What did you hope for out of life? - Single Parents

[Willow]

Recently I've been evaluating my life - midlife crisis lol, and it goes a little bit like this:

I didn't imagine I'd end up like this. I've never really had a long-term plan but I used to manage to meet my short-term goals. Recently, due to certain life choices (moving states, marriage and divorce blech) I ended up giving up an excellent job opportunity and losing half my worldly wealth to the dodgy so-and-so, so I'm now struggling financially earning a pittance when I could have been comfortable and on an excellent wage and moving towards an overall better quality of life.

All I ever wanted in life was to be a mother and partner at home looking after my kids and fella. Side note, why is it that aspiring to be a wife/mother is frowned on by so many? To me, bliss would be watching and helping my children grow, using my domestic engineering skills to the full looking after kids and imaginary fella, and all the while sharing my life with someone who I share mutual love, respect and care for.

Said partner is a good provider - I'm not saying we're millionaires just not watching the bottle of milk diminishing and wondering if it will make it to payday.

For sure I tick some of the boxes but sometimes I wish there was someone there to share not just my woes with but the good times, to love my kids the way I do, to share the load and to make fun with. I get to watch my kids turning into amazing wonderful people, I have a great home and part of the time I get to hone my trolleyographic skills but I also have lots of sleeplessness worrying about how I'm going to make my bills, lonely evenings where I can't find something to entertain myself with and times where I wish I could share it all.

[Myztiks#1Fan]

I dont know if i have ever really seen myself get married but i always thought i would have a partner, few kids, work part time and just enjoy life.

The reality is though that i am single, almost 5yr old and working whenever i can get hours with the help of a few people so thats possible. I wont ever work full time til my son is at least in highschool as i want to be at home to help him out but financially cant just stay at home.

Maybe this might change in a few years and i will get that but who knows.

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[Jensha]

I saw myself with a job I enjoy, married to a man I love with 3 kids I adore. Not broke but not too well off. Buying our own house. Family holidays. Just a loving family home.

Reality: single mum. I'm in love with my dd almost 5 and dog lol. Living with my parents . Starting studying this year for my dream job . I'm broke all the time. Still have family holidays just the 2 of us. And still a loving family home.

I would still like to meet a nice man, have more kids and buy our own home. Although I'm working at getting a good job so if that fails I will buy my own home.

[Theboys&me]

I saw myself exactly where I am plus with a hubby still lol

I am now a single mum, thankfully I'd completed a uni degree and secured a good job before splitting with my exH.

I didn't imagine I'd be having a baby on my own when we first tried to conceive my second though.

I don't actually want a hubby now ... But for the first time since separating (dec 2010) I actually feel open to making room for someone in my life. That's huge for me!!

[nelle7250]

I never had the dream of hubby house and kids because as a teenager I was told I wouldn't be able to have kids so my dream was to work lots and be a great aunt and honorary aunt.

Well I'm a great aunt even if I do say so myself, I've had sucky relationships and I've worked lots and own everything outright in my house lol.

What I didn't see coming was my DD who is 3 or that her dad would be such a horses ar!!se.

Then it was time to make a new plan....... The one that involves the happy single mum with one gorgeous daughter who wanted more babies so decided to go it alone and find a sperm donor not a partner. Got more than I bargained for in the donor department I think we will be friends for life hopefully!!! Already thinking of baby no 3.

Over the last few years I've come to the conclusion that things happen for a reason........and I don't want to change any of the past five years. While it was not part of my plan the reality for me is so much better!!

[pinkplease3]

I made a time capsule to myself on my 13th birthday to be opened on my 25th birthday which was last year. I had completely forgotten about it until a few weeks before my bday my sister brought around some boxes of stuff I still had at the parents place. In it was the capsule. The letter to my older self had a list of things that my 13 year old brain had decided was what I wanted from life by 25.

- Finish highschool, your not going to be like the rest of your family
- Go to uni and study interior design or maybe be a counselor you like those sorts of things
- Travel before uni because old people look funny in bikinis on those holiday shows (lol at my younger self here)
- Meet totally hot tall dark haired man with blue eyes and sexy muscles whos studying something smart while at uni and fall in love
- Get a great paying job with all that study done and buy a humongous house with a pool in the city somewhere (grew up in the country) and a big black car like a commodore
- Marry the tall hot guy from uni
- Start thinking about having kids now your 25, really old mums are weird and raise them the complete opposite of how you were raise cause your gonna be a cool mum.
At the end of the letter I appear to have told myself that this is all I want from life and that I know I can do it.

Well, i didnt finish highschool on time as I fell pregnant and had my first son at 17 although i did my HSC a few years ago through tafe while pregnant with my second. Id never stepped foot inside a uni until a couple of weeks ago when i went to a bridal expo...as a bridesmaid...because i never met a tall dark and totally hot guy at the uni i never went to (though I am in an awesome relationship with a tall blonde treelopper lol) and im renting a crappy apartment in the city and drive a little black buzzbox and now im 25 im thinking that we might have another one...or call it a day and ill go to uni.

So out of that i managed to move to the city. yay me!

[nicoletta]

Your post made me cry, OP. that's exactly what I wanted with FOB

Before I met him though, I never wanted any of that. I was going to finish high school, be the first person in my family to go to Uni, get a high paying job (hadn't decided what kind, exactly), meet a guy who was madly in love with me and live in a modern apartment in the city. I never, ever wanted kids.

Instead it went something like - fall in love with FOB at 13, he told me how wonderful it would be to get married and have a family...and I was completely sold. Fall pregnant at 16, drop out of high school before even finishing year 10, get dumped by FOB, who decides that he never actually wanted a family, have DS1, get back together with FOB, fall pregnant at 17 with DS2, get dumped by FOB.

I'm now an 18 year old single mum of almost two, to someone who was never really madly in love with me. I still haven't finished school. I live with my mum in the suburbs, and while I know my life is far from over...it is SO far from what I used to imagine it would be like.

Next year I will be doing a tertiary course to get my ATAR, then the following year starting my Bachelor of Medical Science, so hopefully that will turn things around.

[shelle65]

I grew up believing that I was unattractive and undesirable, so it never entered my mind to dream of having a husband/partner. Always planned to be a mum though.

I'm fairly happy with where I am. Sometimes I wish that I had more of a social life, and contributed to the world a bit more (like doing volunteer work or something). I still hope for both of those things in the future when DD is older though.

[trishalishous]

for me it was financial security.
i was raised very poor, and I always swore that somehow Id make sure I never struggled as an adult.
its been really hard, being such a scrooge, and still enjoying life. Also not working has been hard, as I gave up a decent careerwhen dd came along.
We still have a ways to go, but hoping to get back on track next year.

[hopefulmama2b]

omg these threads today are making me BAWL!!!
When I was 14 I wanted a job in the city as like a receptionist or in admin/accounts coz that looked glamourous. I wanted an apartment in the city. I didn't want kids or to be married. When I think back now I realise I did want kids and marriage but because I suffered from low self esteem as a teenager I didn't want to "admit" that I wanted these things because I didnt think I would ever get them. When I was 17 I wrote in my diary (I still have the diary and reading it makes me cry) that no man would ever truly love me and want to marry me and to have babies with me. And I am not sad about that, I just know that to be true" So I think I married my ex because he had had a vasectomy and didnt want kids. I was never really in love with me he just showed me some attention and wasn't overly romantic (read- not at all) and that was cool with me because I didnt know how to deal with romance) he also wanted an open relationship and was very into BDSM stuff. He and I did have a baby via IVF even though he didnt want to but after DS was born I began to realise maybe I was worth more and I didnt want him or THIS anymore.. I hated how he wanted to sleep with other women and wanted me to with other men and how he used to only "be able" to get off having violent weird sex with me. I left him and met someone amazing who treats me like a princess- and we are having a baby together. And I realised all along that I wanted that, and although I am sometimes uncomfortable with the romance he shows me I am getting better. I am realistic though to know that it may not last forever, I just hope it does coz this is where I WANT to be I just didnt think I deserved it.

Oh sorry OP for the slight take over of the thread and my waffling. I just have never let all this out before and I feel a bit like crying but I feel.. relieved as well?