by mssinglemama on February 12, 2009
Mia just got back from a weekend trip with her friends to New Mexico.
She booked the tickets on a whim just weeks after finding out her boyfriend of six years and the father of her daughter would be leaving them for another woman.
“I just bought the tickets, just because… I have no idea why. I just have to get out of here,” she told me on the phone. It made complete sense. When a crisis like this hits sometimes you have to break out the credit card and jump on a plane.
At that point she was still in her manic state, on the brink of a break down - it seemed - at any moment. Lately she sounds more and more like herself… not completely healed by any stretch, not at all but Mia is finding her balance again and it’s an incredible thing to witness.
And here’s another piece of her story…
Facebook, girlfriends, and The Other Woman
(just when I thought she was gone)
By Mia
Now that I have some time on my hands I was finally convinced to join Facebook.
“A way to reconnect”…” to get to know people you had forgotten about”… none of this sounded appealing to me at all. But I joined anyway (side note: I kind of like it now, shhhh.) On my quest to find pictures for my Facebook account I started digging through old pictures on my work computer.
And there it was. Full screen and staring at me. A photo of The Other Woman and my ex’s mother.
The picture had been taken at his mother’s surprise 50th birthday party that I threw for her at my ex’s bar. The Other Woman (though not at the time) was our waitress that night. My ex’s mom had sent a bunch of pictures from the evening last April but I had forgotten about this one.
This kind of reminder is the worst - it is the kind that seems to grow arms, clench its fists, and punch you right in the face. Leaving me breathless and small, I had hoped no one was in my office to witness the assault. After a not so brief anxiety attack and a flare of anger I stared at it longer. It felt like hours that I looked at it- studying her smile, her eyes, trying to see her the way he does, and trying to find the good in this young girl who has no idea the part she has played in the transformation of my life. But all I saw was a picture, not a person. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on January 29, 2009
I’m making all of the last minute preparations for my weekend trip! Mia is watching Benjamin (wish her luck). I know they’ll have a ball though. Benjamin absolutely adores Mia and Sydney. And who wouldn’t? As you’ll read in a second, Mia is fast discovering that fact.
I’ll have an update when I get back… in the meantime, please go vote for Matt Logelin in the 2009 Bloggies. He’s up for Best Topical Blog.
For my new readers:
My best friend Mia recently found out that her boyfriend of 6 years and the father of her daughter is leaving, the catalyst is an affair with another woman. Here’s Part II of her story.
Discovering Me
By Mia
So now that I am feeling better about what has happened to my relationship I seem to be strangely aware.
I am realizing that things are changing, along with the rise of my spirit.
Like roaches, I will notice things in the house that belong to him - shaving cream still in the shower, or his ugly computer chair. And before I know it his things seems to be scattered everywhere I look. A random sock in the dryer, his whiskers in the bottom of the drawer on “his” side of the bathroom. It’s like they come out at night and dirty up my clean floors and clutter my counter tops.
I think I have become an exterminator.
Everyday I pitch something or add it to the pile that will be packed, unnoticed by Sydney, into her “daddy bag” when she goes for her two days there (because even though he claims he shouldn’t have to pay me child support because he “buys her clothes too” I always send several outfits with her.)
I am not just spraying for his germs around the house though.
I am hoping to kill off the leftovers on me as well. I repeat, like a mantra in my head, my goal to be his friend so that we can parent to the best of our ability. Although, I have lessened the pressure to do so now - I realize it may take both of us time to heal and pushing it was only making it harder. Especially since he seems to have figured out, over the last four weeks since he moved, exactly how to articulate why it was he couldn’t stay with me - I am controlling he says (something I have never heard him say in over 6 years).
I think he is right.
I think I learned/was forced into a parental role with him. A controlling role. One I resented daily. I became his sounding board for everything in his life. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on January 6, 2009
My blog is her blog.
And until she starts her own (which I think she may) Mia will be posting her story here.
As most of you know my best friend Mia just found out four weeks ago that her boyfriend of 6 years and the father of her daughter is leaving. Two weeks later she discovered that the catalyst is an affair with another woman.
Your comments - this picture is of her reading them intently - have helped her more than you know.
Night 1:
He is gone.
My house is empty.
Literally.
No Couch, no clothes in his closet, just gone.
There was no big talk, no special ceremony, nothing to mark his leaving. Just an awkward hug and a goodbye. And then he left. And I stayed. With an empty heart I rocked Sydney in my arms in the middle of an empty room. I rocked her and she cried, and I cried, and she watched me cry and it made her cry harder.
Until recently she thought grown-ups only acted like they were crying when they played pretend with her. She said she was crying because she wanted her daddy to make magnets with her before he went - a gift she got from Santa.
But I knew she just wanted him, and I felt for the first time that I may not be enough.
I have already called him twice, ashamed of my need to hear his voice, hoping there would be sadness in it. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on January 5, 2009
I’ve been caught up in life.
It happens.
But lately it hasn’t really been my life I’ve been caught up in.
—–
First there’s that Matt guy - one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.
There’s a reason why his blog has touched the hearts of hundreds and thousands… he is the real deal - a hero in his own right. The ultimate father, the ultimate husband, the ultimate human being.
I spent Saturday night making this video… and as I dug for pictures of Liz in Matt’s Flickr account the tears welled up in my eyes, the lump in my throat. I wished I wasn’t making it at all. I wished none of us even knew him - just so he and Madeline could have her back again. Why is life so damn cruel? And why do the worst things always happen to the best people?
On Thursday night Matt and I were eating at a very odd late night cafe in Chicago.
“It won’t ever go away,” I told him, “It will just turn into this massive scar or like a third arm or something that you have to carry around all of the time. But no one else will ever be able to see it, that’s the shitty part.”
He just nodded. Those beautiful eyes of his filled with the kind of pain no one should have to feel.
Between sporadic conversations about death - a subject I’m all too familiar with - we just had fun, pure fun.
Here’s Matt and my buddy Luke in the back of Jessica’s car. A single mom’s car… we thought it was funny.
Chicago is grand. Matt is grand. And I think, on some twisted and fucked up level, we are kindred spirits. I’ve actually been quite high on that fact for a few days now.
Making new friends is a very, very good thing.
So is traveling.
And there will be more of both in the very near future.
—-
After pulling in from Chicago I spent a few hours in my apartment and then dashed over to Mia’s.
No longer playing Monopoly or roller skating in her basement, we were sitting in her very adult living room while her daughter slept upstairs talking about how in the hell she is going to get through this.
The pain Mia is experiencing is so familiar, yet so distant. Mine didn’t cheat on me but he hurt me… some men leave their women for another woman, others stay and ram it into their heads day after day. My words didn’t help much but I felt my presence would.
So I slept on her couch. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 23, 2008
Because it just has to be said.
Last week I broke the news that my best friend Mia’s boyfriend and the father of her child is moving out. Catch up here if you missed it.
Your responses were overwhelming and she read every one of them. Your thoughts, encouragement and advice meant the world to her and your insights were invaluable - so Thank You from Mia and myself.
Three days later she gave me this letter, “Can you publish this? Please - it’s therapeutic for me.”
Editor’s Note: On the non-capitalizing of The Other Woman’s name - “It’s not a typo,” she told me, “I refuse to give her the respect of capitalizing her first name.” Just one day before she wrote the letter Mia found text messages in her ex’s phone to the extent of, “I can’t wait to have you all to myself.” But the worst one for Mia to read, “So soon… so soon.”
Here’s Mia’s letter to the “other” woman..
To molly, The Other Woman,
I remember meeting you last year with my entire family. I am sure you remember meeting me, along with my then 3 year old daughter Sydney. I made small talk with you about college and your plans for the future like one might do with someone younger, more naive about the world. You reminded me of myself at 23. That is how old I was when I met him. And at 24 I was pregnant. Unplanned and scared, I was making decisions that would affect the rest of my life and the life of the baby inside me. So, I know we are not faceless. I wonder if you have blocked us from your memory out of convenience. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 16, 2008
She’s been my best friend my entire life.
And now, she’ll be a single mom.
Her boyfriend of six years and the father of their four-year-old daughter is moving out - the 
catalyst - an affair he’s been having with a young co-worker. On Saturday night she called me, her voice hushed and fringing on frantic.
His moving out had been unfolding for over one week now, the details were intermittent and things were still so unclear. And up until a few hours earlier, she had hope that maybe he would come to his senses and stay.
“I need to drop off a piece of furniture, can you open your garage?”
“Of course, I’ll be out in a minute.”
After we unloaded the dresser, we walked toward my apartment. The kids were already inside playing, her daughter completely unaware of the pain ripping through her mother’s heart. Before we made it to the door she just started sobbing, “there’s someone else. He’s seeing someone else.”
Her voice broke into sobs and I grabbed her in a tight hug, the only thing I could do. I’d never seen her like this - ever. She had been working on their relationship for months and months, seeing a therapist on her own because he refused to go, doing sweet things for him, constantly optimistic that he would “feel better” soon. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 14, 2008
I’ve been sleeping quite soundly ever since.
by mssinglemama on December 11, 2008
He made a promise.
And he broke it.
I had asked him to make me a promise at the beginning, one well within reason if you knew his entire story. I am not one to ask much of men when we’re together. I believe in personal freedoms and independence. But this was a promise that, when broken, risked our future together - literally.
“If you do it,” I said, “I’ll never see you again. That will be that.”
“Really?” He asked, “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. You’re not just dating me, you’re dating my son and nothing - nothing - is more important to me than him.”
“I won’t then. I would never risk anything that could keep us apart.”
I believed him. I really, truly did. Not for a second did I think he would risk it all. He was the one who seemed to be completely head over heels. That’s the one thing about this that has me shaking my head in utter confusion and realizing that Mr. Man has a problem… one I can’t fix.
When he told me the next morning - of the broken promise, the breach of trust, the throwing away of everything we had - my hands started shaking. I thought I would drop the phone. Not again. Not him. Not this one. But just like that, a man had broken my heart.
“I can’t believe you did that. Why?” I ask him, my voice cracking into a million pieces.
“I don’t know.”
Should there be room for error? Should I look past this issue of Mr. Man’s, this one thing?
Not when there is a little soul at stake… and yes, I should have figured that out before he met my son. But there are pieces to the puzzle, reasons for things that I just can’t share. So you’ll have to trust me.
I wish I could tell you more - I do - because you deserve to know every detail. But I just can’t. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 9, 2008
What are yours?
We’ve talked about red flags before… but once you’ve let him in - given him the green light - what are the little things or big things that break the deal? I’d imagine our deal breakers, as single moms, are a bit tougher than the single and childless.
Here are mine:
1. Inability to read a newspaper or converse about the world at large
2. Breaking a promise
3. Living without any sense of direction, hope, dreams or goals
4. Not loving Benjamin almost as much as I do - (because loving him as much as I do would be impossible).
I’m sorry my blog has been quiet lately. I’ve been distracted. In a good way and now in a bad way. All will be right soon enough. Just need to catch up on some sleep and find some words.
by mssinglemama on August 22, 2008
Jane Wonder, the author of Confessions of a One Date Wonder (a personal favorite of mine) isn’t a single mom but she is a dating expert. I love her blog because she’s brutally honest about her emotions including the ups and downs of falling in love and breaking up. She’s also hilarious and writes about EVERYTHING. Here’s her take on how best to recover from a break up.
Dead Men Walking
Unfortunately when it comes to breaking up, there is no magic bullet. 
No one sure fire way to erase the pain and move on. No path to avoid longing, or pain, or heart break. And no way to erase memories. It’s going to hurt. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a filthy liar. The only thing you can do is to develop a way to survive through the time it will take for your heart to mend again. And that’s what I’ve been invited here to talk about with you today. Because, of course, I have an opinion on this.
My breakup philosophy is pure and simple like the freshly fallen snow, and it is called Dead To Me (DTM). DTM is a straightforward philosophy both simple in name and premise. Practice is deceptively difficult. In short, your new ex is now dead to you. No longer exists. *poof*
First you must explain DTM to all of your friends. Surely they have all been there, all love you, and all believe that ex was never good enough for you anyway. They will help to distract you, keep from talking endlessly about him, and definitely keep you from contacting him.
Regarding contact, here is the thing: Your ex is dead (to you).
We do not call the dead on the telephone. We do not send the dead emails. We do not text the dead when we are drunk. The dead are beyond these means of communication. [click to continue…]
