You’re drowning.

In exhaustion. In frustration. In overwhelm.

You escaped your toxic relationship, but the freedom you envisaged you envisaged turned out to be a mirage. In reality, you’re mired in the quicksand of post-separation abuse, trying to maintain a household alone, dealing with your children’s emotions, earning a living, and just barely keeping body and soul together. It feels like an impossible, unsustainable burden. And when you think that this is going to be your life until your youngest child turns 18, maybe even longer—especially if you have a high-needs child—you just want to check out.

Before I go any further, I want to note something. Burnout isn’t just a single mother problem. My social media feeds and the Facebook Moms’ groups I belong to were flooded this last weekend with frustrated, disappointed posts from moms of young children, already burned out from mothering “solo”, even though their children’s fathers still live with them. I read story after story about young moms having to organize their own Mother’s Day breakfast on top of being expected to do the mental, emotional, and physical labor of Mother’s Day for their mothers-in-law as well.

It’s no surprise that there were so many of these posts. In a recent Substack piece, Emma Katz described how 22% of men aged 18 to 30 feel that men shouldn’t be expected to do housework. I remember the moment I realized this didn’t have to be my reality. I was in a group of other young moms. One of them was complaining that her husband had been away on a business trip for the last week, and she had to unpack the dishwasher and get her kids to bed, both of which he normally did.

In that moment, a knife went through my heart. That’s the only way I can describe how I felt. Pack the dishwasher? That’s something my ex only did when there were guests there? Put the kids to bed? Always my job. Along with all the other physical, mental, and emotional labor associated with our four children and our household. I wish I’d talked more about my own reality back then, like these mothers are doing.

Unfortunately, the cries of “divorce him” that rang out in response are a false promise of a utopia that won’t come for these moms. If and when they do divorce their lazy, often emotionally abusive husbands, they’ll exchange that reality for another sad one. It’s the reality that you’re living in and that I lived in too after I left my own lazy, unsupportive, abusive husband and stumbled into the dystopic hellscape of post-separation abuse as a single mom of four children, one of them with high needs.

A recipe for post-separation burnout

When you leave an abusive, unhelpful ex, especially if you have a high-needs child, your days become a relentless cycle of:

No wonder you feel burned out. When every ounce of your energy goes toward crisis management and keeping your child safe and cared for, what's left for creating sustainable systems, never mind caring for yourself?

Recalibrating expectations is your first step

One of the most powerful shifts comes from adjusting your expectations. I’m not saying that you have to lower your standards. I’m talking about creating realistic goals that align with your current circumstances.

Most of us embark on solo parenting with unrealistic images of what our lives are going to look like. We think we'll keep the same level of household organization, career progression, and self-care routines we had (or aspired to have) before. The harsh reality is that something has to give, and that's okay.

Start by asking yourself: what truly matters right now? What can wait? What can I let go of entirely?

For some moms, this might mean accepting temporary living arrangements with family. For others, it's choosing a smaller, more manageable living space. It could mean scaling back work hours if you can or finding creative ways to incorporate self-care into your existing routines.

Creative solutions for impossible situations

When conventional advice doesn't fit your reality, it's time to get creative. Here are some approaches that have worked for parents in similar situations:

If traditional exercise seems impossible to fit in, look for small opportunities throughout your day. Park further away from entrances when you run errands. Do five minutes of stretching while you supervise bath time. March in place while you brush your teeth. These microbursts might not match your pre-separation exercise routine, but they're infinitely better than nothing.

While it's tempting to use late-night hours for admin tasks, household chores, or just decompressing, chronic sleep deprivation will only deepen your burnout. When you haven’t had enough sleep, everything seems a thousand times worse. If there’s one thing I would have done differently in my own early separation period, it would have been to take micronaps when I could during the day, or even go to bed as early as 8 pm.

Ask yourself if you’re falling into the habit of revenge bedtime procrastination. Try selecting just one or two nights a week for staying up late to handle tasks, and prioritize sleep on the others. Even small improvements in sleep can dramatically affect your resilience.

When you do have a moment to prepare food, focus on simple meals that can be easily multiplied and frozen. This doesn't have to be elaborate meal prepping. Even cooking extra portions of basic meals can create breathing room on your hardest days.

When you feel like you’re barely keeping your head above water, your progress often seems invisible. So, start acknowledging every teeny-tiny victory. Maybe you can start a victory journal to look at on your really bad days. And yes, things like getting everyone dressed, responding to an important email, or just making it through a difficult day count here. As you do this, your resilience will grow, and you’ll find it easier to see solutions, rather than problems.

When you have absolutely no support

One of the cruelest realities for many single parents is the complete absence of support systems. If you're handling everything entirely on your own, consider these approaches:

If it’s financially possible, allocate even a small amount for occasional childcare. Even one hour a week to walk, exercise, or just sit quietly can preserve your mental health. This isn't a luxury. I repeat, it’s not a luxury. It's a necessity for sustainable parenting.

When in-person support isn't available, online communities of parents in similar situations can provide both emotional support and practical suggestions. Knowing you're not alone in your struggles makes them easier to bear.

Find ways to meet your needs while you get your child’s needs met. Take them to a playground where you can walk laps while they play. Try parent-child yoga videos where you both get movement. Visit indoor play places where you can sit nearby but get a mental break.

Progress isn't linear, and that's okay

Recovery from the stress, exhaustion, and overwhelm of separation, especially with ongoing conflict and solo parenting responsibilities, doesn't follow a straight line. You'll have good days and seemingly unbearable ones. The key is persistence, not perfection.

Remember that your children won't always be at this demanding stage. The intense physical caregiving of early childhood eventually eases. If you have a child with special needs, you’ll find more and more resources for them, especially once they get to school age, and you’ll develop a community around you to help you. The emotional turbulence of adjustment settles with time. Financial circumstances can improve. While it might not happen as quickly as you'd like, change is constant. That’s why I suggest tracking the progress you've made. Again, journaling is one way to do this.

Give yourself the same compassion you'd offer a friend in your situation. Acknowledge how much you're managing, how hard you're trying, and how worthy you are of support and rest.

A gentle reminder

Your value isn't measured by productivity, perfection, or how well you maintain appearances during this challenging time. It's in your resilience, your love for your children, and your commitment to building a healthier future for all of you.

Take it one day, one hour, or one minute at a time if you need to. Your future self will look back at your current self with immense pride for everything you managed to survive. I know because I do, even though I survived it so incredibly imperfectly.

Drowning in burnout? Take a step toward breathing easier

Book a free 30-minute discovery session with me where you'll:

• Share your unique burnout challenges in a safe, judgment-free space

• Gain clarity on what a more balanced life could look like for you

• Explore if my coaching approach aligns with your needs and goals

• Discover possibilities for moving from exhaustion to empowerment

This brief conversation isn't about quick fixes or strategies, but about understanding where you are and where you want to be. You'll walk away with a clearer vision of your path forward and whether we'd be a good fit to walk it together.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

This is probably an unpopular opinion in domestic violence circles, but I’m going to say it anyway. I think that the most helpful books for victims of post-separation abuse aren’t the ones about divorce, domestic violence, family courts, coparenting, or even narcissists. I’m not saying that those books are unhelpful. A lot of them have some useful information. But those aren’t the books that have brought me my biggest insights, my most stunning “AHA” lightbulb moments.

The books that have helped me grow the most, and which have also fed into this newsletter, are mindset books for entrepreneurs. If you think about it, entrepreneurs and abuse survivors drink from the same fire hose of chaos. Both of them wake up every morning to face systems designed to break their spirit. They both deal with rejection that would crush normal humans.

I started reading these books to help me grow my business, first as a translator and copywriter and now as a divorce coach. It soon became clear to me that they can be psychological armor for people trapped in the dystopian hellscape of high-conflict divorce. When your ex is playing 4D chess with your sanity and the courts move with the urgency of a three-toed sloth on Ambien, you need the mental toolkit these books provide.

My first-ever newsletter came from something I read in a marketing book for entrepreneurs. Last week, I presented a webinar for divorce coaches based on another book written for people in business. They were bowled over by the new information I brought to them. But this information isn’t new. It’s out there. It just isn’t in books about the family courts or domestic violence.

So, in that vein, here’s my resource for this week. It’s The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. First of all, let me say that you are a high achiever. Leaving an abusive relationship, especially if you share children with your abuser, is a big achievement. And there’s no higher achievement than facing the challenges of post-separation abuse and all the systems that enable it, while helping your children become emotionally resilient and keeping your own sanity intact.

This book offers something you've been desperately searching for: freedom from the crushing weight of never feeling good enough. When you're flailing through the overwhelm of single parenthood and post-separation abuse, that feeling is amplified to unbearable levels. The constant comparison between your reality and where you "should be," where you see the people around you, in their happy marriages or their easygoing coparenting situations, is soul-destroying.

What if you could wake up tomorrow feeling accomplished instead of defeated? What if you could end each day with a sense of progress rather than failure? What if you could find genuine moments of joy and satisfaction even as you forge this impossibly difficult path?

That's the transformation "The Gap and The Gain" delivers. It replaces the exhausting cycle of "never enough" with a practical system for recognizing your wins, no matter how small they are. For someone like you who’s fighting battles that other people can't even start to comprehend, this shift is essential for survival.

This book won't magically change your ex's behavior or instantly improve your children's challenges or turn the judge into your savior. No, it does something far more valuable. It gives you the mental framework to maintain your sanity, recognize your strength, and find satisfaction even within your challenging circumstances.