares will cost more than the lesson too!

Hoping car back tomorrow.

Dd's 15 solo but she was over it by christmas lunchtime, I think it was just the fact she was jealous of her friend who got heaps of presents from relatives/family friends. YANBU! I have never put that much effort to take my Dd swimming and she's ex competitive. Fingers crossed you get your car back soon, you become so reliant on cars.

Hope you are all having a nice weekend :) We have just came back from beach, so hot! Probably go into the city tomorrow and go to the supermarket, I was going to go into work tomorrow and do overtime but the weather's too nice! so I'll procrastinate and work late monday night

don't go near the main board, either chat or aibu. There's a load of parents (mainly 2 parent families) giving a LP grief for struggling with her first week back at work. It does, as they say, get right on my tits.

anyway, we did a wet parkrun this morning so the only polite thing to do is spend the rest of the day in pj's and tidying up.

Oh no!! I hate single parent bashing; these smug marrieds don't have a clue!

Pj's sound good to me!!

solo I'm combining pj's, tidying and watching back to the future with the dc's

Sounds good to me!

1999 I'm sorry, I completely forgot to answer you .

Kids and probably more so teens are easily hurt when they think everyone else has more that they do. My Ds is 16 and went through the same thing over his 11-15 age group. Everyone brags about what they have and were given and it makes those that haven't got feel so much less loved/valued or whatever, but I think it's important that they realise that life doesn't always give you the materialistic 'stuff' you want or think you want in order to keep up with young Eunice, Ada or Mary at school.
IMO, the world was a better place when we were all poorer and without the technology we have now and crave.
Can I ask what you do/how you deal with Dd when she gets a panic attack? why do you think she gets them? is it fear or lack of control maybe?

This Christmas gone, I actually spent about £140 on Dd and £185 on Ds. I never spend this much on them as I just don't have it, but this year I've had more than usual; I think it'll be a one off though. One of Ds's gifts was a gorgeous pair of Derby shoes which were half price, but he didn't like them, so I sent them back. He hasn't asked for anything to replace them and I'm not offering as the reduction means I've spent much the same on each of them. I will tell him as much if he asks too.

Ladies. After a very long time on my own, it appears that I have a man interested in getting to know me. Whilst it has made me smile all afternoon and evening, I don't really know what to make of it. Not met him. He lives several hundred miles away ooop north.
Just thought I'd mention this as I will need advice I reckon.

Poor DD had an absolute shit day at work, so I walk in swearing my head off and poor DD thought something really bad had happened, then I was in a grump/stressed all night. Some intern who was supposed to be helping fucked up all my accounts and reports, so it's going to waste all my valuable time fixing that. Worked 12 hours today (4 hours overtime but that was done at home) tomorrow will be the same sadly. Fucking over it. Boss will be pissed off too as reports won't be rady tomorrow.

Fingers crossed this faze ends shortly as she's 16 in May as I've just forked out $$$ on a pair of Nike shoes as they're 'in' at the moment but I think the fact is that her friend rubs it in her face a lot, DD ended up in tears one night as she rang up and boasted she was getting a brand new MacBook Air as well as an iPhone. Her parents are to blame though, as her friend as depression, anxiety and too scared to leave the house so her parents spoil her to make her feel better, which DD is trying to support her but its hard as she won't accept she needs the help :(

Her panic attacks are defintly lack of control, she hates anything spontaneous and anything out of her comfort zone, which is partly to do with crappy friends at primary who bullied/forced her to things she wouldnt want as well as various incidents during primary and her personality. We deal with them by stopping what we are doing, taking a deep breath and reassessing the situation.

I spent veyr little on DD this year but thats because i spend a small fortune on a once an lifetime holiday! Unfortunately I have no advice on the dating front, i haven't dated in many years!

I tell you 1999, I would not want to be a young person growing up in this materialistic world. Why they have to be so mean to those that have less, I just don't know and it makes my blood boil . Ds is better than he was, but unbelievably self conscious about the type of phone he has. He skateboards; that's his hobby and he goes through trainers at a rate of around 4 or 5 pairs a year! it would be more, but I make him wear them until he can't any longer (falling off his feet!) before I replace them. I have though, turned him into a clever shopper! he does what I do, and works out how to get the best value, so he shops around for everything too, including skate shoes.

I don't know how you can address your Dd's friends attitude and unthinking/unpleasant boasting. I'm guessing she won't drop her friend or reduce the time she spends with her? but she's not a good friend is she if she makes your Dd feel so awful! kids eh? :(
Shame she gets panicky. What do you think would happen if you didn't stop, breathe and reassess? not saying you should, but by just going forward and her realising nothing has actually happened or gone wrong, would that be bad? make things worse?
I'm probably a bad parent as I would probably do that. I wasn't a popular, wealthy, happy child at school, had few friends, was quiet and bullied mercilessly, but I am very independent and confident...even if I don't feel it, I look it!

I hope your work goes more smoothly. Bloody people sticking their oar in .

How are you all doing?