First of all I muse apologise as I am not officially a lone parent as I don't live alone with my children. Although to all intents and purposes I am as my H does nothing with the children. He brings in a wage and does all the housework . He loves his house and this is his top priority. I work in a school so when kids are at school I am at work and all I want is some me time but I never get more than about 20 mins without the kids. I can never go shoppng wirh friends or a girly day out. However I get to go out in the evenings as H is happy to babysit at night as kids are asleep but refuses point blank to do anything with them in the day. They make him ill with their demands mess and noise they are good kids but they will not just sit still in front of the tv to his pure annoyance. So with us staying together I get all the housework done as he does it all, he brings in a wage, I get to go out in the evenings and he will take the kids to school in the monings so i can go to work but the weekends are shit and we have to make sure that we are not noisy or messy and that we are either out or he is out so it is us and him. Anyway we have discussed splitting but as the house is his pride and joy he will never move out and if I left with the kids and set up home somewhere else (with very little money-so it won't happen!) As he has no interest in the kids he will not want to see them so like other single parents I know I will not get a day off at weekend or such like. So from a purely selfish point of view I am probably better off getting my housework done and being able to go out in the evenings. So my question is if I do decide to up sticks and leave if you are single working parent with no involvement from the absent parent how do you get time to yourself??