The cold, hard reality is that many of us come to single parenting when our spouse or our child’s other parent leaves. The other person may leave us, leave the responsibilities of family and generally just abandon our child and us and that can be an incredibly difficult reality to face, let alone get over. Getting over feeling abandoned can take time, but it is important for us to move beyond it if we are going to rebuild our lives and be open to a positive future.
If you have been abandoned, it is absolutely normal to feel sad, depressed, wary, victimized, etc. What is problematic, however, is when we get stuck in those places and feel victimized for an extended period of time. It is impossible to come at life from a position of strength and empowerment if you are feeling like a victim. Somehow, you have to separate what happened to you from your sense of self-worth and your ability to be open and loving with other people.
When a person is abandoned or left by the very person they have come to trust, it can be a huge blow and it can make it tough to open up and trust. As a single parent, we may feel so focused on dealing with the daily details and responsibility that we do not do the personal work necessary to move beyond feelings of abandonment. Additionally, being abandoned by a spouse or partner can trigger old feelings if a parent or someone else in our younger lives previously left us behind.
Take time to heal, and get professional help in the way of counseling or therapy; or consider spiritual guidance if that is something you respond to. In order to recover from being abandoned and be fully present to be a great parent, we have to learn how to move beyond and look forward to a brighter future.
See Also: The Mental Health Blog