I'm afraid that she will grow up to hate me, that I can't show her how to be married.
It’s now been seven months since my decision to divorce and, while many things have settled in my mind and heart, there seems to be the same core of fears gripping on with both hands. Questions with answers that never satisfy, angst that haunts me at night. I’m positive I’m not alone in these fears, but they plague me nonetheless.
I am afraid…
That she will grow up to hate me.This is pretty extreme, I realize it, but it’s my number one fear. I’m afraid she’ll never get beyond her hurt enough to see the struggle I went through. That I didn’t flippantly leave her dad and turn her little world upside down. I hated my mom for years and years over something that, now as an adult, I totally sympathize with her over. How do I keep my daughter from making that mistake? How can I help her have compassion on my choices now rather than twenty years from now.
That I can’t show her how to be married. How in the hell am I supposed to teach her about marriage? I always assumed that I would show my daughter how to have a successful marriage by example, by being a walking advertisement for what a healthy, mutually exclusive relationship looks like. Will she ever heed my advice when I so obviously failed?
That she won’t want to be like me. Naturally, there are flaws in me that I’d never want her to model herself after, but when it comes down to it, who doesn’t want their child to be like them? I want to be good enough that, should she behave like me, she will have a good life. Have I messed up too much?
That she won’t open up and talk about it. Right before I moved out of town she started seeing a therapist who she really liked. I had such high hopes because my little girl, who historically refused to cooperate with counselors, actually LIKED this woman. But after just a few sessions the therapist left for another practice and sent us back to square one. What if she never talks to anyone again? What if she holds it all in, bottles up her feelings till they spill out in forms of depression, self-harming and eating disorders … oh-my.
That I will be blamed for everything unpleasant in her life. I don’t have the thickest skin and being told I’m at fault for anything sets off a panic in me like you wouldn’t believe. She very well could turn all of her life’s misfortunes right back onto me and the divorce I put her through. How will I handle that? Will I live year after year feeling like a scolded pet?
Now, let me balance some of this crazy talk with a little truth, because even I know that a tad of grace goes a long way. To date, I’ve managed to raise a lovely, caring human being and when I push these fears back for a moment I can admit that it’s unlikely that she should suddenly abandon her personality. She has always been reasonable and considerate and I need to plug into that reality when my anxieties rise to the surface. When I can’t find it in myself, I need to lean into people who love me and accept me. No parent is perfect, even the married ones, and all I can do is wake up each day and do my best, whatever my best for that day is.
"Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.”
–Jennifer Weiner, Fly Away Home
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/divorce/my-5-biggest-fears-as-a-divorced-parent-dg/
SAN ANGELO,TX- Raising children as a single parent is never easy. It takes a motivated individual who can lead a household with the day-to-day duties of parenting, while also providing financial support through a full-time job.
According to a 2016 U.S.Census report, single mothers generally represent the majority of single parents. The report shows that out of 12 million single parent families in 2016, about 80 percent were single mothers (9,781,000 families), while single fathers represented 17 percent (2,033,000 families). Though single mothers represent the majority of single-parenting households, it’s important to account for single fathers who also run a household.
LIVE! spoke with two single fathers to get a better understanding of the challenges they face. Both parents preferred to remain anonymous for the sake of their children and families; therefore, LIVE! has changed their names for the purpose of the article.
In the first case, Bob provides for multiple children in his household. After divorcing from his wife, he saw his kids on alternating weekends.
His weekend began by picking up the kids from the mother’s house, and then going grocery shopping to buy all the necessities, including snacks, fruit and meals for the weekend. All of the preparation to maintain a clean house, on top of other duties, would have to be finished through the week with a full-time work schedule.
“I cooked all the time for [the kids],” Bob said. “We would eat and then I would get them prepped for the day; it’s something you just have to do.”
He noted that after the first two years of alternating weekend custody with his ex-wife, he received full custody of the children. After winning custody, Bob's children became a priority to him and he had to find a job that would give him flexible work hours. Thankfully, Bob soon found a job where he could decide his own hours, which allowed him to spend more time with his kids.
“I made sure to have a job were the employer understood my circumstances,” he explained. “If my kids were sick or needed anything, I knew I had their support with putting them first.”
Bob expressed how fortunate he was to find employers like this, as they were hard to find.
However, work can still be unpredictable. If Bob couldn’t get off work, he explained that he still had family members who could be available to help him with any immediate obligations.
“I was thankful to have help from my family during those stressful times,” he said.
Overall, having multiple children in one house can be financially straining. Bob explained that while transitioning into a single-parent household, he had to cut back on some luxuries to account for the new financial responsibility. Bob even had to trade in his pickup truck for a more economically reasonable car.
”You have to budget everything, from food, utilities to clothing,” he said.
Despite the hardships the kids had to endure during their parents' divorce, Bob mentioned the relationship with his kids is strong. Of course, "at the back of [my kids'] minds, they wanted us to get back together," Bob said, as "they miss their mother, but they also knew [the divorce] was for the best."
For Bob, he will do anything to help protect and support his kids.
"Every morning, I wake up and worry about my children," Bob said. "I can't give up; I keep going to make sure they are happy."
The second dad, James, is a father to a daughter whom he only sees on the weekends currently because of his job and school work. While he works on providing for his daughter financially and works to secure a future for them by getting a college education, his family helps care for his daughter. James' parents help him by getting his daughter to school during the work week and watching over her. James expressed his gratitude, saying, “Everyone involved is looking after her, and that takes a weight off my mind."
As James only has weekends together with his daughter, he actively seeks to be a part of her life. James constantly tells himself he works for her benefit. The time he spends away from her is challenging; however, he knows that in the end, the hardships will pay off.
“If I take care of myself financially, then I know she will be taken care of as well,” James said.
Motivating him through life's most challenging moments is the the love and support from his daughter. James is separated from his daughter’s mother, but knowing his child is looked after while he's away makes the transition easier. He said his daughter understands he is busy during the week, and it make the time they have together all the more special.
“I’m a phone call away, and I’m always ready to leave if she ever needs me,” James noted.
He said one key distinction in the relationship of father and daughter is wanting to be a role model.
“You want to be seen as their hero,” James said.
At the end of the week, he knows providing for her is a responsibility that he upholds without any doubt.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to provide for her with everything that she needs,” James added.
As a single dad who works throughout the week and is in the midst of pursuing a college education, many people have questioned his choices; however, he feels that, in the long run, his aspirations for a Ph.D. will open up more opportunities for his daughter.
“I’ve been able to network with people in my career, and this has also helped me grow as a person,” James said. “I believe these experiences have made me a better parent.”
Instead of working a job with limited opportunities to excel, James wanted to pursue a career he was passionate about.
“I don’t want to look back and think that I could have done more for her,” James said. “I want to do the best for my daughter.”
Source: http://sanangelolive.com/news/san-angelo/2017-03-22/single-fathers-who-support-their-children-without-any-reservations
'I LOVE being a mom, I love watching them grow... they astonish me daily'
Recently, we published a story You can be a happy divorced family. This Parent24 reader responded, telling us about her experience and the journey she's taken on with her three sons.
"I am a single mom with three boys. I was separated while pregnant with my third, and even when we were together, my ex would be gone for 16 hours a day, 6 days a week.
"Anyway, I think back to those times now, and it only made me stronger and more ready to deal with divorce and raising kids alone.
"My first was a hard won baby, almost 4 years in the making, my miracle boy. When he was 9 months old, I discovered that I was pregnant with baby no. 2, my first two are only 18 months apart.
This was not going to be easy...
"We were very happy, my first was such a dream and having another did not scare me at all. I knew that it was by no means going to be easy with an 18 month old and a new born, but I felt ready.
"Well, my second was/is a very difficult child, from the womb I could feel him constantly moving and jumping. Sometimes, it feels like we have a daily battle of wills, him and I, and I don’t always win!
"Hence, when I discovered that I was pregnant with baby number three, I cried and cried and cried. How was I going to cope? Single with a 3.5-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a newborn? But my baby was just the pudding, he fit right into our already established routine.
Let them get involved
"The absolute key: do not alienate the other children when a new one comes along, keep the children involved. We would all sit on the three-seater couch while I breastfed, bonding together. They all bathed together, dressed together, went to bed together, changed nappies together, got muddy together... you get the picture.
"Frankly, it was so much easier for me to work it this way, they just loved being totally involved in everything.
"I also gave up fighting to keep them in their own beds. The baby was in the cot pushed up next to my bed, and often, my other two would crawl into the bed with me sometime during the night. Getting them back into their beds was not worth the fight or the loss of sleep. And they won’t do it forever, they will grow out of it.
"My second still gets into my bed during the night on occasion, but there will come a time when I will have all the time I please to sleep, and will miss the nightly cuddles.
'I work hard to keep our heads above water'
"I am a full time mom, I work full time, I have to be super organized to get through my days. Yes my social life is non-existent, I rarely go out, but I prefer to go home to my boys and spend as much time as possible with them.
"I do not have the luxury of being home by 5pm everyday. I work hard to keep our heads above water, and to give them all the opportunities that they would have with a father in the house and the added income.
"I try and keep a good balance between it all, another key to keeping a happy home, and of course, a happy mom. Time is precious, and it goes by so fast.
'I know I am strong enough'
"For me, it was dealing with the here and now, always being prepared, and continuing with routine. Don’t think too much.
"On the rare occasion that I do have time alone, if I allow myself to think too much about the massive task still ahead of me, I start to feel totally overwhelmed. But I know I am strong enough, I will keep my head up and keep forging on.
"I LOVE being a mom, I love watching them grow, and I love the things that come out of their mouths; they astonish me daily.
"I can’t wait to get home to them."
Source: http://www.parent24.com/Family/Parenting/making-it-work-as-a-single-mom-of-3-boys-20170413
"Dad questions" come suddenly and at unlikely moments.
Unfortunately, there are no magic answers to your kids' questions because the circumstances that lead to solo mothering differ widely.
For some moms, solo motherhood was a deliberate life choice. Such moms may have used reproductive technology or simply planned their pregnancies with a cooperative partner. Other women become solo moms by chance. What began as a shocking surprise evolves into a welcome and life-changing event. Divorced moms often cope with dads who are only inconsistently present or entirely absent in their kids' lives. Other divorced dads rush into another relationship and create "new" families that sadly – and predictably – don't include the kids from a previous marriage. Exclusive relationships sometimes break up leaving the mom unexpectedly and disproportionately responsible for raising the kids.
If you feel angry or upset just anticipating these questions, make addressing your own emotional needs a priority.
Begin by writing down exactly what fuels your anger or brings tears to your eyes. Express your disappointments, regrets and sadness over how your expectations were never met. To add a healing and ritualistic touch, consider shredding or burning what you've written. If you decide to keep what you've written, take care your kids don't inadvertently stumble upon your private writings. If you chose to vent your feelings online, that's your personal choice.
No matter what path you choose, it's challenging to express and sort out painful feelings. If you feel overwhelmed or increasingly upset, seek help through a support group or from a mental health professional. Taking these brave steps forward will ensure you'll be ready to answer your kids' inevitable questions about their dad.
Here's what you need to know to get ready:
Know what to expect. Most kids begin asking Dad questions around the age of 4 or 5. Before that, kids believe all families are just like theirs. Kids at this age begin to notice different types of families at day care and at neighborhood or extended family gatherings. Of course, media influence kids' perceptions, too.
Begin the conversation by talking about what makes your family unique. Build on your kids' observations by talking up the unique advantages and positive qualities of different family types. Celebrating differences in other families sets the stage for your talks about your own unique family. Instill in your kids respect for the life choices other people make.
Keep your conversations age-appropriate. Stick to basic facts. Keep your explanations simple. Your kids are unlikely to understand what commitment, trust or intimacy mean. Reveal more information slowly as your kids mature. Avoid changing the subject when their questions persist or are posed at inopportune times. Kids often ask the same questions repeatedly. It's fine to say you simply don't know or to turn the question around and ask your kids what they think might be the answer. Above all, listen patiently to encourage your kids to talk about their feelings.
Don't lie. Lying never works. When kids eventually discover the truth, the loss of a present and loving dad will be compounded by their loss of trust in you.
Strive to remain positive. Keeping your message positive will be incredibly demanding, especially if their dad is neglectful or routinely dodges his responsibilities. Kids who have been neglected or abandoned will express rage, hurt and anger. Comfort them as only a mother can. Resist the urge to say things which may be factually true, but terribly hurtful to your kids.
Think long term. Staying positive to protect your kids requires all the strength and maturity you can muster. Look for opportunities to say positive and truthful things about their dad. Keep in mind that everything you say about Dad becomes part of how your kids view themselves. So, when you take the high road, your kids gain added measures of happiness and confidence. Think of harsh words about their dad as sharp arrows. Protect your kids from such wounding words just as you would protect them from physical danger.
Source: http://health.usnews.com/wellness/for-parents/articles/2017-06-29/what-to-say-about-an-absent-dad
You can have a great life after divorce AND still be a great parent too.
Divorce forces loss after loss after loss – loss of your marriage, loss of your home, loss of your life style, loss of your future together, and loss of your kids. Well, maybe you don’t really lose your kids, but it sure feels that way when you don’t get to see them every day.
When you’re used to being there for your kids and knowing everything that’s going on in their lives being without them is devastating. So, you do whatever you can to make the time you do have with them count more than ever. But when they’re with their other parent, you’re lost.
You know that it’s time to get on with your life, but the simple thought of moving on after divorce brings up fears of moving on from your kids and leaving them behind so their other parent can raise them. These terrifying thoughts are so crushing and abhorrent that you struggle to function.
So, you don’t move on. You continue to cling to your children and only really come alive when you’re with them.
The problem is that living only for your kids isn’t fair to your them. They notice that you’re not really living your life and they can tell that you’re becoming more and more insecure.
This is not the parent you want to be and it’s not the parent your children deserve.
You don’t have to choose between having a great life after divorce and being a great parent.
Moving on after divorce doesn’t mean that your new life doesn’t allow you to continue being a great parent.
The first step to moving on after divorce is to do your divorce recovery work. That means that you dig into the emotions you’ve locked away and grieve the losses. You accept that you had a part in the demise of your marriage and figure out what you can or should do differently in your next relationship. And you plan for and create a life that you love
(Admittedly, healing after divorce is much easier to read about than to do. Most people benefit from working with a helping professional – therapist, divorce coach, clergy member – to fully heal.)
The second step to moving on after divorce is to figure out new ways to connect with your kids. This requires that you ask yourself, “How can I be just as involved with them as I was before the divorce?”
You might make more time to go to their games or recitals. You might have lunch with them at school. You might teach them about the new hobby you’ve found as part of your healing process. You might take them and their best friends out on some adventure. The possibilities really are endless (and much easier to see when you’re over your divorce).
What you choose to do now to connect with your kids will differ from how you connect with them in the future because they’re growing up. So, your job as a parent will continue to change and you’ll be challenged to discover new ways to build your relationship with them just like you were before the end of your marriage.
Your divorce has already forced you to make a bunch of really tough adjustments and the thought of making even more changes is probably a bit discouraging.
But this is the home stretch of the adjustments you’ll need to make because of divorce and these changes are for your kids. Knowing that should be great motivation for you to build a life after divorce that works not only for your kids, but for you too.
And the best part is that when you’re living a happier life that includes focusing on building your relationships with your children, you’ll realize that your fears of losing your kids once you moved on from your divorce were just a sign that you had an opportunity to become an even better parent than you already are.
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/divorce/moving-on-after-divorce-without-losing-your-kids-wcz/
You deserve some recognition and to know that you are amazing.
Nobody ever mentions the single dads.
And they are out there.
My kids have one.
They hardly mention the dads who became moms, or the dads who still sent their ex flowers from her little kids on mother’s day because they couldn’t yet -the dad who loves his kids more than he is bitter toward his ex.
We see post after post on social media about single moms having a hard life, harder than ours.
We read about how good of a job they are doing to teach their sons not to be like their deadbeat father, and how strong they are doing this all alone.
We see posts titled 10 reasons single mom’s rock, making points about how they are used to handling everything on their own, and how good they’ve gotten at juggling things with no time to themselves, all while they work two jobs to make ends meet.
My hat is off to them.
I respect you because as a “single mom” myself, I have not had to endure that. Which means my kids, who are the most important part of all of this, have not either.
It’s not easy as a single dad going to the park alone with your children, knowing everyone suspects you are there so that mommy can have some me time.
But what about the moms who are single but not alone because the man they left behind may have been an unexceptional husband, but is an exceptional father. For us, it feels weird to call ourselves “single moms” because we are technically single, but not single in the raising of our children.
We are lucky.
We may not say it enough, maybe some of us don’t recognize it from the bitterness and strain that comes from a divorce or a breakup, but we are lucky to end up with these kinds of men. As strange as it sounds, we are lucky these are the types of the men we started a family with, even though we won’t end as a family in the traditional sense.
What about the moms who got divorced or left not so perfect husbands, but amazing fathers? The moms who share joint custody, and only see their kids 50% of the time? It seems like we have it easy, and sometimes, in some instances, we do.
We know that.
We feel lucky, even though just as we are getting back into a routine with our kids, it’s time for them to go again. It makes us sad because they are being shuffled between houses, and we selfishly want to be there 24/7, but happy at the same time they have a relationship with their dad.
The relationship they should have, and deserve to have.
We are judged on how often they switch homes, but we ignore it because we know how important it is to keep a consistent relationship with their dad when he is a genuinely great person, and focused on making them the best they can possibly be, just as much as we are.
You single dads may feel stupid for treating your ex so well when so many men don’t. But you are not stupid. You are amazing. It’s hard, really hard. Men need to cut all ties when moving on from a relationship and you can’t do that when you are a parent.
At least not if you are a good one.
To the one’s that stay, I admire you, and I thank you for setting such an amazing example for your daughters, and especially your son’s. They are watching how you treat their mother.
You are so awesome that you feel guilty when there is tension between you and your ex, momentarily forgetting the agonizing tension in your house when you were together. You’re not realizing the chaos the boy in the house next door calls life, where the mom and dad are screaming out of frustration while her little boy whom she thinks is sleeping in the next room is listening because they think they have to stay for their kids. You feel guilty that you are not in their lives one hundred percent of the time, but you are in their lives 100% of the time you just don’t realize that yet. You don’t realize that some fathers who are physically there all of the time are hurting their children more than helping them.
You will realize one day how great of a job you are doing, and that just because you did not do a great job in your marriage, it says nothing about the way you parent. I promise you will realize how much what you are doing now, the way you act in front of your kids and make decisions based on them and not your feelings towards her affect them in a positive way and will trickle down into the rest of their lives shaping them into better people.
And I can’t wait to watch them grow into the wonderful men who treat their women with such respect, and beautiful daughters who have high standards and know what they are deserving of because of you.
It’s hard to remember this in the hard times. Even though you may have exchanged some hurtful words two days ago in a text message, you learn to let it go for them.
You learn to move on from the things she does that drive you absolutely mad and remind you why you could never be with her, but your kids would never know that because you treat her with nothing but respect when they are around.
That’s not easy. There is a reason you separated.
It’s not easy as a single dad going to the park alone with your children, knowing everyone suspects you are there so that mommy can have some me time. When in reality, after the fun is over you still have to bring them home, cook dinner, do potty time, and give baths, all while they are tugging at your leg to play Spiderman.
Eventually, you realize it isn’t worth being angry over, you aren’t together anymore. And that makes you sad your family is no longer together, but I hope you realize how happy you make your children when you drop them off and you say hi to their mom instead of avoiding eye contact and slamming the door.
I know it makes you sad every single time you watch her walk away with them after a long weekend, it makes you feel like you have been punched in the gut and feeling like you should be walking right beside them. But I hope you know how happy you make your children when they excitedly lose their first tooth, and you say “l will send mommy a picture.” It’s amazing they aren’t afraid to speak about their mom to you when so many other little kids with divorced parents are afraid.
You can never know what that possibly means to them -knowing that you are a still a team, that you still love them together even though you are not together.
You deserve some recognition and to know that you are amazing.
I wish all fathers were like you. You make us better mothers, and you are molding your kids into the kind of people we need most in this world right now.
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/families/to-the-good-single-dads-from-a-single-mom-bbab/
My alternating Saturday mornings are wildly different. In one weekend, I wake and stretch my toes, heave a big satisfactory sigh and smile into the quiet. I prepare my coffee, lazily curl up on my couch to read my newspaper and decide how I will spend the day in self-care and hobbies.
On the next weekend, I can hardly wait for my fifth-grader to come peek into my room so we can loudly make breakfast together in the hopes of stirring her 13-year old sister. The cheerful chaos of mapping out our activity-driven day ensues with the search for shin guards, identifying when homework will be done and getting caught up on the who’s in and out of their fast-paced, friend-swapping lives.
As a divorced parent, both weekends carry guilt.
In the first, I feel guilty for the sheer enjoyment I experience in down time. Often, the quiet lasts too long and I crave the chatter of my girls, and my heart sinks by Sunday evening with missing them. In the second, I feel guilty for having to “catch up” after the past couple of days without them. I have to balance the urge to “make up” for missing them with spoiling them and planning only fun-filled activities void of any normal parent-child responsibilities and chores.
I have learned in my own life and in watching divorced parents for nearly two decades, that navigating the hardness of co-parenting and never really getting used to not living 100 percent of the time with your children takes a lot of work. It also leads to some fairly universal new parenting perspectives.
We have to do it all, and that improves our overall parenting — even if it's exhausting. During our parenting time, we are 100 percent in charge and responsible for all things parenting, including new challenges and issues because we must be both mom and dad.
For me, I had to learn how to be more active with my kids because that was a role, pre-divorce, filled by their dad. He had to learn the art of matching hair bows to outfits and tracking all of the parenting to-dos. We are both now more complete parents, having had to fill both roles.
We have rich relationships with our kids. For better or worse, our children spend more one-on-one time with each of us than they ever did when we were a family unit. Despite the downside of never having us together, they do get undivided attention from each of us on a regular basis.
We have a deep appreciation for time spent with our kids. As any parent who has been away from their child on a business trip or an adult vacation has experienced, you miss your kids. You look forward to seeing them again. You cannot wait to hug them. Divorced parents experience this feeling toward their kids weekly. As a result, a deep appreciation grows post-divorce for the time you get with your children. It is rarely taken for granted and often treasured.
Divorce is hard; parenting after divorce is even harder. But the new parenting perspectives gained from the grit of just getting through it lead to renewed relationships with your children that will be the best version yet.
Source: http://www.omaha.com/momaha/omaha-mom-how-a-divorce-can-lead-to-improved-parenting/article_d2516fce-2f76-11e7-b141-3ff1cfa339f7.html
