Fourteen years ago, I got married. I thought it was the beginning of my uneventful, everyday nothing wife mom homemaker life and id be happy and grow old and die and be buried beside my old man.

Nope. Here I am, 37 and widowed w four kids and alone af. I’m so lonely in the human sense that yes, it contributes to my MDD and CPTSD. I’ve been widowed for four years, raising four kids solo, my parents died a year after my husband did, my siblings live 70 miles away, my extended relatives live out of state, my close friends I only really interact with through texting because they live far away, all of my friends and female acquaintances have boyfriends or husbands so anytime I’m physically around them the interactions feel awful for me (and my kids), I don’t fit in at any of the churches I attend or interact with because all of the other widows are decades older than me and all of the mothers w young kids go there with their husbands and are all happy with their full lives and younger people don’t wanna talk to the widow w a bunch of kids in her 30s. 

Dating? HahahahahahahahahahHhHhh. They’re either never been married and want someone young and childless, they’re older and don’t want to have a house of kids if we’d get married, or they’re younger and don’t want to take on that role to kids who aren’t biologically theirs, etc.

I’m just left out and alone. And then people don’t like if I voice how lonely I feel, so they’ll attempt to invalidate my feelings with “you have kids”…that makes me extra lonely. I have no one to send the cute pics I take of them to, tell their cute little stories to, who they can do things with or help me answer the questions. Many times I’m overwhelmed because they’ll all talk to me or ask me questions simultaneously because we have no one else who’s a regular in our lives. It’s just me. So they swamp me and I can’t pay attention to everyone all at the same time how they need.

So then at night, they’re asleep and I’m trying to destress but I can’t because the next day will be the same, and there is no one to cuddle with or talk to etc.

It’s funny too because I see articles etc about how moms are overstressed etc and they need help and all, but when I air my situation and troubles, people say my motherhood (single widowed motherhood to four fatherless kids) should be the answer to my loneliness and stress. If society wants to feel bad for and support married moms of one of two kids, how come I can NEVER get some freaking recognition and support as a single widowed mom of FOUR with no family or whoever helping her? Again, I’m ostracized, even in the stressed single mom circle.