Hello All,
Looking for some advice and your experiences. My partner and I have a 5 year old son and have been living together ( not married) for 7 years.
What has been the hardest bit of being a single mom for you? I am in a relationship that's just hanging on and wondering if I should leave or not.
Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.
Lone parents
Toughest or most Suprising challenges of being a lone mother
FlyingHigh55 · 20/02/2024 08:51
LilBus · 20/02/2024 13:42
I guess the hardest part for me is having no days or nights to myself, ex hasn’t once had the children overnight since we split 8 years ago, not once. I would have given anything for even once a month a night to myself as it’s really taken it’s toll on my mental health never getting any time to myself and feel like I’m wishing my children’s childhood away I also feel like I would be a better parent if I got some breaks to myself even very minimal.
NiceUnusualDifferent · 20/02/2024 19:33
I agree with all this, it's incredibly hard. At first my ex had eow but doesn't have them at all now.
Was particularly hard when I was stick in bed very ill for 3 days. Had to order takeaways every meal time and they answered the door. My lowest moment I think.
LilBus · 20/02/2024 13:42
I guess the hardest part for me is having no days or nights to myself, ex hasn’t once had the children overnight since we split 8 years ago, not once. I would have given anything for even once a month a night to myself as it’s really taken it’s toll on my mental health never getting any time to myself and feel like I’m wishing my children’s childhood away I also feel like I would be a better parent if I got some breaks to myself even very minimal.
heyyellowyellow · 20/02/2024 12:58
My son is now 16 and we’ve been a duo since he was a few weeks old, with his dad having a fairly on-off relationship with him.
I can hand on heart say that being a peri-menopausal 46 year old woman living with a 16 year old boy has almost broken me, several times. I say that as a secondary school teacher so I’m normally pretty good with teens! Trying to maintain a healthy, loving relationship while being the parent and knowing that neither of you really understand each other is hard going, and there’s no one else there to dilute the tension. We had a superb relationship until we both hit these stages in our lives, I’m very open with accepting that my hormones leaving the building play as much a part as my son’s hormones wreaking adolescent havoc!
But… staying in an unhealthy relationship…. that’s not okay. You’ve just got to trust that you’ll navigate through whatever comes your way.
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.