Are you lonely in Motherhood?
A few weeks ago, I asked my Instagram followers to create yes/no questions to other mothers on Insta Stories.
One of the questions was “being a stay-at-home-mom, do you feel lonely?” And 68% of mothers answered it YES. To be honest, I often feel lonely too for various reasons. But why though? I take it personally when my kids are having a hard time, and I feel I’m the only one who can’t deal with all the low side of motherhood. I feel alone…
In this blog post, I have a guest writer. She prefers to be anonymous, but she is an amazing woman, wife, and mother. I hope you like reading this.
Do you feel alone in Motherhood?
When being a mama makes you lonely without being alone (ever)!
The day I found out I was pregnant, I was shocked, scared and completely mentally unprepared. My husband and I were planning to start trying for a baby in a couple years and so you can imagine how I felt when 2 lines showed up, 2 years early. Speechless I went out of the bathroom and showed the positive test to my husband, who even had no clue I just took it.
The announcement of a pregnancy to your partner, is suppose to be a happy thing right? Well it’s not always the case. As if finding out that a little human is growing in my belly, wasn’t enough to handle, my husband “blamed” me for not protecting myself properly! I felt so alone!
Decisions about baby were done by me, during the whole pregnancy, and even if I tried to push the other side of the couple to participate more, it wasn’t there. I was hurt not seeing my other half who seems not to be excited about all this. I felt so alone!
When baby arrived, I was relieved that baby was healthy and that the pregnancy was over, secretly hoping that that’s when papa would wake up and realize that this is his adventure as well.
From birth physical healing to body acceptance, to sleep deprivation to breastfeeding struggles, the first few months of being a mama were ROUGH! I felt so alone!
People around me telling me how to do this and that, while I am just here pretending that I’ve got stuff under control. I listened with a bitter sweet feeling. What was I doing wrong, what was I doing right? I had no clue, and google was not helping! I felt so alone!
When days were long but naps short, when cries were loud and house was messy, and when the only other human present, can’t use words yet, who did I turn to when I needed to vent a little: the only person that I thought would understand, my husband. But I soon realized, when you don’t live it, you can’t understand it! I felt so alone!
What is not often talked about is how the arrival of a baby can affect your relationship with your partner. It becomes a whole new challenge, on top of being a new parent. I was full of doubts about my relationship. I never thought that it could affect our couple negatively, but it did and it takes a lot of work, to this day, to keep our love alive! I feel so alone still!
Now my baby is a year and a half, and motherhood is still the greatest challenge of my life, but I have accepted that things are the way they are, people are the way they are, and you just got to go with the flow.
It sounds cheesy, but the rough patches of motherhood have made me stronger mentally and I now try to remember these everyday:
– Let go of what you can’t change
– Trust your gut
– Discover the positive in everything
– Everything passes
Photo Credit: Pim Photography
Hope this guest blog post helps you feel you are not ALONE. We are in this together and here to support and uplift each other. Motherhood is hard, and you don’t need to do it alone. It’s hard to ask for help because it made me feel like I’m not good enough, but trust me! You can always use me to vent and send me messages!
If you’d like to share your experience in motherhood, please email me! :)
