My name is Brad and here is my story.  My story takes a long and winding road, filled with some of the greatest ups and the lowest downs. It’s hard to believe that those ups and downs could be a part of the same life. I was blessed as a child to grow up the way I did. I was born in southest Wisconsin on the Illinois/Wisconsin border. I lived in an area so small I bet it didn’t have 100 full time residents. We had a great house on a small lake with lots to do. All my brother and I did was fish, water ski, swim, sail, ice skate, snow ski, sled, ride 4-wheelers and snowmobiles. We were luckier still to have both sets of grand parents within walking distance so we played lots of board and card games, ping pong, and learning to cook. Now lots of people get to do these things in a life time, but we did these things everyday right in our own backyard. Our vacations consisted mostly of fishing in the Florida Keys. Although we lived in the sticks, we were less than an hour from downtown Milwaukee or Chicago. As a family we seemed to spend most of our time away from home on the Chicagoland side of life. Yep we had it all and somehow we knew it was special even at an early age. We watch how hard mom and dad worked to keep us happy and healthy.

It seemed like 15 years of ups and no downs, then one day in the spring of my freshman year of high school we got the news, divorce #1. Our parents had decided it was over for them. The news wasn’t exactly a surprise and it was the right decision for them, but it was still quite an emotional blow to hear. I was 15 and my brother was 11, I’m not sure what he felt but I seemed to feel every emotion there is, yet I was numb. Their court process lasted for over 5 years and when it was over everything we knew was gone. All the family dinners with games afterwards, all the boats, the house, vacations everything… Then the changes in family member attitudes and all the stupid advice from them. Dads family wanted nothing to do with moms and moms wanted even less to do with dads. I got so hard to be with any of them, that we simply stopped being with all of them. A few years after the dust settled one of my grandmothers was diagnosed with cancer and given two months to live, well it all ended in about six weeks. All of us had known for years how the property was to be divided up. My grandparents thought they had taken care of everything so that there would be nothing to fight over.

If you knew my father and uncle you’d know why this could never have happened they literally fought about everything. So dad sued him and uncle sued dad, yep divorce #2. Next thing I know everybody is testifying against everybody and in the end more property lost instead of shared and I haven’t been able to speak to my uncle or cousins since 1994. Again we road an emotional roller coaster that felt exactly the same as a divorce and the results were the same. I never found out who was right between dad or uncle but whoever was wrong is really gonna get it in the afterlife when grandma gets a hold of him…

The years between my 19th and 28th birthdays are filled mostly with days and nights I would rather not remember. Whether it was work or personal it was always chaos and mayhem, boys will be boys. Somewhere in all this I moved to Florida, ahhh a dream come true. I was here about three and a half years when I met who would become my wife. Simple story we met, fell in love, and got married had 2 boys and then.

Divorce #3. So for the third time and the worst time I ride the emotional roller coaster again. So here I am a single dad with 2 beautiful boys. Now when this all started my boys were only 1 and a half and the oldest was 3. I was looking for help and advice and some ideas but where do you go? That was the question.

I thought about doing something that could help, but what and how. I came up with this site after a lot of thinking about what I needed during my divorce. At first I remember not knowing what to even do with my boys when I had them. How to travel easier, places to stop, things to watch for in the kids behavior. We all learn things about our kids everyday so lets share those tips with each other, that would be helpful. Right? Maybe you don’t know how to fish. You can come here go into our hobbies forum and ask someone to help get you started, then on the same site you can click over to one of the stores and order what you need , simple. Save some money using the rebates offered and start enjoying a new hobby with your children. Sometimes we need advice from our peers, all divorces are very different so there is now sure fire advice anywhere, but maybe someone can help someone else with a little advice that just helps them think it through better. Helpful right? Thanks for checking out our site, and I personally want to invite you make yourself at home here. This is our website to help us move on and enjoy life again. 

That is my story and everyone has one that they need to tell.   So, come back often and let's learn about each other and start to live again.   That is what SingleParentsLiving.com is all about.   Bringing joy back into shattered lives and finding the bargains that have help us to survive. 

Thank you for visiting the site and taking the time to read my story.

God bless you and your family.

SingleParentsLiving.com