On my bad days, I hate you. But most of the time, I feel sorry for you.I feel sorry for you because you’ve let yourself go, which is why you give me the once-over with a grimace whenever you see me. And why wouldn’t you? You’re not supposed to be sexually available. You have an owner. You’ve settled down, like a good girl. Anyway, who has time to primp when cleaning up the perpetual trail of chaos that the hubby and kids leave in their wake?
I feel sorry for you because you’ve gotten so insecure about letting yourself go that you’d snub not just me but my kid too. Really? You’re gonna take your sexual resentment out on a CHILD? Go ahead, enjoy your playdates, help the other depressed married moms out with some babysitting. Keep that single mom and her spawn away, lest she go after your fat, balding husband that you haven’t fucked in 2 years. Puh-lease. I wouldn’t touch that creton with a ten-foot pole.
I feel sorry for you because I know you have to ask for something 4 times and then shout before he hears a word you say. It’s like you have to turn into an asshole in order to get ANY help. And then you have no patience left for the little ones, who deserve it so much more than he does.
It hurts when you snub me. I’m also juggling kids and a household. Childcare is just as much a financial burden for me as it is for your family. I could use the same break you and the married moms give each other. If you got to know me, I think you’d like me. But you’ve already decided, so my kid gets shut out.
I used to bend over backwards at school, hoping you’d come around. I thought that if only I was the best baker, carpenter and graphic designer, selflessly toiling away for our children’s collective benefit, you’d have no choice but to like me. It took me a long time to realize that no matter how hard I worked, as long as I was different, I would never get your approval. Shit, you’re just like my mother.
Maybe you think I don’t notice. I don’t give you the benefit of the doubt anymore. The other single moms and I get together and we dish about how snotty you guys are to us.
Maybe you think us single moms are mooches, and any sort of reciprocal arrangement would be a drain on you. But your math is off. My kid is at her father’s every other weekend, which is when I get to skip off to yoga and the bar. I also don’t have a man-child draining me emotionally 24-7. Your combined incomes *might* add to more than mine (though not by much, because I’ve been in the six-figure club since I was 30), but I get to decide what happens to everything in my account, sans negotiations or eye-rolls. It’s not what you gross that matters, it’s what you net.
This is totally an American thing too — the foreign moms are way cooler to me. Why can’t you be more like the foreign moms?
I wilt a little every time my daughter asks me for a playdate with someone whose mom I know will not reply. I say that I’ll see what I can do. It gets harder the older she gets, because she remembers who she’s already asked about. I tell her that I sent the mom a message but she is probably just very, very busy.
I feel sorry for you because deep down you know how fucked up it is when your kid wants to play with mine and you make up excuses as to why they can’t. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
I feel sorry for you because you make your friends based on something as ephemeral as relationship status, and not based on anything real in your heart.
I feel sorry for you because he cheats on you. Not yours you say? Wow, you have a lot to learn about men.
I feel sorry for you because there is a 50% chance you will also divorce. And when you do, and you get snubbed by the married moms, you will realize what a shitty person you’ve been.
I feel sorry for you because you share a bed with the last person on earth you’d want to tear your clothes off. Yup, it gets old, no matter how good it once was. And now you’re both celibate and stuck.
I feel sorry for you because you can’t really talk about it — everyone is supposed to stop asking how everyone else’s relationship is once the rings are on. Is that why you drink so much?
I feel sorry for you because deep down you know you want to leave him, but the money, the money, how will you do it? It all seems impossible. And scary. No wonder you hate single moms. They did the impossible. What would you talk about at a playdate? When the married moms get together everyone dishes about how lame the guy they’re stuck with is. “The single moms wouldn’t get it,” you think to yourself. Oh but we do. And we aren’t afraid to say the unthinkable: “Leave his trifling ass.”
I feel sorry for you because he doesn’t appreciate you, and never will.
I feel sorry for you because what’s behind me lies ahead for you, and the fear of it keeps you trapped. The lawyers, the courts, the money. Yes, it’s awful. I know that going through it is still better than staying in a shitty relationship. But you don’t know that. So you stand at the edge, looking but never daring.