He Wasn’t Meant to Marry

As I continue going through the painful motions of co-parenting with my daughter’s father is has me traveling down memory lane remembering how I became a single mama and the end of my relationship with a man I loved oh so much.

I became a single mom in 2008 when my daughter was about two years old. Her father and I were at a point in our relationship where there were more arguments than laughter, more tears instead of kisses. We realized that over time our needs had shifted and the distance between us was too great to repair. Raising a toddler put a lot of strain on our relationship. I was 19 when I gave birth to our daughter; I was still growing and learning about the world when I had her. At the time of our breakup I was busy reenrolling in College, living on my own with our daughter, and trying to figure out who I was and what the heck I was going to do with the rest of my life. I needed to focus on me. He was busy raising two other children, starting a new career, and getting settled. He needed to focus on him.

It took me a looong time to realize that he and I just weren’t meant to be. It’s bittersweet when you finally accept this truth; it puts so much into perspective. Simply put, he wasn’t meant to marry. In an ideal world our daughter would love to see us together, married, and all living together? Yes, she’s told me countless times, but that is not how our cards were dealt. I had to stop with the guilt, with beating myself, wondering what I could have done differently, how I could have made us work. But, some things are not meant to be repaired and patched up.

He is someone I loved very dangerously, he is the father of my child, and she is the spitting image of him. I will always have a connection with him, regardless of the issues that we encounter; there will always be some form of love. He just wasn’t meant to marry, and I’m finally ok with that. It’s funny how life happens, the end of that relationship brought sunnier days to my life. Being able to focus on me allowed me to really get to know myself and in the process enabled me to fall in love and my heart is happy. Really really happy :)

What’s been keeping me up at night

Well aside from my insomnia and sleep apnea….coparenting. Yes another post on coparenting from me. Co-parenting has always been something I have struggled with being a single parent. This past year has been an incredibly tough year for me and my co-parent and his relationship with our daughter. Our daughter is old enough now where she is severely affected when he is not around when he says he is going to be. Watching my daughter’s big brown eyes peer out the window waiting impatiently for her Dad, and him never showing up has shattered my heart into pieces. His previous absence and inconsistency really affected her, and as her Mother, I of course want to protect her and don’t want to see her hurting. 

I wrote a post titled What Scares Me About Co-Parenting, it was a very honest post about my concerns with this our usually dysfunctional co-parenting relationship. From the post: I am afraid that my daughter will grow up not trusting men. I fear every time she asks where her Daddy is. I fear that our daughter will resent me because I’m the tough parent and he’s the fun parent (when he’s around). I fear that she will grow up to be me. A worried child who felt like her Daddy didn’t love her. Because if he did he would surely want to spend time with me. He’d want to come around on birthdays, at my high school graduation, at the birth of my child. 

I’m glad I’m taking the time to be mindful of all these issues, but at the end of the day, she has me, and if I can say so, she’s pretty damn lucky to have such a passionate and loving mother. I can’t change her father; all I can do is keep the line of communication open with our daughter so she’s comfortable enough to have conversations about how she’s feeling. And we’ve had a few so far, they haven’t been easy for me, but they are important to have. It’s important to respect her feelings. This situation is difficult for her as well, and she needs to be able to have a voice. So while all these worries consume me at night, when I peek in her room and see her peacefully sleeping tangled between her favorite pillows, one foot hanging off the bed and snoring, I take a small comfort in knowing that I’m enough. 

Are we promoting the idea that love comes without responsibility?

Raising a daughter, especially alone, I am very aware of the messages I am sending her by what I say and do, and what I don’t say and do. Co-parenting has its struggles, and one of them includes comforting your child when the co-parent isn’t around. Mommy, where is daddy? Why isn’t daddy around? Is Daddy working? Mommy, WHEN is Daddy coming? There is no worse feeling for me as a Mother to see my precious daughter sitting at the window, peeking through the blinds just waiting for her father’s car to pull up…but never does. My heart breaks, and as furious as it makes me, I clench my fists for a minute, then calmly soothe my daughter’s anxiety and tell her that her daddy loves her very much and is going to see her very soon.

But, something hasn’t been adding up for a while. I often wonder how she processes what I am saying and the actions (or lack thereof) of her father. He is clearly not around consistently, but I am assuring her that he loves her. But again…he is not around. I have begun feeling like I am promoting the idea that love comes without responsibility. I am afraid that these mixed messages are actually just confusing her more. I wonder how this will affect her in the future, and it makes me scared.

While our experiences have been different, I shared my concerns with the fabulous Natasha Vianna, a fellow blogger and friend. She is also raising a young daughter on her own, and I wanted her perspective on the idea of promoting love without responsibility.

Much like Alexandra, I feel overwhelmed with sadness and anger when my daughter’s tears are provoked by her father’s lack of presence. I also realize that I have played a major role in setting her up for a possible disaster. Whether she heard conversations over the phone I had with him or saw how frustrated I became when he didn’t show. She emulated a lot of how I felt. She saw my facial expression and my disappointment even though I tried to mask my anger. As a mother, the last thing I wanted was to have her little heart feel broken when I’d have to tell her that her dad wasn’t going to show up today.

A lot of that changed when I accepted that her father was never going to be my definition of an amazing dad. Instead of pushing for more, I realized that I would have to settle for what was 100% achievable now and work my way from there. So that meant only Sundays for them. Her father could guarantee his presence and I could guarantee her availability. And so it began. No tears. No sadness.

I also feel like a lot of what I want for my daughter is directly related to my experience as a child with my father. I grew up with a dad who only saw me once a week on Sundays. I’m sure there were times when he canceled, came late, or dropped us off early, but I really don’t remember. In my teen years I didn’t get along with him, then he became my best friend for a while. But what teenager always gets along with her dad? I told him how I truly felt about him sometimes and it hurt him. And my daughter will have that opportunity too. Her father can one day feel guilty for not being more involved, or maybe he won’t. He’s only being the father that he knows how to be. Do I support it? No. All I can do is support my daughter, how she’s feeling and tell her that it’s completely okay to feel the way she does. It’s not my job to mold a man.

Although I don’t want to promote love without responsibility, I also don’t want to promote love as a duty. I don’t want to define love for her. Love shouldn’t feel forced. If I force her dad to see her when he’s not mentally or emotionally capable, I’m only setting her up for more pain. She will sense the turmoil and feel like a burden in his life. I cannot expect her dad to make a huge flip overnight and decide to take her for more than one day a week, be completely consistent and reliable if he’s never been that before. He has to want that and he has to make that change on his own.

Until then, I give my child the best love a mother can, ensure she spends time with my dad who serves as a positive male, father-figure role and encourage her to be more vocal about her feelings when she’s with her dad. I empower her to understand that she deserves the best love in the world and she has so many different variations of it – close love from mom and distant love from dad. It’s tough but my sole responsibility is raising a happy child.

Visit Natasha's blog HERE

Hanging up my SuperMom Cape

I doubt my parenting skills often. Been doubting myself ever since the first day I brought my daughter home. I was all by myself with a 2 day old newborn. Those 6lbs 14.5oz wanted nothing more than to be loved. And I have tried my best to shower her with love and affection every single day. I have promised not to be like the Mom in the mall yesterday who slapped her 3 year old son across the face.

I know that life is full of ups and downs. Yesterday was a major down, and as a result I’m hanging up my SuperMom cape. My daughter who is 5½ was having a hard day after school. She was getting easily frustrated and whining a lot. When we finally got home she settled down a bit, and then went back to the whining. I firmly asked her to go to her room [something I never do], she looks over at me and says Mommy, I don’t want to live with you anymore, I wanna live with Daddy. My jaw dropped. I sat there starting at her for a good 5 minutes in shock, then again asked her to go to her room. As soon as she left the living room tears started flowing. Me, Mama, the most consistent person in her life. She really wants to just push me aside?

Mama who is always there for her to put a band-aid on an invisible scratch.

Mama who is there at every swimming glass grinning in pride at the edge of the pool.

Mama who dances and sings with her in the living room every evening.

Mama who is snuggled next to her every night.

Mama who is there at every parent-teacher conference, every pot-luck, every school event.

Mama who grinds.every.single.day for her.

Mama who juggles being a fulltime student and fulltime employee, to make her life better.

Mama who has no social life, so I can be present and available for her every need.

Mama, whose number one priority is to love and support her.

Yes my daughter is only 5, and I know that she loves me, and that our bond is rock solid. Those tears flowed because for so long I have puffed out my chest and worn this SuperMom cape, so sure that single handedly I could provide for her every mental, emotional, and physical need. Shielding her away from toxic people and protecting her from harm. In that moment staring at her I realized that I can’t do it all, regardless of how hard I grind and how much I sacrifice.

As I was bawling on the couch, my friend who had witnessed everything went in and talked with her. She was able to communicate what she was feeling. She missed her Dad, and didn’t know why he wasn’t around all the time. Didn’t know why he said he would come and then didn’t. She was acting out because she was frustrated and didn’t know how to tell me. My heart b-r-o-k-e, because I cannot be her Mother and Father.  I have juggled this single parent thing, and tried to overcompensate for being the only adult in the home. My heart broke because I have tried to shield her from constant inconsistency, but it hasn’t worked. I’ve tried to redirect her sadness, and try to fill the void he’s left. She’s a kid, I thought, she’ll bounce back. But, she hasn’t, and this is why I hang up my SuperMom cape.

So SuperMom cape, I retire you. You are tired and worn, and need a break. I’m only human; I can only do so much. And while I never think my best is good enough, it has to be enough, because it’s all I have.

Rough Night

So I'm sitting here, and the plan was (as it always is) that after I put my daughter to sleep I focus on getting my homework done and getting up to date on my coursework. Sounded like a plan, though I wasn't overly excited about it. I'm in the final 2 weeks of the Fall semester so I really need to get on my grind. So I put on some music to help motivate me and I instantly think of my daughter's father and start crying. 

My daughter and I spent another holiday without him reaching out and I was sad, but I ignored those feelings. And the emotions from his continued absence are really catching up with me. I mean I am seriously hurt that he is absent to help with his own child, It disgusts me. Especially when he lives in the same town as me...mere minutes from my home.

I shed a tear because the Father he was has appraently died.
I shed a tear because he doesn't get to see how wonderful she is.
I shed a tear because he doesn't get to experience all the wonderful new things she is doing and learns everyday. 
I shed a tear because I feel sorry for myself that I am so stuck on dumb with him.

When will I fully realize and understand that I cannot make him want to be a Father?

I wanted so badly to pickup the phone and call him tonight, to tell him that his absence has affected his daughter, that she needs a Father, a Dad. But, I can't do that. Because he won't hear me. He won't listen. He never does.

So, once again, I'll wipe away the tears, take some Excederin PM rest my head on my pillow waiting for a new day. For renewed strength to be able to deal with his absence. 

And I'll pray for continued strength to be able to be a capable single parent. 

Excuse my absence

Wow, I haven’t written a new post in AWHILE! My apologies, it was never my intention to just up and leave my Mommy Glow. Life has been very stressful and I really couldn’t mentally take another thing on my plate. I’ve been in a real funky mood and have had a lot of changes going on that I haven’t really adapted well too. On top of that my daughter started Kindergarten and then turned 5, I turned 5, and her Father decided that he didn’t want to be a Father anymore and he wanted to take a break from being a parent for a month…but now wants to come back and act like everything is all gravy baby. And now I’m the bad guy because I won’t stand for his inconsistency. Oh and I turned 25 a few weeks ago. Oh and while I was away for my birthday weekend my car was towed and vandalized twice. Exciting!! Oh and I want to seriously drop out of school, I can’t mentally take the juggle and struggle of it all. I’m in my hardest semester in my entire college life and I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail at least 1 class. So yah, that and more is why I haven’t written, and I really apologize. But I literally have no down time, I don’t have any help with my daughter and I’m fricken stressed man. I always hear people say you need time for you. Well wouldn’t that be nice, but it’s not a luxury I have right now. I’m a single hard working mom. There is no break.

So What I'f I'm not a Celebrity Single Mom

I'm happy to announce that I am now part of the WeParent community!! WeParent is a community of parents and parent advisers striving to give our children one of the keys to a happy, healthy and fulfilled life…a strong family.  We are on a mission to support and lift up mothers and fathers like us who are living apart but parenting TOGETHER!

I'm even more excited to share my first post on WeParent to all my readers!!

The post is titled :

So What I'f I'm not a Celebrity Single Mom

My post talks about how celebrity single moms are glamorized and viewed as heros and supermoms, but regular single moms like me don't get the same respect.

Click HERE to read So What I'f I'm not a Celebrity Single Mom