002: Finding Strength in Loss with Jeni Besworth

Single Mom Stories with Kelly Travis

As the first of many conversations with single moms, I welcome writer, producer, and podcast host Jeni Besworth to the first official episode of Single Mom Stories. We open up the episode by talking about the importance of starting new traditions with children, especially in the wake of drastic familial change. Jeni discusses the heavy bouts of depression and exhaustion that plagued her when her children were younger, and goes on to express how dating is a challenge as a single parent. Only after she started dating, though, did she learn about the importance of asking for help.

We go on to talk about Jeni’s experience losing her mom and support system, and how her mom’s death and her custody battle taught her how to do what’s best for herself and her children. We go on to discuss the frustrations Jeni and I have when we see our exes living the ‘high life’ and how that frustration realistically gets us nowhere. To close out this episode, Jeni reminds herself of the past and how strong she has needed to be to get to the healthy place where she and her family are now.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• Starting traditions with children
• Jeni’s divorce experience with extremely young children
• Feelings of loneliness and exhaustion
• The importance of asking for help
• Dating as a single parent
• Jeni’s experience losing her mom and support system
• Jeni’s belief in doing what’s best for her and her children
• Single parent strength

Quotes:

“Well, maybe being divorced doesn't feel traditional. I guess that's probably it. And so all these families are setting this big dining room table and putting out the silverware or whatever, and we've got our TV trays in front of the TV, and we're watching ‘Gilmore Girls’, or you know, so you start to feel this weird guilt.”

“We just obviously knew that it wasn't working, but then he ended up actually meeting somebody else, as it sometimes happens. He wanted to get divorced right away, obviously, because he was looking to marry her. When you think about the steps and the way that things are supposed to go or how they go or what have you, it didn't even occur to me that you had to do one thing or another. And I didn't even think about divorce. It was really just trying to survive.”

“I remember Christmas Eve specifically, just being the lowest point. I remember being in the dining room, and the girls were asleep, and I was organizing everything and putting everything together just by myself. And honestly, had he been here, I don't know, I probably would have done it myself anyway.”

“When you're by yourself, and you don't have anyone to talk to about that in the middle of the night, it's just really hard.”

“I’m not desperate in any way, but it would be lovely to have a companion to sort of balance out the ‘mom life’.”

“I've grown a lot in terms of my expectations of other people, but also my boundaries - I never really had any. I was really trying to please everybody; that is impossible – you cannot do that.”

“I remember, as we were pulling out from the church, there were two kids on the sidewalk, and they were skipping rope, and laughing and having a time. And I remember looking at them thinking, ‘You don't know that my mum just died. You're just having the same Saturday you always have, and now my life is changed forever.’”

“I looked at my kids and thought, ‘I still have to be your person, but my person is gone.’”

“So you're really just doing it, and you're surviving it, and it is nice to sometimes look back on the stories and, like you said, ‘Well, I did that.’”

Links:

Single Mom Stories website

Single Mom Stories on Instagram

This Is It Actually Podcast

Jeni Besworth on Instagram