Today's post has been submitted by a Frolo community member

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No one really warned me about the middle bit.

When my relationship ended, there was a lot going on at first. Big conversations, practical stuff to sort out, lots of emotions flying around. People checked in on me a lot in those early weeks. I had friends texting, family asking how I was, and everyone seemed to understand that things were hard.

Then time passed.

By the time I was a few months in, everything looked calmer from the outside. We had a routine. The kids were settled. I was back at work properly. There wasn’t much drama, which I think made people assume I was fine.

That was probably the hardest part.

The first year after separating wasn’t one long crisis. It was lots of small, quiet moments where things just felt… off. Like realising I was doing all the bedtime routines on my own every night. Or standing in the kitchen after the kids had gone to bed, wondering what I was supposed to do next.

I remember thinking I should feel relieved more than I did. And sometimes I did. But then I’d feel guilty about that relief, which made everything more confusing. I didn’t miss my ex exactly, but I missed having someone to share the load with. Someone else to notice the empty milk bottle or remember it was non-uniform day.

I also didn’t expect how lonely it would feel even when I was busy. My days were full, but my life felt smaller. Friends were kind, but most of them were in couples, and I felt like I didn’t quite belong anymore. I got tired of explaining things, or answering questions about how co-parenting was going, or whether I’d thought about dating again.

I hadn’t.

The first year was also full of practical worries I hadn’t prepared for. Money felt tighter, even though I was technically managing. Everything felt like it rested on me, and that was exhausting in a way I didn’t know how to explain to people.

What helped, more than anything, was realising that this stage was normal. That the quiet, unsettled middle bit wasn’t me failing to “move on”, it was me adjusting to a completely different life. Talking to other single parents made a huge difference, because they didn’t expect me to have it all figured out.

They knew that the first year is weird. That you can be coping and struggling at the same time. That you can miss things you don’t actually want back.

I’m further along now, and things do feel easier in some ways. But I wish someone had told me earlier that the first year doesn’t have to be dramatic to be hard. That it’s OK if it just feels heavy and confusing for a while.

If you’re in that stage, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just in the middle bit. And it doesn’t last forever.

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