Category Archives: Single Parent Stories

Single Parent Stories: Bubblegum On My Shoe

Cari Wegner writes the blog Bubblegum On My Shoe where she chronicles her adventures as a single mother of two children, one of which is diagnosed with Autism. Her blog is her escape from the stress and pressures of every day life and is filled with funny, sweet, and random anecdotes. This is the first time she discusses her single parent story.

Before I throw all my dirty laundry in your direction, I have to thank the Supermodel herself for letting me air it all on her blog.  This post is probably the most vulnerable article I have written about my personal journey through divorce and single parenting.  I use my blog as an escape from the crazy life I call “my reality”, so I haven’t even revealed my entire story to my own readers.  Lucky kids you, let’s begin.

When they say love is blind, I fully understand the meaning and am here to share my full testimony to such.  So to say I didn’t see it coming isn’t a cop-out, it is truth.  In hindsight the warning signs were all there, but life in suburbia with picket fences shields you from a case of the, “that’ll never happen to me(s)”.  I was a stay-at-home Mom with a workaholic husband.  A husband I had been married to for 9 years and built a business with and had two young children, 4 and 2.  Things weren’t all roses, show me a marriage that is, but it wasn’t bad.  There was definitely a disconnect between us, but I thought that was because my husband worked a crazy amount of hours; hours that he reminded me were for us and our family.

Our lives had just been turned upside down when my 2 year old son was diagnosed with Autism.  My perfect vision of what life would be, the dreams I had for my child were slowly crumbling before me.  I felt helpless to help my son, uneducated about his disorder and relieved.  Yes, relieved, because now I had answers, and could move forward and do what was best for my son.  And so I did, and still do. (And he is amazing!)

Two short months later, the abyss deepened and widened.  My husband was in a terrible car accident which left him in a coma for 2 days and almost claimed his life.  Only by what I can say is a miracle did he leave the hospital 2 weeks later with only a broken leg and some fractures.  The 2 days he was in a coma were the most terrible of my life.  Without him to cover up the lies, I discovered his accident was a suicide attempt.  He had been driven to such by the guilt of his 5 year prescription drug addiction and gambling addiction which had left us and his business bankrupt.  Within two weeks I lost almost every material possession I owned, house, cars, jewelry, even my diamond wedding ring.

Eventually my Ex was forced to treatment, he never fully committed himself to treatment and was kicked out of various programs and now lives in another state with no custody of the children.  I was left to figure out what parts of our ten years together were truths and which were lies.  I found myself dependent on other people not because I wanted to be, because I needed to be.  I went to therapy to help me as I redefined myself and my life.

Divorce is like death in a way.  You grieve the death of a love that once was, dreams that once were, and guilt for things left unsaid and done.  But you can either become a prisoner to the lost or a warrior of a new life, a new beginning.

I’m not going to sugar coat this, single parenting sucks.  Hard.  It will mentally exhaust you, it’s lonely and it may drive you to drink.  Here is some of my advice:

  1. Shut down the guilt:  Your divorce might be for the best, it doesn’t mean you still aren’t going to self-blame and feel like a loser for many days.  LET IT GO!  What is done is done, reliving the anguish, picking scenarios apart and wondering if you did the right thing for the children will be your eternal hell on Earth otherwise.  I can’t say I have a 5 step plan to letting it go, just breathe in and out every day to start, once you have that down, you can move on to bigger things like showering and before you know you won’t be crying yourself to sleep.  You can do this.
  2. You are a great Parent because you try:  So divorce and single incomes bring financial strain, not to mention less time to spend with your kids, especially if you are in a joint custody situation.  But when your children are grown, they won’t remember that they didn’t have the coolest new trendy so-and-so, but that you took time out of your life to just listen to them.  No matter how busy we get, show them that they are the most important thing in your life by talking to them, playing with them, for 5 minutes or 50 minutes.
  3. Put the brakes on getting back out there:  Before the divorce papers are even signed everyone you know will try to set you up with the “other” single friend they have.  Don’t feel like you have to jump back into the dating game right away.  Come to terms with being alone for a little while.  Learn to feel good in your own skin again.  Know that you are enough even without someone else.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard, “I don’t know how you do it”, I could offset the back child support I’m owed.  But we do it because what other choice is there?  We do it because we are capable, beautiful, and love our children.  My divorce brought great pain and great upheaval in my life.  But it was a chance at a new beginning, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.  In times of great pain, there is amazing grace.

One in 88 children is diagnosed with Autism, if you have concerns or need more information please click here or visit my blog for more information.

If you enjoyed this story as much as I did, I hope you’ll read past contributions to this series. I also hope you will be bold and contribute your voice to this series. Please contact me to share your single parent story. Single parents can, and do, create loving and healthy environments to raise wonderful, happy, and loved children in. Single parent households are also created in a myriad of ways. Here are the past contributions to this series:

Single Parent Stories: Tech Savvy Butterfly

Stephanie Van Pelt is a single mom I met through Google+ (Seriously why aren’t you there yet? Connect with me!) who writes the blog Tech Savvy Butterfly. There she writes about technology, parenting, and how technology affects families for better or for worse. She also discusses these things on Google+ so if you’re new to the platform and interested in these topics, circling her is a must. This is her single parent story.

My journey to single parenthood was so exciting I decided to do it twice. I’m twice divorced with 2 sons, one from each marriage. The journey itself is full of bad decisions – my own and those of my exes. Low self esteem coming off of marriage #1 resulted in an even more disastrous second marriage. Let’s just say that no one was truly innocent in either of these matrimonies other than the children and move on.

This results in two very different single parent scenarios. My older son spends one week with me and then one week with his father. While we still bicker from time to time, we managed to keep our relationship cordial and later even friendly. I’m actually pretty happy about the fact that we’ve demonstrated to our son that even though we couldn’t live together as a couple, we have still been able to work together to raise our son.

My younger son hasn’t seen his father in more than three and a half years. At first this made me very, very angry. Now I’m grateful and to be honest, this is my preference. In his current state, ex #2 is not fit to be around children. He may never be. This leaves me as my second son’s sole parent, both more challenging and simpler in the same moment.

Who am I now? What is single parenting like for me today? It’s frustrating when my first ex doesn’t meet my expectations. But then again, that’s hard enough for married couples. While divorcing I think that’s the hardest thing to understand. Co-parenting is difficult in even the very best of relationships. We always have differences of opinions and those early angry days certainly compounded those differences. I have to remind myself that he also loves our son and is just doing things the best way he knows how….as am I.

By contrast, I don’t have to consult anyone when making decisions about my younger son. I also don’t have anyone else to help with the responsibility of raising him. That fact alone can be very wearying. Knowing that there’s no one else to tap out to – no one to call and say “Your son did XYZ!” I fear my younger son will not have appropriate role models or take on the absences of his father as his fault.

Through it all I’ve learned so much about myself, what I’m capable of achieving and I’ve grown into a better person. The key things I’ve learned:

  • Develop a strong support system. It’s pretty much impossible to parent well completely solo. Develop a team of people to help you and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Meaningful relationships with your family, your ex’s family, other single parents and other whole families matter. When you have a sick child, there’s someone to lend a hand. When you have a win, there’s someone to celebrate it with. You don’t need a spouse/partner but you do need that village. And it provides you with a little welcome relief and sanity.
  • You will be amazed at how strong you really are. I had no idea I was such a strong woman until I became a single mom. At the end of the day, the responsibility of my boys rests solely on my shoulders. You know what? I got through it – I even managed to do it a bit gracefully. You’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish when push comes to shove and it’s your children at stake.
  • I have three main responsibilities in life and only time to do two of them well. Family, work and home. The house can wait. I’d rather read bed-time stories to my kids. Work gives me something of my own, outside of my identity as Mom and provides me with the income to support my boys. The boys are the light of my life. I can have a clean house when they’re not there anymore. We have too much fun being messy right now.

If you enjoyed this story as much as I did, I hope you’ll read past contributions to this series. Single parents can, and do, create loving and healthy environments to raise wonderful, happy, and loved children in. Here’s more proof:

Single Parent Stories: The Brainy Babe

Meg Winkler is a freelance writer who keeps the blog Brainy Babe where she talks about books, writing, and of course the single mom life. She has been through two marriages and maintains a good relationship with the father of her daughter. This is her single parent story.

I didn’t set out to become a single parent; although, how many of us have? I was married and happy and we were surprised with a precious little girl who—I kid you not—from the womb has always been the biggest sweetheart I could ever have been blessed with. And then the marriage fell apart.

The reasons behind the collapse of our marriage are more involved than I care to go into, but we were married for almost seven years, separated for the last three. Even with that separation, it was hard—one of the hardest things I’ve gone through. To make matters even more difficult, my first husband was (and is) in the Army. He’s deployed fairly often and at the best of times he’s still at least a few hours away. At the time of our divorce, he was literally on the other side of the world. And I had this three-year-old for whom I was suddenly primarily responsible. Her dad’s always done everything he can to help out, but living close by has just never been a reality and I was granted sole custody because of our mutual living situations.

I sold our house—I had to according to the divorce agreement. I ran the gamut of all the legal stuff and honestly for a while I felt completely ashamed over getting divorced. On top of all the embarrassment, I had so many decisions to make. I had to decide what to do with my business. Should I continue pursuing my master’s degree? How was I going to get along? I was scared.

At around the same time, an old friend popped back up in my life after several years of silence and we fell into a very quick romance. I wasn’t a single parent for long and I married the second husband much sooner than I should have. That marriage ended after just about a year together. That’s when it got hard; that’s when it got interesting.

I was a single parent for quite a while. I lived with my parents for a bit, and without their help I think the little one and I would have learned what it’s like to live out of a car. I didn’t date anyone; I focused on finishing school, finding a good job, and getting my feet back underneath me. I had to find what made me happy. After going through two “failed” marriages, I had to figure out what I was doing wrong and how to fix it.

I’d married the first husband when I was just 20. I was just a kid. In many ways we’d grown up together, but that also meant that I had to stop and look at things from the point of view of what I wanted out of life as a grown up. I asked myself what made me happy. I changed religions, and therefore a large social set. I got a new job and finished my degree. I started really writing, I mean really pursuing it. And finally I started dating again.

Being a single parent has been difficult, but it’s also been an enriching experience. And I’ve learned a few things:

  1. You can’t do it all: I never absolutely bought into the “it takes a village” philosophy until I became a single parent. When there’s just one of you, suddenly this support structure means so much more. You rely on extended family, teachers, and friends in ways that you didn’t before. You also become hyper-aware of how this village influences your kid.
  2.  All the hard work is worth it: Sure, there are times when you want to throw in the towel. There are days when you seriously just want to sit on the couch with a glass of wine and a chick flick (or a beer and a football game). This is okay. This is normal. And this doesn’t make you a bad person, which leads to my last point:
  3.  You have to put yourself first: Of course your kid is a top priority, but not your only priority. Take advantage of grandparents who want the little one to spend the night–go out with your friends. Take time to paint your toenails. Don’t beat yourself up when you really just want to hit the drive thru at McDonald’s because the work day was rough. If you remember to put yourself first, you’ll feel better and be a better parent. It’s easy to get dragged down by single parenthood. Take some time for yourself; your kids will see this and be happier for it.

Today my life is different. I met the love of my life a year and a half after the second divorce. When I met him, I’d already figured out what I want out of life. I’d learned what makes me happy. I discovered a few things about myself and finally returned to the person I feel like I was before I was married the first time. My relationship with my daughter was solid and I’d buried all the hatchets with her dad. I’d gone through those struggles of having to deny my little one a toy or ice cream in lieu of a new pair of shoes or actual, healthy (read: boring) food that she needed. I’d learned how to prioritize things and I’d learned what’s most important.

And the reality is that I’m no longer a single parent. Sure I take on all of the big responsibilities of parenthood for my daughter, but I live with my boyfriend and a roommate (his nephew) and we form a kind of non-traditional family. I’ve always believed family is who you choose, not who you’re born with. I learned a while ago that we have to do things our own way, not dependent upon what society, friends, family, or the media tell us. For some, single parenthood is the way to do it. Being a parent is hard—I don’t care who you are and who you’re with. But it’s worth it. In the end, it’s worth more than you know.

If you enjoyed this story, I hope you’ll read the other contributions to this series. If you’re interested in sharing your Single Parent Story, please email me.