For those of you who have lived in an imbalanced relationship where equality in the marriage was not on your side, I give you hope. I went from a woman who had little to no say over the finances despite the fact that I handed over my paychecks throughout the marriage. It wasn’t until the final couple of years before divorce that I demanded 20% of the money I earned to be entirely mine to spend or save as I pleased. When I became a stay-at-home mom (yet I created and ran a small business out of the home) we lived off of one full salary. To do so required adhering to an agreed upon budget and I agreed to $60.00 a month for haircuts, clothes and entertainment with my newly born precious baby, Marie. It took no time at all to realize I had undercut myself and demanded $80.00 per month and there it stood for a decade. I was used to living frugally.
The continual theme throughout my memoir and in my blogs is that each time I look back at my past I realize now I always had the power to say no and make choices with or without Warren’s (my ex-husband’s) approval. My awareness of this was lacking throughout my marriage. My conditioning from childhood was to feel helpless and as a child I was indeed that, helpless. As an adult, however, I was not, but it felt that way when my opinions and choices didn’t align with his.
I never realized that our money was just that—“our money.” I should have been a partner in the relationship and been able to make 50% of the decisions on how best to spend, invest or save money. While the years rolled on I began to observe how little say I had in most every aspect of our marriage. My ex-husband would always politely look me in the eye and listen to my opinions, but that was it. The conversation would end with his rebuttals to my key points and nothing would change. When it came to money, I didn’t come from any so I let myself believe he knew best and I let my opinions go rather than forging forward in a battle I would end up losing. It took years after our divorce to become fully aware of how good I had actually always been with money. In fact, it is due to my ability to make the most with very little of it that I was able to stay within my $80.00 a month budget without complaining.
So what does empowerment look like post divorce in the midst of a painful estrangement? It looks like this…a lot of introspection. I opened the door to my heart and mind to possibility by imagining I had no limitations. I asked myself, “If money were not an issue, what would you do with your life? Where would you live?” The answers didn’t just pop into my head instantly. They came in waves over time and through living each day intent on making that day as positive as possible. I stopped trying to Google and force the answers. By building up positivity and tearing down the negativity answers started arriving—the greatest one came when I returned to my childhood hometown to pick up the last of my parents’ belongings stored at their friends’ home.
My childhood home had sold after my father passed away. My mother was at an Alzheimer’s facility close to where I lived so I had no desire to visit my former home; it was too painful but I needed to pick up my things. I decided to drive by my house and wept with glee when I noticed no one had moved in. Everything had been removed. It was sitting vacant. At that moment, I knew with every cell in my being I wanted to buy it back. I was going to buy it back if at all possible. Peace washed over me. I loved this town; I loved the mountains and most of all I loved this home. With a little help I tracked down the owner and asked her to please reach out to me first should she ever decide to sell. 24 hours later she called and within a couple of months my house was mine! And the best part, no one had ever lived there!
During the first year I owned my mountain home, I was strapped financially. I took out a mortgage from the modest home I received in our divorce settlement to pay for my home in the mountains outright. Lucky for me the real estate prices had dropped way down; however, my income was low and later my husband would sue me for child support (even though he made considerably more than I) which made making mortgage payments more difficult than I had planned. It was quite a tough go initially.
I invested most of my divorce savings into fixing up my dilapidated home. Being a teacher I had summer, winter and spring breaks when I could renovate, repair and restore my house, most of which I did on my own with the help of friends occasionally. Fortunately, I was able to restore it enough to make it a vacation rental home. I didn’t make a profit until the last few months before I moved in full time. In fact the first couple of years I lost thousands.
For four years (2017-2021) I managed to keep both homes, pay all my bills, pay off my mortgage and child support. Grace, my youngest daughter, even moved in with me full time her senior year in high school. I didn’t have to pay child support that year, but I simply didn’t have the stamina to confront my ex-husband and hire on another attorney to have it rescinded. Not bad for someone whose opinions regarding finances were never respected while being made to believe I was incapable of making solid financial decisions. Hmmmm.
Spring of 2021, I had a tough yet easy decision to make. My soul had wanted to move back to the mountains for decades, but I had made a commitment to myself to remain in Danville even if my girls weren’t living with me—even if one was entirely estranged. In the fall of 2021 both my daughters would both be in college and no longer living in our town of Danville. It was time to begin living my own life too and take healing to the next level.
While I lived in Northern California, I dreamt of how I would fix up this house for myself, my daughters, friends and future clients. I wanted to make it beautiful as I had always imagined it could be since childhood and share this beauty with others. These dreams are what kept me alive through all the sadness up north. And with peace and utter joy I write that I am now living full time in my mountain home and have been for nearly six months.
So empowerment looks something like this. Imagine standing in the home of your dreams, peering outside your windows. You see three crews of men working on your home—the fence and landscaping crew, the roofers and the stone mason for the chimney which collapsed in an earthquake 30 years ago. To make this scene possible you had to overcome your fear of spending your savings, make decisions entirely on your own and follow through on making your dreams a reality.
Gratitude swept over me as I stood looking out my windows at all the different work crews accomplishing my goals. I thought to myself, I am a woman, a single divorcée. Because I live in the USA in the 21st century I can and have hired on over ten men to work for me. 50 years ago this would have practically been unheard of. I thank God for all the women before us who fought for us to be treated as equals! I’m sooo sincerely grateful for them.
This is what it looks like when you take the time to heal yourself from the inside, to not go chasing after someone else to fix you, to accept what is (estranged, divorced, parentless) and pursue your dreams and goals in spite of it. This is empowerment. This is what it looks like to live again after so much loss.