My situation may be different from many as I made the conscience decision to bring up my son in a lone parent house hold. The woman leaving the man, I had to leave the family home, find elsewhere to live etc etc it was all very role reversal. There were no other people involved, it was based purely on the fact that I was deeply deeply unhappy and had to make a positive step to change where my life was heading. I knew my happiness would directly affect my son’s happiness and vise versa. What I found out during this transitional phase in my life and that is exactly what it was when I look back at it now, i morphed into what it was I needed to be and so changed the way i worked, thought, lived and acted to accommodate this new and sometimes overwhelming responsibility in life. I went through an incredibly dark period whilst on that journey and suffered with depression, very low self esteem and my confidence suffered for a while. But I did come out the other side, more positive, a little bruised maybe, a lot lot stronger and with a well balanced child who has two parents who love him dearly. I’m definitely wiser and of course the reason for it all, so much happier in life.

I still don’t consider myself to be a ‘single parent’ then or now because my son doesn’t just have one parent, I have made sure that above all else, he was never ‘used’ as a bargaining tool, that his father and I remain civil and adult and good as role models as you possibly can, regardless of the hurt, unpleasantness and anger that followed our split. To involve children to spite and score points against each other is selfish, childish and certainly not the actions of a loving responsible parent.

That isn’t to say that I never acted out of turn in front of my son, I’m sure at some point I shouted at his father and him at me, its an unavoidable side effect when there is so much emotional turmoil involved. But my integrity and intelligence was my savior, if there is any advice I can give, it is don’t fall prey to negative and detrimental thoughts and actions, I know only too well how they can feel so comforting and satisfying. Revenge and bitterness give you a safe haven at times, somewhere to hide while you lick your wounds and curse the world for not being fair, but they serve no long term purpose whatsoever for you or your children, they hold you back, they bring you down, they cause so much damage, damage that you can’t always see and it takes longer and longer to get where you and your children need to be. Feeling sorry for yourself is a cowards way out, as its so easy to do.
I had to force myself to rise above it and keep telling myself, I am better than this, i deserve better than this and so do my children. Only I could do this, no one was going to come along with a magic wand (as much as i wanted them too) and make it all better, it took time and effort on my part to achieve the goals i wanted in life. Even if that goal to begin with was not to cry myself to sleep every night, I started with little things that are doable, achievable and worked upwards.

I hit a awful low when I finally moved into my new home with my son following the split, it had been a long time coming and I had to stay at my partners house for 6 months after I’d told him I wanted to leave, this was mainly down to his controlling nature and my lack of finances, but I never backed down and eventually I got enough money together to move out with our son. When I got into my new home that is when it really hit me. Looking back I was so intent on getting out that when I got there I remember thinking……………. ‘Sh*t! Now what do I do’? I think if you are in a volatile situation you are constantly thinking about the freedom of it, that you lose sight of what you will do when you get there. I should have maybe enrolled in an evening course or had something else to focus on once I’d reached that goal. Planning a bit more in advance may have helped me a lot more.

I didn’t really have any emotional support from family, mainly as I don’t really have family that were in a position to help me. I lost my mother to breast cancer when I was 16, watched my step father turn into an alcoholic to accompany his grief, I was told to leave the house I had grown up in by him at the age of 17. So at young age I learnt that the feeling sorry for yourself and the resentment you feel towards things that go wrong in life, cannot in any way make you feel better in the long term, they prolong the agony, end of story!! I’d been in a constant state of the ‘Poor Me’ syndrome from the age of 16 until I was about 25 and I realised from that whole experience, that life is so much better when you are kind to yourself.

But I did hit a low point in my life after the split I won’t pretend it was easy. It wasn’t so much self pity that I wallowed in, as I would try so hard not to let those thoughts into my head BUT they can push their way in when your low, my main problem was even though I had chosen to leave the relationship I was in fundamentally I think the dynamics will always the same, as a mother, as a wife/girlfriend and a person, I felt I had failed. I hadn’t made it work, I wasn’t living the dream etc etc. Failure was my vice.
What I think now, in hindsight, was for the first time in my life, after we split, all of a sudden I had time to think it was that simple, far far to much time, I hadn’t thought about how lonely moving into a house on my own would make me feel. I realised how ‘busy’ I made myself so I didn’t have to think about things previously. But now I had no company of an evening, no distractions, once my son had gone to bed all I had was time, so what happens when you have all that time on your hands……you think, you think about all the things you have never had time to think of before. For the first time I had to stop and listen to the silence. It wasn’t just the break up I found myself thinking about, it was a million and one things that I’d never taken time to think about, because I was always surrounded by distraction, until then. It was a big moment of realization and I have talked with other mothers in a split parent scenario and they have experienced the same thing, you have so much time on your own compared to before, thinking and analyzing everything, begins to take over and its always the negative that seems to get dwelled upon.

So I had to do something about it otherwise it was going to eat me up. Also I was starting to drink a bottle of wine every night to get myself to sleep but that had a knock on effect the next day for me and my son, I could see a downward spiral developing, so i started reading book after book of an evening, some fiction and some self help books, anything uplifting, as long as it stopped me thinking about things that were disturbing and upsetting me. I use to visualize a big red STOP sign, like they use at temporary traffic lights so when my thoughts turned negative I would picture this great big stop sign in my head and make myself think about something good, may be the last time I made someone laugh, or when someone paid me a compliment, when my son told me he loves me anything but allowing my thoughts to wander to the things that brought me down. I would avoid people who moaned about life, and who were clearly not willing to make changes to the things that they moaned about. There are only so many times you can have the same conversation with someone about something before it starts to drain you. This is the best advise I could give to anyone, surround yourself with people who care about YOU not themselves, when your in this delicate place you need strength and support from real friends. Someone who is no longer a friend now but at the time I’d see her regularly, she would be constantly moaning about her mum and not being able to buy a new car, even though her car was only 5 years old. She was married happily with a lovely house a family helping her financially and emotionally, but she couldn’t see what she had, even though I tried to tell her on a number of occasions. My world had been completely smashed to bits in my eyes and she couldn’t see it?! I didn’t have half of what she had and I found being around her unhealthy for my state of mind, she didn’t take into consideration how her attitude affected me, and so I slowly stopped seeing her. Always choose carefully who you spend time with if you are having a bad day, it will make all the difference.

I wrote a diary and put everything in there that upset me and angered me just to get it out, writing it down felt therapeutic. It took it away from my everyday life and into this book where it could stay. I did see a councilor on and off for about 6 months this was also a way for me to clear out the bad stuff mentally. Slowly but surely I felt myself coming back to life, bit by bit, I lost some weight which helped my confidence and I had a wonderful circle of friends who I could rely on for support in making me believe in myself.

I got through it, I’m able to look back at that time of my life and not let it affect where I am now, which is an important factor. I have a brilliant relationship with my son’s father, we are good friends now and he even has a new family, but there is no animosity between us at all, my son is there most weekends and he will ring US to find out how WE are regularly. I know I can turn to him now if ever I need help with any parenting issues that arise, we try and go to parents evening and school plays together. We even have a good laugh, strange as it may seem. But we made a little boy together so him, his happiness and well being will be more important to us than anything else that is why we worked so hard to get to this point.
It took a good year or so after the split before I was feeling stronger and looking at things in a much better light. I am a firm believer in the fact that you have the ability to create a life you want, whether you want that life to be good or bad, is up to you. It is a case of you being truly honest with yourself in moments that test you. It will give you a sense of pride to deal with things in an unselfish way, to gain moments of clarity because you acted in a way that didn’t involved spite or bitterness but with level headedness and maturity. It is only you who can change what you’re not happy with you are your own responsibility. A child will always look up to an adult, so behave like one.

Oh and I burnt my diary of that low time last year on bonfire night and it was an empowering feeling to finally kiss goodbye to the last memory of those times. I’m not that person anymore. Onwards and upwards ladies x