Hmm… this must be a mistake, she is married or she is single or divorced or widowed. Single but married is clearly wrong, as the two terms contradict each other, or do they?
If you are one of the Facebook perfect mothers, whose husbands remember your Anniversary, mows the loan without you asking him ten, eleven, twelve times, reads or sings or whatever, spends “quality time,” with your children every day and participates in all their activities, PLEASE STOP READING NOW!!! You are wasting your precious time which could be much better used posting the latest box of chocolates you received from your hubby and red roses.
This post is written for the less fortunate, the “OTHER GROUP OF MOTHERS,” the ones who “act happy,” but are desperate and hide their desperation behind fake smiles… the ones who stay in married relationships hoping that is the answer and the best thing to do for their children: To have both parents, regardless the secret truth that one is absent and present only on paper, when BOTH signatures are required by the school!
Never mind that the man, with whom the single married Mom, stays in a relationship, never praises the daughters, and later, when your daughters pick the wrong partners, the single married Mom, wonders why!!! Later, as in TOO late, she has an epiphany:
The FIRST man in a woman’s life is their father! If the father gave the daughter the message, “you are worthless,” well, she will feel worthless at the very core for the rest of her life (if something, such as good therapy doesn’t interfere with the hidden tragedy of low self-esteem. MARK MY WORDS: GOOD THERAPY! BAD THERAPY WILL DESTROY HER FURTHER!)
Most times, the “worthless” children do unforgettable, shameful, wrong acts! If such disasters happen, they suddenly become “your children,” as if you conceived them alone, in the convenience of your single bed. An immaculate conception, or worse!
If once in the Blue Moon, the same worthless children who were ALL yours, do something worthy, accomplish something, suddenly the SAME kids are entirely claimed by Dad and his everlasting efforts. Who cares that you, the married single Mom has been waking up daily at 6:00 AM, fed the pets (how could we forget, any respectable family must have pets too!) and then made lunch and then shook the kids to make them conscious enough to sit in the back of a van, and drove them to school.
Once upon a time, before going to the “real work,” you stop back home in hopes you and the Dad (not your Dad, the pretend one to your kids,) might have an adult conversation. Translation: A FIGHT!
It doesn’t start as a fight, it never does. He still sips coffee and watches the news or whatever relaxes him before going to work.
After the story that follows, my “pretend” single, married Mom stopped trying to rush back for adult conversations, and this is why…
It feels like yesterday… actually, it feels in the moment, that morning, when the married single Mom attempted to economize and made him lunch because she secretly noticed the credit cards were maxed. She prepared a tray with four compartments, and decorated it with a flower and presented it to the man of the house, while he was still watching the news. What a mortal mistake! To interrupt the intellectual activity of watching television!
Here is the moment when she first questioned her intelligence: She presented the tray and mumble something to the effect that “they” (as in the household) would save $3 to $5, daily if he would consider the humiliating act of eating lunch from home and not eat “out” at a vendor, or worse a restaurant.
How could the single married Mom ever forget? His memorable look, his eyes, which years ago whispered with ease, “I love you,” now spoke flames of hate: How dare YOU insult me! Lunch from home! NEVER!
Before any words were exchanged, he picked up the tray so lovingly decorated, and threw it against the French doors of the perfect American family living room. Shattered glass everywhere, mixed with crushed dreams and tears, topped with sadness and lies, lies to cover the…TRUTH!!!
(How lucky! one might think. No human victims! What if the kids were at home, what if they saw what happened? Would anyone be interested in THE TRUTH? WHY WOULD THAT BE RELEVANT?
Truth be told, the kids were home. In all honesty, one daughter was in the single, married Mom’s arms and the other still unborn, in the uterus, but why would the truth be revealed now… may be later, may be never… it ALL depends.
For now, let’s say there were just those two adults, once upon a time loving couple and the lunch off the plastic tray spread everywhere. More precisely, the tray thrown in a corner, the food allover among the peaces of shattered glass, and the single, married Mom, disoriented and speechless in the mist of it all, watching Him storming out the door! End of adult conversation!
The married, single Mom, cleaned carefully, before the dog had a chance to eat the ham mixed with the shattered glass. She wiped her pretend tears of happiness and off she went to her job which made money. That job was her recreational time, the ONLY time when she felt appreciated and needed… and let’s not be too theatrical and stop here for now.
After all, it is a show, isn’t it and Facebook is real!
There are NO such families, there are no single married Moms.
This post… is a joke! Or is it?
Please if it resonates with you, let me know and we’ll continue to explore what happens to the single married Mom…