Please excuse slightly dramatic title but yeah, unfortunately I mean it.So I'm a single mom. I'm divorced. My ex has visitation with our son. He gets one night a week and every other weekend. He never helps me at all beyond that schedule. Absolutely refuses. My sister lives right by me but she does not help either and has no desire to. My parents live two hours away. They are "willing" to help if they don't have other plans, but they live two hours away. They can only really help for holidays when my son can spend the night there.My son is 6 so he's not really self-sufficient at all (as he shouldn't be, he's still little). I live in an area with shit school districts so he goes to private school.Here's the deal:I work in tech. A very high-pressure, high-performance job. Luckily it's high paying, but I'm in a very expensive city as well. I worked my ass off for this career, and I have no other skills beyond tech. I have a GED and I taught myself, so I can't get an easier or less demanding job. My parents help pay for my son's school, because I could not afford it on my own.My days go from 5:30 am to 9 pm. I wake up, get my son ready for school, get myself ready for work and lunches packed, rush him to school as soon as they open. I get to work by 8, leave by 4:30 just to pick him up by 5:45. Then we sit in 2 hours of traffic to get home. We get home at 7:45. I can barely grocery shop because I can't drag an exhausted 6 year old around a packed grocery store at 8 pm. We eat the fastest dinner I can make, try to play, then I bathe him and put him to bed.By this point every night it's 9 pm and I'm crying. I either have more work to do so I continue working until I fall asleep, or I get into bed and fall asleep immediately. If I have to take a shower, I'm just fucked. Then I wake up and do it all over again.On the weekends I spend all day both days doing chores. Dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, running errands. Whether he is with me or with his dad on weekends I do the same thing.I only see my friends when they come over sometimes after my son is asleep. I never do anything. I can't go on dates. I have 0 time. If I try to do something for fun, my entire week is thrown off because I'm trying to do chores at night and I'm just plain fucking exhausted after my 15.5 hour day.I throw up every single morning, but nothing is wrong with my physically so it must be from stress.I have no idea what to do or how other people do this. I can't afford a nanny. I can't force a family member to move nearby and help me (they know exactly how much I'm struggling). I can't force my ex to want to help me. I could potentially adjust my custody schedule if he wants more visitation, but then I wouldn't receive child support which I need to keep my son in his school. I know the easiest answer may be to pull him out of that school, but that breaks my heart. He loves it and the public schools here are horrendous for bullying and just no educational opportunities. I think I would be even more depressed if I pulled him out. He would also have a really rough time with that.I'm only 27. None of my friends have kids, I don't know other moms here who could somehow help me, and even if I did I'd have to pay them and I can't afford it.I feel like there is no way out for me. I'm absolutely desperate. The rise and grind is killing me. I have no idea what to do or if this is just what it's like being a single parent. I'm honestly really damn close to faking my own disappearance and running away to Mexico, but obviously I could never abandon my son.Do any of you kind parents have any sort of advice for me? I don't see how much longer I can make it like this. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2DZ0d2U
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