So here I sit, about to do my first blog for www.singledadstown.com. Heck, one year ago I didn’t even know what a Blog was. Now I’m a blogger. What a difference a year makes. Or in my case 5 years make, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I think that it is important that I let you know why I am doing this and what I hope to accomplish with my blog. First, I am doing this because I believe that single dads deserve to have a voice in today’s society. They need to learn from each other about what works and what doesn’t work in their unique world. They need to be inspired and motivated to accomplish things that they never believed were possible when they first became a single dad. I hope that my blog will be able to do just these things. I intend in the beginning to blog weekly. Hopefully the frequency will increase as the need does for both myself and others. I also hope that if you know of other single dads or dad related blogs you would be kind enough to pass mine on. There are over 2.5 million of us out there. Imagine what we could do if we all worked together.
Now let me tell you my story. Five years ago I thought that I was “living the american dream” and in reality I was. I had a wonderful wife Sara, two beautiful children, a nice home, financial security, a successful business and many friends and family. I often wondered why I was so fortunate when others were not? Maybe I shouldn’t have wondered this so often because that “dream” was about to come crashing down at my door step. In 2003 I became aware that Sara had a drinking problem. Well I thought “no problem” I will just let her know that it needs to stop and life will go on. Funny how naive we can be with things that we don’t thoroughly understand. Little did I know that there were a lot of things I was about to not fully understand. Anyone who has ever been around alcoholism already knows what I was about to learn. You are not going to fix the problem, only the alcoholic is going to fix the problem. Well it took me an intervention and two rehab centers to learn that. I was powerless in my quest to help Sara. What I did learn very quickly was that I needed to help my children. I needed to help them process what was happening to our family. This was the beginning of me becoming a single dad.
I have to be honest, I often wondered how was I ever going to care for my children, get them to school, get them to activities, help with homework, deal with the emotional issues and try to make sense of it. I was convinced that my kids would become an anchor around my waist until Sara came back to us. I believed that I was about to start a long and slow drowning process. But to my surprise, just the opposite occurred. Those two wonderful kids became my motivation, my inspiration my reason to smile and my reason to do everything in my power to become a successful single dad. I researched, I studied, I asked for help and I relied upon my instincts. I was starting to figureout this Mr. Mom thing …and then came the divorce papers. Continue reading »