Dating as a Single Mom? I'd Rather Stay Single

Hi friends! Ramona shared her experiences with online dating in an article we ran. We got a lot of feedback, including a note from Birgit. She wrote: “Thanks for the great piece. But if I'd had to write it, it wouldn't have turned out so neutral and friendly.” Of course that made us curious, so we asked Birgit for her side of the story. Here it is:

Why I'd Rather Stay Single…

The main reason I want to stay single is simple: I want my independence. I look at my married friends and see husbands who leave the kid duty to their wives. They also expect their wives to take care of them: cook their meals, do their laundry. I take care of my son and nobody else. Have you ever wondered why there are so many breakups around you? It's easy: the men of our generation want to live like their fathers did, but we don't want to live like our mothers…

I also don't want a new partner telling me how to raise my child. My son has a father (who has remarried and had another child). And I don't want to deal with my new partner's baggage from his previous family, either. I have enough worries and things to take care of already. I think a lot of the people who say, “Blended families are great!” are living in an illusion.

I was with my ex-husband for 25 years. When the relationship stopped being good, I left. So I'm not about to throw myself into the next bad relationship just so I have somebody, or to live up to society's idea of what a family should look like. I own my house, and if something needs fixing that I can't do myself, I pay a handyman. I don't need a man around the house permanently for that.

I've been on dating sites too, just to see what's out there. My impression is that men are extremely disrespectful toward single moms. It's like, you should be grateful anyone still wants you at all. Men expect humility and submission from you, and I just can't do that.

And let's be honest: the internet is full of weirdos. Depending on the site, 80 percent of them vote for the AfD (Germany's far-right party), or are anti-vaxxers, or are against “the system” in some other way. On top of that, things get sleazy really fast. A lot of men are simply looking for a quick hookup.

I've also met a few men over the past few years. One told me after three months that he'd been married once and had two kids. Two weeks later he corrected that to two failed marriages and three kids. He also smoked pot every night and then hung out in front of the PlayStation. What would I want with someone like that? And do I want my son to see that? Of course not.

Then I went out with a man who was supposedly separated. After a short time he went back to his ex, but asked whether we could still keep seeing each other regularly. Ummmm, no!

The next one said he was single. After a while he confessed that he'd been with a woman for a long time and they had two kids. The younger one was barely more than a baby. He said he wanted to leave her, but I would never want a man who leaves his wife alone with a baby.

After those experiences, I took a three-year break. Then I met a new man and wanted to give him a chance. He worked, didn't get home until around 8 p.m., and said he wanted a hot dinner waiting for him. He didn't think much of housework, and then he told my son that Africans were taking our jobs here. My son pushed back right away, and I thought: I have no desire to have someone in my life who spouts garbage like that.

This may sound like I'm a man-hater, but I really am not. If a truly nice man who wanted to share a life with me as an equal came along, I'd be happy. But I'm doing just fine on my own, and I'm not willing to take just any guy because society thinks women should have a partner. I can take care of myself and my son well. We don't need a provider, and I don't need an extra kid. I want a partner who's my equal, and as I've learned over the past few years, that's not easy to find…