How ‘Stay-at-Home’ Mothers Survive This Detrimental Divorce Label

When a man demands sacrifice — then leaves you with nothing

“My mom was a stay-at-home mom,” says my husband. “I’m glad you will be too.”

Our son is just months old.

The choice to work inside or outside the home is emotional. For me, it goes above and beyond this. Two years prior to delivering my baby, I lose my mother. I am just a child myself. A 28-year-old orphan.

I cry immediately after his birth, I long for my own mother.

A 30-year-old new mom who doesn’t want to miss a moment with her child.

I think being a stay-at-home mom is a joint decision between two parents. It’s solving logistical issues within our family and our business. We either need to replace me at home or in the office.

It doesn’t present itself as the future liability it will expose itself to be.

It feels as if my husband and I are aligned. Two best friends and spouses decided what was best for our family.

Until our marriage ends.

Until divorce exposes the prejudicial view of stay-at-home mothers.

There’s a life cycle for stay-at-home moms.

Nobody warns us about that.

We come with a divorce expiration date.

We outlive our usefulness. We haven’t built a financial resume. Our work experience counts for nothing. Stay-at-home moms don’t have qualities or talents recognized by the outside world. And certainly not the divorce world.

Stay-at-home mothers are asked to discard their self-respect.

We are women taking advantage of ‘hard-working’ men.

The stay-at-home mother is a detrimental divorce label.

One that will play loudly throughout the divorce process. It will haunt the choices our younger selves made. It will take the best years of our lives and demand a hefty price for them.

How do stay-at-home mothers survive this detrimental divorce label?

We overcome 3 archaic challenges.

1. The prejudicial view of divorcing stay-at-home mothers

Divorce exposes the archaic and prejudicial view of stay-at-home mothers.

Society doesn’t place a value on stay-at-home moms. Worse, guess who’s a part of society? The individuals who make the divorce legal system go round and round.

You never know if you’ll be interacting with someone with a prejudice.

“This is a woman taking advantage of a man. This is a lazy woman. This is a woman who doesn’t deserve what she’s asking for. This woman didn’t contribute financially. Why does she get an equal value out of a marriage?”

The divorce view of stay-at-home mothers offers little respect.

There’s no acknowledgment of the professional and financial sacrifices the stay-at-home mother makes. She didn’t walk away from her career and income on her own. She made a joint decision with a person she believed she could trust. It was a spouse who the stay-at-home mother believed valued her contributions.

Until divorce proved her wrong.

2. Income dictates the value of stay-at-home mothers in divorce

The spouse with the income is the spouse with the power during a divorce.

It’s no longer the 1950s but you wouldn’t know it as a divorcing stay-at-home mother. The year may have numerically changed but mentalities remain rigid.

Women are supposed to be celebrated for having the freedom of choice.

Aren’t they?

Women have evolved. Women have supposedly progressed to a level of higher regard, recognition, and respect. If you are a divorcing stay-at-home mom you must acknowledge this untruth. The stay-at-home mother will not receive the three R’s during a divorce.

There will be no regard, recognition, or respect.

Unless you are divorcing a genuinely decent individual with a strong sense of values, and right or wrong. Or you get a divorce lawyer who knocks your case way out of the divorcing stay-at-home mother ballpark.

A stay-at-home mom will be adversely financially impacted by a divorce. The stay-at-home mom is not viewed as a contributor.

They are viewed as a taker during a divorce.

It’s an irony given the self-sacrifice, professional sacrifice, and income sacrifice a stay-at-home mother contributes to the marriage. Not to mention the complete sacrifice of ultimate independence.

But the stay-at-home mother doesn’t realize that until the divorce.

3. The divorcing stay-at-home mother lacks societal respect

The divorcing stay-at-home mom doesn’t garner the respect she deserves.

Again, the stay-at-home mom divorce label rears its ugly head. Bless her heart. Look what she’s been through. It’s so sad. What a brutal divorce.

The stay-at-home mom sacrificed everything and was left with nothing.

The woman people feel sorry for. The one who was treated horrifically and lost everything she worked for. How will she survive? How will she retire? It’s too bad. Such a shame life turned out this way for her.

The divorce legal system further backs this up.

The legal professionals tell stay-at-home mothers it could have been worse. They’ve seen far greater financial abuse and horrible outcomes during a divorce. The stay-at-home mom should consider herself lucky. She got something even if it’s barely anything.

These are hardly self-esteem and self-respecting arguments.

They don’t make a divorcing stay-at-home mom feel better or valued.

They are excuses and justifications that enable bad behavior in divorce.

They reinforce that stay-at-home mothers sacrifice not only literal money but their actual worth in a divorce. Take a moment to digest that. It’s a far greater price than any woman should pay.

How do stay-at-home mothers survive this detrimental divorce label?

When a man demands sacrifice — then leaves you with nothing.

When society backs the man up.

Stay-at-home mothers are highly motivated women who work without accolades or compensation. There are no promotions, no ceremonies, and no awards. We don’t receive pensions or retirement.

We play and pay for the bigger picture — our families.

The culmination of our selfless contributions deserves recognition. If not monetarily, then at the very least, in the form of respect. In the acknowledgment, women are faced with difficult choices whether to work inside or outside of their homes.

One isn’t right and one isn’t wrong.

Both require women to support an infrastructure either in the professional sense or in the community, volunteering, and child-rearing sense. No woman, no mother deserves to be judged for an excruciatingly personal decision.

And no woman, no mother deserves to lose all of her security.

I was left with no savings and no retirement.

My husband lied, cheated, stole, and lowered our business income.

He dictated my worth in a divorce.

The same man who wanted me to be a stay-at-home mother. The type of man who didn’t have the values or the sense of right and wrong to do the right thing during a divorce.

There’s a life cycle for stay-at-home moms.

We come with a divorce expiration date.