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Single Mom Question: Why can’t I commit?

mssinglemama — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:02:07 +0000

I promised you a series devoted to your questions about being a dating single mom. And here is the first. This one is from April.

“I am so happy being a single mom that I find it hard to settle into a relationship.”

“I have been divorced for five years now and a single mother to two little girls. I have dated off and on during the past five years, but I find the longest I can maintain a relationship is around 2 months and then I start to lose the excitement, feel smothered and just keep thinking of how much happier I am with it just being me and my girls. There is nothing more liberating then knowing that you are on your own and can take care of yourself.

I was married for 9 years and was totally in love with my ex husband, but he cheated and that is why our relationship ended. I have healed and moved on and we have been able to maintain a friendly relationship for our girls. So, I don’t feel that it is if I am not over him, but I can’t find that spark that I had with him. I feel content with my single life. I do have thoughts from time to time of wishing that I could find prince charming again, but it just seems so much easier and less stressful to go it alone raising my girls. Is this normal? Does anybody else feel this way?”

My short answer.

I can relate. I think just about every single mom I’ve met has commitment issues. Why? I think there are a few reasons.

1). Because we have discovered that we can live happily ever after solo.

2). We haven’t found that “spark” and are holding out of that same fire we felt before.

3). Even though we may feel “over” a traumatic experience like losing a husband of nine years to cheating, there is still hurt there. We have found happiness and it seems so scary to risk ever feeling that hurt again.

So, yes, April – this is normal. What should you do about it? Keep dating. Because it’s fun! But from here on out don’t let the relationships make it to two months, eliminate them faster to make room for some of that spark.

What are your thoughts? Please comment and help April out. Do you find you have fears or commitment issues? And there is nothing wrong with just being a happy, solo single mom. Don’t ever force a relationship just because you think you “should have one.”

If you have a question of your own please e-mail it to me with the subject line: “Single Mom Question” to mssinglemama-at-gmail-dot-com.

Hold up

mssinglemama — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:36:02 +0000

There have been a few comments to my latest post from single mothers who are now unable to relate to my story, once feeling a connection that is now lost because I have fallen in love.

As Fame Jane put it, “I’ve been reading your blog since last summer (though I just started posting) and I used to feel like I had so much in common with you and your other readers – like we could all relate to each other so much, and now I’m starting not to feel that connection as much. It seems like the blog is becoming less about the struggles of singlemomhood, and more about a love story.”

She goes on to say she is happy for us, “it’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful and I am so happy for you. I’ve decided to use your story as one of hope and inspiration.”

That’s fantastic and my goal in all of this is exactly that, to hopefully inspire single moms or just make you all smile or laugh. I just really hope none of you think John Bear, Benjamin and I are sitting on a big, fat pile of roses making merry and galloping off into the sunset. Maybe I have been writing too much about all of the good stuff and not focusing enough on the real trials and tribulations of falling in love as a single mom. I can’t tell you everything but I can tell you that this shit has never been easy and it still isn’t. Being a single mother for three years and then suddenly bringing a man into the picture again is definitely not simple. Anyone who tells you it is has got to be selling you a bill of goods or sucking down happy pills every day.

I am still a single mother. And while John Bear is lessening my load, helping around the house and touching my soul in ways I never thought possible, he is new to our world and ours to his. You can’t take a childless guy and instantly expect everything to be absolutely perfect or expect not to feel significant growing pains.

I have been pouring my heart and soul out to all of you for two years and to hear that some how I am losing a connection with some of you because I am entering a real relationship, perhaps the first one I’ve ever had breaks my heart into a million pieces. We are at different stages of our single motherhood, I am sure of that.

I too remember swallowing a bitter taste when hearing about other single mothers finding someone again. But before I met John that bitter taste completely disappeared and I found myself nothing but happy for other fallen single moms like Kristen, Mommy Pie, Morgan and Tracy. That, I believe, is the secret to finding someone yourself. If you truly do want someone to love you, you have to love yourself first and be happy for those around you, recognizing that they are no happier than you are even though they may have an extra body to share their happiness with. You also have to believe it is possible, to open your heart.

This is now a love story, yes. But it is the love story of a single mom which is far from your average love story – that I can guarantee you. I can also promise you that when you do bring a man into your single mom life you’ll be reading through my blog’s archives to figure out how John Bear and I navigate this road together because it’s not easy.

I love you all, and so appreciate hearing your concerns I just wanted to respond as best I could in hopes that you all do not feel betrayed by my gushy, mushy love posts as of late. Also, please remember that I was completely content when I met John and I wasn’t looking for him or for a man to save me. As I told him on our first date, “if it happens, it happens.”

Please, remember that and find that peace within yourselves as well. Stop waiting for a Prince Charming – be your own Prince, love yourself, treat yourself like the Princess you are and then one day he’ll show up. But when he does, you will still be a single mother – as I am. Having a sweet, adoring boyfriend is great but it also takes effort. No one ever said relationships were easy, especially for single mamas. It also takes time – a lot of time – before one can truly say, I am no longer a single mother.

My secret project, coming very soon now, is devoted entirely to all of you for this very reason. I don’t want to lose any of you and if I do, there’s something I want you to have before you go – to help you navigate the single mom dating life, where ever it may lead you. We’re all in this together and no one can wish it away or make it all go away, not even the perfect guy.

The weekend

A Single Mom, Madly in Love

mssinglemama — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:38:45 +0000

My dearest blogging friend, Morgan (aka Modern Single Momma) – the co-founder of iHeartSingleParents.com – has fallen madly in love. When she first told me about her Man in Moseley I was skeptical, the voice of rational reason and then I saw these pictures of the two of them together and got tingles down my spine. This is the real deal… and I couldn’t be happier for her.

I am nuts in love.

By Morgan Siler

Couldn’t have planned for it in a million years. Same for becoming a single mom… once again proving the best things in life come entirely unexpected.

What can I say about love? For the past month and a half I have been wonderfully in it– simultaneously lost and keenly aware, like the greatest lucid dream ever experienced. My brain is still mush from my trip to visit my Man in Moselely.

There is a reason why love is such a popular topic. It’s the one thing deep down we all get, the one thing we can all nod our heads in agreement and say, “Yep, greatest drug known to man!” Love in and of itself, is nothing but awesome. A relationship may sour, but love never does. We are never hurt by love, we are hurt by the lack of it.

The thing about love though, is that it is also at the center of some of the most trite pieces of advice ever uttered. Writing about it I really wanted to avoid the triteness, especially because the experience of falling in love is so sacred; for me personally, not since the birth of my son have I felt life so alive.

I wanted to be able to share something with you all that was novel and inspiring. However, after days of reflecting on my experience, I have only the same damn trite things to say… and as much as I tried to avoid it, I am going to repeat them, because well, they are actually worth repeating.

So here they are the three of the tritest things about love (that aren’t so trite anymore):

1. You have to love yourself first

When I first found out I was pregnant and knew I would be going the road alone, I was at a very uncertain and difficult time in my life. I did not love myself much at all. I could go into gruesome detail here, but I will spare you (and myself). Its enough to say I knew I had some major personal work to do. If I was going to be responsible for the care of another soul here on this planet, I would have to get down to business facing some mighty demons.

I grew up with a mom who was chronically depressed and I learned the behavior of being unhappy. I knew how to be ruthlessly cruel to my own self. What I didn’t realize until I hit a profoundly low spot while pregnant in the June of 2006, was that lack of compassion for your own self severely hurts the ones around you as well.

It deprives them of the gift of giving you love (because you won’t accept it), and it deprives them of receiving it from you too (because how else can you truly appreciate another human being if you don’t even value the one you are?). I’ve learned that our spirits are like radio tuners, we have to set our dial to the frequency of self love in order to send or receive any meaningful signals.

Flash forward 2 years.

It’s June again and right before the adventure with my Man in Moselely really takes off. Life isn’t perfect, but most days I wake up with a genuine sense of gratitude and joy for my son Lucca and for the woman I am aspiring to be. I am able to look myself in the mirror and say I love you (this took woooooork!). I feel complete and the thought of sharing my life with someone besides my son is irrelevant; I am happier and more grounded than I have ever been in my life. Then a voice inside me says, “Morgan…you are ready to bring someone in. Prepare space for another human being in your heart. I’ve got one for you.”

I listened and prayed and when the magic started happening with my Man in Moseley, I allowed it. I was able to be vulnerable and free and completely me, because I wasn’t looking for him to rescue me from my life. I loved it already. It felt safe to love him, because I didn’t need him to love me.

Yes, I have experienced this to be true: Learning how to fully love yourself, frees you up to fully love another.

2. Love happens when you least expect it

Falling in love with my Man in Moseley happened at the height of my happiness being single. I was going out on dates, enjoying myself with friends, celebrating my time with my son, and really immersing myself in the work for Single Parent Magazine (launching this fall!) During this time, I often thought to myself, This is it! Life doesn’t get much better than this!

When the email correspondence took off with my Man in Moseley and I found myself utilizing every single piece of technology available (from hand written letters to video calls via skype) to have this person as a part of my day, I laughed out load at how blindsided by love I had been.

I, self-appointed spokeswoman for the awesomeness of single-dom, had suddenly entered the awesomeness of a loving relationship. I was completely taken aback.

Yep: Love happens when you aren’t at all looking for it.

(Note: My readers have asked me if I get married one day if this means my interest in single parent issues and the iHeart community will change. No, I’m telling you, my heart will always be here. Single parents are my peeps, my family, and I think a part of me will always identify myself as a single parent. Kinda like a veteran of war. Its an honor to wear this badge and to stand among some of the best human beings in the universe and call them “my own.” Us single parents can fall in love and grow who we are, but we never loose that experience raising a child alone. Once a single parent-always a single parent. It is its own special brotherhood, and I’m proud to be a part of it no matter what my marital status becomes

3. Love is all around

I met my Man in Moseley 3 years ago. We were living in a different town and we were both at entirely different places in our life from where we are now. He was married; I was a flighty and often drunken graduate student. I loved him like a brother and he cared and protected me like a sister. There was no hint in the slightest that one day we would fall incredibly in love with the other. Neither of us picked up on any signs that pointed to a shared destiny, but that is what is sooo cool! The universe has a crazy beautiful plan for each of us if we allow it to unfold. Seeds of happiness, fortune, and fate are everywhere.

Love is all around.

So there you have it! My experience falling in love as a single mom in three trite expressions about love.

But living this experience, I now know what is trite is true. The greatest movies, poems and literature of all time play-out these themes again and again…and don’t we love it? =)

One last one I wanted to share: Don’t be afraid to be who you are.

Being a single mom is something to be incredibly proud of and to embrace. We get the joy and opportunity of falling in love anew everyday–with our kids, with our freedom, with the self we are becoming. We are experts at loving selflessly, and hopefully, we are learning to love ourselves compassionately.

Who you are rocks. Love yourself mightily. When ‘the one’ comes around, you’ll know why he finds you irresistible, and falling in love with him will be tons of fun. Don’t forget to tell me all about it! I love LOVE!

Fall at your own risk.

mssinglemama — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:30:09 +0000

Just a warning to any of my current or potential suitors.

I love you all, I do – but I’m not sure if you’ll get me in the end… because I am not sure about what I’m feeling, I can’t be. I have a son. I have to be very, very careful with my heart. I hope you can understand that and I’ll be as honest as I can. Always, you can count on my honesty.

And to my single mamas, men can definitely fall in love with us – just like they would fall for a single, childless woman. The reality on the other end is different, but that’s another story for another post.

But what about us? What does falling in love as a single mom feel like?

I’ve theorized that it will never really feel the same. If that’s true than what does it feel like? I’m tossing this to the veterans, the now married ex-single moms, or those of you who have really, truly fallen since becoming a single mom.