What It’s Like To Date A Single Mom, And Then Lose Her

Taking on someone else’s child was one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but not nearly as hard as loosing them both.

If you had asked, the young and stupid me a few years ago, if I would date a girl with a child, I would probably have made a snide comment and laughed. This opinion changed rather rapidly when I met her–beautiful, charming, smart… and she had a son.

If I am going to be brutally honest, the whole child “situation” was not even on my mind when we first met, I just new I wanted that girl.

We dated each other for a while, movies, dinners, the usual stuff. And then that fateful night happened. I went to her house, the little one was sleeping, we ate Chinese food and drank copious amounts of rum. Now in the interest of being a gentleman, I shall just say I stayed the night. Then, at 3am, crying. It woke me pretty quickly, she was still sleeping, I didn’t know what to do, I got out of bed, wondered into his room, and all of a sudden I had one year old in my arms, trying to get him to go back to sleep.

At that moment, it dawned on me, what I was in for. It scared the living hell out of me, I could barely look after myself, my house was a mess, I lived off of microwave meals and my mom still did my laundry. How was I going to look after her and her child.

I guess we were forced into a pretty adult situation quite quickly, I stayed more often, took more of a roll in his and her life. Before I knew it, it had been 6 months, I laughed at those initial fears and for once I had, for me, the perfect life.

Over even more time, our bond got even closer, we were a family. His biological dad was never seen, which made things a lot easier, and after a long time, this amazing little boy grew to call me daddy. He was my son. My friends joked, asked me “how can you do it man”, I just shrugged it off, it was easy. I got the girl of my dreams, and what I originally thought was “baggage” turned out to be the icing on the cake.

Then things took a turn for the worse, all of a sudden we weren’t right, which accumulated into an argument to end all arguments, an argument to end us. We tried for a week or two to patch things up, gave each other space. Then one day, nothing. Blocked on all forms of social media, phone number blocked, everything. Just like that, they where gone.

I had lost my partner, I had lost my “son”. Now for some of those reading, you may not understand. You may even be thinking, he wasn’t yours, how can you call him your son. To that I say this, A dad is more than a sperm donor. A dad is someone who picks you up when you fall down, who changes your bum, who sneaks you treats when mummy isn’t looking, who reads you that book for the 10th time this evening.

I was heartbroken. How could someone, that had spent so much time “vetting” me to see if I was good enough for her son, allow me to become “daddy”, just cut all contact like that? I have zero rights as I did not adopt him, so to all you ladies, or gentlemen, with children who invite someone into you and your child’s lives, I have this to say:

If someone, has the strength, to treat your child as there own, to love them as there own, please, please, please handle the break up, as if they are there own. If you have allowed a bond to take place, then for the sake of your child and ex partner, don’t kill that bond. Taking on your son was one of the scariest things I have ever done, and I would do it a million times again.