Solo Parenting

(From our March 2025 Issue)

Emotionally Healthy Single Parent Seeks the Same

By Scoti Springfield Domeij

Many single parents barely survive the misfortune of a devastating relationship, only to invite disaster back into their lives. Too often, we overlook character for charm, chemistry, or charisma. Studies reveal that 80 percent of every break-up or divorce occurs when one or both ‘sweet’hearts turn sour. Sidestep heartache and familiarize yourself with the ABCs of emotionally unhealthy individuals.

Anger: Love’s number one enemy? Unresolved grudges and unforgiveness. Like Old Faithful’s super-heated eruptions of acidic steam and blistering water, avoid toxic individuals who spew caustic chaos and only sear agony on your heart.

Addiction: Relational death triggered by compulsive enslavement should not come as a surprise. Yet intelligent people rationalize addictive behavior. A wise person steers clear of addicts who elevate substances, sex, porn, or other self-destructive behaviors over intimacy.

Bitterness: Ugliness turned inside out paralyzes joy and love. The bile of resentment saturates a relationship in toxic venom and murders love. When we comprehend the carnage that bitterness foretells, disregard their poisonous chalice and leave their ill will untasted.

Controlling: Blame belittlers. Chronic criticism. Guilt generators. Imposed isolation. Jealousy junkies. What suctions every ounce of life and love from you? Control freaks manipulate and kill relationships. Someone who steamrolls over your desires, controls your freedom, withdraws into an icy cave, or explodes in the red mist of anger when you don’t ‘obey’, or balk at dictatorial demands.

Directionless: The dibbler and dabbler without purpose, responsibility, or direction sows feathers to the wind. Their commitment-phobe life swirls aimlessly like loose wisps of smoke adrift in the whirlwind that dissipates in the storm. Don’t be hooked and reeled in by supporting a Peter Pan—emotionally, financially, or spiritually.

Egotistical: Self-centered takers don’t give. The number one cause of conflict in marriage? Selfishness. The conniving charmer takes no responsibility for cruelly abandoning their partner. Mr. or Ms. ‘Me-Myself-and-I’ views relationships through the egocentric lens of what they devour. If you’re looking for long-term love, studies reveal that both people in successful relationships are givers.

Fear Phobia: Unhealed wounds related to rejection, intimacy, abandonment, or commitment sabotage the development of a bonded, healthy relationship. Most experience anxiety at the beginning of a relationship. A perfect risk-free relationship will never exist. When someone holds negative views about themselves, their X, others, or you—run!

Greedy: She thought he was rich. He thought she was his well-heeled ticket to never work again. Not. Both were naïve. Ms. or Mr. Taker? User and abuser, their elephantine greed bankrupted their first marriages. The second time around, they connived to consume Ms. or Mr. Sucker’s wealth. Proverbs 15:27 warns, “Greed brings grief to the whole family.” Don’t obligate yourself to misery for the rest of your life. Run from anyone who drags you down, triggers anger, drains you, or devalues or confuses you.

Propelled into single parenthood with a four-year-old son and a nursing nine-month-old son, Scoti Springfield Domeij helps solo parents courageously face their fears to embrace a new life. A proud Gold Star mom, she’s published in The New York Times, Southwest Art, and Family Life Today. She writes for an online military journal, Havok Journal.com. © 2025 Scoti Springfield Domeij. All rights reserved.