Hello and welcome to my new blog. ‘Tis I, Madge Madigan and I bring you “Surviving Single Parenthood”.
My other blog at www.madgemadigan.com is more for humor purposes and has varied subjects. This blog right here is going to focus on single parenthood and divorce. And I am incredibly excited to announce that this blog will be featured on www.DivorcedMoms.com. I will also be writing articles from time to time on that site. Divorced Moms hasn’t quite launched yet but you can still check it out. Should be ready in a month or two!
For those who have never read my blogs before, let me give you a little background and what gives me the damn right to blog about divorce and single parenthood. Lookie here…
I was married for almost ten years, I have been divorced for about 12 years now. I have one son and two daughters. My ex-husband first left when our third child was 5 weeks old. Finally we separated for good when the kids were 7, 3, and 18 months. We had just moved to Denver with his job. I knew absolutely no one. That was really hard to cope with going through a divorce with no support system. I eventually created one but creating friendships while you’re in crisis mode doesn’t create really joyful unions. I feel bad for the people that had to deal with me, sorry I couldn’t be a better friend.
So anyway, a couple years later my ex decides to move back to the East Coast, I had just gotten my real estate license and decided to stay. My ex was starting to become a pretty heavy drinker and his monthly visits back to Denver to visit the kids were becoming disastrous. I would end up having to pick up kids half way through the visit. After a couple years I decided I wanted to move back East. Back home to Rochester, NY where we started.
It was great for a bit but then my ex became a raging alcoholic and I couldn’t even let him see the kids unsupervised anymore. And then about 4 years ago, he just stopped all contact. No one knew where he was. He stopped paying child support, which was a large part of my income since our deal was I would work less than 40 hours so I could parent them about 90% of the time since he traveled. I was suddenly in a house I couldn’t afford to rent and an income that wouldn’t cover my bills. Most importantly I was dealing with devastated children who’s Father had abandoned them. My son was 15, the girls 12 and 10.
What followed was hell. Job loss, anxiety attacks, eviction, foodstamps, cleaning toilets for gas money, and on and on. I kept plugging away, got back on my feet, had several part-time jobs, lost jobs, went through career re-evaluations and I’m still trying to get it right. However, in the meantime I always made sure the kids remained on target. The kids go to great private schools on scholarship. My son will soon be a sophomore at NYU, and the two girls are 16 and 14, about to be a junior and freshman in high school. All 3 kids are A students, do all kinds of sports, participate in theater and music, and are just really well mannered, affable kids.
Oh and I just wrote a book about all of it… “When Life Gives You Lemons… at Least You Won’t Get Scurvy!”
So… any questions? You’ll hear more details in the future. I look forward to sharing stories and advice with all of you. I look forward to getting to know you all!
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