Mums: You are not second-class citizens

I love helping rebuild lives after the end of a relationship. 

Most newly single people wait several years, try other options, fight to keep everything they can. It usually takes a while before they stop, take stock, look around them and think “why am I living like this?”

Then they call me…

I find them living surrounded by memories and possessions from their marriage. 

I hear them describe the legal battle to keep the house, the furniture, the wedding gifts…

AND because they want to put the kids first, I find them sleeping on a mattress on the floor, in a single bed in the smallest bedroom, or even on a blow up mattress squeezed between a dining table and a wall.

LADIES – and it is usually ladies – snap out of this because it’s backfiring on you RIGHT NOW!

·      If the kids are discourteous and treat you as a housekeeper;

·       if your employer never recognises your hard work and

·      you’re de-motivated, depressed, exhausted and secretly envious…

Let’s just think about that for a millisecond….

When you sleep on the floor or hand over the master bedrooms to the kids, you treat yourself as a second class citizen. 

You have chosen this role – why are you surprised when you are sidelined, ignored, disrespected by other people too?

The irony is that many of my clients are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Their kids are teens or adults and might not even be living at home much of the time… but Mum is still in the ‘little room’ or on that wretched mattress.

My first job is to help them reclaim their rightful place as head of their household.

They deserve a beautiful bed, a bedroom they can use as their sanctuary. Somewhere they can rest, relax, rejuvenate and learn to put their own wellbeing first.

Just like the oxygen mask on an aeroplane – put your own on first and then help the others.

Then when the time is right, they have their own space to welcome in a new partner and rediscover the romance they have been missing – with someone who cherishes them, shares their values and truly matters.

“If only I’d realised this six years ago”

“Stepping into my bedroom the first night was like being re-born. I remembered who I was before and realised how much time I had wasted”.

If you are the income-earner, head of the household and the one who pays the bills, take your rightful space and watch the other parts of your life start to fit neatly into place.

You’ll find an excellent blueprint in this book: Welcome Home, How Stuff Makes or Breaks your Relationship. (£14.99 Panoma Press)

Order at your local bookstore, or via Amazon. Don’t waste another moment being second class. Hold your head high, and show the world what it’s been missing.