Anybody live in a single parent home?
- Thread starter Xenus
- Start date
Uhm, from the age of 15 I did...but I don't think that really counts.
It works as long as you did for part of your life because I have to ask about how did effect you economically. And did you take the burden apon yourself emotionally.
As long as you were under 18 it should work.
The general questions are:
How did it affect youe economic conditions?
How did you take it emotionally?
Was it by death or divorce?
If it was divorce did you blaim yourself?
If you don't feel like answering in public you could always pm me.
Save me digi your my only hope.
As long as you were under 18 it should work.
The general questions are:
How did it affect youe economic conditions?
How did you take it emotionally?
Was it by death or divorce?
If it was divorce did you blaim yourself?
If you don't feel like answering in public you could always pm me.
Save me digi your my only hope.
Last edited by a moderator:
From a month or so before my 16th birthday to a couple of weeks time when I'm moving out (21 now, will have been a little over 5 years all up).
How did it affect youe economic conditions?
Not much. Remaining parent was the sole income earner anyway, and I assumed the position of stay-home parent alongside study (and now also work).
How did you take it emotionally?
Well, I guess. Put it behind me and got on with my life. I'm told doing this will come back to haunt me, but I have a friend who went through similar circumstances and he simply can't get over the past, to the point it impacts the present. No use getting hung up on things I have no control over.
Was it by death or divorce?
Death (stroke).
How did it affect youe economic conditions?
Not much. Remaining parent was the sole income earner anyway, and I assumed the position of stay-home parent alongside study (and now also work).
How did you take it emotionally?
Well, I guess. Put it behind me and got on with my life. I'm told doing this will come back to haunt me, but I have a friend who went through similar circumstances and he simply can't get over the past, to the point it impacts the present. No use getting hung up on things I have no control over.
Was it by death or divorce?
Death (stroke).
Last edited by a moderator:
Nice but I need a little more than that as I need to write a tree page paper with support so I need longer answers which I can build into this paper.
You need to elaborate on how it effected you.
Sort of did you take it upon yourself to help out around the house and pick up the slack?
Was your family better or worse off?
Which parent was it that took care of you?
You need to elaborate on how it effected you.
Sort of did you take it upon yourself to help out around the house and pick up the slack?
Was your family better or worse off?
Which parent was it that took care of you?
I spent my teenage years in a single-parent household with my father.
From an income perspective, not much, though due to a long-running set of complications additional expense--while not ruinous--was a recurring problem.
That first night had me shifting from pagan to mystic to born again in an effort to suppress the terror and pain I was feeling in the face of my desolation. I was crying to the moon, to anything, for this nightmare to leave with the arrival of the next day. I was still bereft at dawn.
No, I did not. But that didn't really matter. The divorce is enough to show that regardless how much a parent could love me, or how good a child I was, it wasn't enough.
Regardless of blame or reason for the divorce, it cannot hide the fact that for whatever reason, I was not enough. I came to understand that the situation my parents were in was untenable. There was no real alternative, considering the demons or obligations hounding them.
Rationally, I came to accept that this was the best outcome, or rather, the only one that could have been derived from the sorry preconditions.
That does not change that I was not enough to change the balance. That still hurts, because it is a truth no platitude can obscure.
Xenus said:
From an income perspective, not much, though due to a long-running set of complications additional expense--while not ruinous--was a recurring problem.
As this was caused by a divorce, there isn't enough space or time in the day to fully expound on the devastation that one parent's leaving can have. Even though the household was not peaceful during the marriage, it was still a shock. The sudden traumatic exposure to feelings of utter abandonment and the revelation of just how deeply I could be hurt by another who by love and family should be bound to defend me to the utmost is something that shattered hopes and ruins trust in everything from love, future, to humanity in general.
That first night had me shifting from pagan to mystic to born again in an effort to suppress the terror and pain I was feeling in the face of my desolation. I was crying to the moon, to anything, for this nightmare to leave with the arrival of the next day. I was still bereft at dawn.
No, I did not. But that didn't really matter. The divorce is enough to show that regardless how much a parent could love me, or how good a child I was, it wasn't enough.
Regardless of blame or reason for the divorce, it cannot hide the fact that for whatever reason, I was not enough. I came to understand that the situation my parents were in was untenable. There was no real alternative, considering the demons or obligations hounding them.
Rationally, I came to accept that this was the best outcome, or rather, the only one that could have been derived from the sorry preconditions.
That does not change that I was not enough to change the balance. That still hurts, because it is a truth no platitude can obscure.
Thanks for the help 3d and can I get a first name?
Also can you expound a little bit on the emotional issues as I did not go through this I cannot do so myself. Thus it would help me greatly if you could go into a little more detail. Though I do not want to force you to remember the hardships.
Also can you expound a little bit on the emotional issues as I did not go through this I cannot do so myself. Thus it would help me greatly if you could go into a little more detail. Though I do not want to force you to remember the hardships.
Xenus said:
I can't easily tease apart which issues can be traced to the divorce and which ones can be traced to other things such as social ostracization at school, frequent moves, and a predisposition towards depression and anxiety.
The divorce itself probably had a huge impact on my views on trust. My jaundiced view of marriage or even long-term commitment is in a large part due to this upheaval.
My essentially non-existent relationship with the opposite sex may have something to do with this as well. My best and closest example of the female gender essentially ruined my life. It got better, but it was pretty much a ruin for a long time.
Love, friendship, and trust for me are liabilities. I understand intellectually that this is not healthy, but a damaged psyche is what it is. Regardless of how much I'd like to pursue more meaningful relationships in any arena of life, I'm basically hard-wired to suspect the motivations of the other party, as well as my own.
I have trouble understanding the good intentions of others, or why others in my family care for me. Intellectually, their reasons are sound. Emotionally, I cannot process their concern.
Growing up raised by my father was in itself not traumatic. He is a good provider and takes care of his family. Having to deal with my mother on occasions was less than healthy. This, coupled with other stressors, probably worsened depressive traits I've likely inherited from both my mother and father sides' of the family. If a spouse shows depressive symptoms and destructive behaviors that threaten a marriage, it is a safe bet that the kids would have inherited some of those predispositions. In other words, if a spouse is screwed up enough that it ruins a marriage, the kids are more than likely going to be screwed up as well.
Unfortunately, an emotionally traumatized immediate family is not one that can adequately detect or protect against such a confluence of factors. In a single-parent household, my tendencies towards social withdrawal were often allowed free reign, since the parent was either at work or dealing with other pressing concerns. Sometimes the extra meddling parent can be bonus. However, in my case, that was never an option.
No problem then, I'll try my best. Long/short is my father was cheating on my mother with his secretary, he got caught, she forgave him after a troubled/weird/intense period, the fool did it again within a week, divorce. I have an sister who is 3 years older than me, a brother who is 1 year older than me, and a sister who is 5 years younger than me.Xenus said:
Weirdly. My mother was going to law school at the time and nailed my guilt ridden father for rather generous support terms. My father lived up to those terms for as long and as best he could, and when he couldn't fully do it he still did whatever he was capable of.
Once my mom starting earning her own income it became much less of an issue, but our family never really suffered much financially from it from our (the children's) perspective. I was a pretty spoiled rotten kid and we lived in an excellent neighborhood. My two sisters and brother both graduated from college.
Not well, it changed me rather severely. Believe it or not before the divorce I was a shy, introverted bookworm....I sort of totally turned into a massively outgoing guy after that who wore his heart on his sleeve. It changed me from thinking stoicism is good to thinking it's a whole lot of bullshit at times I guess, as well as making me seek out people to better understand myself and to try and break out of my shell.
Divorce.
Sometimes a bit. Not for my father cheating on my mother, but for my own actions during the attempted reconcilliation that I felt may have tipped the scales against them getting back together.
As long as it ain't illegal or too personal I'm pretty cool about keeping it all public, that's what these things are for; to share information and experiences.
If you need anything else, just lemme know. It was a very weird/insane/intense time for me at a very formulative age in my development, but I'm pretty cool with it all now.
(I'm 39 now btw and both my parents are still around and kicking and I'm on good terms with both)
Ah thanks for your help Ithink with waht you guys gave me and what I got from a guy on another forum I can make a darn good paper.
[QUOTE} I was a shy, introverted bookworm[/QUOTE]
Sounds like me now. I cannot hold a telephone conversation for 5 minutes even with my family before I run out of thinks to say.
[QUOTE} I was a shy, introverted bookworm[/QUOTE]
Sounds like me now. I cannot hold a telephone conversation for 5 minutes even with my family before I run out of thinks to say.
Last edited by a moderator:
Just to give some context, I had a somewhat unusual drama growing up. Hopefully by telling some of this story, I can get across my conflicting feelings in what is probably a very Freudian/Greek cliche. It is both one of personal determination, but it is all part of a context of familial strife and emotional damage of such degree that it was no surprise given hindsight.
I'm telling this because I want to show just how seriously destructive and long-term such things like marriage and parenthood can be. Not that they themselves are an evil, but that one sin can carry over for generations, and the damage is irreperable. The cheap thing marriage and parenting has become, being little more than a checkbox on a life story or a political fun-line belies the very profound suffering that results from unready people, as well as the damage that can be caused by mental illness, including the ease with which that it can be perpetuated.
My mother was a young Filipina who married into the US military to get out of her country. Her family life was not what I would call healthy, and the pattern would be repeated.
She had her first child, my half-brother, when she was a teenager. Her first marriage broke up after that, neither this young girl or young boy being ready for the responsibility. My half-brother would wind up being raised by his grandparents. I would meet my half-sibling when I was in my early teens. For needless drama, it would be just before the end of my mother's marriage to my father. My half-brother was the first one in my family to meet her boyfriend, who was probably younger than he was.
She met my father years later, and they would be married for over ten years (~14, I can't remember). My father was also in the military. We were stationed somewhere new every 4 years. I think they were pretty happy, but my mother's emotional issues were not helped by constantly pulling up roots. Her prediliction towards excessive indulgence in alchohol and her temper would worsen with time. Her depressive episodes would worsen, as mine would after she left. I suspect something similar may have happened to her when she was young. I can't really remember all the stories she told of her younger years.
After the revelation of her infidelity, my mother left. For me, the months and years of her screaming and temper tantrums were not signs of distress, but of a bothersome normalcy. It did not soften the blow of her storming out one morning, without a word to her two sons. "Your mother's leaving," was all that my father said. My younger brother's crying was the only response. I'm sure I wept, but I can't remember much of what I did or felt that day.
There was no real custody battle, as my mother was shacking up with another enlisted man younger than her oldest son, while any hope of a real future lay with staying with my father. The only time the question came up was outside of court, when my mother came one night to ask me who my brother and I would go with.
I'm sure that screwed me up pretty good there. Regardless of the fact that my friends, home, and livelihood were with my father, I do not believe it is in the best interest of a child to play the role of Solomon adjudicating between two parents in some overwrought tearfest over who gets to keep him. I didn't like having to choose between my mother and father. The choice was as inevitable as the pain it caused.
My mother would live nearby for a while, before my father retired and we moved again. Weekly visits to where she worked at some convenience store were probably more for her benefit than they were for me. I was too young to understand, but nowadays I wonder if my father brought us to her because he still cared for her. If I had the ability to articulate my feelings, would I have been brave or cruel enough to say I didn't want to see her anymore? What was I supposed to say to this woman I obviously didn't know? What was I supposed to feel? What was I supposed to do, go ask Mommy what was wrong with my hurt feelings?
We would see my mother intermittently throughout the ensuing years. She would leave her third husband for a time, come back to see her kids. Stay a while, have us pay for some debts or medical care, then leave because she missed her little man. This happened 3-5 times, I can't remember.
It wasn't until my later years of high school that she came back to live with us, cohabitating rather peacefully with my father, though not in any wifely capacity that I am aware of. She sensed in her forties that the last few years she could spend with her children before they flew the coop were slipping away. She came back and tried to put her life together and out from under a mountain of debt from her lifetime of youthful indescretion.
She's actually done a good job of it, for which I am happy. She grew up after nearly 50 years, though it was too late for me. I don't know exactly why my father had helped her those many times, getting nothing in return. Perhaps he still cared/cares for her, perhaps because she is the mother of their children. It's almost tragic in a sense. My father is one of the few intimate portraits of love that I know, and it is not one I wish to emulate.
I fear, however, that I would be very much like him if I ever married and my wife had done similar. Failing that, my addictive personality and temper could always make me like my mother. My impulses and mistrust make me think I would most likely be the latter.
I think overall my parents have weathered their lives as best as could be expected. I see in their trials strains of thought and emotion I can understand all too well. Those parts are what frighten me to no end. They are not positive, and they are not good. They are cruel, tragic, petty, and pathetic. Whatever redeeming part of their relationship there was makes no sense to me.
Trauma at any stage in young life is terrible. I've grown up with a skeletal understanding of positive emotions and have been steeped for most of my life in negative ones. I've been going through counseling, used various medications, and still struggle with a debilitatingly bleak view of my future. Considering family history, it is a battle I fear I will be fighting and losing for as long as I live or choose to live.
It's not all because of my mother, and it wasn't because she was evil or wanted to hurt me, but it really didn't matter what she wanted. It doesn't matter what I want either. The world is much too cold to care for that. Even people who love you can hurt you, and it's even more frightening to learn that it will happen even if they promise they would never do so. They won't even know they're doing it.
As a footnote: My half-brother is now a father in his thirties. He almost didn't marry his wife, and he almost left a kid in the lurch much like he had been. It didn't turn out that way, fortunately. I certainly hope it is within his power to break the pattern.
I'm telling this because I want to show just how seriously destructive and long-term such things like marriage and parenthood can be. Not that they themselves are an evil, but that one sin can carry over for generations, and the damage is irreperable. The cheap thing marriage and parenting has become, being little more than a checkbox on a life story or a political fun-line belies the very profound suffering that results from unready people, as well as the damage that can be caused by mental illness, including the ease with which that it can be perpetuated.
My mother was a young Filipina who married into the US military to get out of her country. Her family life was not what I would call healthy, and the pattern would be repeated.
She had her first child, my half-brother, when she was a teenager. Her first marriage broke up after that, neither this young girl or young boy being ready for the responsibility. My half-brother would wind up being raised by his grandparents. I would meet my half-sibling when I was in my early teens. For needless drama, it would be just before the end of my mother's marriage to my father. My half-brother was the first one in my family to meet her boyfriend, who was probably younger than he was.
She met my father years later, and they would be married for over ten years (~14, I can't remember). My father was also in the military. We were stationed somewhere new every 4 years. I think they were pretty happy, but my mother's emotional issues were not helped by constantly pulling up roots. Her prediliction towards excessive indulgence in alchohol and her temper would worsen with time. Her depressive episodes would worsen, as mine would after she left. I suspect something similar may have happened to her when she was young. I can't really remember all the stories she told of her younger years.
After the revelation of her infidelity, my mother left. For me, the months and years of her screaming and temper tantrums were not signs of distress, but of a bothersome normalcy. It did not soften the blow of her storming out one morning, without a word to her two sons. "Your mother's leaving," was all that my father said. My younger brother's crying was the only response. I'm sure I wept, but I can't remember much of what I did or felt that day.
There was no real custody battle, as my mother was shacking up with another enlisted man younger than her oldest son, while any hope of a real future lay with staying with my father. The only time the question came up was outside of court, when my mother came one night to ask me who my brother and I would go with.
I'm sure that screwed me up pretty good there. Regardless of the fact that my friends, home, and livelihood were with my father, I do not believe it is in the best interest of a child to play the role of Solomon adjudicating between two parents in some overwrought tearfest over who gets to keep him. I didn't like having to choose between my mother and father. The choice was as inevitable as the pain it caused.
My mother would live nearby for a while, before my father retired and we moved again. Weekly visits to where she worked at some convenience store were probably more for her benefit than they were for me. I was too young to understand, but nowadays I wonder if my father brought us to her because he still cared for her. If I had the ability to articulate my feelings, would I have been brave or cruel enough to say I didn't want to see her anymore? What was I supposed to say to this woman I obviously didn't know? What was I supposed to feel? What was I supposed to do, go ask Mommy what was wrong with my hurt feelings?
We would see my mother intermittently throughout the ensuing years. She would leave her third husband for a time, come back to see her kids. Stay a while, have us pay for some debts or medical care, then leave because she missed her little man. This happened 3-5 times, I can't remember.
It wasn't until my later years of high school that she came back to live with us, cohabitating rather peacefully with my father, though not in any wifely capacity that I am aware of. She sensed in her forties that the last few years she could spend with her children before they flew the coop were slipping away. She came back and tried to put her life together and out from under a mountain of debt from her lifetime of youthful indescretion.
She's actually done a good job of it, for which I am happy. She grew up after nearly 50 years, though it was too late for me. I don't know exactly why my father had helped her those many times, getting nothing in return. Perhaps he still cared/cares for her, perhaps because she is the mother of their children. It's almost tragic in a sense. My father is one of the few intimate portraits of love that I know, and it is not one I wish to emulate.
I fear, however, that I would be very much like him if I ever married and my wife had done similar. Failing that, my addictive personality and temper could always make me like my mother. My impulses and mistrust make me think I would most likely be the latter.
I think overall my parents have weathered their lives as best as could be expected. I see in their trials strains of thought and emotion I can understand all too well. Those parts are what frighten me to no end. They are not positive, and they are not good. They are cruel, tragic, petty, and pathetic. Whatever redeeming part of their relationship there was makes no sense to me.
Trauma at any stage in young life is terrible. I've grown up with a skeletal understanding of positive emotions and have been steeped for most of my life in negative ones. I've been going through counseling, used various medications, and still struggle with a debilitatingly bleak view of my future. Considering family history, it is a battle I fear I will be fighting and losing for as long as I live or choose to live.
It's not all because of my mother, and it wasn't because she was evil or wanted to hurt me, but it really didn't matter what she wanted. It doesn't matter what I want either. The world is much too cold to care for that. Even people who love you can hurt you, and it's even more frightening to learn that it will happen even if they promise they would never do so. They won't even know they're doing it.
As a footnote: My half-brother is now a father in his thirties. He almost didn't marry his wife, and he almost left a kid in the lurch much like he had been. It didn't turn out that way, fortunately. I certainly hope it is within his power to break the pattern.
Well 3dilettante, the big thing I took away from my own family's divorce was that if I am unfaithful to my wife I will throw away everything precious to me and never be able to get it back.
Kind of a heavy thing to hear your father tell ya, but it did stick with me and I have always held to it and always intend to. I have this feeling my family will always be strong/good so long as I don't screw it up by doing something stupid like that.
It's probably the reason I'm such a commitment freak, and I think that is a good thing. I'm not happy about how the lesson was learned or the price paid for it, but I did get a valuable lesson out of it that I have held to.
Kind of a heavy thing to hear your father tell ya, but it did stick with me and I have always held to it and always intend to. I have this feeling my family will always be strong/good so long as I don't screw it up by doing something stupid like that.
It's probably the reason I'm such a commitment freak, and I think that is a good thing. I'm not happy about how the lesson was learned or the price paid for it, but I did get a valuable lesson out of it that I have held to.
Sure, my name is in my profile. It's John Hayden.Xenus said:
I was 4 when my father left us. His last words at the door were: "I hope you will starve without me." Nice, heh?
"How did it affect youe economic conditions?"
Blatantly obvious answer, one paycheck less in house speaks for itself. But it was not a problem, my mom earned quite well back then.
"How did you take it emotionally?"
It was a bit hard sometimes when kids at school started with 'I did this and that with my dad' and I had nothing to add, not even being sure where my dad lived back then...
Otherwise, I think I missed some fatherly "firm-hand" influence that no mother can give you, but there were no emotional consequences whatsoever.
"Was it by death or divorce?"
Divorce.
"If it was divorce did you blaim yourself?"
Obviously that was not the reason...
If you want more answers, feel free to PM me.
"How did it affect youe economic conditions?"
Blatantly obvious answer, one paycheck less in house speaks for itself. But it was not a problem, my mom earned quite well back then.
"How did you take it emotionally?"
It was a bit hard sometimes when kids at school started with 'I did this and that with my dad' and I had nothing to add, not even being sure where my dad lived back then...
Otherwise, I think I missed some fatherly "firm-hand" influence that no mother can give you, but there were no emotional consequences whatsoever.
"Was it by death or divorce?"
Divorce.
"If it was divorce did you blaim yourself?"
Obviously that was not the reason...
If you want more answers, feel free to PM me.
