This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.
Before I met my husband, I was living my best life. I had just dropped out of college, and I wanted to pursue acting. I was in L.A. for a showcase. He showed up in my Instagram DMs, asking where I was staying. He was a professional athlete at the time and he trained near my hotel. I was shocked when he showed up in the lobby. We had drinks. He took me to the Hollywood sign. He flew me out to L.A. the weekend after that.
The first few months were a whirlwind. He took me to Sedona and we flew over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter. I got exposed to all this food I never thought I would like. We went to Nobu and Mastro’s Steakhouse. We went 71Above in L.A., on the top of the U.S. Bank Tower. I had salmon roe over this potato and dill sauce. It was so good. We did a lot of different activities together. We went to museums, we went to USC and walked around the rose garden and had picnics.
He understood me on an emotional level. At the time, I was angry at so many things—about a prior abusive relationship, about my childhood—and he had so much patience for that. We had a similar upbringing; we both came from a broken family. I could be my whole self around him.
Eventually I moved to L.A., and just nine months into dating, I found out I was pregnant. We were both 23 and I was not fully prepared. When he found out, he was so excited and ready to be a dad. I contemplated having an abortion, but then I thought, You know what, we could do this. I kinda want a baby.
He proposed, and I said no, because I didn’t want to be pregnant at my wedding and felt like there was a lot going on. But then we were in Vegas and, as a joke, I suggested having Elvis marry us. Suddenly, it wasn’t a joke.
When our first son arrived, the bulk of it fell on me. I was experiencing the baby blues and motherhood was all-consuming for me—I hadn’t fully grasped how much my life would change. It caused me to grow in so many ways, but it was also so much anxiety. I would wake up and worry if the baby was breathing. All of these feelings about my own mom also came up during that time. I never felt neglected until I saw what it took to show up for my own kid.
I felt so trapped. I was the embodiment of “I’d rather cry in a Rolls Royce.”
My husband responded by hiring a laundry service for me, and then a cleaning person. It was lonely, because I wanted him to do those things. He heard that I was stressed, so he took measures to put those things in place, but not having that emotional connection was really hard.
That was 2017. We had another surprised pandemic baby in 2021. At that point, he’d retired from his sport and was running his own business. The whole time, he really didn’t know how to be a partner to me. I didn’t feel respected or valued. I would bring things up, then get disregarded. I would tell him how I was feeling, and he wouldn’t seem to care. I was pregnant with our second son when I found out he was cheating on me. He didn’t even work hard to conceal that he was seeing sex workers. He was also gambling a lot. He would be in Vegas and missing our son’s soccer game. His argument was that he paid for all of it, but that didn’t negate the fact that when our son scored a goal and looked out in the crowd, he didn’t see his dad.
I felt so trapped. I was sacrificing so much of myself, my dignity, my value system for my sons. Every morning I would wake up and look out my window to rolling California hills and find reasons to be grateful. I was the embodiment of “I’d rather cry in a Rolls Royce.” Some days, that sentiment comforted me. Other days, it haunted me and made it difficult for me to look in the mirror. I tried to immerse myself in volunteering and loading my plate with kids’ activities and trying to maintain my relationships with my friends. But I couldn’t avoid the fact that I didn’t have a present partner. I was a married single mom.
At one point, I said out loud to a group of friends that I wouldn’t be married if I didn’t fear abject poverty. I barely have an education—just an associate’s degree. He controlled all the money, and I’d be building from literally nothing. I didn’t even know how credit worked.
I did know what it would mean to divide resources across two households: the kids’ quality of life would decline. For a long, long time, that was what held me back. The cost of living in California is crippling. We weren’t going to live in this big, nice suburban house, where the kitchen is a whole football field away from the livingroom. I wouldn’t be able to afford to take them on big, huge vacations. Registration for flag football is $275, and then a $70 helmet. You have to buy a mouthpiece, you have to buy socks. Taekwondo is $200 a month.
Two months ago, I finally got the courage to move out. I found a job with the county. I make less than $4,000 a month, and I live in a condo that’s $2,600 a month. There’s just not much left after rent and food and gas. Right now my husband is helping me out financially because he thinks there’s a chance to get his family back, but I’m not sure what will happen once we officially start the divorce process.
I was so afraid to leave our friends and community, and I had to change my kids’ schools. Besides my bestie, I probably won’t see anybody else from my former neighborhood because I live 40 minutes away. But now I’m a little bit more free and at peace. There are also things I like about the condo. I don’t have to shout at my kids from the kitchen because it’s right next to the livingroom. My couch from the old house doesn’t fit—the ottoman alone took up the whole den—but at least I don’t have to do all that cleaning.
You know how grandmas tell you to stack money and have a secret bank account? That’s advice I should have taken. I was betting on my marriage because we really loved each other initially. But trust me when I say you need an exit strategy.
