Having it All Post-Divorce

I woke up this morning with my to-do list churning in my head even before I opened my eyes. Instead of using the weekend to catch up, I spent Saturday at an all-day board retreat and Sunday prepping for a dinner party while providing moral support as my twin sons slogged through research papers. I'm starting this week already behind because my inbox is full, I have no clean clothes and the only thing to eat in the fridge is mayonnaise. This feeling of being underwater is familiar to most working mothers, which is why my friend Tiffany Dufu wrote her excellent book "Drop the Ball" to coach women how to let go of the crazy notion of "having it all."

"Having it all" is the uniquely female quest to be equally ambitious and successful at work and at home. The trouble is that this drive for perfection is not always shared by our partners. In an excerpt from her book, working-mother Tiffany speaks about feeling resentment towards her husband when he comes home late from work to a clean house, a sleeping child and a home-cooked dinner. As she says: "My husband's solution to having it all was me. But what was mine?"

When I was married I frequently felt this resentment. I worked all day, picked up the kids from school, helped them with their homework, cleaned up the house and made dinner all before my husband walked in the door. I kept the house and garden neat and beautiful and took care of every doctor's appointment, school assignment and sick kid day. Now as a single mother, I realize how much of that resentment stemmed from my need to have everything just so. It wasn't acceptable to me to have take-out, to live in a messy house or to farm out child care to a stranger, even if it would have made our lives easier. I modeled my home life on an idealized version of what I had as a kid (home-baked birthday cakes, flowers on the kitchen table) and I felt resentful when my husband was OK with dropping the ball on my idea of how things should be.

I was struck reading Tiffany's book how much of the advice for living a more manageable life hinged on having a supportive partner. If married people can work as a team to prioritize what really needs to get done and share the responsibilities equally, it makes for a better, saner life for everyone. But what about the increasing number of mothers who don't have a partner at home? I haven't seen much written about how "having it all" changes after a divorce, but I think the reality is probably a little different than one might expect.

After my divorce, everything involving the house was suddenly solely my responsibility. If dishes didn't get washed or the trash didn't get to the curb, I had no one to blame but myself. But instead of feeling the burden of shouldering all of the work, I'll admit I felt liberated from all that old resentment. My house and garden probably look better now than they ever have because I am working to please myself rather than resenting being the only one to put in the work. I also have plenty of days now when I allow myself to completely drop the ball – I eat cereal, ignore the laundry and let the inevitable piles of stuff fall where they may.

My sons, now teenagers, are part of the solution, not the problem. When we all get home after a long day they know it is their job to help me make dinner, put away the groceries and set the table before collapsing on the couch to play video games. That's the great thing about children – you can tell them what to do in a different way than you can with your partner. I still do all the sick kid days and the doctor's appointments, but I'm more grateful to be with them now that I don't have them living with me full-time. And we three have embraced the need to have some days where we eat take-out in front of the TV and this makes us happy.

This is not to say, of course, that divorce is the answer for busy women trying to have it all. But my status as a single mother has calmed my home life in a way that I never could have anticipated. I hope that if I'm lucky enough to live with a partner again, I'll remember that I want things a certain way because it makes me happy, not because as a woman or a mother it is expected of me. And I'll definitely encourage us to drop the ball on those days where perfection is just way too much work.