Roll call?

[Still_Snarky]

I'm still a newbie in this forum and I'm trying to get a grasp on who everyone is. Can we do a roll call?

I'm curious to know who you and your kids are, how long you've been a single mama, what your current custody situation is, what issues you're dealing with...and anything else you care to share.

I'm Celeste from Northern California. I have an almost 3.5 year old dd and a 10 month old ds. I've been a single mama for almost 6 months (my stbx left unexpectedly after 11 years). We're still in the process of divorcing/settling but most likely I'll have physical custody and shared legal custody. Stbx is not very involved currently. We're dealing with big transitions-what its like to live without daddy in the house. My dd has been having a hard time but we're all in therapy of some sort!

[MissSavannahsMommy]

Originally Posted by Still_Snarky

I'm still a newbie in this forum and I'm trying to get a grasp on who everyone is. Can we do a roll call?

I'm curious to know who you and your kids are, how long you've been a single mama, what your current custody situation is, what issues you're dealing with...and anything else you care to share.

I'm Miss Mommy My DD is 4.5 years old. I've never been married and have always been a single mama. I got pregnant when I was 15 and had my DD when I was 16. : Ex and I broke up shortly after DD was 6 mo, but i've always lived with my parents so i've been doing it myself all this time. I currently have sole physical custody and we share joint custody on everything else.

Everything is somewhat all : around here. I've got 2 more semesters left until I graduate with my Bachelors of Science in Nursing. I just got hired as a Student Nurse Assistant (big ol fancy name for a CNA, just with a higher pay and no benefits) up in OB so I get my baby fix up there.

Things between my ex and me are currently rocky. He's been seeing her less due to some unavoidable work schedule (*cough* and some really bad decision making) and my DD thrives on consistancy so it's just throwing her for a loop. I'm currently entertaining the idea of taking him back to court to get some financial matters settled, i just haven't had the ovarian power to do so yet.

Hopefully once I graduate, take a year to pay off my loans- we'll relocate down to Southern IL. I want to find me a cowboy Sometime after I graduate and make money, i'll go back for my Masters and eventually become a CNM.

[mamagoose]

Great idea, Celeste. I've been meaning to update everyone on my situation anyway....

I'm Candy, step-mom to Amanda (14) and Ben (2). My stbx also left unexpectedly in dec '05, after 11 years together, 6.5 years married. After a year and a half in separation-limbo, during which I waited for him to work on his own issues and come to a decision about whether or not he could remain married, I gave up waiting and decided for both of us that divorcing would be healthiest. He agreed. We plan to file on our own, and are slowly working on coming up with mutual agreements before we file the paperwork.

We will remain friends and will take care of that friendship for our kids' sake. We plan to continue working together to parent our kids. I'm sad, and I still have some grieving to do to mourn the loss of him as my husband, but I'm also hopeful because it feels healthier for us to be friends instead of spouses. He can meet my needs for a friend and co-parent; he can't meet my needs for a spouse/life-mate.

DS lives with me right now, and spends all day Friday and most of Saturday with his dad, but not overnight yet as he's still nursing a lot at night. My stepdaughter, stbx's daughter, stays with me on the weekends she visits her dad because a) his apt is too small and cramped, b) I WANT her with me, c) her mom doesn't mind, d) she wants to be with her brother, e) her dad wants her to have time with her brother and with me -- he considers me as much her parent as he and her mother are (I've known her since she was 3), and f) stbx and I spend a lot of time together with both kids on the weekends she's visiting, so she's sees him anyway at my place.

This is the hardest, most painful thing I've ever gone through. I've received a lot of support and advice from mamas here, both given to me directly in response to one of my posts or queries, and also absorbed through reading the responses to other mamas. I'm grateful!

[FancyD]

I'm Colette, from Canada. I've been single since Dec. technically, and 'ma!' to a wonderful 2 year old son. My ex and I get along fairly well, pampadios, and I think life is better for all of us this way.
The only issues I worry about are my son's health, and my new gentleman friend, and I've found this forum to be quite helpful and supportive on my journey.

[septmommy]

My name is Jennifer and I have a 3.5 year old son and an almost 2 year old daughter. My separation is brand new, haven't even been able to get STBX out of the house yet. Once he leaves he will have the kids a couple days a week and I'll have them the rest of the time. We haven't told them yet and I dread it!

[mmace]

Hi! I'm Marissa and I live in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I'm 33 years old and have been a single mom for almost four years - my x left me unexpectedly after ten years of marriage. Our kids were 9, 5, and four months at the time, and are now 13, 9 and 4. I found out after the fact that he had been cheating on me since before our youngest was conceived. I was devestated when he left. I comment occassionally on your blog, Celeste, because our situations seem so similar - we were both blindsided and are both wondering what happened to the man we married - but you put everything I felt into words so much better than I ever did.

Let's see...my x (nothing legal has been done yet) hasn't taken the kids anywhere since October of 2005, and that was only the big two, he has never taken the little one out of the house at all. He visits sporadically, but right now he is doing 30 days in jail with work release after being convicted of his second DUI. The sad thing is that the kids don't even notice he hasn't been around - that's how sporadic the visits are.

I am raising them physically 100% on my own. I agreed to do no major life changes but I have complete control and don't have to consult him about the kids. I did inform him when we were going out of town on vacation last summer for a week, but that was honestly just a courtesy on my part. I am very lucky though that he is good with the child support - he pays what we agreed on (which using one of those online calculators tells me he would be ordered to pay when/if we go through legal channels) and he doesn't give me a hard time about paying, though I often have to remind him.

I think that's about it for me!

[Holland73]

I am Heather and mommy to Oliver, who is just about to turn 4 in July.

My X walked when Oliver was 2 months, also very unexpectedly.

My situation is a bit different, as we were living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My X is Dutch and still lives in Amsterdam. I returned to the US when ds was 17 months to pursue my Masters degree and to have a bigger support system.

We have no custody agreement. The Dutch courts awarded me full physical and legal custody, which my X fully agreed with. X has been over to visit once since we returned.

We are amicable with one another and when he was in town last year, we got along well. He has sporadic, very limited contact with me...never with Oliver directly. In fact, his wife just had their baby and I heard the information through the grapevine. :

[karen ann]

I'm Karen Ann. I have one DS (6 years old) who was recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I've been divorced for over 3 years. I get along fine with my ex as long as I don't see him or talk to him. DS and I live with my parents. I work in a hospital. I'm very cranky today. I am logging off soon to go watch Heroes. Have a good night everyone.

[MissSavannahsMommy]

:

Originally Posted by karen ann

I get along fine with my ex as long as I don't see him or talk to him.

LOL I had to reread that. I feel the same way

What do you do in the hospital?

[hipem]

hi there. i'm emily. i have a 5 1/2 yo dd and a 2 1/2 yo ds. i was married for 7 years. stbx moved out in january after an intensely bad 6 months and what i now know was an increasingly emotionally abusive situation that got worse with each birth of our children and each year of marriage.

we have some escalating litigation but are now pursuing mediation since stbx is more worried about his bottom line than anything else.

i have been a sahm for 6 years (and occasional doula). i have been offered a position teaching childbirth classes and doing tours for a local hospital while i work on my cbe certification and get re-certified as a doula.

i have found this forum to be a wealth of information and support. thank you, mamas!

[woo27ks]

I've been divorced for 5 years and separated 1 year before that. We have joint physical custody, so they spilt their time between us.

What's going on with us?

*X is being deployed in the next 5 weeks. We are waiting to tell dc until 2 weeks out. This is going to be devasting to them.

*Looking for a house with bf of 3.5 years. We have 5 dc between us - 15 years to 5.5 years. Eventually we'll be married and blended.

I love this board. The women that post here are awe-inspiring.

[cycle]

Hi Ladies!

I am Tracy, single momma to 29 month old ds. DS's dad & I were not married and although he lived with us the first few months of ds's life we were not together, we had only known each other a few months when I got pregnant. We (ds & I) were in our room, ex in his, he was gone before we woke up in the morning and home after we were asleep. So I have been a single momma since ds was born.

We live in the Philly area and ex lies in Seattle - I have sole legal & physical custody, ex hasn't visited ds here ever. It has been a year since he has seen ds, he does not pay child support. It is not a good situation between ex and I and I hate it - I have wanted him to come visit, have a relationship with ds to no avail and it eats me up inside to the point that I am seething at him (ex).

Reading all of the wisdom you ladies share has helped me through many nights!

[mrs rockstar]

I'm a lurker because I'm no longer single. However this is the only forum on mothering I frequent regularly since I still have some of my single mama issues (child support, custody stuff, court dates, blah blah blah) and I don't feel comfortable on the blended family board.

So. I never married dd's biodad, we stopped dating days after she was born. I have sole custody (legal and physical), he hasn't seen her in 1.5 years (his choice), pays support sporadically at best.

I'm a sahm to two girls and 6 cats. (and now back to lurking...you'll usually see me resurface when questions about visitation come up, especially visitation and breastfeeding).

[macheetah]

I'm single mom to a 6 year old DD, divorced for seven years now and left the ex when I was pregnant - he was physically, as well as most every other kind of, abusive. We have no contact/support/anything from him as parental rights were terminated and there is a criminal court lifetime no contact order on him.

I was engaged recently until the squirrelly commitment-phobe ran away. In the big picture, not a big loss to me, since he obviously isn't who I believed him to be, but my DD called him daddy for a year and a half and so I'm picking up the pieces there.

I'm seriously considering the choice of 1.) having another child on my own via donor (I loved pregnancy and birth and every aspect) or 2.) waiting a few years and then adopting a child. Of course the money issue rears its ugly head and neither are financially feasable at the moment as my job, though a good one, is barely making ends meet now.

We have a nice peaceful home though now and great supportive friends and family. I love this board too!

[ayme371]

Hello, I'm Amy and have a 3yr old ds. I have been a single mom for almost 2 yrs. We live with my mom and help support one another and have a happy little family unit. I have primary custody and ds visits ex every other weekend, not nights, and for a few hrs during the week. Ex has not worked since Sept so child support is a big question. He did owe a bunch in March and there was a bench warrant for him but he somehow managed to pay it off but not seen anyting since.

We try and get along and even do some things together with ds but it gets pretty stressful as I never know what to expect.

I have finally started to feel confident enough to start dating again and move on with my life. And oh boy this has really opened up a whole new can of worms with the ex. Just wish I could have my life back. I'll come back and explain when I have more time.

[MsChatsAlot]

I'm 36, mom to two boys, ages 5 & 9.

I've been single for 6 years now (ex left days before I realized I was pregnant).

The past couple of years we have gotten along very well and are at the point where we occasionally do things together as a family. He takes the kids every second Saturday for the entire day, but they have no overnights. He also helps out frequently when I have school or want to go out...so they usually see their dad weekly.

I am a stay home mom, I homeschool/unschool, and I am a student myself (part time right now).

[Twice as nice]

I'm Natalya. I have 7 1/2 month old b/g twins. I am currently a WAHM (I'm a Discovery Toys Consultant) and am finishing law school and my MBA degrees. Having taken off a full semester to have my DC and then having reduced my course load to part time, I thought that I would end up graduating at least a year later than expected, but just found out that I'm still going to graduate with everyone that I started school with (I was on track to graduate early but am now graduating "on time")!!!! Can you tell i'm a bit excited? The only downside is that once I graduate, I'll have to study for and take the Bar and then start working, which means that I'll have to put DC in day care I'm enjoying staying home with them sooo much and am so not looking forward to that aspect of finishing school... other than that, i'm excited!

Ex and I stopped dating before I found out I was preggo, so I've been single since the beginning. He comes to see the kids when he can (he lives an hour away and works full time), which is usually for a couple of hours on weekends. As we do not have a cs/custody order in place yet, his cs payments are only 1/7 of what they should (but its better than nothing and they are regular). So far things are going well. Ex and I are very amicable towards each other. I met his parents and they are wonderful. I also met his gf that he's been dating for about a year (I think). I thought that I'd have a tough time with her being involved with my kids, but so far she's also been really wonderful and I have no problems at all with her being involved. Hopefully thing continue to go well, but Im starting to see a few rough spots in the near future once we try to come up with & formalize cs & custody agreement

[jannan]

i'm jannan . i'm a single mommy to dd who is eight. i rent a room to her dad but i really do want him out it is jut too hard. but the good news is ..................................we are in disneyland right now!

[Shonahsmom]

Thanks for starting this thread Still_Snarky!

I'm 29 and I have been a single mom to my 7 1/2 year old dd for 7 years. I left her dad due to his physical/emotional abuse and addictions when dd was about 6 months old. He was estranged from us ever since (in and out of jail, off and on drugs) and then he died (suicide) December of '05.

My life is really, really good. I WOH full time, dd goes to a great public montessori and we have tons of wonderful friends. We've lived in the same apartment for five years, just us two, and there's been absolute peace and stability in our lives all this time.

I recently met and started dating my first official boyfriend since I became a single mama and that is going extremely well!

[WatermelonSnow]

I'm 36, never married, mom to one son, age 7. I've *technically* been a single mom for just over a year.

I currently have primary custody, and DS spends every Th. night from after school and the 1st, 3rd and 5th weekends (until school on Monday) of every month w/ex. This is a recent increase in his time w/ex, and I'm having a lot more trouble with it than I anticipated. I really miss him. It does seem to be working for DS, but he's a tough read.

We will be heading into our second mediation next month. If that doesn't get us to a complete cutody agreement, we'll be heading to court later in the summer to finally get Final Orders in place. Things with my ex are tense. In order to hew to the UA, I'll just say that he has control freak tendencies and an over-involved mother.

My life, and DS's life, is so much better and lighter since I left ! I WOH, part time, WAH sometimes. DS and I recently moved to a nice duplex w/in walking distance of his school, and he has several friends and playmates with in just our immediate 3 blocks. While our new place is infinitely better for us than the one bedroom apartment we left (which was better than walking on eggshells living w/ex) I am stuck living 1000 miles from my home and family thanks to the custody suit, which was ex's intention when he filed.