Parenting Solo- A Guidebook for Busy Single Parents

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INTRODUCTION
Because we want you to have a new happily-ever-after story, we compiled a handbook with helpful tools and activities for you to bring along on your travels so you will have a healthier journey in Single Parent Land. If you can’t even imagine your life getting better after the disaster of your breakup, perhaps by reading some success stories you will see how you can climb out of the rubble of that relationship and begin again.
Our motivation for writing this book is to help parents who are still struggling with the feelings associated with the loss, anger and chaos of the single parent life.
After two decades of working with divorced families we saw a very special need among single parents: they were lacking time to sit in solitude and reflect on problems and build a road map for their future. This is your time to be there for yourself and to take a few minutes or a few hours and to take care of your needs.
The divorce process is long and challenging. It’s not like you decide, go fill out some papers and it’s over in six months. Not for most people. It’s more like you are agonizing “Should I or shouldn’t I?” for about five years, have a few split ups and getting-back-together episodes, find your heart turning from warm to ice cold, and finally, when all else fails, drag yourself to the divorce attorney. Or it may go like this: You hear someone say, “I want a divorce, and you can’t talk me out of it this time; I’m done.”
You are grieving the loss of a relationship, but they don’t bring casseroles when you get divorced.
What is profoundly different from being together and feeling somewhat secure in a family is that once the decision has been made there is usually no going back. All the counseling in the world will probably never convince your ex that you should get back together. The finality of separation is that you and your ex are no longer a couple and you lose your place you once had in society. You are no longer the daughter in law or uncle to the in-law family members. You are not invited to couples’ events. You feel alone in church were you see so many intact families.
Believe it or not, many “leavers” do not realize the impact of that decision. They focus on the fact that it is not possible to deal with the relationship any more, for various reasons, and yet they don’t have a crystal ball that lets them see the outcome of their actions.
Few people look back on their decision to divorce as one that was mutual. Usually someone was blindsided, or someone was desperate to make the other person change and couldn’t do it no matter how hard they tried.
The goal of this book is to ensure that your child does not cringe when he sees his parents together, isn’t exposed to drama at exchange times and doesn’t have to watch fear or anger in his parents’ eyes when they talk on the phone to each other. Each chapter contains a tool, which may be an attitude or an idea or sometimes an illustration through a story, and a toolkit activity and affirmations.
At our non-profit for single parent families, which is staffed by dozens of therapists, we have the opportunity to interact with hundreds of families going through the process of separation each year. In my therapy sessions and parenting classes with fathers and mothers at the F.A.C.E.S. centers for children of divorce and their parents, I picture each person arriving with a huge Band-Aid on their hearts. The broken hearts arrive with bad attitudes, sadness or fatigue, depending on the day. At F.A.C.E.S., we don’t discriminate against a bad attitude; we know how difficult this journey in Single Parent Land is. We use professionalism, respect for diversity, tolerance and compassion as our guidelines.