My Divorce Story

I fell in love in 2011 with someone I thought was the rest of my life. In reality, I was young, naive, and was not thinking at all, thinking more of the word dysfunctional. At 22 years old, I got pregnant. The father of my daughter did not want any nothing to do with me at the time; we were young, so his immediate response was to get rid of it, and when I did not do that, he just decided not to come around for years—broken long before I even decided to get married to my soon to be ex-husband. What excuse can you have other than accountability? Now that I am ready to talk about this, I want to make sure that I start from the beginning.

We married young, quick; I don’t regret marrying him because life lessons bring you down specific paths for a reason. I regret that I stayed way too long. I knew it was not going to work the first year, that is when I should have left. Yet, life happened; my mother passed away; I had to pick up the pieces of my world once I lost my mother. I decided to move closer to the family for healing, so I thought it would help with the healing process. It was the start of losing myself in reality. When we moved across the country, I found out that I was pregnant. That is when I knew I made a mistake by not ending the relationship long ago, but we were here now.

My only thought was, well, maybe we can work out our issues now that I am pregnant. The typical mistake as women we tell ourselves when we are scared of the unknown. I was abused, bullied, pressured into doing things that I didn’t want to, tolerated things that I would never allow myself previous to this to allow from anyone; I made this person my world, that is where I went wrong. I never realized that he owned my thoughts; I felt as if I couldn’t do anything without him. The wildest things can beat our self-worth down mixed with post-partum depression, grief, change, and everything in between.

Now, I won’t act like I was completely innocent in everything, but I never deserved to get abused. I just got caught up with what I would refer to as a master manipulator. He never loved me; I was only his property. I did not deserve the fact that he had an obsession with porn, and if he got bored with that, I would have to worry about another random girl in his phone sending nasty photos. It was so many different girls that I couldn’t keep up. We slept in separate rooms for the last four years of our marriage.

My ex didn’t even have a real job; he just watched the kids, took them to school, and a bare minimum, he would work maybe 20 hours a week. I worked my ass off and also had to ask family and friends to help get us from month to month. It got to the point that my friends felt used; I was feeling used and unappreciated, less than, and he was getting all the perks. Not having to work a real job, barley took care of the home. To be precise, he watched the kids and would take and pick them up from school, but he was not doing homework. That was something that I would do once I made it home at 7:00 PM.

My exit with my ex could have ended that day with my life, and the lives of my children no longer here. We broke up over a year ago; at this point, it was 2018, so we agreed to end our marriage in 2016 once I found out he was cheating with his now fiance. My point of pouring out such a delicate situation for me is to let you know it doesn’t matter what, you can get out. It may take time and planning, but you are never stuck. He may have changed your frequency of thought at one point in time, but when you are tired, the only focus you have is getting out and getting to safety with your children…YOU WILL MAKE IT OUT! I am not a certified anything, just a woman who has lived through some of the same things that some of you are going through currently; it’s my advice but always do what’s best for yourself and your children’s safety. Many places will help you if you can reach out to a trusted friend, family member, worst case (and trust me, I looked into it myself as well) a shelter. I learned that a mama bear would cross the ocean and heaven to ensure her children will get nothing but the best.