Learning From History

I have to say that I never actually thought someone would be brave enough to let me post on their blog, not to mention one that is actually famous!

So many thanks and I hope I don’t make this too messy for you to come home to!

I have been a solo mum for as long as I can remember (just kidding), well maybe not quite that long, my oldest daughter (Big Girl) has just turned 6 but some days I wonder what on earth I did before she arrived in the world.

Its not like I have memory difficulties (now where was I again?), my memory just has a selective switch on it and things that are unimportant to my current situation are forgotten, I am starting wonder if my selective memory is causing me to repeat the mistakes of the past though.

When I became pregnant with BG, I was engaged to her father, we were due to be married on valentines day (yes I know how romantic!) in 2001, but….

Yes there always has to be a but! but in October 2000 he got cold feet, so cold in fact that he actually had the indecency to invite a potential girlfriend to come and spend the weekend in the house we were sharing!! I admit to spending most of that weekend drinking myself stupid for the entire weekend and then to top it all off I discovered in early November that I was four weeks pregnant.

Solo mummyness here I come.

That is where it all began, BG was born in July 2001 (needless to say valentines day sucked that year!) but I had the luxury of nearly 8 months of pregnant singledom to get used to the looks, the comments and the reality that the sleepless nights would be all my privilege.

I did go through a stage (I think all solo mothers do this at some point) where I started to look at men from a different point of view “will you make a good daddy?”.

It was scary for me as a fairly independent woman to be thinking that I just wasn’t good enough to parent my girl on my own, I made a pact with myself that if I was to start dating then there would be criteria for me to meet.

* There would be no contact between BG and potential man until at least 6 months had passed
* Dating would be done at a time when it would provide the least amount of disruption to our routine
* Potential man would be aware of single mumness and it would be available as a discussion point, but would not be the sole topic of conversation.
* Oh and I wasn’t going to get into a relationship until after BG was at least one year old.

Yes we did make it through that first year, in one piece with a long distance relocation which put us closer to my parents and friends from before my engagement.

When BG was 3 I got a little bored and obviously a lot careless, after a one night stand I discovered I was pregnant again, the funny thing was that she was conceived at around the same time of year that BG was (do you see what I mean about memory letting me relive past mistakes) and arrived in August 2005.

Wouldn’t change a thing, two amazing little girls, totally different personalities and both beautiful but still a solo mum.

By now the “will you be a good daddy” thoughts had left my head but as another valentines day rolled around and Jboo was six months old I broke my old pact and started going out with a guy who I had known for a while, he started staying the night and before I knew it we had decided to make it official and he moved in. No six months of dating, didn’t stick to the no contact with the kids rule or even wait for Jboo to make it to one year old.

Then it all fell apart, the honeymoon was over, he became manipulative, controlling, emotionally and verbally abusive, finally one day I got out of the shower to find him yelling at BG for eating her breakfast instead of putting her clothes on and when I had made sure that BG was out of the way in her room, I told him that his behaviour was not acceptable. He faced me down and started to have a go, he got so loud and so vicious that I picked up the phone to call a friend to come and intervene, he took exception and pushed me slamming me back against my desk in order to disconnect the phone. Sadly I had baby Jboo in my arms, she had witnessed all of this and that was when I realised that by breaking my code and following my mistakes of the past theme at valentines day I had put my kids in a huge risk.

I took the kids outside and put them in the car, explained to BG that I had made a mistake and that I would fix it and she would never be in a situation where she was that scared by mum’s boyfriend again.

Once he was at work I found him somewhere to live and my friends all came by and moved his gear out for us.

In my pursuit of avoiding repeating past mistakes I had managed to do it anyway, I hadn’t realised that I was still looking for a daddy for my girls, I had jumped in with both feet and tried to fill a hole that I thought they had in their lives, succeeding in only making it bigger because they now knew what it was like to be mistreated by a man.

Okay so you would think that with my past track record I would be learning aye.

Nope, all in all I have recently concluded that I have been a bloody idiot and that my lastest spate of idiocy has only recently been played out, not to mention the added bonus of a pregnancy which makes it in the to be continued list.

So there I was in February 2007, I had successfully managed to keep myself to myself and was back to being a confident self assured woman and mother. The previous relationship had reminded me to be extra vigilant, extra protective and I was constantly putting my kids first, but as happens, I was wearing thin again, I felt like I couldn’t keep putting one foot in front of the other without getting something in return for myself.

I started noticing that I was attracted to the guy who was renting my sleep out, we had known each other for four and a half years, and he had lived in the sleep out on and off for a very large chunk of that time. He loved the kids to pieces and was always there when I needed a helping hand. It blew me away that I would feel like that so I started to think hard about the implications, what would it mean for the girls? What would it mean if our relationship failed and the girls lost a valuable male role model? What if he turned out to be a chameleon like the last time and the girls were put at risk again?

I really did think about it, I ran it past all my friends, and when I finally sat down with him and we realised we were having the same feelings for each other we agreed that we should take it slow and make sure the kids came first.

So with that all said and done we dated for a few weeks, and then he asked me to marry him of course I said yes, meanwhile he asked if I would be willing to go through another pregnancy so that he could have a child of his own blood.

Pregnancy for me is hellish to say the least and I agreed on the terms that we wait a couple of years.

Shortly afterwards we discovered that despite being on the pill my body had taken matters into its own hands and I was about to enter at least 4 months of hell. At this point I would suggest heading over to my blog and reading this link to discover how this all turned out.

Comments

I would like to read your blog... but there isn't a link anywhere to go to it.

link?

Oh dear
I did warn her that she would need to put the link in before she posted it but never mind, anyhow Kate here. Follow the link that is attached to my name and all will be revealed.
No really it will, I wasn't being deliberately mysterious!

Hey Kate - not sure how I got to your blog initially but have read some of your stuff before.

Funny (not ha ha but perculiar) how life throws those curve balls.

Good luck on number 3.

Or funny how life throws us birth control too

Hi Babe, nice to see you over here too! Its funny with you having number 3 on the way and doing it 'independantly' again, I realised the other day when someone was asking me if I would have any more children and I said yes maybe one more that I wasnt planning on having one within a relationship! When I imagine another baby I imagine it being just me and the kids and love the idea!

My baby is currently not a baby anymore, I'm going to have to keep having kids so that I always have a baby.. Wait a min. what am I nutz?! lol..

Would love to see your blog.

Thanks for the words of hope...hope that maybe, just maybe, it could happen.

I'm eager to see how it turned/s out. Your writing is spectacular & the story is fascinating. I'm so glad Kimberly invited you to guest blog; I enjoyed reading this.