Even before being left pregnant and alone, my life was full of those tragic events that make a good story … when they happen to someone else, so when my husband left me pregnant, I hoped I could use the pain of abandonment and experiences of abuse I’d endured to help others.
I began Single Mom Smiling about a month ago by writing randomly about when my husband left me and about being pregnant and alone, but now that I am getting used to how blogs work, it is time for me to focus on what I really want to accomplish here. I want to provide help to those who find themselves as I did suffering from Marital abandonment, crisis pregnancies, and aloneness. I want to help women who are scared, confused, and hurt beyond belief.
I do not want this to be a place where I bash my ex or the other woman, although the very human side of me would love to do that. I want to make this a place of building up rather than tearing down, but truthfully there must be some of that to maintain honesty and realism and because sometimes we must tear down in order to rebuild bigger and better.
Also, while I write for women, to women, and with a women’s perspective, I am all too aware that men also find themselves in similar situations. I believe men can occasionally be at a greater disadvantage than women when victimized by spousal abandonment. If you are a man reading this whose wife left you, you too are in my prayers. I hope you can translate what you find here to fit your situation to find hope and healing as well.
That said, my goals for Single Mom Smiling are multi-layered:
- to provide support, healing, hope, and understanding to women whose husbands have left and men whose wives have left.
- to be a place where women who are pregnant and alone, scared, or depressed can get support, healing, hope, understanding, and resources to help with their crisis pregnancies, childbirth, and raising those precious children.
- to be a place where single parent families, especially those that do not fit our societal ideals of what family “should” look like, find understanding, hope, and help.
- to (hopefully, optimistically) enact change to make a better world for those affected by marital abandonment, single parenting, no fault divorce, and the overall decline of morality, values, and faith in our world.
- to share the minutiae of our life, the good, bad, ugly, and amusing tales that keep us laughing through the dark moments which must come less and less frequently as time passes.
- to look at mistakes I have made, to confront the abuse I’ve faced, and to share my experiences so that my mistakes are not repeated by me or by my readers. To the readers who have experienced the pain of abuse – I share my experiences, coming out of my comfort zone, out of my shadows, so that you will know you are not alone and that you are loved purely. I hope you gain strength through those facts.
- to give glory to God without whom I would not have survived.
If you find yourself experiencing abuse, neglect, or abandonment, if your husband left, if you are pregnant and alone, or raising an out of the box family with little help, I hope you find Single Mom Smiling insightful and informative. Please let me know what you think or how I can serve better.
You are not alone. You are loved. God Bless you on your journey…
The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.
~ 1 Tim 5:5
God Bless…
And, as always, thanks for commenting, liking, following, and sharing!
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Let me be your life coach!
1 Timothy 5: 5
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My husband is leaving me while I’m pregnant. We have been married for two years. He has a 5 year old from a previous marriage. He has him every other weekend for 4 days. I have known and love his son since he was a baby. Now we’re expecting one of our own, a daughter, and he wants nothing to do with her. He is a loving father to his son, one of the many reasons why I fell in love with him. He has been nothing but a good husband to me, so loving, caring, and supportive. Last year this time, he has expressed that he does not want to be married. He felt like he wants to do more in life and being married made him feel like it’s holding him back. He runs a business that is doing very well but he is the type of person that wants more. He is very driven and competitive to the point that it is scary at times. I have always supported him of his dreams of expanding his business. We got over this struggle in our marriage last year which also almost ended up in divorce. Now, out of the blue, after months of bliss and excitement for our upcoming child, he wants to get out of our marriage for the same reasons he had the last time. He said I forced him into this life of having a child so I could tie him down. So he decided to leave me while I’m in my last trimester. He even said that he would give up his rights as a father to make it easy for me and our baby. I feel so betrayed and most of all, CONFUSED. One day we are a happy family, next day I wake up and it’s gone. He’s already filed for divorce and I have no clue where to go from here. I don’t understand why he would fight so hard to get custody for his son but so willing to give up his rights for his daughter. I didn’t see this coming at all. He said I make his miserable and unhappy. I am so lost……
Dear Sophia,
My heart hurts for you. I so completely know how you feel, but rather than talk about my experiences, let me put your own words back out there…
What do you think when you read this?
Love is about giving to one another, about putting the other first, about doing what is right even when it is hard. Where is this love your husband is showing for you? I ask this question because I had to ask myself many times over the past several years. What makes a good marriage? As a survivor of abuse, I assumed a good relationship meant someone didn’t hit me, didn’t speak too harshly to me, and paid attention to me. I never really asked myself what kind of attention – that is a question I struggle with again now as I begin to think about dating. What kind of attention am I worthy of? What kind of attention would God want me to be gifted with? Have you asked yourself those questions? I may not know much about you, but I can promise God loves you and wants a kind of attention that you may not even be able to imagine. I am just beginning to grasp this concept. God wants you to be loved and cared for and treated as precious and intelligent and creative and sexual and beautiful not because of anything you can do, but because you are His creation and that is His plan for you.
Your husband is driven and competitive to the point of being scary at times? Please Sophia, For your sake and the sake of that beautiful little girl of yours. Get out of that relationship. A man who is scary to his wife is no man at all! A MAN WHO IS SCARY TO HIS WIFE IS NO MAN AT ALL!!! He may need our prayers (I bet he does!), but you need to value yourself and your child; you have an OBLIGATION to keep both of you safe. I see no love in a man who uses fear to control others, especially those he is sworn to protect!
As far as the other things your ex has told you, I have heard them before and know how much they hurt when they were said to me. I make my ex miserable and unhappy. HA! What a little pity part he throws for himself! Get over it dude! Is your husband so weak that he cannot even control his own happiness? Have you watched videos of starving children in garbage heaps digging for food? An orange makes them grin from ear to ear! We make our own happiness. He says that to pull you down because misery loves company!
DO NOT LET HIM PULL YOU DOWN!
Your daughter will mimic you and the level of happiness you portray. You are incredibly powerful even when you don’t feel it. Get down on your knees and pray for God to give you the strength to find happiness in Him, not in your ex. I pray he finds happiness too but not at the expense of another human being. It amazes me when people say divorce is an option because a man (or woman) shouldn’t stay somewhere when he is unhappy. Happiness is a condition you bring on yourself.
Sweetheart, I am so sorry for your loss. The loss of your husband is so like a death but it’s 100 times worse I think. Please do not confuse your worthlessness for the hurtful words of a man incapable of love and happiness. Do not make his misery yours or your child’s. You have the strength because you are never alone. Your daughter still has one perfect Father in Heaven and can grow up to amazing things IF you make the choice every day (and sometimes that choice needs to be made over and over during the day) to be happy to be strong to show her that loving Father who made both of you to make yourself the total opposite of the darkness which has engulfed your husband. Where he is the darkness, you be the light.
You can do it! I have faith in God working through you to make this world a better, stronger, and yes HAPPIER place!
God Bless you and your child, Sophia. Please keep in touch and write again!
God Bless…
Hello, I came across this blog after reading several others, and your words were very encouraging. I am 30 years old, I have two daughters, 6 and 8 months, pregnant with my third. I’m not sure how far along yet, because I was scared to tell my father, whom I currently stay with. I used to live in San Antonio, where I met my husband. I was a single mother of a 4 year old when we met, and I loved him instantly and we took things really fast. We got married a little over a year after meeting, in a quick little wedding at the courthouse. My eyes locked with his, and I never thought he would leave me. Our baby girl was born in December 2012 and was one of the happiest moments of my life, because him and my daughter were there. My first daughter has never met her biological father and her birth was a little sad because there was no one to share my joy with, or compare her looks with. So far this year things have gone downhill so quickly. We both worked together as servers at a restaurant and eventually both had to quit because of the stress. Eventually he got a new job and wanted me to stay at home with the kids but money started to dwindle, so fast, that we pawned every worthy item we owned in the last three months, only to fight and argue so much that one day he to,d me that if I didn’t take the kids to my dads in New Orleans that he wouldn’t come home. So I did, I wanted to give him his time and let him try to save money so we could one back in a month or so. It was a “vacation” he told my daughter. Well, I missed him so badly and started suspecting something when he started going to the bar every night. Soon he started ignoring my calls and not returning texts, getting extremely mad when I questioned his whereabouts. He kept telling me he would end it if I kept it up. I just pulled more. I needed him. I was pregnant and couldn’t tell my dad why I was throwing up everyday. Finally I convinced him that it would be best for him to come here, we’d get some help from my dad, and get on our feet, a fresh start. Well one day he asked me to apply for jobs and I needed to log into his email. Well, I found responses to ads on Craigslist for a one night stand, workout partner, etc. I forgave him but that night he again was at the bar, I called and called for four days, and eventually gt so mad that I told him I couldn’t take this I needed to know what was going on. He admitted that he was seeing someone else. Last night he told me that she was more woman than me in every way. He accidentally sent me a text “I wish I could lie you down and show you how real love is made” ….my heart sped up, did he want me back? No, he sent me one right after saying it wasn’t for me, and some more hurtful words. I don’t know what to do, I love him so much. I know I can nag and be bossy and there were things he didnt love about me, but how could he forget everything we’d been through? Birth of our baby, he will miss he birthday, her first Christmas, all because…..I just don’t know. I just want to go home and sleep next to my husband, but it sickens me that he’s with someone else. I am homesick beyond belief, even contemplated using my dads gun to end my life. But I love my kids and I promised to never leave them. I am in such depression, don’t see a light at the end of this tunnel, especially living in this place I hate. I’m so lost, I need God.
Oh Heidi, I am sorry for not checking this blog sooner, and I promise I will try to write more often now that I see so many people are also going through pregnancy alone and have reached out to me. You are not alone in any of your feelings.
I wish I had easy answers. I don’t, but I can tell you I so know how you feel. It is not an easy road, and I do not know where your faith is. I will be posting soon about what my faith was and where it is now, but I am begging you to pray and to know your worth. When that loneliness attacks, subtly or in full force, know you are worth more!
I cannot imagine how difficult receiving that text must have been. I remember a similar moment lying in bed with my husband in the week between when he told me he was leaving and when he actually left. He received a text from a woman as I was trying to ask him what I could do to get him to love me. When that text came through it hurt to watch him take the text over me, his wife. When I tried to explain that it hurt knowing her text was right there with us, he opened his phone again, read the text, and snickered, saying he had erased it so I wouldn’t have to know it was there anymore. I had never experienced such total evil as I had the months before or the years since he left. He was and is a different person.
I don’t want to get caught up in my story. I want you to know how loved you are. How beautiful and precious you and your children are. Life is not easy. Guard your heart above all things. Hearts are deceiving. Love is not, but Love must come from God. Ask the Father who loves you and your children to guide your decisions, especially about men (I know I really have to work on this!!!). I know you are saddened by the fact that your husband will no longer be with you and your daughter on her many firsts, but she does have a Father in Heaven who loves her better and more perfectly than even you can. What your husband is doing has little, if anything, to do with you, less to do with your daughter, and everything to do with the selfish, childish, ugly man he has allowed himself to become. I do not mean to put him down or to insult him needlessly. He needs prayers. I hope one day we all meet in Heaven with all our ugliness striped away in the full glory that God intended for us, but for now know that while you cannot control him, you can control yourself. You can smile even when it hurts, you can be grateful to be in America rather than in almost any other country in the world where women like us and our children wouldn’t stand a chance, you can choose to be happy and thankful and content and successful! In other words, he has made his choice. Will you choose to follow him in his ugliness or will you choose to lift up yourself and your children? Please keep in touch Heidi.
I know what I would choose for you!
God Bless…
I don’t know if this is still an active blog or not. But Im hoping to write to you just to get some things off my chest and vent a bit. Im ninteen years old, 32 weeks pregnant, and my husband of just over a year left me tonight. I hadnt ever been with any one untill I met my future husband my junior year of high school and we fell in love. As much as my parents hated him and no matter how much wee fought I was so in love with him that I was clueless (as I see now). He proposed and we decided to get married litteraly a month after I graduated high school. About seven months after our wedding I got pregnant unexpectedly. Right after our wedding I new something was up, he started leaving me every night, not telling me where he was at. I found out just recently that he had been doing heroin the whole time. Smoking oxy pills off of tin foil and smoking black tar as well. I knew he was doing marijuana all the time, but I let it happen, thinking I could handle it. Any ways, he got so into the heroin now, that I just didn’t know what to do. The pot smoking was so out of control already that we were constantly fighting about it, but to find out from my sisters and my family that they had known he was doing that was terribly painfull. We dont even have our own place right now, were staying with my parents which have caused so many extra problems. My father had a terrible drug addiction, and it ruined my childhood. I told him from the get go that I wouldnt have that in my life. And now that Im pregnant I feel the same way just ten times stronger. He promised me that he would never do that, and I honestly never thought he could or would! I have tried to talk to him about it, and help him.. but he has relapsed three times now. I am so disgusted by it, and ashamed and hurt that he lied.. I just cant look at him the same. So Ive been screaming at him for weeks, every time I try to be nice and suppotive, i just explode on him later on about how disgusted I am with him. He left me tonight, telling me that he hated everything I did, and do. Telling me that he didnt want to be with me anymore, he didnt have the same love. He didndt look at me the same anymore :'( We litteraly just celebrated our 1 year anniversary a week ago :'( Im heartbroken. I dont know what to do, I feel helpless, depressed and lost. I want to die.. literaly. I know this baby boy will be worth it.. but I am so depressed and sad. I am a first time mother at 18 (just turned ninteen a month ago). I dont know how to be a mother, I am so in love with this man that I dont know anything else. I cant do this alone. We made this baby together, we married each other so young because we knew we would never be with anyone else.. I jsut dont know what to do. :'( I know this was a long comment.. and I dont know if anyone will ever read this.. but at least it is out there. documented :'(
Kyley,
I am so glad you wrote and so sorry for the pain in your life. I wish I had amazing words of healing that would take all the misery away. I’m not that powerful, that wise, or that good, but please let me continue and bear with me.
I was 39 when my husband suddenly left. There was no warning. I thought he was my best friend, my world revolved around making him happy, making his life easier. I may have been much older than you (I’d rather not think about just how much older! 😉 ), but those feelings, when you love and trust someone so completely and they turn on you…no age defines the pain, the confusion, the fear.
It sounds to me like your life has been filled with difficulties and difficult men. The first thin you need to do is to find somewhere safe for you and your baby, away from drugs and abuse physical and emotional and away from temptation. If you need help, please get back in touch with me asap. I WILL HELP YOU>YOU ARE NEVER ALONE.
I look back at my life and wonder how I was shaped by my past experiences. Why did I choose a man who gave me less of himself than I gave of myself? Why did I “settle” for him? I NEVER saw it that way at that time, and trust me when I say that the pain is still suffocating at times, especially when I’m having a good day and something catches me off guard.
I have learned though that I AM WORTH MORE. Some days I believe it. Some I don’t. What are you worth Kyley? Where do you put your faith? This may sound corny, but have you literally gotten down on your knees and had a conversation with the Lord? Where you talk AND LISTEN? I had faith before, but it was a so-so faith. I did the actions, but I didn’t understand.
When my husband left, I literally shook for months. One day I took every Cross off the walls of our house and flung them across the backyard. I HATED God and didn’t understand how He could let this happen when I had tried so hard to do everything right. Later that night, I went into the darkness to find those Crosses. Crawling, on my hands and knees in the dark, I began to think for the first time of what it would be like to not go to Heaven. I thought of how badly I felt without the love of my husband, the man I so loved. I thought of how much worse it would be to be rejected and turned away by the one perfect man, Jesus and the only perfect, loving Father any of us would ever have.
I want that love one day. I want to be held in those strong arms, to have my hair stroked, to be gently cared for and appreciated. And I realized too that I had never really had that with my husband.
I believe God knew what was happening in my husband’s heart and that He gave me that baby because He knew that baby was what I needed to make me get up in the morning, to FORCE a smile to my face, to see the world through innocent eyes again, to love again.
I began to think how wonderful it was that God chose to keep my husband with me just long enough to give me this precious gift and then allow my husband to use his free will for his own selfish, cruel pursuits. God did not allow my husband to stick around one moment longer than was absolutely necessary in my life.
That does not mean it is easy. We do not receive the court ordered child support, his family whom I loved too has rejected me, we lost our house. I lost who I thought I was and now struggle to redefine myself. I work really hard and fight back against overbooking, exhaustion, and wanting to give up. Worst of all, I fight the fear that my children will follow in their father’s family’s footsteps. Every day with their father and his wealthy, live-in girlfriend is a party, and their morals go against everything I thought we shared.
It is doubly painful when your family says they saw it coming and didn’t try to help you. The feelings of betrayal are doubled, and I am so sorry for that. Single parenting is more than challenging, and you will need support around you. Find positive people. Go to a Christian or Catholic church. Go to Birth Rite or Care Net or one of the other crisis pregnancy centers and find out where you can get the love and support you need.
Most of all, please remember that you cannot control ANYONE around you. God gave them free will to mess up their lives and to try to mess up the lives of others too, BUT God also gave you free will. Your husband left. How will you answer the challenges placed before you? Will you let the darkness overcome the light? I pray you do not.
No one knows how to be a mom when she starts out, and I can promise you, you will make mistakes along the way, but YOU CAN DO THIS, not because there is anything so special about you (I KNOW for a fact there is! But YOU need to know it, and right now I’m not sure you have the confidence in knowing how special, how wonderful, how beautiful a person you were made to be to understand that). Rely on God to help you guide your decisions, choose to be a good strong role model, show your son how to be a real man by being a real woman worthy of receiving the love of a real man one day when the time is right.
Kyley – I also have to tell you that if I had had a girl, Kyley would have been her name. It has always been one of my favorites, and I will be praying for you and that precious little boy of yours. You have been blessed with a very difficult but precious job that few do well. Please keep in touch. If you would rather me not post your responses publicly, let me know. I have here because I think others can benefit from them. You are, sadly, not the only one facing this, and there are many more who will also follow in your footsteps.
God Bless you Kyley! xoxo
PS How’s that for a long comment?!?! 🙂
Lba: I tried making an appointment to see another lawyer, so I apologize if the whole appointment sentence throws some of you off…. Thx again 🙂
I’m against the wall, I’ve hired a lawyer for a divorce which has gone very ugly fighting over our kids custody and child support. The only reason we filed in the first place is bc we constantly fought and argued about money and past issues… my husband was always very controlling and used verbal abuse to get to me, until I finally got tired of it and decided to file.. I tried moving on.. reunited with a great friend from a far distance, and started to ultimately see eachother after 3 months into theseparation.. however during the time my husband realized I.was seeing someone else he came back and tried to get bk with me…. although we constantly fought and argued abt the same things- we always ended up seeing eachother… I’m pregnant from my husband of 20 years we got pregnant while we were going thru this divorce- he walked out on us and doesn’t help whatsoever. Ive had to maintain my house repairs my 3 children I nearly make ends meet with my own little notary and insurance business. He kicked me out of our auto repair shop back in august and I had no choice but to rent another office.. my mom has helped me in the process. Yet he’s been fighting for the kids and had pretty much gotten everything in his favor. My lawyer isn’t and hasn’t done anything in my favor. It’s been a year. I need a second opinion. Please make me an appointment to see you. If I keep this lawyer everything stays the same my husband gets to see the kids he pays me the minimum in child support I get nothing from our business and yet I have to pay for our home mortgage payments just doesn’t make any sense why he came back to me during our seperation and got me pregnant now he wants nothing to do with me. Bashes belittles and throws in my face how I tried to move on and I started a relationship with someone else… after knowing all that he still came bk.. I just don’t know what to think he tells everyone this baby is not his bc he’s embarrassed of admitging that he came bk to me thruout ourseparation… I love him. I have 3 kids with him 4th on the way, and all I ever wanted to do was be happy… now he wants nothing to do with me. I don’t understand it… thank you for reading my post maybe you guys can give me some advice Or motivate me.. I’m due in 3 wks and he hasn’t tried doing anything for me or this baby… I find myself depressed and thinking what I did wrong. But it all points back to just trying to move on after he constantly told me he didn’t want me anymore… Thx
Oh Iba! I am so sorry for not checking back here more often.
I am so sorry for the struggles you are having. I can’t believe people get divorced because they are fighting. The fighting only increases and harms the children worse through divorce!
I have found NOTHING good about the court system when it comes to child custody, financial support, or the like. I am a strong woman, but I believe the woman’s movement has hurt more women than it has helped. The courts no longer see a woman who has given up her career etc as worthy of support even when faced with cruel, controlling, selfish men. In any other contract, the victimized party would be entitled to compensation. In divorce, it has become blasé and too many think a man should not stay with someone he is “unhappy” with. They fail to consider how incredibly difficult, overwhelming, exhausting, etc life becomes for those left behind to carry the burden. Being a single parent, means joys are split in half with the non-custodial spouse and yet worries, fears, workload are raised exponentially. Life and our court systems are not fair. I believe laws concerning marriage should not be dictated by the government, and yet, how do we change that?
There is a reason, “IN GOD WE TRUST” hangs in our court rooms. It is because money still influences judges, and lawmakers, and the lives of innocent parties. We need to get rid of the euphemisms that make people believe divorce is okay. Things like “normalizing divorce” or saying that a woman and children will “maintain the standard of living to which they have become accustomed.” These are lies, flat out. There are lists of things I could add, and our courts are wrong!
My advice is to pick what battles you need to fight. Tell your lawyer where you draw the line in the sand. If you want 1000/month offer to take 1300 or so and “negotiate” to what you want, but if you decide on a few hard and fast rules you will not sacrifice on, stick with them. I knew for example, that I could not make the trek to the drop off point that my husband had picked. It was physically impossible, and because of that, it was a point I stuck to and won. I was willing to compromise on the Sunday pick ups though because, even though it was difficult and inconvenient for me, it was do-able most of the time. I gave in on the lack of child support and maintenance because I didn’t have the money or the strength to fight anymore. I wish I had fought harder there. Pick your battles and pray for strength that comes from the Holy Spirit not from yourself.
Whatever the outcome, know that God provides. We are so blessed to be born here. I know only a bit about what happens in other countries. My heart goes out to those women and children, and I will keep going, never taking (or trying to never take) my life and my struggles for granted because I know they would trade places in a heartbeat.
As far as your husband not saying the baby is his??? I don’t know what goes through the minds of these men! My husband tried the same thing. He even had a paternity test done behind my back. I think my cheating would have justified his leaving and he got so caught up in telling people that that he had to take the test to prove he really believed it himself. Although I NEVER had an affair, this became his reason of choice for leaving when his other excuses didn’t work out. Again, I just thank God we live here. I cannot think of our fate if we lived in a Middle Eastern Country that approves stoning “adulteresses” or the poor women who face false hurtful accusations from husbands, fathers, etc whom they love.
One question for you. Why are you dating or trying to move on at this point? You have so much love for your husband still despite the pain. I wish I could say I didn’t understand how you could love him, but I do understand too well. Take the time to heal. You have been wounded critically. Allow the scars to make you stronger, better, more beautiful. You do not need to meet someone to get over your lost dreams, hopes, plans. You need to make new dreams, hopes, and plans, and I sincerely hope a new relationship is in your future, but you must be happy and content with who you are and where you are in yourself first.
I don’t know if you’re much of a reader, but I have some books for you to try
1) Plan B by Pete Wilson – Great Book with exercises to help along the way;
2) I Kissed Dating GoodBye by Joshua Harris (I’ve read some of it and even though it’s written for young adults, I think it has a lot of good advice for us too), and
3) The Resolution for Women by Priscilla Shirer (Inspired by the movie Courageous which is a great movie you should watch and then show your kids too.)
* Also, if you think you can save your marriage, which is the BEST outcome and one I pray you choose but understand if it doesn’t work, watch Fireproof the movie and read The Love Dare by Stephen and Alex Kendrick. I love Fireproof and Courageous, and they make me see the kind of husband in a future relationship. I am no longer willing to settle. While I have not read The Love Dare, I plan to and from what I hear it helps those struggling to hold onto their marriages.
Please keep in touch Iba. I apologize again for not getting back to you sooner. Please also let me know about the new baby! You and your children are in my prayers. God Bless…
I am so praying for you…
Thank you. 🙂