fulltimeexforcessingledad-blog

[fulltimeexforcessingledad-blog]

Foreword by the author.

At the recommendation of a friend, I have decided to start a blog. I’m under no illusions that anyone is going to read this, I don’t really care if people do or don’t. It’s more of a channel in which I can vent frustrations and get rid of some of the negativity and general shit feelings and thoughts that I have. That being said however, if people do decide to sit and read the ramblings of 30 something single Dad, please feel free to read and comment should you wish. So, a quick insight into things should anyone be reading. I was born in 1986. Had a fantastic upbringing by two absolute legends. Did the typical teenager thing of not appreciating opportunities and spent most of my adolescence fucking about and causing mischief. Left an average school with average grades. Spent a further 2 years dicking about with my mates before I joined the army in 2005. I did 8 years, tours of Iraq and Afghanistan which take their toll, lots of drinking, fighting and womanising before I left. I leave the security of the military and embark on a new life. The plan was to work and save money for 6 months and then go travelling. I end up saving nothing, taking a fuck load of drugs and generally making terrible life choices. I then meet a girl who calms everything down. We move in together, life is good......however my dreams of travelling are rapidly forgotten amongst getting engaged and finding out I’m going to become a Dad. At the end of 2015, my whole life changed when I held my son for the first time. I’m not normally one for emotional outpourings, but until the moment when I first laid eyes upon him I can honestly say I’d never in my life known a love like that. I can also say that I’ve never been so fucking terrified either, it’s a fear that I’ve learned to live with since but has never gone away nor is it ever far from the forefront of my mind. However, I promised myself and my boy that I would do everything I could to give him and his mum everything they could ever want and need, or I would die trying. Mid 2016 comes and we buy our first property. We had been living together for a couple of years prior but we had managed to get a deposit together, get accepted for a mortgage, found a house and moved in. Now all we had to do was plan and pay for a wedding at the end of 2016. The wedding comes and goes and we see Christmas, the boys first birthday and the new year in, all with the same surname. A fucking busy year and the beginning of the end for our relationship. March 2017. I’m a fucking mess. My sleep patterns, emotions, thought processes and priorities are more fucked up than that weird Japanese porn they do with fish. I hate my job, I hate my life, I’m beginning to hate my wife. I seek advice and counsel in all the wrong places. Eventually I seek help as I know this isn’t normal. I get a pat on the head off the doctor and a prescription. The tablets are shit, they make me physically sick every time I take them so I stop. Eventually I fall apart, she walks out and takes my son, I attempt suicide and then I begin long term treatment. The new tablets I’m prescribed at time make me numb to everything around me. I begin a cycle of eat, sleep, work, repeat. I’m permanently tired, I day dream about being able to nap. While in this state I somehow find the energy to begin applying for jobs and I end up being successful in getting one that i actually really wanted. This brings me no joy whatsoever. The days get longer and the nights get shorter and I’m full of anger and hatred every day that I wake up because I no longer want to be here. I regret that my suicide attempt wasn’t successful and begin to think that happiness is a thing of the past and look forward to the day that I die. We have our first family holiday, by family holiday I mean that we’re taken somewhere by her dad, with her older sister, abroad for 10 days. This was some kind of gesture on her dads behalf to make up for the fact that due to him being a complete cockwomble and one of the most despicable and aggravating assembly’s of flesh that I have ever had the misfortune to meet, and pretty much ignoring her and missing our sons first year. However he had just inherited a substantial amount of money which immediately sparked the interest of my wife. The holiday was dreadful. I end up spending 10 days on the very edge of my sanity worrying about the boy, his safety, the effects of the sun on his skin, the food, what would happen in an emergency, maintaining his routine, how the fuck I’m supposed to get through 10 days without telling them all exactly what I think of them. I tell myself it’s a side effect of the tablets and it isn’t really me thinking these things. We come home and I despise my wife for forcing me to go and guilting me for feeling the way I do. I promise myself and my son that I’ll never be the type of man that my wife’s dad is, a world class c**t. August 2017. I have a break through with my treatment. A lot of my thought processes are changing, I begin to question a lot of things and come to the realisation that I have spent my life trying to please everyone. This manifested itself over many years with lying to maintain an image that I thought i should be rather than who I actually want to be. I don’t know myself and I feel terrible that my wife has had to endure this, and I begin to try and strip everything back to basics and rebuild myself and our relationship. McGregor vs Mayweather comes, and I get slaughtered. I make another very bad life choice that although comes without consequence, alters the path of everything. She tells me that she doesn’t love me anymore and we’re splitting up. I’m numb to it because of the tablets. After the initial few weeks of panic about how I’m going to cope, I begin to feel free of stress, negativity, pressure. For the first time in as long as I can remember I feel hopeful for my future as I start my new career. All the while the pain and heartbreak of no longer living with my son is ever present in my mind and I feel like I have failed him. I begin to rebuild my life and adjust to being a single dad with a full time job. I move house, I buy a new car as the one I had fell apart quicker than my mental health with no hope of coming back from the abyss. I begin to settle into my new routine of work for 4 days, be a dad the rest of the time. I realise that all of the shit that I had gone through was pretty much of my own doing. It is evident that there is no love lost between my ex and I. From when we initially split right up until now even as I write this, she has been difficult to deal with. I think on some level she wants to try and get back at me for all of the shit I put her through. There was a lot of lying and deceitfulness from me, a lot of broken promises, a lot of “I’m sorry and it won’t happen again”. If I was her I would have left my ass years ago, so fair fucks to her for sticking it out as long as she did. However the damage was done, there is no going back for either of us now as too much has been said and done in the last 7 months as well as the realisation that I was never actually all that fond of her in the first place. I loved the idea of her more than I actually loved her. At the time she came into my life, I needed someone and she filled the role. She could have been any other young, attractive woman, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel awful for the things that she has been through at my doing and for wasting years of her life that she could have spent with someone who could have actually been her ‘the one’. If this is the case, I don’t think anyone in the world can blame her for being difficult. Now, looking back at everything I can see that I was an awful person, selfish and abhorrent in my behaviour and how it affected people closest to me. It’s a guilt that I will live with until my dying day, and I know nothing I will ever do can make up for the things I have done. There’s no excuses for being a wanker and they say that karma is a very bitter pill, if that’s the case and considering my past behaviour, my karma pill will probably be a coconut sized suppository....... My main focus now is my son, being a good dad, trying to prevent him from making the same mistakes as I have over the years and ultimately guide him to achieving everything I know he can, which is anything he wants to. I can see that I have painted a very negative picture of the current situation, however my mental health is currently in the best place it has ever been. I love my new job, it’s pays very well which helps. Most importantly though in all of this is my son. I get 3 days of solid father and son time with him and in the last 7 months, I’ve seen his little personality develop into the most wonderful little boy I have ever known. There isn’t a day that goes by when he doesn’t make me laugh and every day that I spend with him makes me so grateful for everything I have. I’m not saying it’s all plain sailing, sunshine and rainbows. Being a single dad is the hardest thing any man could have to do. You still have all of the responsibility that was there when you were a family, however the amount of input that you have living as a family is drastically lessened. It has left me frustrated 90% of the time as I’m not there permanently to see how he’s developing. It fucking sucks. However, no matter how bad my day has been, or how stressful work has been, or how deflated I feel that yet another girl I was dating has fizzled out like a cheap firework, the look on his face when he runs over shouting daddy at the top of his little lungs and puts his little arms around my neck when I go to collect him makes everything better. Johnny cash was once asked for his description of paradise and what it was. He replied “This morning, with her, drinking coffee” If anyone should ask me for my description of paradise, its everyday with my son, regardless of good or bad, just every single second I get to spend with him. It’s still fucking tiring though.