You have NO IDEA what it’s like being a single parent. I’ve been both - married for most of my children’s lives and more recently single. Being a single parent is the hardest, most gruelling, exhausting thing I’ve ever done. I thought I knew what it would be like because my husband travelled a lot for work, worked long hours and wasn’t hands on with the kids. No. I had no idea what it was like.
Nothing frustrates me more than people parenting in relationships thinking that single parents have it easy because we get ‘time off’ from our kids. That ‘time off’ (and I agree 3 days a week is decent fir your friend - I get 24 hours twice a month) is NEEDED. The rest of the time we do absolutely everything alone - practically, physically, mentally, emotionally. All housework, childcare, life admin, paying bills, every decision every worry every sleepless night every bad day - everything that a couple shares, we do alone. Some days when I’m so exhausted from work I’d give my right arm to walk into the kitchen and see someone else has put a plate in the dishwasher or signed the kids’ reading logs or emptied the bin. But EVERYTHING is on me. The ‘time off’ from our kids makes up for every time you get to have a shower in peace because your partner is there. Every time your partner does a household task so you don’t have to do it. Every time your partner makes you a cup of tea. Every time the kids need something and there are two people to take it in turns getting up.