Everything up until this point has happened a lightning speed. From marital issues, parenting disagreements, abuse, and legal orders, to paperwork, breaking through the controlled “bubble”, and getting on my feet to do what must be done. It’s messy. It’s painful. Most of all, it’s infuriating at the deepest level. To understand, it’s impossible. But I’m going to try to convey this painful journey and harsh reality my children and I face now.
6 years ago, my ex-husband and I began our relationship while I was in my senior year of high school. Everything was a whirlwind of emotions and desire and happiness. We moved in together 5 months into dating and not long after I turned 18 and he turned 20. Less than two months into us living together, there were problems and long story short, I cheated on him and discovered I was pregnant. Fast forward, a paternity test while I was pregnant, reconciliation between us, and we were preparing to go into parenthood the best we could. I got a better job with my own benefits and we were on the right path. There was pain because of the betrayal by me which was justified. Two months before our daughter was due to arrive, he told me I could quit my job and become a stay at home mother. To say I was ecstatic to be able to stay home, prepare for the arrival of our baby girl, and then continue to be her caretaker for her after she arrived was an understatement.
Fast forward again, we skipped over a couple of moves and jumped ahead to our daughter being just over a year old. One morning, I was getting up to take a photo of my new business cards to share with my mom how they turned out. Once I turned to head back into our bedroom, I was met with him down on one knee holding a ring we had found together at a pawn shop. He asked me to marry him and of course I said YES! We set the date for almost 2 years from then and it was a rush of happiness, excitement, and being so grateful we were a family and were really doing this together. Coming from a family with many divorces and baby daddies, I felt I had been blessed more than I deserved. That feeling would be my downfall, yet I was blind.
The year of the wedding, 2019, I turned 21 and as anyone does on that birthday, I went out to the bar for the first time with my best friend. Everything was so wonderful and felt like it was great. There were financial difficulties that I was responsible for that we were working through together at the time. The morning after I had gone out, he decided he changed his mind and he didn’t actually want to be with me. He took our daughter and left for the day. I was enraged. I couldn’t believe it but felt it was my fault. I began immediately drafting custody agreements as that would be immediately necessary especially since I had been her caretaker since birth, I had not been financially depended on for work in years, and prepared and packed to move back into my mothers house with my almost 2 year old daughter. When he returned, I went over my paperwork with him regarding parenting time and custody. He broke down and apologized and said he didn’t want us to end after all. Again, I felt grateful and blessed beyond measure and like I was so lucky to have him. See a pattern yet? I didn’t.
A week later, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was pregnant despite having negative tests. Exactly a week after my birthday, the test turned positive. My heart froze. The timing. The reality. The gravity of what the past week had been. And, our daughter was extremely sick with the flu and high fevers. The reaction to the positive test when I showed him was not one I would have ever wanted. The anger, the guilt, and the shame I felt were indescribable. “We can’t have a baby right now,” still echoes in my mind years later. But I felt I deserved that reaction, for the past mistakes done, it was justified in my mind. I remember him storming out the door saying he was going to the gym, I remember crying harder than I had the past week despite all that had unfolded. I decided that no matter what, there was no way I would abort this baby and that I would do it alone if I had to, somehow. When he returned, his attitude was completely different, he apologized and I felt relieved and grateful. Those feelings of gratefulness after mistakes made and being forgiven were a pattern that I feel I will never not recognize in the future. It’s abusive. It’s manipulative. It’s wrong. There may be explanations as to why those behaviors are present, but never excuses.
We continued with our wedding despite many threats of his that “maybe we just won’t”. When the day came, I was so grateful we actually made it to that day despite everything. The vows, they held so much meaning to me. I didn’t know they did not hold the same meaning to the other person. I wasn’t aware that I was making a one sided promise. A month and a half after the wedding, our second daughter was born with much difficulty and almost resulted in the loss of my life, again. I almost lost my life giving birth to our first child as well. Due to severe blood loss that I was unaware of until months after the fact, I fell into a deep depression after giving birth. I was unable to breastfeed because my body was trying to keep me alive and wouldn’t allow me to produce. I had infections that went unnoticed by medical “professionals” for 6 weeks. I had very little help. I had everything on my shoulders because of the work my husband was involved in. I was to be grateful for anything he chose to do in addition to his work and business responsibilities. I believed that and it worsened my depression. I believed that I had become suicidal due to adding synthetic birth control hormones to my body. In hindsight, it was due to abuse and trauma and an inability to focus on myself because of the responsibilities of 2 children, laundry, unpacking (we moved just a week before I gave birth), cleaning, settling in, dealing with maintenance issues of the new place, and so much more. The worst of it being that I was doing it all, alone.
A few months after adjusting and beginning to feel better and more able to focus on myself, I began to have a friend back in my life and she was amazing. She was friends with myself and my husband and would help me with household chores without even asking or making me feel like a burden. She was an incredible light in my life. That light was shattered when I began to question my husband on if something was going on after receiving warnings from her. In addition to the warning, my husband wanted to divorce me. I began therapy because I didn’t see a single day where I had a desire to live. I took every step possible to get help for myself, medication, calling almost 30 different therapist offices and professionals desperate for someone to help me help myself. To this day, only one professional called me back and I began seeing him immediately. I began seeing him before my husband had requested a divorce. We began a few sessions together and reconciled. I learned my husband had tried to be unfaithful with my friend, 4 months after giving birth to our second child and less than 6 months into our marriage. During that time, I also learned of other infidelities through secret accounts he used for monetary gain for himself. He told me it was all fake and just the part he had to play. I blindly accepted that, we both cut ties with my friend without explanation, and I worked hard to earn him back. Something I shouldn’t have ever had to do. You should never feel you need to “earn” your spouse. But I was grateful he chose to come back to me again despite my lack of anything to offer him. Again, I felt blessed beyond measure and so lucky.
I continued therapy, was able to get off of medication, focused on my nutrition and mental health and began to truly bloom into myself over the next year. It was not before having the hardest few months of my life though.
Now, I’m a mother of 3 that are 4 and under. My oldest is 4.5 years old, my second daughter just turned 2 years old a couple weeks ago, and my son is 4 months old. During the course of this year and during this last pregnancy, I began to realize and recognize the behaviors of my husband as not okay. Through therapy I have learned how to communicated better and be mindful and understand how to have a conversation without blaming. That’s when the gaslighting began, or at least it’s when I began to see it for what it was. The more I tried to communicate my needs and wants, the more I was rejected and demeaned for having asked at all despite knowing what he does for work. The more I tried to gently help him learn how to properly care for our children, the more I was being ungrateful for him doing anything at all when he “doesn’t know of anyone else who does even half of what he does for me”. Eventually I stopped trying and took everything over myself because if he wouldn’t do it properly, someone had to. This can appear controlling to some, so let me elaborate on some situations. Changing diapers of our children as soon as they wake up from the night. Being with our children so I could attend midwife appointments that I was unable to bring them to due to covid. I was blessed to have a midwife team who would help me accommodate and on more than one occasion would come to my home for my checkup when I would have to cancel last minute because “something came up” for work and their father couldn’t be there for them. Toward the end of pregnancy, I had 3-4 appointments every single week because of how hard the pregnancy was on my body this time around. I had to hire a baby sitter just so I could do what was told of me the best I could by my medical team (not carry kids up the stairs, avoid stairs at all) and we live on a third flood apartment and one child went to preschool 4 days a week. I couldn’t not do many of the things I was told to avoid. My body, my mind, my heart, and my spirit were broken beyond comprehension. I was in constant communication about this with my midwives and therapist. We decided together that I should get back on medication a few months before my due date.
My birth itself was enjoyable for the most part. But despite having a team of midwives, a hired birth doula, and my dear friend there, it was him that I wanted beside me for comfort and security. My labor stalled for days and while contracting and laboring, I became “stuck” at 5cm with my water broken for more than 24 hours. I had to face options and make decisions. I decided to go to the hospital from my chosen birth center and get the lowest dose of epidural possible so my body would relax. On the way to the hospital, I mentally spoke with my son and realized and accepted that he and I were in this alone and that despite that, we were going to do this together and we were going to do it the way we needed to. I vowed to follow his lead in this and asked him to guide me on what to do.
After giving birth, arguments and problems didn’t hesitate to make it into the mother and baby room between myself and my ex-husband. Particularly when we prepared to go home. My grandmother had flown up from California to stay with us for just shy of a month for me to give birth and for my older girls to be cared for so that my ex-husband could care for me while I focused hard on recovering slowly and caring for the baby. Despite those plans, I had to take care of myself anyways. Then, 5 weeks after having our son, he raped me. After that point, I was terrified and couldn’t understand what happened and how it was my fault. I did everything I could to justify it and move on. But I couldn’t. He had apologized and said he “forgot” I had said no. I wanted to believe him, but deep in my gut, I couldn’t move past it. Many more fights and arguments came in the months following.
It was discovered that drugs have been an issue and I am unsure for how long. Mental health is also an issue and I am unaware for just how long for that either. He hadn’t been going to therapy anymore for I don’t know how long. My final attempt at saving our marriage was therapy, the session was awful and no different from arguments at home. We were sent home with homework. When I read his, I realized I wasn’t in a partnership, I was being used. The way I have felt about myself for years finally came to light as being truth for how his actions and intentions wanted me to feel.
Things escalated quickly when I resolved to wanting a legal separation to get help with our children and the household because I couldn’t bear to be close to him without fear of setting him off. I had done all I could to try and get him help, but you cannot help someone who wants to own you.
Now, it’s adjusting to being a single mother and getting divorced. Oddly, yet logically, I have gotten better and better the longer there is no contact with him. I’m healing, but I’m grieving. I’m grieving for what I believed we had. I’m grieving the fact that I allowed myself to be treated so wrongly for so long. I’m struggling with guilt because of wishing I hadn’t been with him for so long but also knowing I wouldn’t have two of my three children had I left any other time than when I did. And I’m lonely. It’s not that I wasn’t lonely before, but there was still hope I had. With that hope shattered, there is only the loneliness that remains. I don’t want to get close to anyone in an emotionally connected way. I’m afraid. I feel used. I went from becoming a woman with dreams and passions with an incredibly strong and attractive body and mind to a woman who feels broken, used, and ruined beyond repair. I feel that there is no way anyone could possibly want me now that I’m a mother of 3 and my body shows that. I work hard each day to strengthen my body and mind but neither will ever be the same again, it’s impossible. I feel irreparable. I feel I don’t deserve happiness because I ruined my one chance. But I didn’t ruin anything. I know that. I know these feelings aren’t logical, but these are what I am left with after the past 6 years of my life.
Rebuilding myself is already the hardest part of all of this for me. I know I can do it and that I will be stronger and happier but the journey is HARD. One day, I know I will wake up and it won’t be so hard anymore, I’m holding onto the hope for that day. Today’s date is October 9th, 2021. I don’t know that I will share this post one day or if it will be forever in my drafts so I can look back on this time in my life with gratefulness that I was able to come out of it. Time will tell. Until then.
This article was written on October 9th, 2021. I am publishing this now, in September of 2022. Updated 7.18.25 to remove a past link that is no longer active.
