Guardian article: ‘I’m like a single parent for months while he trains’: the partners of fitness fanatics who are left holding the baby

[MissFizzyPop]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/07/the-partners-of-fitness-fanatics-who-are-left-holding-the-baby

I might be over sensitive but this annoys me - parents who compare themselves to single parents - no clue at all!

Personally I think they are in a worse position, they may benefit from a second income but their selfish husbands / partners leave them on their own, the level of resentment I'd feel is off the char.

Personally, what irked me most about that article was their effort to portray this issue as if it was a gender-equal problem. We all know who's overwhelmingly doing the obsessive training and who's doing the childcare...

I felt like this before leaving my husband. He wasn't even in training for anything! Just obsessed with work, watching football and online gaming. So I kind of get what they mean. I often joked that 'I feel like a single parent' but now I am, I cringe at myself for comparing. It's not just the lack of free time and lack of spontaneity (young AsD kids here) when you're a lone parent, but also the lack of having a grown up to converse with when the kids are in bed. Or even just veg with, saying nothing. I know lots of these sporting events mean partners might be gone for a few days, but most days they are coming home at some point, and they're still a team in terms of decisions and finances.

I was a single parent and I found it so much easier than dealing with my later husbands bloody endless hobbies which took hi. Away in the evenings and the weekends so I was totally alone and had to do everything myself. Ateast when I was a single mum DS pulled his weight at home.
I came last to everything else in his life while he lived in my house rent free.
I'm glad to be rid of him.

I'm sorry you won't get people agreeing with you on here they will all tell you being a single parent is easier than having a partner.

I absolutely fucking agree! 🙋

You aren't a single parent. And yes, there's a different challenge being married to a bellend, but two incomes/two sets on AL/the ability to 'pop out' for milk when the kids are in bed and your partner is home, someone to mow the lawn or take out the bins, someone to make you a cup of tea on mother's day and give you a lie in. Not possible as a single parent, even if they work long shifts, use all weekend for the hobby, or work on an oil rig for 6 months of the year.

Grinds my bloody gears. You aren't a single parent, you had kids with a man child. If its easier being single, leave him and go for it like some of us did. Not me, mine left me but whatevs. Point remains 😂

People will tell you thats the same when you have a partner though that you won't be able to go out or have a lie in.

I agree. There has got to be a better way of phrasing it.

If the kids are in bed and your partner is playing computer games or whatever he/she does, you can absolutely pop out for a loaf of bread. In very extreme cases you'll get someone who doesn't have a lie in but that's very different from every single parent who definitely can't do either of those things.

Having a partner who works is definitely not "like being a single parent" and I wish people would stop saying it.

People have said that to me that having a partner is no different to being a lone parent and that I still wouldn't be able to have someone watch the children as most men won't do that anyway...

They’re in a worst position in that they have to put up with a selfish man around the house. They’re not anything like single parents though

I think I was lonelier and doing more childcare when I was married. Now divorced and so I have free time whilst he has the dc.

Yes I saw that - the picture was of the woman training and the man holding the baby but all the examples were of men training.

I was a single parent and it’s totally different to having a partner !! As others have said , if we ran out of anything, I couldn’t run to the shop , I also had no one to discuss school and nursery choices with .

It really depends on the husband. Mine travels all week for work, sometimes comes back on Friday night, sometimes Saturday morning, sometimes leaves Monday morning sometimes Sunday evening. Sunday mornings he cycles 4 hours, then he goes on biking weekends.
so no time to lie down, I do all pick ups drops off, homework, kids social life on top of my full time job. If I want to go out a get a baby sitter.
The thought to divorce occurs to me nearly daily. I feel like a single parent as I am alone 90% of the time and all the mental load is on me. He does contribute financially as he is the main earner and I would be way worst off after a divorce. But mainly I don’t divorce as at least I have some 10% of time of help and the kids don’t have to go through the overhaul of a divorce. He probably won’t bother seeing them after a divorce at all and the sense of being abandoned would be terrible for them. If I had certainty he would get force to have them half the time or even every other weekend I would probably really think of divorcing as at least I would have some time for myself and the kids would spend some time with him. But in this country this is not something that can be enforced so we would be all worst off.
so I get it is not like being a single parent 100% but at least a % of it and also in my case worst than a single parent where the other partner at least as some custody and stay with the kids some time

This. I run in an area that frequently hosts ultras. The ratio is eye-opening. The women all look young or old (probably pre- or post-little kids). They are vastly outnumbered by middle-aged men. In prime little kid parent age range.

Baby-avoidance-training is a thing.

And rather than pit single mums against mums with shit husbands, couldn't we just accept it's an expression and feel some solidarity with any mum who's struggling with a lack of support. For good measure let's throw in mums with no family support, mums who can't afford childcare, mums with kids with SEN, all of us that have challenges.

It isn't like being a single parent when you have two wages. That's why you won't divorce because it'll be worse without his money. We get it, he doesn't help, but it isn't like being a single parent!!

Also single parents don't always have partners who have the kids. Mine doesn't. So, kindly, you're wrong to compare your situation and a single parents one.

@IceCreamWoes , I agree ,my ex saw dd1 approximately 3 monthly for an hour ! He wouldn’t even tell me where he lived . It was totally different to having a partner.

I was a lone parent, I’m not anymore, so far parenting with someone else has been a piece of piss compared to doing it on my own. Lone parent and partnered parent, there is time to exercise etc without neglecting your family, I was literally a professional sportsman and working when I became a parent, you just get slightly more creative with your timings.

My son had only been home a few weeks when I needed emergency surgery, so the choices were a friend stepping in and looking after him fulltime until I was home, or going back into foster care on a temporary basis. A neighbour said she knew what it was like as her husband works away two days a week, so she’s basically a lone parent…

It really reminded me of a couple I knew, husband was an ironman enthusiast, they had 2 kids, but his wife was so fed up she left him and did become a single parent.

I know these comments wind up some lone parents, but I don't care because the most miserable I ever felt in my whole life was the few years before I left a selfish man with no self awareness.