Single Parenthood
And so began 20 months of single parenthood . It was a very turbulent time. Feeling like it’s you against the world.
My ex husband was staying with his brother several hours away. The kids stayed with me for the first 3 weeks but spoke to their dad on the phone. But then avenues of communication did open up and we fell into a holding pattern of contact.
Then came 20 months of juggling a full time job, two young kids and running a house on my own. Don’t get me wrong, I was very fortunate in that I had very supportive parents who lived nearby and I also had several siblings who helped in their own ways to varying degrees. And I also appreciate 20 months isn’t actually that long in the grand scheme of things, but it felt that way at the time!
Kids
My 3 year old was traumatised by what had happened. She would swing between clinginess and stratospheric tantrums. She couldn’t understand why her dad wasn’t there anymore. She would scream at me, kick me, hit me, throw things at me. She would say she didn’t want me, that she wanted daddy over and over and over and over again at fever pitch. I tried to be patient but it was hard. Selfishly because it hurt to see how much she wanted the other parent and how little comfort I could give her and also because it hurt to see her in so much pain and know that I was responsible for that.
I’m also not going to deny I had many tantrums myself and lost my temper with them more than I care to remember. My older daughter would not go to bed at night. She was glued to me and my shattered self just wanted a break. It would be 10pm/11pm and she would still be screaming and clinging to me. I’m not the most patient person at the best of times and I didn’t handle the situation very well at all.
After a while I moved the two of them into the same room and bought them a Yoto Player which massively helped. They would stay up “talking” but at least she was staying in her room without me which was progress. The Yoto player was a huge hit. They still have it on every night at bedtime 3 years later. The stories/music helped to calm her and she had something else to focus on besides what was whirling through her head.
Things got a little better after that and gradually I decorated all the bedrooms and moved my youngest back into her newly decorated bedroom.
Job
I took a new full time job two and a half months after we split up. This was November 2020 and Covid was still very much a thing. My mat leave ended just as we went into lockdown in early 2020 and all the jobs went with it. I tried for weeks during lockdown but in the end I gave up so when this job came up in November, despite not really being what I wanted, I took it.
This job made my life even more miserable and stressful than it was already. On top of the separation, my ex husband and displaced children, this job took stress to a whole new level. At first it was nice to get back into work after nearly two years off for mat leave and Covid. It was exhausting at first but also quite exhilarating to be using my brain again. Nursery had reopened for the kids which allowed me the flexibility to work and allowed some structure and routine to return to the girls’ lives. I felt this was extremely important given how much of their lives was now quicksand shifting under their feet.
This job, whilst I can look back and see that I learnt a lot and that my colleagues were truly lovely people, the management team, or half of them, were not. Two of my bosses were awful to work with. They would tag team to speak down to people, bully them, make them feel insignificant and stupid. Tell them their work was embarrassing and shit. One of my colleagues came out in hives and quit on the spot. In a company of less than 20 people and in the 18 months I was there, aside from myself, three others left directly because of those two people. If you were on a call with one, they would report back to the other and then jointly attack.
But I see now they were people who were extremely insecure and prayed on other peoples’ weaknesses. I was in a bad place with the separation happening at the same time, trying to prioritise my daughters and trying to sort my life out and they exploited that rather than supporting me.
Between that job and the volatile, occasionally abusive, situation with my ex husband I struggled to get through the days. I was already on antidepressants by this point but they weren’t doing much. I would just lie in a ball on the kitchen floor. I was existing, not living. Something which I’d become used to by this point.
Time
Working full time with a daily 8.30 meeting was hard work at times. Thankfully the job was fully remote but even so. I had to ensure both girls were dropped off in different places before half 8 and then get home to do the call (which I dreaded) and then try to finish work before 5 so I could pick them up from different places before half 5 and have some kind of evening with them before bed. And repeat.
Time is a very precious commodity. People always talk about the importance of spending time with your kids when they’re young and I agree with this wholeheartedly but as a single parent paying the bills and the mortgage out of your income alone this isn’t always possible. Add to that the fact that your overall time with them is reduced because it is split with the other parent. Your time with them is severed away from you like a gangrenous limb. You have no choice but for the amputation to take place. You then need to adapt to a new life with a missing limb. You now only have 50% of your legs, you now only have 50% of your time with your kids. But you must adapt or you will fall and never get back up again.
The time I retained was for me and the kids and no one would take me away from them. I was with them for every second of that time and still am.
But in that severed away time, that’s when I caught up with the mundane; the chores, the washing, the housework, paperwork. All stuff I couldn’t do during the day because of the relentlessness of my job, and all stuff I refused to do when I had the girls.
I found when I was on my own with the kids, my life was reduced to a very narrow set of considerations; the kids, work, the house, the separation, money and me. It was quite lonely and I didn’t know anyone personally going through the same situation at the same time or at all in fact. But with the passage of that inevitable time, things did start to get better.
Again, this is all from my experience and is opinion only. Please feel free to share your thoughts if you want to either on my contact page, in the comments or on my facebook page.
