r/singlemoms

I’m wondering if anyone here has been in a similar situation and can tell me how things turned out for you.

I already have a young daughter who I love more than anything. I’m a single mom and her primary parent, and as much as I wouldn’t change having her for anything, it is HARD. We currently live with my parents, I recently got laid off, and I’m still trying to rebuild my career and get to a more stable place in my life.

I recently found out I was pregnant while in an unhealthy/on-and-off relationship. There were a lot of factors that went into my decision to have an abortion, but one of the biggest was that I couldn’t imagine potentially ending up in the same situation I’m already in — except this time with two young children.

I know what pregnancy, the baby stage and being the primary parent actually require now. The thought of going through pregnancy and starting over with a newborn while also taking care of a toddler, especially if I ended up doing most of it alone again, terrified me.
The complicated part is that I’ve always wanted more children. I’ve always wanted a family. I wasn’t choosing between “I want another child” and “I don’t want another child.” It felt more like I was choosing whether I could have another child right now, under these circumstances.

And I knew these weren’t the circumstances I wanted.
If things had worked out differently with my daughter’s father and I’d had a stable relationship and family, I probably would have wanted another baby right around this time. I always liked the idea of my children being fairly close in age.

That’s one of the things making me really sad now. I keep thinking about my daughter having a sibling close in age and imagining what that could have looked like. I wonder about the baby I could have had and whether somehow I could have made everything work.

But then I have to remind myself: that imaginary stable family wasn’t my reality. My reality was that I’m already raising a toddler primarily on my own, living with my parents, recently unemployed, and pregnant by someone with whom I did not have a healthy or secure relationship. I didn’t want to knowingly put myself in a position where I could end up doing this alone all over again, only this time with two little kids depending on me.

I still feel really sad about it, though. I’m also almost 35, so there’s this additional fear in the back of my mind of, What if that was my chance? What if I don’t meet someone and get to have another baby later?
I think that’s one of the hardest parts. I didn’t want to close the door on having another child. I wanted to wait to walk through that door under better circumstances.

Has anyone else had an abortion while already raising a baby/toddler as a single mom because you knew you couldn’t handle another child under your current circumstances?

Did you eventually meet someone, build a healthier/stable relationship, and have another child later?
I’d especially love to hear from anyone who was in their mid-30s when they made that decision. I think I just need to hear that choosing not to have this baby right now didn’t necessarily mean giving up my chance to have the family I’ve always wanted someday.

To those of you who got married?

What did u do with the ring?
Im thinking of keeping it for the kids but i doubt they would want it. Idk though..

Should i just try to sell it?

Any ideas welcome :)

Im a newly single mother of two now as my now ex boyfriend has been gone for two weeks. He said that he didn’t want to be with me anymore he gave me a big speech on everything that was my fault and said he was going to a hotel. We have two children together ages 1 and 2. When I was pregnant with my first he cheated on me with his ex girlfriend and left me . He blamed it on that he needed space and needed to think . I should’ve not got back together with him but it just kind of happened because he was here everyday after our daughter was born. A couple months into it I found messages on his phone with another woman that he was seeing behind my back while I was caring for our newborn. I told him I was going to leave him but then he cried and begged that he wanted his family only so of course I stayed with him (how dumb of me). So now he’s been gone not even asking about if our daughters are ok not even caring to see them and I am so hurt by it. He’s been here everyday been such a great father to now a person that I don’t even know, im disgusted. I realized he had his old phone here and I went through everything and just found out he cheated on me AGAIN when our first daughter was 10 months old while I was pregnant with our 2nd and we were on vacation.😑I would appreciate any words of encouragement or any advice on being a single mom as idk how I’m going to do this by myself. This hurts because I wanted my daughters to have a family and now they have a broken one.

Just wanted to share with other singles. I been carrying the load so long I don’t think I can do it anymore. The good thing is after 3 years homeschooling my kids are starting a really nice school next week. That will be like culture shock for me. But I’ll be able to find day work instead of night and quit my night job soon enough. I can do this… shout out to everyone who feels they can barely take another step but their kids live a normal life. 🌟

I found out that my kids dad got married recently.They weren’t together long and didn’t even have our kids at the wedding so I was very surprised.I do know the girl and she seems to be okay.My kids talk about her alot though and I feel a little sad sometimes that they may like her more then me??I have most of the responsibility when it comes to them and I’m constantly overwhelmed so I feel like when they go to their dads it’s like a vacation.

I'm a 25 yo single mom with a 3 year old that's starting school in a few weeks.

Although I have a supportive family and a loving boyfriend who help out often, I'm still struggling to look after my daughter's needs, get her potty trained etc while also trying to achieve my own goals. I feel like I'm constantly trying to do as much as I did before I had her and at this point I just want to throw my hands up in the air and give up, tell myself to give up on my hobbies and accept that I won't have any time to meaningfully pursue them until a decade or 2.

I did an undergrad in English and Psychology and it spoiled me into thinking that I could actually have a successful career doing the things I loved. As a post graduate I know that the writing and publishing field is all kinds of fucked now that AI has entered the field and that I won't have time to meaningfully pursue a writing job when I have to care for and provide for my daughter.

I should just shut up and accept that I'm not going to have any time for my hobbies until my 40s. Just go to work and come home to spend the rest of my day with my daughter with like a hour of netflix at the end of the night and leave it at that. But I am more motivated and inspired to be creative than I ever was before I had my daughter. I am constantly writing down story or article ideas and editing other things I've written, looking into literary magazines for publication opportunities.

But instead of just accepting that there's no time, I feel all kinds of guilt and frustration attempting to do everything. Its especially bad because I just had a week off at my cottage without my daughter and for the first time in 3 years life felt like it did when I was child free. Lots of free time to myself without the inevitable guilt I usually feel, and I could go to bed whenever I wanted. Today was particularly bad. I was able to work from home today and I was planning to work into the afternoon, take a break and wake my daughter up at 3 (her sleep schedule is fucked atm but that's a different story). Instead I fucked up and spent the entire morning doing stupid pretentious shit like Journaling and looking up tattoo ideas and now half the day is gone and I haven't even started work or woke my daughter up.

If anyone has any suggestions or advice I'd be happy to hear it. As it is I'm just hoping that things will get a little easier once she starts school.

I am a single mother and have recently started a new job making more money. My sister (also a single mom) and I have been living together splitting expenses on and off for the past few years. I’m sick of renting and want to give my son a more stable home. I also want a place of my own and no longer want to have a roommate. I qualify for the VA loan, and am in between a few options. I also want to add due to some differences in parenting preferences I no longer want to live with my sister. It’s more about the interactions I have with her children, the way they speak to adults, how they treat the home they live in (cleanliness). I also have a problem with the unlimited screen time they have because it makes it harder for me to regulate my sons (5m) own screen time. My sister rather leave the cleaning up to us the adults rather then have the children help with chores. I believe they are old enough 13m, 11f, 10f to help. And have been trying to implement chores with my son. We’ve talked about these differences to no end but no real change has happened so I think it’s time to separate but I don’t think I want to completely. One because I want to continue to have that support system, but also I don’t think my sister could afford any more then a one bedroom apartment on her own.

Purchasing a duplex so my sister and I can split the mortgage, live separately but continue to help each other. I would essentially act as her landlord as with her credit I would not be able to put her on the loan.

Purchasing a multi family home where I live in one unit, my sister lives in another, and renting out the remaining one or two units to strangers for “passive income”

Purchasing a single family home for my son and I, and living apart from my sister all together.

Genuine question because I’m getting closer to the end of my maternity leave and I’m starting to realize how insane the whole system feels to me.
I’m a new single mom, and I genuinely don’t understand how we’re expected to go from spending all day with our babies to suddenly putting them in daycare for 40 hours a week, working full time, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, groceries, errands, appointments, etc. and then somehow still have the energy to be a parent and spend quality time with our babies.
And I know people will say “daycare is good for them” or “babies are adaptable,” and I’m not saying daycare is inherently bad or that parents who use it are doing anything wrong. Obviously millions of families have no choice but to use it, and childcare workers are doing incredibly important work. I’m questioning the system, not parents who are trying to survive within it.
I also don’t understand how single moms are expected to be capable of doing ALL of the above consistently? Like it’s a recipe for a burnout imo.
I’m having so much anxiety about returning to work that I’m thinking about quitting and just going on welfare and moving into a government subsidized apartment. I don’t think I can handle all the stress and work responsibility on top of being my baby’s only parent. I don’t want to regret missing out on the most important years of her life and I don’t want to be less than half the mother I could be to her over the next couple of years. Am I wrong?

Rants of a single mom, 4 months post separation.

And part of me thinks…this is that feeling of endurance and resilience that you can feel in single mothers. Everyone else can clock out but if I do it everything falls apart. Whether you are having a hard day or a hard life, your children still need you and sometimes it is just you. I try not to resent anyone for it because regardless this is my child and I love my child. Romantic relationships end, as do friendships and family depends on circumstance and while they just not be able to help it doesn’t change the fact that my support system hangs by a thread. My sister doesn’t help as much hands on with the baby but she still does the other things. So I’m back to 25/8 parenting, working, exhausted and lonely but never able to be alone. Lately I’ve been contemplating just giving in and calling my husband. But ik it’s not to do that. Many have unsolicited advice or suggestions but few offer action or support. It’s not the losing him that hurts so much as realizing I don’t have much of anyone nowadays.

Sometimes I get really envious of people with a village. I wish so badly I wasn’t alone all the time being the only one my kids have. I wish so bad people cared about me, my mental health and how I’m feeling. I feel so empty and alone. I’d do anything to be in a space with loving, caring supportive nurturing family.

How many dates would you say until you decide you want a relationship? What would you do in my situation? Started dating someone I would see randomly at work. We went out a couple times and I told him from the beginning I was a single mom. I didn’t expect to date him so that was something I just shared upon meeting him. We started going out and after a couple dates we had sex. Randomly after sex he brought up that he wasn’t ready for a relationship with me but he can see us getting there? I didn’t ask him. We’ve been talking/dating for 2 months now. I was never going to bring up a label, but now that he brought it up it has been on my mind way more. I think I’m going to wait a couple more weeks before breaking it off. I know some people say to wait longer or until you hit a certain amount of dates. But we text everyday, if we work together we hang out during lunch and after work, and then there’s the dates we’ve gone on. I feel like if a man wanted to be with me he would know already? Him being unsure already is a sign that maybe it’s just too much for him or we’re just not compatible.

This post is most likely going to be a vent, so bear with me.

As a single mom, I get frustrated when I see these very high HHIs complain about just getting by. I currently work 2 jobs and the most I've ever made is 115k including minimal child support. If a HHI of 300k is struggling to make ends meet, what does that leave for those of us single people? Or am I missing something?

How do you make it work with just one working income? Even with two and a small amount of child support, I know I will not be able to give my son the same experiences as his father who has a wife and make 300k+ together

Ok, I have 13M. For years (maybe 5 or so) I’ve told my family I wanted to get out of NC. I’ve finally made my decision to move for mental and personal reasons. I’ve talked to my son about leaving and he doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay for his friends and I understand. His dad actually wants to step up and have him to stay with him (I was his primary guardian but they have a great relationship). Everyone is saying I should take the leap but it’s always been me and my son. Anyone ever did this before? I’ll be 9 hrs away.

For context- I am a divorced single mom, and completely independent and have been for years now. I started dating a man and really adore him. We all know how big of a deal dating is after divorce. It was HUGE and scary for me but I found someone I really adore. He is also a single dad. However, the longer I have been with him the more and more I see that he is in a terrible financial place. Most of our date nights I pay for, most times that we go out I pay most of what we buy, I live in my own house while he has been living with his parent, etc. I haven’t minded because he really is a great man. He treats me well, I love spending time with him and I think we have a great connection. He has an okay job- but really isn’t making too much and I have no idea if he has debt or anything else. He hasn’t always lived with his parent but has been living with them for at least 2 years to get back on his feet. However- he hasn’t saved anything during this time, he still lives paycheck to paycheck. I try to not worry about this or anything, it’s his life and I won’t be his savior and let him move in with me anyway.

I guess why this came up today is I asked him if he might be interested in going on vacation with me in November. It would be a simple, pretty affordable vacation. I’m on a budget too, I would find a cheapish condo and we would just really have to buy flights and maybe split a rental car. I felt pretty heartbroken when he basically told me he wouldn’t be able to afford a vacation for the next 20 years. He shot it down so quick, it wasn’t even really a discussion. I really did find it massively depressing- I want to travel, I want to vacation with my partner. It’s not easy for me to afford either but I am good at saving and budgeting for something I really want.

I don’t feel at a point of breaking up with him for this but at the same time it really does feel depressing. Is it shallow to end a relationship with someone you really adore because they suck at finances?

I am 31F and am a single mum to the most gorgeous, happy little boy, but I am not a single mum by choice. After a decade of close friendship and what I thought was a happy several years long relationship, my partner left me for his work colleague when I was 7 months pregnant. It came out of the blue, I didn’t even know she existed. My relationship history before him wasn’t great either, involving cheating and dv.

All of my friends are either engaged or married and none have children yet. I watched one of them get married three weeks ago and it was the most beautiful ceremony filled with so much love between two of the most wonderful people. However, I feel like I have been in an existential crisis ever since. Being a single mum is so incredibly hard and watching my friends all in happy, caring, long term relationships where they’ve never had issues while I am single is killing me. I feel like I will never find someone that wants to take on raising another man’s child, and all my baggage that comes along with it. It breaks my heart every time I look at my little boy knowing he has a father who isn’t interested and I feel like a failure.

I feel desperately lonely surrounded by all these couples and I just think, why can’t that be me? Why can’t I have someone that loves me that much? I feel like I’ve done something wrong to end up like this but I don’t know what it is. I feel like everyone looks at me with pity and like I’m some sort of train wreck. I love my son more than anything and he is my number one priority, but sometimes I just want someone who loves me as much as I love them, someone I can lean on during the hard days. I want someone to want to marry me and I don’t think that’s selfish of me to want.

I know people will say ‘why did you have a baby with him when you weren’t married’ but it wasn’t a planned pregnancy. I had been on contraception and it failed, but we had been seriously looking at rings when we found out I was pregnant and decided mutually that we would keep the baby as we both wanted children. There was also the possibility of infertility on his side, so we just decided we’d do things in a different order. I seriously had no reason to think I would ever be in the position I find myself in now and wouldn’t have gone through with the pregnancy if I thought it was even remotely a possibility.

Are there any other women my age who have been in this position? Did you ever find someone and does it ever get better?

Sorry if I have used the wrong flair, I wasn’t sure which one to put this under.

I have a 4 year old with severe asthma that tends to get sick a lot more frequently and severely than her peers.

I had to pull her out of daycare for 2 years while her body recovered from a really brutal time of hospitalizations.

She just started Pre-K 4 at a public school and already she's down with a cough and has missed 3 days of school. Luckily Pre-K 4 absences don't really affect her in the long run.

My question is....any moms deal with kids like this?? How do you manage?? My work life is flexible so I can work remotely whenever I need.

I'm wishing there were hybrid school options as well. I can't homeschool and don't have a desire to, but worried her health will hinder going to school full-time.

Has anyone dealt with something similar or found solutions?

My kids dad is a bum and a cry baby and he’s leaving me high and dry again for another pregnancy. I’m struggling so bad and I don’t know what to do. I’m so hurt, so broken. I don’t want to do this alone.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so alone, I was loyal and everytime I’m dating I’m loyal too. I was dating someone that has custody of their kids as well and I thought it was going to work out, but I guess not. I’m a person that does everything alone with my kids. I was raised alone, I being always alone. My ex did me so dirty and he gets people to want to date him even though he is a dead beat he was abusive and s*xually abusive. I’m just working really hard to get my stuff little by little and I work really hard. I’m pretty good looking, I take good care of my kids, I’m smart I don’t bother anyone and still everytime I date someone they don’t even get to know me like that. It’s been almost 3 years since I been single and I’ve only dated three guys and at some point they stop talking to me. I do try to get to know them, but I honestly don’t know what might be wrong me. My friends stop hanging out with me or even calling me since I been alone and I’m going through this divorce that only my ex seems to be the one controlling.

I got a new job and a raise 😩 looking at their health insurance policy and it is going to DEMOLISH my budget. I thought i would have extra money at the end of the month, but nope.

I am looking at options and seeing what I can do but I was pretty shocked.

I honestly don't know what to do anymore.

I lost my job recently and then I broke up with my boyfriend. On top of that, I also lost someone who was very close to me, someone I really thought would always have my back.

Now I feel completely alone.

I don't have family that I can rely on or anyone who can financially support me. Things have gotten so bad that I have slept hungry for two days.

I'm trying to look for a job and figure things out, but honestly, I'm so tired. I wake up and I don't even know what I'm going to do that day or where my next meal is going to come from.The landlord is on my neck too.

I'm just so done with everything right now. I feel like I've lost so much in such a short time and I don't know how to get myself back up.

Has anyone here ever been in a situation like this? Lost their job, had no one to fall back on, struggled to even afford food, and felt completely hopeless?

How did you get through it? What did you do to survive and eventually get back on your feet?

I don't really need someone to tell me to stay positive. I just want to hear from someone who has been here and made it out alive.

If you know any job or your company hiring, please refer me .

Thank you for reading through this, because of you, someone has listened