By: NB

 One

           This title may trigger your curiosity a bit. It’s either you are married, or a single mom. But how can you be both?

This world is full of married single moms. No matter the ethnicity, background, culture, religion, or any category that has been created to classify a group of people, you will find those types of women everywhere. You could guess who these women may be, but any married single mom will know.

Let me break it down for you. A married woman is someone who commits herself to one individual to cherish, love, and spend the rest of her life with. A single mom is someone that lost such an individual and took on the world of motherhood with all its adventures and challenges by herself. So how can a married woman also be a single mom? Any ideas?

It’s simple. This is a woman who took on more responsibilities than her partner and ended up on the journey of motherhood all alone.

This is the story of many women around the world. This is my story! I will share some background information with you to show some connection to the subject of this book, and reference to it as we go.

I fell in love with a man, married him, and started a new life in a new home, with a new job, and new “pretty much everything”. I have known him for years but only dated him for one. As you all know, we all give our best during that period. We invest so much in the other’s happiness, well-being, and comfort at the detriment of our own. We start getting tired of putting more than 110% into the relationship, and with this exhaustion, appear the flaws. Things you wouldn’t think would ever bother you in a million years start irritating you. Differences of opinion start emerging more and more. You get the idea. Within one or two years of marriage, you start questioning your choices, but love fades away these potential signs that you will ignore eventually for some time or indefinitely. I ignored many signs because my love for this man was very strong. My commitment to ease up this man’s pain from a previous marriage and a “horrific” custody battle “according to him” was ironclad. But throughout the years both of our colors came out to play. We decided to have a child. My husband wanted to have one by the second year of marriage, but I wasn’t ready. I wanted to finish my master’s degree before I could free myself entirely for the most beautiful journey of my life. And remember those signs we choose to ignore for the sake of love? Well, yes! They were part of my decision to postpone having a baby with him. I graduated, celebrated, and stopped my birth control. Before you know it, my son was conceived.

Like in any sound partnership, couples contribute to finances and support each other the best way they can. We both worked hard and saved money throughout the year to be able to afford a trip across the Atlantic to visit family and travel to Europe.  We argued as any couple would. My husband wouldn’t sleep at night until we reconciled. You may think it’s sweet, but some of us ladies like that little space to cool off and talk things out later. I figured he knew that about me, and as much as I appreciated those hugs, cuddles, and make-up sex to make amends, I still needed that closure. I needed that talk to express my feelings. I wanted to be heard to avoid getting into the same situation again. He wasn’t a big fan of talking unless he had a few too many beers. Then he would confess how much he loved me. How much he appreciated me even if he hardly said it. He made sure I knew that he appreciated all that I did for him, and us and that it didn’t go unnoticed.

You see, you recognize the “signs”. You ignore them again due to that endless charm and wordplay. You forget entirely about that goal to talk things out and express those strong feelings that only keep building up inside you. So you turn that page, for the time being…

What most of us do, is put off the conversation because we’re afraid to pass for a nagging, insecure, and unbearable partner. Those of us who go through that conversation insist on being ourselves and stand firm on the concept that our partners should accept us for who we are. When you don’t have the right partner, neither route will benefit the relationship. Deep down, I knew I should have spoken the first time I needed to. But the circumstances of my marriage were a bit peculiar. Perhaps I can offer more detail to understand.

I didn’t have much experience in the relationship department or anything else that takes place in a relationship. My husband was the first man I experienced everything with for the first time. He, on the other hand, had been in plenty of relationships, which allowed him to manipulate me in all sorts of ways. A look here and there, a wink, a comment, a dance, a stare, you name it! My heart would be racing. I preserved myself for years waiting for the right person to come by. I fell in love and got myself into a relationship I couldn’t handle or manage. So every time he would be upset, change tones over the phone, or ignore a message or a call, I would shut down. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. And the whole situation was like the weather. It tells you what to expect, and how to prepare for it, but the moment you step out of the house, you realize you didn’t account for that rain, or sudden cold breeze. I never understood what he wanted from me.

When I met him, he was going through a rough patch with his wife. And no matter what anyone says, no one knows really what goes on between couples. One thing for sure is that people can spin things beyond imagination and make other people look terrible to gain sympathy. So, I felt his pain. I empathized, but it stopped there. It was my first year of college. I had to focus on adapting to a new country, and a new school system, make friends, and immerse myself into this new fascinating world. So I had no time for gossip or people’s drama. By the time this man got a divorce, he didn’t want to have anything to do with relationships and marriage, yet it didn’t stop him from misleading an innocent young woman time and again. I genuinely believed he had a thing for me, so I enjoyed the playfulness without engaging in anything. I was looking forward to seeing him and spending time with him without dating him. He didn’t pass up the opportunity to flirt and seduce me, but with my lack of experience, it was easy to misinterpret these things. To me, it was a legitimate interest, so I was happy with the little encounters among friends here and there. He constantly sent mixed messages. Sometimes he was the sweetest, kindest, and funniest being you can imagine, and more often he was edgy, on the defensive mode, and rather unpleasant. I often found myself analyzing these differences in mood, but I could never pinpoint the reason for it.

You can see where my hesitation to engage in conversations or simply put them off comes from. I never knew how to react around this man. I didn’t want to lose him or his interest just by being me, the stubborn and assertive woman, and at the same time I was going against my nature. That woman wouldn’t be a happy camper nor easy to be around. That is why when you act against your nature, you are often lost. A huge sign I kept ignoring!

I was and still am a joy to be around. I could utterly be myself around most of the people I knew or my entourage, except him. You would think that I should have seen these red flags from the moon, but I ignored them all.

Because of this back and forth for a few years, and the doubt that this man was into me over and over again, I walked away from the drama and focused on my college life and the amazing friends I made along the way. I was suddenly free and open to this whole world of new possibilities. I had young men asking me out, but I wasn’t interested for the most part. I had the chance to travel and visit new places, and I finally was able to free myself from the charm of a man who had his own agenda.

And what do you know? A few months passed, and my husband-to-be showed up in my driveway pressing about my whereabouts and asking if it was true that I was seriously considering another gentleman for marriage. Funny how when you seriously let go, things come rushing to you. God knows how determined I was to deny this man any more power over my feelings. I stood strong, giving him an honest piece of my mind, and remained firm for a while. His rebuttal was that he knew all along that I wasn’t the kind of girl to have a fling with. He said that after all he has been going through, he could not commit to me at the time, and that magically he became ready (now that I moved on). Impressive wouldn’t you think? I let this drag on for a while, he kept insisting, and I gave in.

Do you know that magic question that people ask you: if you were to go back in time, what is that one moment you would like to change? For me, that was it. That day on my brother’s driveway is the day I wish to go back to and simply stand by the decision to keep him out of my life.

The problem is that no one can change the past, and the most important part I have learned is not to dwell on that moment. Every part of the story you lived was meant to happen, and you most certainly attract every bit of it to you subconsciously.

When I decided to grant this man a chance and forgive his lack of chivalry in the past, I walked into a marriage that was not built on an honest exchange of opinions, and a thorough discussion about the future.

So imagine me, with every fight or argument, I would stand at a crossroads. Should I talk about those differences, or should I let them go? Before I knew it, it became a habit when we had an argument or a fight, we would be weird around each other for a bit, we would make up “physically”, and we would move on to the next day without so much of a puff of air to clear.

Multiply this by several years, and tell me what the obvious outcome would be.

For years, we would be working so hard to afford the mortgage on our beautiful home and car payments. We would save for a one-time trip to visit family and keep it to basic outings throughout the year like dinners and movies.

As time passed, I began to notice the differences of opinion that started to divide us little by little. We had different views on starting a family, and how to raise kids. Our ideas of fun certainly started to drift apart. I don’t know! It felt like the more grounded I aspired to be, the crazier he was becoming. You would think at that point my inner voice would sound in the back of my head to not only make me aware of these changes but also act upon them. No! And I had no idea why I would spend hours rehearsing that conversation with myself, and as soon as he showed up, I would go radio silence!

My family can vouch for me when it comes to speaking my mind, and being assertive, but not a word would come out easily when he was in front of me, and as soon as my husband throws at me the “my head hurts”, “can we talk another time” etc…, I just shut down.

Does this sound familiar to you? Perhaps not the same phrases or attitudes, but it boils down to you noticing that your significant other is not what you had hoped him or her to be, and you continued living in denial for years, secretly praying that it would improve somehow.

It does not truly change or improve. It’s like your average in a class after a few assessments. If that average is low, it would remain so regardless of the very few ones you achieved a great score at. So, you go about your daily routine. You work, you take care of the house, the kids, the cooking, the cleaning, and despite the countless hints you throw out there asking for help, someone tells you that it’s the woman’s job to take care of these things. Someone tells you that he or she has been working all day and that he or she is too tired. Someone tells you that you can’t even take care of one child let alone two. Someone tells you that he or she is going to watch the game with siblings or friends or both while you are a total mess. Someone doesn’t show appreciation for all the sacrifices you make for the family. Someone belittles your support system of friends and family and considers them unsophisticated because of their religious beliefs. I can go on for chapters, and you can draft this very paragraph with your own statements. We will find so many similarities without a doubt.

Cultures have similarities and differences, but when it comes to each person’s role in society, many conversations, talks, and shows have highlighted what that role is for each one of us. What is unfathomable is that with all that “awareness” from social media, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. We promise ourselves we will not raise our children this way, and we won’t follow in our parents’ footsteps. Before you know it we walk a similar path. Before you know it many of us in our culture are married single moms.

I can’t speak for other cultures, but from what I gathered, even if in other parts of the world, partnerships suggest that there is perhaps no such thing as the job of a man or the role of a woman, there is still that underlining expectation that mommies or daddies will live up to… and while there is evidence that we are better at some tasks than others, I say that as long as the respect and appreciation are constantly present, that relationship is a true partnership.

With all this information shared, I will give you a glimpse of why most married women in this part of the world are considered married single moms. You, on the other hand, might very much relate to these statements. You may agree or disagree with them, and you may be inspired to share your own story with the rest of the world. Whatever the case may be, I wanted to thank you for reading my story.

Two

I was born and raised in Morocco in a relatively conservative family that never explicitly discussed what is right and what is wrong. It was expected to observe, understand, and with good conscience. Many sensitive topics like bodily changes, sex, and public affection between couples were considered taboo. Things may have changed over the years and traditions in families would differ based on different backgrounds, but this is how it was for me. I grew up seeing my mother in charge of everything. Our schooling, health, entertainment, discipline, you name it. My father was a renowned figure of authority, and to him as long as he is providing for us, and working super hard to ensure that we have the necessary background and education to excel in our lives, we had absolutely no excuse to fail, have bad grades, or be socially irresponsible.

The way I perceived this relationship at the time was that even if my mother was working, my father was the main breadwinner. He gave my mother all that she needed to make sure my siblings and I were perfectly ready for the world out there. There were no excuses.

My mother was a single married woman. It’s like she worked in a factory around the clock. We had a specific schedule to abide by. Wake up, eat breakfast, head to school, come back for lunch, go back to school, come back home, eat a snack, watch a little TV, do homework, come down for dinner, and then go to bed. She was in charge of groceries, produce, meat, chicken, and fish shopping. She made sure the house and laundry were clean. She made sure our homework and breaks were scheduled to a T.

While this fantastic woman attended to all this, she was working, she was going to the gym three times a week, and she was learning English during late afternoon classes.

This woman like many other women in this world was simply expected to do all this because it was her job. These women raised their children in the same manner. So you can only imagine where this is heading, and how many women feel this way right now.

On the other hand, my father was a force to be reckoned with. He was highly educated. He built himself from scratch. He provided for his family unconditionally and worked extremely hard to make sure we had everything we needed. The man worked super hard, and if it wasn’t for his strong will, my siblings and I wouldn’t have been the independent, strong individuals that we are.

Unfortunately, I can’t recall my father feeding me, bathing me, doing homework with me, playing with me, teaching me how to ride a bike or play sports, etc… I can’t recall him standing in the kitchen with Mom lending her a hand or even tasting the dish she was making and giving out an opinion or anything for that matter. I can’t recall my father laying down next to me before bedtime asking me about my day at school, or reading me a story. He himself hasn’t experienced any of this with his own father, but the little child in me didn’t understand that at the time.

What I did understand and had engraved in my mind was that this is how parenting should be. My mom is the go-to person. Her role was to do pretty much everything, and my dad was the quality control part of the relationship. I hate to use these analogies, but the truth is, even if my siblings were to disagree or my readers may see this as a bit far-fetched, this was my perception. Now you may think otherwise because you grew up a bit differently, but this is my story, so please bear with me.

When I said I couldn’t recall my father doing any of those things for me or others, I discovered that these behaviors were similar in other families. Whenever I visited somebody, I found the same thing. Females were in charge of raising, educating, and taking care of the kids, while males were working hard to provide for their families, clearly sacrificing the quality time they could spend with their partners and kids to ensure that quality of life they may have not enjoyed when they were young. Granted there were some exceptions in our society where men participated in house chores and raising the kids, but the majority of the families operated within the same structure as mine.

The majority of these women took on the task of raising their kids as if they were single. Their husbands’ role was restricted to the outside of that home. There is very little participation from the men inside. Very little recognition or appreciation is shown to their wives because in their minds that is what a family is supposed to be. When they are born, these same men exclusively interact with their mothers during their early stages of childhood and adulthood; and you would think, after raising all these generations single-handedly, women would get a clue to gradually change this ideology to produce men capable of participating in the raising and educating of their kids as a full-time job.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not by any means undermining the role of men in our society. After all, if it wasn’t for my dad, I wouldn’t be the independent, capable, and strong-willed woman that I am today. But I’m confident that if my father had participated in all the things my mother did for us, I would be by far more collected, accomplished, and stronger than I am right now.

He taught us very valuable lessons that we didn’t fully comprehend until we grew up. For instance, understand that when the basic needs of life are met, you should be grateful and aspire to work harder every day to improve your condition whether it is intellectual (his top preference), financial, familial, or well-being. He also taught us that family is extremely important, and not just the immediate one. He taught us modesty. Regardless of the prosperous professional and political career he had, he was never boastful, nor did he take advantage of his jobs to advance himself at the expense of others. He taught us that a luxurious life can disappear as fast as it came. My mother complemented these teachings daily. My father drew the big picture and led by example.

I would have still preferred to have him involved in my life as a father rather than an authority figure. I would have wanted him to read me stories, and tuck me in at night. I would have loved to see him show affection and love to my mom to have a better understanding of what relationships are. In fact, I would have loved to see the same source of inspiration from my aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

This brings me to say that I had seldom seen that affection around me. I have seen some respect. I have seen some cutting of a fine piece of meat in a Tagine and handing it to your loved one without a word. I have seen the occasional tap on the shoulder, and the giggles from teasing or joking around. I have seen the redirection from fathers to ask mothers about things when kids needed approval for something. But I haven’t seen that love and affection on display. Perhaps it happened behind closed doors, but we kids didn’t see it first-hand while growing up. We would blush like tomatoes if we saw a kissing scene on television. That is if you get to see the scene before an adult changes the channel almost immediately.

I will keep reminding you that this is what I have seen from my generation. There are always exceptions of course. But again, it wasn’t the majority. I can hardly recall if I have witnessed anything different when I went to other people’s houses.

What was noticeable though was that these women were taking care of the house, the food on the table, the homework, the laundry, and the groceries. Men will participate in one or two things at most (if that). They may even provide all the money needed to support the entire household, but the emotional presence was barely palpable.

Here comes the interesting part. While growing up, I didn’t hear these women complain about the lack of emotional support from their husbands. In fact, if you were to ask my mom or grandmother about “emotional support” they would be clueless, dismiss the conversation, and add that “we, the next generation” live in a dream. They did it all as if it was simply expected of them as if it was the norm.

Now let me ask you this, did you start to understand the title of this book?

I wanted to shed some light on these single married women. I was one of them which brings me back to my story with my husband.

Three

He grew up in a similar setting. He lived with a mom in charge of the house, the cleaning, the cooking, the grocery shopping, etc. She was tasked to ensure homework was done, teeth were brushed, and doctor appointments were met. The father was working long hard hours to provide for the family. My husband at the time also witnessed that both parents made a lot of sacrifices to ensure he and his siblings were taken care of. More on the mother’s side as he observed at the time.

He grew up in similar circumstances, but he would argue that he has seen love between his parents and that they were “more sophisticated than my parents” in the sense that they talked more about love, sex, and relationships. He also claimed that his parents were more open-minded in comparison to my conservative parents.

Be that as it may, he didn’t follow in his parents’ footsteps, but he expected the life I was being brought up into. He wanted me to sacrifice more for the relationship because he was convinced it was my role to hold the fort. He assumed that saying a few nice things here and there and engaging in intimacy is all I needed. He ignored my emotional needs because he was clueless to them. Should I blame him? Should I blame his parents? Should I blame society? Should I blame culture? What or who should I blame? I merely landed in a marriage not knowing my worth, and not knowing what my role really was. I was programmed to keep the family together no matter what and if that meant losing myself in the process then it was the price to pay to have a family.

So I gradually became a married single mom without knowing when it actually happened. I gave, I gave, I gave. I continued to be content with less and less. I filled in the gaps so less was being put in the relationship from the man I called a husband and a father to my kid.

After accumulating so much inside, you begin to threaten to leave the relationship if one didn’t assume their basic role in a marriage. Suddenly the expression “it takes two to tango” starts having a deep meaning in your subconscious. Suddenly, you want to retaliate and give a sound to your voice. Suddenly you start shouting because the person before you is not listening. Suddenly, you bring up the past, present, and future in a jumbled-up conversation that only makes sense to you. Suddenly you realize you have been in this fight all alone. All this enabling finally started to backfire.

I came to these realizations after hitting rock bottom. But I was able to get my head above the water to breathe and see. Many people that were and still are in my shoes are not lucky enough to step out of oneself, and unpack the mess that has been ensuing. And what I’m about to tell you is that the real fight begins when you get to this very point. You start playing the devil’s advocate to make sense of your predicament. It would still take you time to finally see your worth and continue working on yourself, but you go through many stages before you get a glimpse of redemption and self-love.

First, I started really questioning everything. My relationship with the man I fell in love with broke every rule in the book of relationships. A book that  clearly was not meant for communities such as ours. We follow the standards set forth by God knows who, we apply rules superficially to feed emotions and sentiments you think would be enough to sustain a marriage. As I said, a book with guidelines not in concordance with what we truly experience on a day to day basis. Again, for the umpteenth time, we may have some exceptions in our communities, so please respect the point of view and ride the wave until the end. Those relationship guidelines suggest how we should treat one another,  that actions are louder than words, and that empathy and compromise are necessary to a successful relationship to name a few. You abide by everything your family and friends advise you to do, even though deep down you see it was not a balanced give and take ratio from the very beginning. And when I say “advise you to do”, I most certainly don’t mean the negative responses or counter-attacks during arguments etc…, but rather advice like “Take care of your husband, your place, your children, the “make sure nothing is missing in the house” advice, food is prepared, house is clean, dress to impress in and outside the house, satisfy your partner” and the list goes on. I outdid myself on every front, so you can only imagine why the first step was to question everything. People would do less than the minimum and yet, they were not in the same situation as you. It’s like you almost wait for some kind of recognition for going above and beyond, but it never comes because your support system explains to you that no one does all this for recognition. You do it out of unconditional love and that’s it.

Second, you decide that working with a professional will be extremely beneficial at some point, and you do just that. Suddenly after years of therapy you realize (what is usually written on a social media page as a casual pop up proverb or saying) that you can’t change people, or society in general, but you can change how you react to how they make you feel. You understand on a deeper level that the way you were brought up tremendously impacts how you lived your life for a while. You realize that the behaviors and circumstances you have been exposed to were ingrained in your subconscious and you have been replicating them in your own little family and home. You see that the events you lived through set the premises you started to subconsciously use to navigate your day to day life. That is if you truly commit to that therapy, otherwise you would be in the dark for as long as you allow yourself to be. Once you fully comprehend the level at which you have been subconsciously scarred, you start working on yourself. As a matter of fact, you learn to reprogram your subconscious to let go of the past, make peace with your inner child, forgive and learn how to love yourself, and understand that you can’t change people, circumstances, environments, and actions, and that you are most powerful at controlling your reactions to all of it. While you are doing all this work, and as soon as you step out of your therapy session, the world you left behind to work on yourself has not changed one bit. It is a long journey that is worth taking because the moment you make peace with the fact that you can’t change people, your road to healing and truly living is halfway traveled. All these realizations you come to after therapy are hardly shared by your partner. So since you can’t change him or her, you go on with your life. You decide not to ever react, and that self-love either gets to him or her or its positive energy radiates all over your home and its inhabitants and you see things or people fall into place gradually.

Finally, you start acting on all the elements you worked on during therapy, or read somewhere, or grabbed from some kind of conference , seminar, well-being retreat etc.

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NB is a woman of many trades. She pursued a computer science, and business administration degree. She has been teaching math for almost eleven years, and has earned a couple of certifications in education. Although her career included such an array of subjects, she always found passion in writing from an early age. It was and continues to be a great way for her to de-stress, and venture in a world of unlimited imagination.