Divorce and Navigating Life's Challenges as a Single Mom

In this episode of The Music of Life, I discuss the emotional, financial, and logistical struggles that come with divorce—especially when it impacts our children. From managing mortgage payments to navigating tricky holiday schedules, I get real about the hard conversations, misunderstandings, and the toll it takes. I share stories of how I tried to keep things stable for my daughter despite the turbulence at home, and how I’ve had to navigate co-parenting when it felt like the odds were stacked against me.

Join me as I reflect on what it’s like when family dynamics change in ways you didn’t expect, and the journey of making it through difficult times while trying to keep the peace, even when things feel completely out of control.

Episode Highlights:
[00:02] - Personal reflection on what not to share with kids during a divorce.
[01:45] - Overdue mortgage, financial tension, and misunderstandings about money.
[07:30] - Addressing negative comments made in front of my daughter.
[12:05] - Struggles with holiday scheduling and family imbalances.
[15:40] - The challenges of planning my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah and feeling sidelined.
[18:55] - Creating a supportive environment for my daughter amid all the turmoil.

Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message atpodpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode.

Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:02

Hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. Before I get into Episode Two, I just want to address something that I forgot to mention in episode one, where I talk about how I'm not going to be saying things involving my daughter unless it was something that she listened to herself, or she experienced or or witnessed to, anything that she was not aware of. I would not be discussing in this podcast I know one of the cardinal rules of what not to do with kids in divorce is to talk about things that are divorce related in front of the children. And that was something that was consistently done in front of her. I worked hard not to engage in those conversations and those events while she was there. I tried to disengage. I tried to walk away. It wasn't always possible to and our house is small enough that you could hear everybody from every room, and it was one of those impossible circumstances where closing the door would not have helped keep things private, on top of the fact that we were very loud arguers, it just was not a good situation. So I will forever be sorry to my daughter that she had to witness a lot of what she witnessed throughout this divorce and us living together. So one of the things I wanted to talk about in this episode, which happened in November of 2021 historically, I was always in charge of paying the bills, and my husband's paychecks would be direct deposited into my checking account, and I would pay everything from there. Most of the regular bills were on auto pay, so I didn't really have to worry about late payments or anything like that. Our mortgage was due on a particular day, and his check didn't clear in time for the bill to be satisfied. So I got a call that it was overdue, and I told my husband about that, and he flipped out and blamed me. And you know, we had lived in our house for 12 years and was never late paying the mortgage. It was never an issue before. From what I understood, I think there was a change in the person who handled the direct deposit, and maybe she was delayed by a day or something. But it wasn't any of our faults. It, I believe it. It was the fault of his HR Payroll people who didn't submit payroll on the time that they should have. I'm not really sure what the logistics were, but we're not talking weeks and weeks. We're talking about maybe your day or two before his check cleared and and we were able to, you know, pay the bill. But he flipped out, blamed me, talked about how we were going to be evicted from the house, which we all know is not true, and my daughter was sitting there listening to this whole thing. So my husband came back and said that his parents were willing to loan us the money to pay the bill for the mortgage, and my husband wanted me to sign a piece of paper stating that I would be responsible for paying his parents back for this loan. Now, of course, my attorney advised me never to sign anything, so I refused to sign anything. I guess it was after the weekend I called the financing company or the mortgage company and confirmed that there's a 15 day grace period. So we were nowhere near the end of the grace period. This was new to me. I had never been late paying the mortgage before, so I wasn't aware that there was a 15 day grace period. They don't even mark your account as late, until after that grace period is up, and then it's like no big deal. You pay the bill and the late goes away. So he was on this rampage about how we were going to be evicted, and then he stormed off, which he regularly did after an argument. And now I'm sitting with my daughter, and she's asking me what a mortgage is, and why are we going to be kicked out of the house, and does that mean that we don't have money? All these questions that she was asking me, and she knows that I tell her the truth, so I explained things. I told her what a mortgage was. I told her that we would not be evicted, and that even in the off chance that that would happen, it would take so long before they could actually get us out of the house, like it was so ridiculous to even mention that. And as far as you know how much money we had, like we have the same money we always had. It was, it was a clerical. Error is really what it came down to by like, a day or two, and it did not need to be as explosive as it was. There was a comment that he would make regularly. His favorite thing to say to me was that I was going to be living in a cardboard box, meaning I would be homeless, and I would be living on the street in a cardboard box. He would sometimes liken that to my mother, who was never homeless, but was oftentimes close to being homeless. And so he would say things like, I will end up just like my mother living in a cardboard box on the street. And he would say this in front of my daughter all the time. And one day, I asked her what she thought about that, and she admitted that she thought it was mean. So the Jewish holidays were happening. It was Thanksgiving. It was the Christmas vacation break from school. I'm still arguing and fighting for a schedule so that we are on the same page about who will have her for vacation time while we're still living together, who will have her for holidays? You know, the first night, the second night, anything like that. It was such a shit storm of no communication whatsoever. I was totally out of control. I had no handle on anything. I was in a complete free for all at this point, by design, it was very, very unsettling to be like this. He knew exactly where he was taking her every minute of every day, who they were going to be with, what they were doing. He knew everything, but his intention was to keep me in the dark. It became very evident to me at this point that there would not be any co parenting whatsoever. This was going to be parallel parenting at its best. He was going to go rogue, do what he wanted, take her, where he wants, whatever, and not tell me. And yet, I was expected to communicate with him what my plans were. So this continued through New Year's and February vacation and spring break and the more Jewish holidays, and it was just non stop, free for all. It was hard because my family is much smaller than his family. My family is not local like his family is, and there was a big imbalance, and so he took advantage of that and tried to make his family more important than mine, because there were more of them and more opportunities for her to spend time with them, he minimized my family in the process, which was very hard. First, it was hard for me to defend because they physically weren't around and available. So, you know, I couldn't argue the fact that he had a lot of family members that were local, that were available, but it should never have been at the expense of my family. And that was very clear to me that that was one of his missions. I And so I saw my daughter's relationships with my family deteriorate very quickly. Oftentimes, whatever his narrative was about it, I would hear that come out of her mouth too all the years that I had spent working at my daughter's day camp and sleep away camp, earning money by working there. You know, we didn't have to spend that money, and that was my financial contribution to our family that he never acknowledged. I would hear her say things to me about, why don't I get a job? And why am I spending daddy's money when it was marital money, it wasn't just his, but now that we're in divorce proceedings, this is the narrative that he's telling her, so I have to hear her say to me, why don't I get a job? My job was raising her. My job was running a household. My job was everything that I did for our life, you know. So she would open her mouth and his words would come out. It began to be Bar and Bat Mitzvah season, where her bat mitzvah was coming up in November of 2021 now it was 2022 All right, so the planning of my daughter's Bat Mitzvah party started in 2021 when my husband won. To start looking at party spaces. And so he and my daughter decided to go look at one space, and within hours notice, he asked me if I wanted to join them. So I said, Fine, and I met them there. And being that my stepmother was a party planner for over 30 years, I knew what I was looking at I knew what questions to ask, I knew what things cost, I knew what things should be included, and I kept my mouth shut the whole time while we toured. And when we got back home, he said to me, what did you think? And I said, it's beautiful, and we can't afford it. And he said, Well, what do you mean we can't afford it. And I said, we can't afford it. And I further said to him that, you know, during the most stressful time in our daughter's life, I really, truly believe that she should have a kids party, have all the kids that she wants to have there and all the production elements and everything, and leave the adults out of it, we would forever be under a microscope. All the adults would be wondering if we're getting along, if we're not getting along like what's going on, and it would be very awkward for our daughter. He obviously disagreed. He said that he and my daughter both want everyone there. Their combined guest list for this party was somewhere around 150 or 160 people, not even including anyone from my side. And so when we were talking about how we couldn't afford this, he said, Well, you're going to pay for half of it. And I said, I'm not going to be bullied into paying for our party that I have no say in. So if you want this big, elaborate party, then you pay for it. You take care of it. I'm out. I'll be her mother. I will show up. I will be supportive. Whatever she wants from me. I will do. But this is all on you. And so he started making plans, and he would take her dress shopping and shoe shopping and all these things. And I had no idea, you know, why he would want to do that with her when that is clearly, you know, a mother's thing with her daughter is to go dress shopping and do makeup and hair and all that stuff. But he decided he was gonna run with this. And so every now and then, he would throw me a bone and ask if I wanted to come to a dress fitting with them, and I would meet them there, and she would want me to come into the dressing room with her, and I would help her and come up with, you know, different accessories, or different alterations and and I had ideas. She liked them, and he shot them all down. So I backed off from even saying a word. I went when they asked me, and I showed up, but I was not going to cause a thing with her in front of her about this. This went on for months. I was able to schedule hair and makeup trials with her, so we both got our hair and makeup done and figured out how we wanted it to be for the actual party. At some point, he threw me another bone and said that, you know, asked if I would want to do the montage, the video montage, because, you know, not for nothing. I have all the pictures. I was a stay at home mom for, you know, the first 12 years of her life. When you know I was, I was there for everything. I took pictures of everything. I have over 25,000 pictures on my camera. So he knew that I would be the best person to do this, a because I'm good at it, and B, because I have all the pictures. I tried very hard to keep it as fair and equal as I could, and representing his family and my family and both of us with her and all of that, I thought I did a great job with it. I had no no say in the design of the Montage or anything. I thought it came out terribly chaotic. There was a montage of pictures in the background of the pictures that were featured. So it was confusing. As you as you looked from frame to frame, you know what pictures you should be looking at and what was in the background? I just thought it was very chaotic looking once it was done and and I had done it while I had COVID at the time, and I sent it to both of them for their approval and for them to sign off on it. They both did. And so it was sent to the the photographer or the videographer, whoever was handling this. And don't you know, on the day of her bat mitzvah, you know the two or, I believe it was him who submitted additional pictures that were of him with her. There were more pictures that he snuck. In at the end, which weren't even in chronological order, that I had all the other pictures in and whatever. I don't think anyone noticed but me. But that was probably by design. So leading up to her bat mitzvah party, it was stressful. It was very stressful because of all of the things that I was left out of the things that I was, you know, just not included in. And I guess I could understand from his point of view, well, you're not paying for this party, so you shouldn't be involved in any part of it, except for the fact that I'm her mother, and if she wants me to be involved in things, then you should let her make those decisions. But instead, in a very passive, aggressive way, she was convinced that she should do these things with him instead, which was hurtful, was very hurtful to her. You know, look, if I wasn't alive, no problem, then he should step in and do all those things. But there are certain things that a mother should do with her daughter, and these were some of those things, and I felt like he robbed her of that. And me, when it came time for all of her bat mitzvah tutoring and classes and stuff like that, I was in charge of that. I communicated with her tutor, arranged her tutoring sessions, everything she needed for Hebrew school and and all of that. I dealt with the temple. We were both involved in the in planning of the service of her bat mitzvah, like the actual religious service. We were going to have a Kiddush luncheon after the service that day. So I invited all of my family and friends to that being that I was not permitted to invite anyone beyond my immediate family to her party. So I took care of the invitation. And you know, I paid my share of the Kiddush luncheon. And you know, everything was was set up for that. And I thought the invitation I created was beautiful. It was elegant, it was classy, and it came from both of us, and that's how I did it. And the invitation that he did for her party was very clearly you dig to me by saying, please join me as we celebrate my daughter, which was very clear to anyone who got that invitation. You know what? What his vendetta was against me? Clearly, it was just from him, which I expected. And when it came time to respond, I believe I got the invitation a day after everyone else did, and when I responded, I responded electronically, just to him. I could have, very easily have responded to all, but I did not. I responded just for him, and I said her mother would be happy to celebrate this milestone occasion. Of course, I will be there, and that was it. I did everything I could to support her. I did everything I could to celebrate this time with her, for her, but there were so many roadblocks along the way and so many things to shut me out of on purpose. It was just a time of constant sabotage. That's all I was living through. Was constant sabotage. Everything was set up for me to fail. Everything was set up for me to not be with my daughter or not share things with my daughter. It was a horrible, horrible feeling, and it was all designed that way. So a lot of out of town guests that I invited to her bat mitzvah service couldn't come. And there were a lot of people that did come, but many that couldn't come. Also, I felt supported by those people who came. I felt the love of people in my family and friends who understood and knew how difficult the situation was, and they showed up for me, and I was very appreciative, but it was very clear that the army of his family and friends were all there to rally around him. And although I was always so close to his family, it was very clear that there was his team, my team kind of thing, which, look, I wanted this divorce. I initiated it. I broke up our family whatever. You know, I take responsibility for that because I felt that it needed to happen. And I I understand that that means divorcing a family as well. But the truth is, is that. All of those reasons are not enough to keep a family together when the there's no foundation there, there's no friendship, there's no love, there's no affection, there's no intimacy, there's no nothing. And I truly believe he would have stayed married and miserable the whole time. I don't think he would have ever initiated divorce, which meant I had to, because I was not willing to waste the rest of my life being that miserable, and I didn't want my daughter growing up seeing that and thinking that that's love and that's what marriage should be. It's not what marriage should be. It felt like the world was against me. It felt like at times the walls were crashing down. It felt at times that my daughter was slipping further and further out of my hands without any power or control or ability to reel her back to me. It was, it was a terrible, terrible feeling, and it was a terrible circumstance. I wasn't sure how this was going to play out, but this was, this was like the worst time of my life. Please join me every Thursday for a new episode. I invite you to comment, like, share, subscribe. You can reach me at the music of life five, five@gmail.com with any questions or stories or experiences or anything that you want to share with me, I'd be happy to talk about it on another episode. I appreciate your listening, and if you're enjoying this, please go to the music of life.com and check out anything new you