Summarized Transcript of Episode 264 of The Moving On Method® Podcast

Naming the Feeling: Why Resentment Creeps In

HOST (Michelle Dempsey-Moltak): Welcome back to The Moving On Method podcast. Today we’re talking about something many single parents hesitate to admit but often feel deeply, resentment. I’ve been there. When I first separated, my daughter was two. Friends were still planning date nights and having babies, while I was managing bills, household repairs, and bedtime stories alone. It felt overwhelming and isolating.

• Resentment can feel like jealousy or frustration when you see others receiving help you don’t have.

• Feeling resentful does not make you a bad parent or friend—it makes you human.

• Naming the feeling is the first step to releasing it.

QUOTE: “Resentment is like swallowing poison and hoping it affects someone else. It never does, it only hurts you.”

Understanding the Mental Load of Single Parenting

HOST: Single parents carry a mental load that was never meant for one set of shoulders. Even in two-parent homes, one parent often bears more of the emotional labor, but single parents carry it all.

• Cooking, driving, planning, comforting—the responsibilities are endless.

• The constant comparison to partnered friends or neighbors can intensify resentment.

• Remember: what you see on social media is rarely the full story.

QUOTE: “It’s natural to feel that pang in your chest that says, ‘Why me?’ when you look at someone who seems to have it easier.”

Caring for Yourself: Practical Strategies to Release Resentment

Michelle shares actionable strategies for breaking the cycle of resentment and exhaustion:

• Name It: Acknowledge the resentment out loud or in a journal.

• Rest: Prioritize sleep hygiene by creating calming nighttime routines and reducing late-night scrolling.

• Nutrition: Feed yourself with the same care you give your kids, simple, protein-rich meals or nutrient-packed smoothies can make a big difference.

• Movement: Gentle exercise like walking or yoga lowers cortisol and clears resentment from the body.

• Breathing: Incorporate deep-breathing practices to reset your nervous system and stay grounded.

QUOTE: “Movement doesn’t have to mean a boot camp class. Even a short walk after dinner can calm your nervous system and reset your mood.”

Reframing Single Parenthood and Asking for Help

Michelle emphasizes that single does not mean alone. Accepting help is not weakness, it’s a form of strength.

• Let go of pride and fear of judgment when asking for support.

• Identify friends, family, or community members who have offered to help and take them up on it.

• Resentment loses power when spoken aloud and shared with a trusted person.

QUOTE: “When resentment shows up, it’s really just your body’s way of saying, ‘I need care too.’”

Final Reflection: The Beauty in the Struggle

Michelle reminds listeners that parenting alone, while exhausting, creates a unique strength and bond with your children.

• Your efforts teach your kids resilience, self-care, and the importance of asking for help.

• Resentment is a signal for self-care, not a sign of failure.

• You don’t need to be perfect, just present and loving.

QUOTE: “I became the best version of myself as a parent when I started doing it alone, and I will die on that hill.”

 

Raw Transcript:

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I am your host, Michelle Dempsey-Moltak, and today we’re talking about something you may not want to admit to yourself, but once I say it out loud, you’re going to be like, okay, yeah. And I’m going to talk about it only because I know the feeling. I have been there.

 

And while we don’t want to admit it to other people, it’s really important we admit it to ourselves, and it’s this feeling of resentment. I remember when I first got separated. My daughter was two.

 

Everyone was still, I mean, I had only been married three years, so people were still technically newlyweds. My friends were still having babies. Some were even pregnant at that time.

 

Everybody’s still having date nights and going out with other couples. I had a lot of resentment. Maybe I masked it as jealousy.

 

Maybe I pretended I didn’t care. But having to do everything by myself on my own time with my daughter was really exhausting, not to mention working, trying to pay bills, how to handle when the toilet wouldn’t flush or the shower curtain rod fell down, right? Resentment, because everyone I knew had somebody to help. That deep ache that you feel when you look around and see everyone else around you married, partnered, or seemingly having it easier while you’re carrying the full weight of parenting alone, resentment.

 

It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you a bad friend. It’s a natural feeling of, what does this person have to complain about? I’m a single parent.

 

I’m doing this all by myself. So if that’s you right now, I want you to know you are not selfish. You’re not bitter, and you’re not wrong for feeling this way.

 

You’re human. The human experience is nuanced. It’s layered, and it can feel hard.

 

So today, I want to help you move through those feelings while also giving you some real tips for surviving this exhausting season. First, it starts with getting honest with yourself and naming the resentment. Let’s be real.

 

Being a single parent is exhausting, even on your best days. You’re the cook, the chauffeur, the homework helper, the nighttime snuggler, the bill payer, the everything, the mommy, watch this, or where’s that? Or just when you sit down for five minutes, somebody else needs you. And then you look across the street at your neighbor, her husband’s outside mowing the lawn while she relaxes inside with a coffee.

 

Or you scroll Instagram, and you see date nights and family vacations where no one seems to be carrying the entire mental load. It’s natural to feel that pang in your chest that says, why me? Why do I have to do this all alone? Why do I have to be the one who gets to the end of the day moody and cranky and my kid’s getting on my last nerve, and now I’m going to snap when somebody else might have it easier? It doesn’t mean you don’t love your kids. It means you’re human, and you’re carrying a load that really was never meant for one set of shoulders.

 

I’m sure you’ve seen on social media at this point this conversation on the mental load and how even in a married situation in a two-parent home, there is one parent that tends to carry the majority of the mental load. There’s the preferred parent, right? I mean, not for nothing, this is what leads to resentment and divorce when someone in this dynamic ends up throwing their hands up and being sick of being the only one to do everything and make every decision. But nonetheless, there’s still another warm body there, another adult body in the room if you want to take a minute for yourself or take a walk or get in the shower without having to worry about your kids burning the house down while you’re doing it.

 

Anyway, just like you’re entitled to the feeling, you have to be aware of what this feeling means for you and your body. Resentment hurts you more than them. You know, nobody else carries that feeling other than you.

 

You may resent your good friend who’s constantly complaining about how her husband came home late from work again, or maybe he’s not texting her as much during the day as he used to, and then you hang up the phone and you’re sitting with that really uncomfortable feeling. Here’s the thing. The people you’re resenting probably don’t even notice, and if they did, they’re not really going to be affected by it as much as you are with carrying that feeling.

 

You know it doesn’t feel good. Your body doesn’t know what to do with it, and it lives in your nervous system. It’ll wear you down layer by layer until you’re not just tired, you’re depleted.

 

You’re now maybe getting a little passive aggressive with your friends. You’re maybe not responding in the group chat when the conversation feels to you like it’s a personal attack on the responsibility you have to carry. Resentment is like swallowing poison and hoping it affects someone else.

 

It’s never going to happen, at least not in the short term, right? It just affects you, and as a single parent, you cannot afford to pour from a cup that’s bone dry. If you are pouring with this air of resentment, it’s felt. Your kids know.

 

You’re going to make snide comments. You’re going to be short with them. You’re going to get snippy, and they don’t deserve that, and you don’t deserve that because then you feel worse after, and it’s like a never-ending cycle.

 

So let’s pull yourself out of it, okay? What do you do? First, you got to name it. I feel resentful. This is hard.

 

Grab a journal. Get on the phone with your therapist, your best friend, and say it out loud, not as a personal attack but to just say, these are the feelings I’m sitting with. This is why I hate it.

 

This is why I don’t want to feel this way. It is hard to not just live the life I’m living as a single parent but also carry this resentment around in my body, and I want to take steps to care for myself, my body, my mind, because I’m carrying double the weight right now, and I need something to lighten, right? So you say it out loud. You write it down when it comes up.

 

What is it in this moment that I feel so resentful about? And talk yourself off the ledge. I feel so resentful that my best friend and her husband are on another date night posting these cute pictures, and then you remind yourself. The Instagram feed is not a beautiful, perfect indication of what’s really going on behind closed doors.

 

This is the same couple that your friend’s always complaining about her husband and how detached he seems to be or how uninvolved he gets with the kids, right? You remind yourself that those experiences that other people are having that you feel resentment about probably aren’t as great as you’re making them seem, and then you focus on yourself. What can I do in this situation to make my body feel better, right? I know logically that I have less to feel jealous or resentful about than I’m actually feeling, but my body needs this break. My body doesn’t want to hold onto this.

 

First and foremost, your sleep hygiene, right? Not sleeping enough does not make you a martyr, and you may not get your eight hours of uninterrupted rest, but you can create new habits that are going to help you feel more rested when you do wake up in the morning, whether it’s eight hours, six hours, or maybe it’s five. Put your phone down earlier. Don’t sit in a rabbit hole scrolling, looking at all the things that make you feel badly about your situation, right? Dim the lights, have a little routine, turn on a diffuser, get some lavender spray, and train your body for deeper rest.

 

Make it a sacred practice. Sleep is what I can do for myself. Rest is what I can give for myself that’s going to lessen all the negative feelings that I’m carrying when I wake up rested the next day, right? Feed yourself like you matter.

 

If you’re like most of today’s moms, you’re worried about every single ingredient that goes into your kids’ bodies, right? Is there food coloring? Is there dyes? Are there preservatives? The list goes on and on and on, organic, shmorganic, gluten-free, but then you’re just grabbing handfuls of goldfish and chugging cold coffee in the name of sustenance because you’re putting so much energy into feeding everybody else. Even simple meals for yourself can go such a long way. Like that hangry thing is real.

 

Two eggs in the morning. If that’s the only protein you’re going to get in the day, great. At least you’re getting it.

 

Smoothies. When I’m particularly stressed out, like I’ve said recently on social media, the first thing to go is my appetite. The idea of eating makes me nauseous, but I know at some point in the day I’m going to feel hungry, so I’m going to pack as many nutrients into a smoothie as possible.

 

I’m going to throw a protein powder in there. I’m going to throw a couple handfuls of spinach. Lots and lots of berries.

 

A little almond milk with extra protein, right? Like that’s going to go a long way, and if I don’t eat my three square meals in the day like perfectly portioned out, at least I’ve got that. Have a handful of nuts in your purse. If you’re running from carpool to carpool and then in between your kids’ extracurricular activities, you got to do the food shopping, run home and let the dog out, then go back and pick them up.

 

Have a healthy snack in your purse. It makes a difference. Now, I know nobody wants to hear it and it’s super cliche, but you got to move your body.

 

One of the best lessons I’ve learned about my own body, so I have a long history of punishing my body in the name of trying to look good or feel a sense of control, right? When I turned 40 and I got all this blood work done, my cortisol was through the roof. Why was I doing all this exercise and never losing any weight and only feeling more stressed out at the end of it? Oh, because I wasn’t working out gently. I wasn’t treating my body kindly.

 

I was putting it through hell in these workouts and expecting to feel good. It doesn’t work like that. All you need is some gentle movement every day.

 

I know you’re tired, but movement doesn’t have to mean a boot camp class. Walk with your kids after dinner. My daughter and I, as much as I have to force and beg her to do it, we’ll take a 20-minute walk after dinner with the excuse of taking the dog out, right? Get that out of our systems.

 

We have good conversations when it happens. I’m not walking to become the most fit person on earth. It is more of like a gift to myself that calms my nervous system, gets fresh air in my lungs, and resets the tone for whatever’s going to happen for the rest of the night.

 

A lot of things that help me also are stretching movements. I’ve gotten into yoga. So cliche, right? Took me 25 years to jump on board this yoga train, but it’s transformed my ability to give to myself and treat myself gently.

 

I’ll now stretch before bed. If it’s just a couple of moves, I’ll stretch when I wake up on the weekend if I’m feeling extra wound up from the week. I’ll put on music when I make dinner, right? I don’t make it feel like a chore.

 

I make it feel like an experience. I love to cook. Cooking is where I channel a lot of my energy.

 

If I’m stressed out and I don’t feel like dealing with the outside world, I am in my kitchen getting my hands dirty. I’ve got good relaxing music on, whatever it is, a playlist, Spotify, and I just lose myself in the moment. I’m moving my body gently, and it’s just cooking.

 

Movement is proven to clear resentment out of your system faster than you realize. You know the old Elle Woods, you know, exercise causes endorphins, and endorphins make people happy, and happy people don’t kill their husbands. It’s that notion, but you don’t have to beat yourself up to do it.

 

Here’s a simple one, and you’re probably doing it right now. Breathe. Breathe it out.

 

I recently decided to create a new morning routine for myself because my daughter switched schools. I have to wake up an hour earlier. My whole schedule had to change.

 

I needed some semblance of control over my day, so I created a new morning routine, which literally just includes a little deep breathing in the morning before I get out of bed. I replaced my, like, morning doom scroll with a cup of coffee and deep breathing. I inhale through my nose a few times, hold it, exhale slowly, and I reset my nervous system for the morning because I know I’m about to have, like, a whole shitshow of traffic and carpool and drop off, and I forgot my this, and, you know, all that goes into being a parent in the morning.

 

Breathing. And when you make that a regular practice, you have it to fall back on in times of the day where you’re reaching that breaking point. Sometimes when I’m in the car, I do the breathing.

 

I shut off the music. I shut off the podcast, whatever it is, and I just, like, recenter myself with some deep breaths. And lastly, and I truly hope you can do this, and I know you can, call in your people.

 

This idea of being a single parent, I think, at least for me, in the beginning, I was very proud. I didn’t want people to say, well, if it’s so hard and you’re asking for help, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten divorced, right? I had to let that go because I knew very quickly if I didn’t ask for help, I was going to freaking drown and take everybody down with me. So you may be single, right, in the sense that you don’t have a partner in your home, but you’re not meant to be alone.

 

You can reach out to a friend, a neighbor, a parent, a support group. I know that there has been at least one person who has said to you in this time, if you need anything, let me know. What can I do to help? Share your truth.

 

Resentment loses power when it’s spoken out loud, when you can say, hey, this is hard for me. Help. So let’s reframe the narrative.

 

You are doing something profoundly hard, yet profoundly beautiful. This is the kind of work that when your kids are all grown up, they’re going to look back and say, wow, my mom not only did it, but she did it on her own. She did it beautifully.

 

She gave to us what she could. She taught us the power of being strong, of taking a time out when you need it, of asking for help because it’s important. Yes, it’s exhausting.

 

Yes, you’ll wish it was easier. But the strength you are building now and the bond you’re creating with your children through that strength is something that even the most perfect partnered parent can replicate. I always say I became the best version of myself as a parent when I started doing it alone, and I will die on that hill.

 

When resentment shows up, it’s really just your body’s way of saying, hey, I need care too. I’m important in this narrative also. I’m the oxygen mask for these little people I’m caring for.

 

So listen to that. Answer it. Give yourself permission to rest, to nourish, to release, and then go about your day in a different way.

 

If you’re a single parent listening today, resentment doesn’t make you a bad mom or dad. It makes you human, but caring for yourself makes you unstoppable. I’m Michelle Dempsey-Moltak, and this has been another episode of the Moving On Method.

 

Until next time, breathe deep, give yourself grace, and remember, you don’t have to do this perfectly. You just have to keep showing up with love.