I finally had what I wanted, to get away from him, my husband. To be on my own. Living on my own terms. Starting over.

Money was tight as I had only my income to live off of and since I didn’t take much from the house, I had a lot of furniture to buy. The kids needs beds and dressers. I needed dishes and wooden spoons. So I picked up extra shifts on the Psych Unit, on evenings or weekends when the kids were with their dad.

It was exhausting but I was determined.

Getting the kids used to living in a different place that was in a different neighborhood was tricky. Not to mention they had to deal with their parents separating and their family being essentially ripped apart.

Daniel wasn’t happy with me or with the situation. I don’t think he ever fully believed me when I said I was done. Yet he made no promises to stop drinking, no last ditch efforts to save what we had. Maybe he knew it was unsalvageable. He just watched me go.

Every chance he had, he tried to make me feel guilty. He tried to make me think I was a useless ‘part time mother’. He did this via text. He stabbed me with his words. Over and over and over.

I was wounded, hurt and feeling so guilty. For splitting up our family just for my own happiness. I wasn’t missing him one bit. I wasn’t even missing my home. Not a bit. But I was missing being a mom 24/7. That’s what hurt me. Not being with my babies every single morning when they woke up. Not being with them every single night to tuck them in.

They were hurting too. I found out later that their dad was drinking excessively at this time, missing work, not making them supper and laying around drunk and crying. Feeling sorry for himself. And doing everything he could to make the kids feel sorry for him too.

My poor babies. I felt it was all my fault.

We shared the kids 50/50. I didn’t fight for more but in hindsight I wished I had. I just wanted everything to be fair and I was trying to avoid as much fighting over things as possible. We didn’t even have lawyers at that point, we decided everything through a mediator.

As soon as I changed my FB status to ‘single’, the DM’s started flooding in. And not only that, people were waiting with single guys in the wings, waiting to set me up.

I really could have handled that better. But I was loving the attention. I was eating it up. It actually felt fun. I didn’t go anywhere for the first few months, I stayed at home, acted proper and licked my wounds.

A few months after moving out on my own, I went out for the first time with a girlfriend. It was a great time. From then on, I spent a lot of time going out, if I wasn’t working overtime or spending time with the kids, the precious time I had.

But if the kids were at their dad’s, I was depressed and lonely. I laid on the futon (couldn’t afford an actual couch), and watched Netflix without actually paying attention to what was on. My mind was a million miles away, wallowing in guilt, wondering what the kids were up to and if they were happy or sad.

And so I tried to fill up my spare time with going out, having drinks, dancing and having fun. In a way it was the medicine I needed but in another it led me to too many undesirable situations…