by mssinglemama on April 19, 2009
On this day four months ago I said good-bye to Mr. Man.
I didn’t look back.
And I never told you all why.
Some of you have told me I am obligated to write about this in detail. Others have speculated on what he may or may not have done.
One of you left a comment on my Mr. Man break up post last week that asks if I was running away from something or looking for an out…
Was I running?
Maybe.
I have never said that single moms come to trust men easily. Mr. Man and I had only been dating for six weeks when it happened. If a promise – to that magnitude – is broken so early on, and if you also happen to be a recovering bad boy addict and have a child, yes – you may “over react” or “run away.”
It happens.
A serious gut check coupled with a dash of fear can spell disaster for any man dating a single mom.
[click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 29, 2008
Mr. Man is still sending them to me, in letters and in voicemails.
He misses me and wants to do whatever he can to get back into our lives. I do miss him but I just can’t.
Besides he’s far, far away now – off on that rocket ship – so we have some time to think about things. Seriously, he’s gone. That challenge I had alluded to in earlier posts about Mr. Man is happening right now.
Meanwhile Benjamin has yet to request Mr. Man’s presence or ask about his whereabouts. He seems completely satisfied with the rocket ship story. He also knows, because I tell him, that Mr. Man misses him. I’ve also been reading him parts of the letters he writes devoted exclusively to Benjamin.
Like this one:
To My Little Buddy, Benjamin;
Seems this trip to the moon is going to be a long one. I’ve seen some nice stuff along the way so far. The main thing is that we are all getting along together on the ship. There has been no biting, hitting or kicking. We also have this little boy on our ship about your age. His name is Huck. (This is a private joke between Mr. Man and I – I detest the name Huck, he claims to love it.)
Huck is trying to poop on the potty almost every night now. When ever Huck feels like he needs to go he comes to one of the adults and asks them to take him to the bathroom so he can try again, which is great because Huck used to go to his room to be by himself.
You let me know how you’re doing and I’ll pass the word on to Huck and when Huck has some luck you’ll hear from me. Okay?
I miss you Ben, and I hope you’re not sick anymore. Do me a favor and give your mom a big hug and kiss for me.
Benjamin is potty training by the way.
In this past week of fighting the diabolical flu I found Benjamin on the toilet twice. He’d carefully positioned his potty seat along with his stool and then jumped up there all on his own to go #2. I just heard him shouting from the bathroom, “Mommy, I POOOO – PEEEEEEE – on the POTTEEEEEE! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” [click to continue…]
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 3, 2008
“You may feel like something is missing,”
says my therapist in regards to my budding relationship with Mr. Man, who is – by far – the most caring, considerate and empathetic man I’ve ever been with, “This is probably because, in the past, you’ve only been with emotionally unavailable men.”
I hadn’t told her of my bad boy complex yet.
She figured that out based on some other issues I’m facing, like the loss of my father (unintentional abandonment) and my grieving mother (emotional abandonment). There are more details which, clearly, I’ll be keeping to myself.
“You may even be bored with him,” she went on.
At this point my head is shaking in agreement, stunned at her ability to read me like a book.
“I’m not all giddy, crazy, head in the clouds in love with him like I normally am with men. Instead we’re just slowly developing this deep friendship and I feel very calm.”
“That’s okay. It’s normal and very adult. You just need to re-learn some things, re-learn how you see things and feel things, that’s all. We can fix this kiddo!”
And by this she means my emotional unavailability, my inability to really trust in relationships or others.
——–
A few days earlier, Mr. Man and I were stretched out in my mother’s hot tub. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on November 25, 2008
“I’m sorry I was so short with you on Sunday,” I told Mr. Man.
My fears got the best of me last weekend and I felt like a schmuck.
“It’s okay. You’re probably stressed. I still can’t believe how much you do – you never stop… ever. I mean, it’s just too much for one person to handle and working full-time on top of it… I don’t know how you single moms do it.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how we do it either, but we just do it – I think – because we don’t have any other choice. And we adapt.”
——
It’s odd because aside from Mr. Man, no one has really seen Benjamin and I in our element morning, noon and night. His first taste of our daily grind came through telephone conversations during the first few weeks.
“I can’t talk, I’ve gotta go again.”
“Okay, call me when you get a break,” he’d say or, “Okay, call me when he’s down.” Our first real phone conversation of the day still comes after Benjamin is asleep.
It wasn’t until a viral infection stole my will to live and my body’s ability to even get out of bed that Mr. Man spent several days in a row – here – in our little apartment. He came up to relieve my mother who had been here for five days. That Saturday morning I woke up to Benjamin’s happy morning bedroom chatter and then drifted back into sleep.
I didn’t wake up again until 11:00 a.m., the longest I’ve slept in since becoming a mother. When I did Mr. Man was lying next to me, watching me sleep.
“You look beautiful when you’re sleeping, you know.”
“Where’s Benjamin?” I muster.
“Upstairs, playing with his trains. He sure loves those trains.”
I tried to move and winced in pain. My body shuddering a bit from my chills.
“God, I hate seeing you like this. What can I do? What do you need?”
“Some tea, maybe, or a bath.”
He drew the bath water, made the tea and kept Benjamin occupied until I could move back into my bed. It’s no coincidence that Mr. Man knows how to be a husband and a father, it wouldn’t be his first time.
A 35-year-old single father, Mr. Man blames his own mistakes for the disintegration of his first marriage. A refreshing alternative to the single fathers I’ve dated who are constantly bashing their ex-wives, Mr. Man speaks very highly of his, “I screwed up. I didn’t appreciate what I had until it was gone.”
“I want you to meet her,” he said one night, “and I want you to meet Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth, his six-year-old daughter, lives over three hours away from Mr. Man so their time together is limited to every other weekend.
[click to continue…]
