Why I am a single mother.

The first time I thought of leaving my husband I was just 8 weeks pregnant. He was unemployed again and spent his days parked on the couch without a care or worry.

“I’ll get a job when I need to, just stop to talk,” he would say in his thick french accent. The accent wasn’t sexy anymore. It had lost all of its luster.

Then there was also his complete unwillingness to improve our relationship. But instead of leaving him, I kicked him out. Two weeks later and two marriage counseling sessions later I took him back.

I didn’t want to give up the chance, a fat chance, but still a chance that maybe he would be a better husband once the baby arrived. Some men do change. He wouldn’t. It actually just got worse.

We moved into a bigger apartment, he had finally found a job and we could afford the extra space. I was five months pregnant and in full nesting mode. I wanted to get everything unpacked. Who wouldn’t? Boxes were every where and they had been for weeks. I did what I could. Unpacking the little boxes, pushing furniture around slowly…all of this while working a full-time job. So you can imagine how frustrating it was when he’d come home from work and just plop on the couch.

“Can you please move these boxes?” I would ask.

Days went by. They just sat there and so did he. On the couch. One week later and still the boxes aren’t touched, “can you just move them. I’ll tell you where they need to go.” I’m pleading, practically in tears.

“Why? Why right now? I’ll get to it.” He’s yelling at me from his spot on the couch amongst piles of boxes.

And then it happened. He picked up a heavy medium sized box and threw it at me. The box barely misses my pregnant belly and hits me in the knees. I keep my balance and then, shocked by what just happened, feel a little scared. I realize that I actually don’t know this man at all. I don’t know who he is and I’m pregnant with his child – no, no, this is not his child, this is my child, I remember thinking.

It was a whirlwind marriage.

I met him, fell in love, he needed a green card and three months later we were married. My friends and family supported my decision even though I was clearly suffering from temporary insanity. In just a few months I realized what a colossal mistake I had made, but I stayed with him. I decided to give the relationship two years. I didn’t even change my last name, knowing that it wouldn’t last. One year in, I got pregnant. It was an accident, but there was no way I wasn’t having the baby. I wanted to. How couldn’t I? I felt him inside of me…and I fell in love with him instantly.

For the remainder of my pregnancy I focus solely on myself and the baby. I would talk to Benjamin while he was growing, patting my stomach and telling him everything was going to be okay.

Meanwhile my relationship with my husband continued to get worse and worse. The fights and the violence continued, one night he actually pushed me into the stairs, pushed me face forward into the stairs. I caught myself with my arms saving the baby from the impact. I didn’t tell anyone about it. Not a soul. I was ashamed that I was married to such a creep. I couldn’t leave him, I thought, not now, not while I was pregnant. I just kept my mouth shut, very unusual for me, and played happy little wife to keep everything calm and relatively peaceful.

Three months after Benjamin was born he came home early from work.

“I got fired.”

Later that week he told me he wouldn’t be finding a new job. That he wanted to be a stay at home dad. This was a financial impossibility. I had just finished three months of unpaid maternity leave. Now my husband was officially giving me nothing. He wasn’t bringing in an income, wasn’t sleeping with me and he wasn’t even there for me emotionally. He was useless to me. But, he’s Benjamin’s father… I thought I needed him. And what would I do? How would I leave him?

Then it hit me. If I raise Benjamin with this man one day he’ll grow up and he’ll treat women this way. He’ll talk to me like his father talks to me and there will be no chance he’ll get to see a mother and father in love with each other. Besides, what was he giving me, how was he helping me? He was actually making my life harder. Was I really going to give up my entire life or any chance of happiness just so my son could have a father in the house? Did I want Benjamin to grow up with miserable parents who were only together for him?

No way. For some women this is possible. For me – not an option.

So I did it. I left him.

I was done. I told him I was leaving. He looked defeated. The anger was gone for a moment and I realized that I was doing the right thing – for both of us, for all of us. This was a mistake from the beginning. I was miserable and so was he.

He refused to leave the apartment, giving me no option but to uproot our lives and move with a newborn. I was a mess. I wouldn’t be able to afford a place on my own. My mother said we could move to her place, an hour and a half away. I would have to leave my career, my friends…everything…just to get away from him. I called my first boss, the owner of a small radio station I had worked at when I was 17. They had an opening for a secretary. I took it. My salary was cut in third. I didn’t care. Somehow I would have to make it work.

The first night at my mother’s house I started crying hysterically. A rock up until this moment, I had suddenly become overwhelmed with the reality of what I had just done. My friends, my life, my career – it was all gone. And my husband, what would he do? All alone in our now empty apartment. It’s funny now to think I was actually worried about how he would make it without me. I had no idea what I was about to go through myself.

I was now a single mom. I took it one day at a time. I didn’t think about the future or how I would get back to the city and back to my career. I just buckled in for the ride.

There are no words to describe the year that followed. I survived by facing my fears but not letting them consume me. My maternal instincts were also in full gear. I was still breastfeeding…all I could think about was keeping the baby happy and healthy. That helped take my mind off of everything else. We were hibernating. Hiding from the world until I could get us back to it…somehow I would.

Just under one year later I found an even better job in the city and moved back. Now I’m completely supporting myself and my son. So that’s how I got here…and I’m still here.

I know there are so many women out there in horrible marriages, sucking it up for the sake of their children or because they have no way to leave him financially and it’s those women who my heart really goes out to. Sometimes I look at my life in two alternate universes or scenarios.

What if I would have stayed? I can’t even imagine…

Other posts you might like:

• Should I Leave My Husband?
• Was it really my choice?