Coming to terms with not having a family

[user1463007194]

Hello,
To any other single parents with one child, do you ever accept the fact that you will not have any more children, that you won't have a"family".
My son's father left when he was day old. I'll never trust another man again and I had such a traumatic birth which has traumatised me, I can't even imagine having sex again. My son is almost three and I feel like part of me died when all of this happened, I'll never be the same person again.
I've managed to create a happy life for us despite the pressure of 18 months of family court/emotional abuse from his father despite him not wanting anything to do with him. Losing a well paid job I had for 8 years and taking my employer to an employment tribunal. I have now returned to my legal studies and I am doing well but my son does not sleep very well and I think it's al catching up on me, all the stress etc I've had a really low few weeks and I am so sad that we won't be a bigger family, so scared of how I'll explain why his dad lives ten mins away with anew fioncee but abandoned him, I worry how he will cope without siblings and I feel such a huge sense of loss for the family life I envisioned.

Does anybody feel the same? How do you cope? The loneliness and fear is engulfing me and I am so annoyed at myself as I have managed to cope well through all of this stress and now I can't seem to shake these feelings off.

You need counselling OP not just for yourself but so you can be the best person possible for your son.
You sound quite naturally traumatised and counselling will help you recover.

I can sympathise OP. My husband left when I was pregnant with our first child. I had always hoped to have three or four children, but now I doubt I will have more than one. It has been hard to come terms up.

What has helped me is focusing on the positives of only having one child. For example, I think about how they don't have to share my attention and emotional energy with other children. I can plan exciting activities for just the two of us without having to compromise on what others want to do. I also think about how much more I will be able to support them financially in the future for going to university, buying a house etc, as I won't have to split my money amongst multiple children.

I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling with your current situation and hope that you're feeling better soon.

Really good answer to focus on the positives of having one. My first was traumatic as was the relationship breakup that ensued. He was an only child till 10 and I honestly believed never again. One thing I always did was to focus on my family I luckily have a big one. So grandparents and cousins played a big part, we both always had company, family holidays weekend barbeques ect. Is this possible for you. I now have 3 he is nearly 18 and I worry I never have enough quality time for any of them we all worry as parents its totally natural..

I wanted to add - it sounds like you're doing amazingly well, especially given what a stressful time you've had recently. It's not surprising that you're worrying about the future for your son, that's natural for any parent, and with the stress and lack of sleep I'm not surprised that you're finding those worries somewhat overwhelming.

In the past I've found my brain racing with lots of worries and anxious thoughts around being a single parent. I found writing down all my worries helped - it didn't necessarily help me solve anything, but it helped my brain to see the worries written out. It was almost like my brain needed to feel heard, and writing down my thoughts was a way to do that.

I agree with tootired - if you have siblings and nephews and nieces yourself you can help your son have a closer relationship with them. Or children he meets through childcare. He'll be starting school soon and that will be a great opportunity for him to develop close friendships with other children.

You are a family just as you are!

One of my ex colleagues has just the one son. He's in his early 20s now but all through his teens (when I worked with his mum) I was very envious of the amazing relationship that he had with his mum. He's strong and independent but also very supportive of his mum. They're a great team and with the addition of a dog or two are definitely a great family.

Why is it that you think you have to be alone? Fear? Or do you actually want to stay alone?

My XH left while I was pregnant. He's never met DS. All through my pregnancy I was convinced it would just be DS and I and I made peace with that. But when he was a small baby I decided maybe the past wouldn't actually repeat itself and tried online dating. It worked for me.

I think if you genuinely want to make peace with it, that's fine. But you don't sound quite there yet in your post.

Thank you all very much for all your messages. I keep reading them & they're very helpful and upliftingxxx