|
|
Q - Dear Annabelle,
I hate to be alone, but I also find comfort in my solitude-- and feel that it is the best way to protect myself and my daughter. I'm a single young mother who would love to share my life with someone-- but every time it seems I have found someone who is interested in me, I jump into things too fast with big dreams of love and marriage-- then this ends up causing stress and pressure on both myself and the other person.
When I find that things may not be working out I try my best to do things to isolate myself and push the person away. I usually use my daughter as the reason for my not being able to make a relationship work. Though she does have a hard time accepting others in my life, she is only three years old and what she is going through is natural--she wants to be the main attraction and have mommy to herself.
I get frustrated with her tantrums and end up ruining good friendships and relationships because it just is easier for me to deal with her when I'm alone. I don't resent her, but I feel that she is running my life, and I will always be alone for this reason. I don't know how to help her understand that mommy needs certain things in her life too. I live to please her, and work hard in college for our future but I also need companionship. Please help me try to develop a strategy for better balancing out these needs of hers and mine in my life-- and help me understand that I do have the right to be happy too, because I'm not only a mother but a human being.
I always feel that I must deserve to have time for myself and feel for myself-- this causes much confusion and anger because I know this is not right. In turn I do things to receive the maximum amount of affection from my friends because I always feel that it won't last anyway.
A - Dear Jayne,
Well, I can certainly hear, and empathize with, your frustration. Having had a baby at 20 and not having a husband for yourself and on-board father for your child must be painful, indeed. Just think how hard it is on you.....who are so understanding of the complexities of the situation and so able to see all sides of the problem....and STILL it hurts. Now, THINK how it must FEEL to your young daughter......who has NO context for what is going on in her young life and whose ONLY stable relationship is with the mommie whom she loves so much. I think, were I in her shoes, I might have tantrums too......wouldnāt you? She has only just learned to speak well and may have a fairly good grasp of logic on some level, and yet, nothing she can do keeps the mommy-person happy. Then there are men, not a daddy-person, who come into her life and go away again. In just a very few more months she will have decided that , not only canāt she trust YOU to be there for her, but that she canāt trust the men in the world either. I t must be very sad and lonely in her little heart.......and she has no good words to tell you that.
This is where hardened and callous grownups come from, Jayne.......because they didnāt have loving stability as a child, they have just sort of given up and decided to take what they can get, whenever they can get it..........is this the future you wish for your child? Of COURSE youāre lonely....you did things out of order. You needed to be Īgrownupā and be sexually active before you had a husband and a home. Well, YOU made that decision, for whatever reason you made it, and now, hereās your child, whom you love so very much, having no ability to control her life at all....except through her occasional tantrums where she ventilates all the thoughts she cannot correctly form. She has no WAY of structuring her life in a positive direction. The ONLY chance she might have of doing that would be to have a mother who is a constant in her life......a mother who can put her own needs aside and Ībeā there for her daughter to help her learn to reinforce her trust in the essential goodness of the life process. She needs a daddy....sheās almost four and needs to be Īin loveā with that wonderful man who will be the role model for her adult life.......but thereās no daddy.........and she doesnāt understand anything about why not, only knows that.......thereās a hole in her life too.
This isnāt meant to be a lecture, Jayne, and I really can feel your hurt and loneliness......itās just that, when you had sex and became pregnant, your options, hopes and dreams were foreclosed, now what you MUST do needs to become what you WANT to do.....thatās called COURAGE. Life takes us on unexpected turns and how we deal with circumstances is the measure, not only of who WE are, but of who our children will be. I know youāre lonely, Jayne......soās your daughter.....and, for now, it is she to whom you must give your life and attention. Life is very long and you have many years to regret not having done the right thing.......looking back on one too few boyfriends is not quit the same as knowing that misallocated priorities robbed your child of the only loving parent she knows. Thatās whatās being a parent is all about, Jayne.....you wouldnāt let someone else hurt your child......it is now up to you to see that YOU do the right thing. I believe that you will.
- Annabelle
|
