Let me explain, I have been happily married to an amazing man for almost 10 years and we are a perfect match. I love the way we communicate and love each other, I do believe I have found my soulmate. We enjoy similar things and we have common interests in other things, we fight about silly things and have a healthy balance of hurt and frustration. You know, a normal married couple. And for 9 of the 13 years that I have known my husband Lee he has traveled states away for work, every week.
I know I am not alone, living this life as a happily married single mother 4 days a week. When my husband leaves on Sunday afternoon to make his 5 hour drive, he is surrounded by fellow traveling workers all headed away from home.
Before the boys were born, I never really thought about not being together all the time. It was my normal to see him pull in my driveway Friday night and drive away Sunday night. We would laugh and eat and play, no worries or cares and then on Monday morning we went right back to work.
We added our first son and decided to change things up. I moved closer to where he was “usually” going to be. It was great, we loved it, but we were still alone most of the week and we were hours from family and close friends. This meant that our weekends were filled with more driving and traveling to visit only to return so that my husband could get back in the car and leave… It was a total bummer.
So we moved our things closer to home, thinking it didn’t matter where we lived. Man, there really is no easy way to do this. Years passed, we added our second Son, I was alone for years from the hours of 7pm and 9am… It was so lonely. My daytime hours were filled with baby talk and harassing every grown person that I came in contact with to talk to me for at least a minute. I am sure I was totally sad and pathetic. I felt it every day. I really think it changed who I was. And this isolation was happening in the town that had the family that we needed to be closer too..
So we once again, moved to be closer to the Dad than the family. It was my last ditch effort to find support. It totally worked. We were welcomed into a community of strangers that loved us better than family. We were given the gift of time with my husband, eating breakfast together almost every day. And for 2 years, we only saw family when we made the effort. So, on weekends we would travel and visit and be involved and we would miss out on making our own plans.
I grew up in a family that moved hours away from the rest of the family. We made effort to visit and spend time and be involved with the whole family my entire childhood. But it doesn’t work like that now. We were not invited to things because we didn’t live “in town” and we were the only ones making an effort of visit and keep in touch. It was exhausting and something had to give.
Once again, something had to change…
Here I am, states away from the love of my life, playing house with his kids in our home. Dreaming of the day that we decide driving away from home is over rated.
If you are a Happily Married Single Mother, please tell me how you pass the time while your love is away?
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