I Felt Like a Failure: A Single Mother’s Story of Unemployment, Loneliness, and Starting Over

I felt like a failure, stuck in a situation that seemed completely hopeless.

A single mother, no partner, no job, living in a small apartment that was barely livable.

A spring morning and a song

Yesterday morning, I woke up and the light coming through the curtains promised a beautiful spring day. I got out of bed, put on my jeans, tied my hair back, put on my earrings, and… at my age I never leave the house without making sure my eyelashes and eyebrows are at least a little visible.

I wanted to get out and enjoy that spring sunshine as quickly as possible—early mornings are the most beautiful part of the day. In the Netherlands, you never really know what the rest of the week—or even the rest of the day—will look like.

Somewhere on my way to Oosterpark, I heard a song I hadn’t heard in a very long time. It was “Beautiful People” by Melanie. And that song immediately pulled me straight back in time…

A small apartment

I was in my mid-thirties, a single mother, my daughter was about eight years old. I lived with her in a very small apartment in Amsterdam. Housing shortages in Amsterdam have been a major issue for decades. Back then, I couldn’t find anything else but a place of under 40 square meters, with just one bedroom and a gas heater in the living room. In winter, it sometimes got so cold that ice formed on the inside of the windows.

Trying - and failing - to move forward

I had a university degree, but I couldn’t find work, despite applying for job after job. I was often invited to interviews—sometimes six in a single week. But somehow I always just missed out. I would end up being candidate number two or three. Which, of course, gets you nowhere, because only number one gets the job.

Life without a partner

I also didn’t have a partner. It was as if my love life had stopped the moment I had a child and the father of my child left us. In those days there were no dating apps or websites. (I did try them later, of course, but I’ve never really liked them.) Back then, you usually went to a café to meet someone. I rarely had that opportunity, because I first had to arrange childcare. (And of course, as an unemployed single mother, I couldn’t afford a babysitter.)
I don’t know why—maybe I’ll come back to that in another post—but I never really ended up in a relationship again.

The training program

What I did have was unemployment benefits. And with that came obligations, like attending a job-seeking training program. Once a week you had to go to a classroom where, together with others in the same situation, you spent the afternoon doing all kinds of assignments. For example, picking a postcard from a pile and sharing what associations it evoked in you. Or selecting five job ads from newspaper clippings (that’s how it was done back then!) and explaining why those jobs appealed to you. Of course, you also had to write cover letters and create a CV… and at one point we even had to come dressed in our “best outfit” so we could judge each other’s job interview look.

The training lasted—well, I don’t even remember how many weeks. It felt long. And for those who still hadn’t found work by the end of the program, there were no more structured assignments. They simply had to show up every week and search for jobs on the computer there on site. I was one of them.

The woman next to me

One day I was sitting at one of those large monitors, lined up in a row across long tables.
Next to me was a woman my age who found herself in a similar situation. Only she didn’t have children. I heard her tell the trainer how much of a failure she also felt. She said:

“I have no job, no proper home, no partner—I feel like a failure.”

I didn’t say anything. I pretended I hadn’t heard her, but inside I was grateful to witness that moment. Because it made me realise that others in similar circumstances felt exactly the same way I did.

Why I stayed silent

And now, looking back, I wonder: why didn’t I say anything? Maybe I could have been a source of support for her, by telling her I felt exactly the same?

And the answer is…
that I didn’t even feel I was in a position to do that.
As if my own sense of failure was worth less than hers.

Maybe you recognise that. That moment when, afterwards, you think: I should have said something. What would you have said to her if you had been sitting next to her?

And have you ever had a moment like that yourself?

It would still take about a year before I found work. That’s a different story altogether.

This was the song, then.
Back then I thought: I don’t belong there. Not among the “beautiful people”.

If this story reminds you of someone, feel free to share it. Sometimes recognition is enough.

Photo: Vitaly Gariev