The day my baby started kindergarten, something inside me broke. I didn’t know what to call that thing that broke, or how to be with any of the emotions I was feeling in response to it. The only thing that was clear was that I was not the same person I was before that day and whether I liked it or not, there was no going back.
It felt like a sudden wave of grief or depression that wouldn’t leave me, and I was utterly confused and annoyed about feeling that way. Nothing about my daily life had really changed. He was simply going to school in the morning now instead of to his babysitter’s place. He loved school too, so it wasn’t anything like that either. I truly couldn’t wrap my mind around why I felt so bereft about him starting school.
Now I know that it was my identity, or my sense of self that broke and wouldn’t go back together that was causing that grief. My role in life changed. I was no longer a mother of two completely dependent small children. I was a mother of two school-age children who didn’t need me so much any more. That is what rocked me to my core and filled me with grief.
Looking back, I also know that something else happened with my baby’s milestone, something that a lot of people who feel stuck in unhappy relationships like I was don’t like to admit: I was far more financially independent with two children in school than I was juggling the cost and logistics of childcare for them both and trying to make my work fit around it.
This financial shifting of the scales, changed the scales of our relationship and it quickly became clear that only one of us was wanting those scales balanced. Without me biting my tongue about the inequity to ‘keep the peace’ and without me over-functioning to make up for his under-functioning, it didn’t take long for the marriage to break apart too.
I chose to leave him back in 2020, but I didn’t choose a lot of what came next – namely three years of parenting hell and six years of expensive legal bullshit, as he attempted to financially ruin me.
While the fallout of what my ex did is something I would never wish on anyone, it also brought me to where I am now. This place isn’t perfect, but it is pretty fucking amazing too – and I did it. I lived through poverty, through my kid’s abuse, through stress-related health issues, and so much more. I survived it all, and now I’m learning to allow thriving to take place of all that survival.
What I learned through all that surviving is my personal power – which doesn’t come from my bank account or my productivity or any other temporary circumstance. It is me. I am the power. My ability to sit with the shit and to grow through it. My ability to decide what I want and to move towards it no matter how unlikely it may seem from where I’m sitting.
I learned how to advocate for myself and my children and how to stop asking permission for things that aren’t for anyone else to give or deny.
Not only have I become more and more financially independent as my children have grown (and as I’ve grown, let’s be honest about that part too), I also had to face the truth of just how financially dependant I had been from the moment I became pregnant and how much bullshit I tolerated because of that.
That was devastating to acknowledge and really feel, but it was also so freeing. I didn’t feel that I could leave. That is why I stayed. It’s not because I was stupid, or too forgiving, or naive, or anything else like that. I didn’t feel that I could leave and there were real numbers backing up that belief.
I wish I could say that these realizations and breakthroughs came quick and easy – but they didn’t. They were painful on many levels. Accepting that you are a victim is a horrible thing to let yourself feel. It is also in direct conflict with the capable and intelligent person I believe myself to be. Denial is a powerful, powerful, biologically wired, protective mechanism too. I knew what I knew when I could hold the truth of it. I left when I could and I cut all the other ties to him when I could also.
Divorce broke me, but I needed to be broken so that I could build who I wanted to be. I couldn’t build this version of myself without letting the version of myself who I became through staying with him, die. That was a whole process that took many years, many writing sessions and whole community of women who became my support system.
If I could go back and tell myself one thing when I was in the pits of despair over my baby’s milestone, it would be that, ‘You aren’t dying. You are about to be born into something new – and you do get to choose what that is. You can do anything you set your mind to, just make sure you’re heart is in on the convo. Your heart has the map, even when you don’t know where the fuck you’re going.
This is what brought me to share the tidbits of financial wisdom I’ve gleaned on my path. I truly believe that every person is capable of making any kind of life they really want for themselves, no matter where they start. I am proof of this.
See all the resources I’ve pulled together here
It is also why I am so passionate about changing the legal dynamics that allowed what my ex did to happen and for as long as it did. Acting as an advocate for financial justice is how I take the very unjust things that have happened to me during my long path to divorce, along with all I learned through navigating it, and make it mean something positive in the world rather than letting it turn me bitter.
Learn more about the advocacy work here
I firmly believe that becoming financially sovereign yourself is part of what changes the systems for everyone else. Both those things truly matter if we are ever to see an end to gender-based violence.
Dawn Evans is a writer, tax specialist, and advocate for financial and personal empowerment — always a little bit of everything.
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~Dawn
Dawn Evans 
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