Becoming Financially Independent Made Me Want to Leave My Husband
My first decent paycheck told me we were not going to make it.
I got married straight out of college, so I didn’t have a job at first. I depended on my husband completely for a while, then a little bit less once I got a part-time gig. Then, something wonderful happened: I got a job that gave me a slightly bigger paycheck than the one he used to bring home every week.
When it came to our income, my husband and I were now essentially at the same level, with me having an advantage of a couple hundred dollars a month on him.
After a couple of months making decent money for the first time ever, I had a sudden realization: with my new income, I could get a place of my own and not have to deal with my husband ever again.
I tried not to think much about it, because the thought alone sounded like a betrayal of the worst kind, almost as bad as if I were cheating on him with another man.
But that thought was also sweet. It sounded like freedom. It sounded like it would give me a chance at happiness, because even then, barely two years into my marriage, I wasn’t happy.
I wasn’t happy because I felt lonely and neglected. Living with him, I didn’t feel like a wife. I felt like a roommate he purposefully tried not to be at home with at the same time — unless one of us were asleep.
My then husband didn’t only work long hours, he worked all the wrong hours. He wouldn’t get out of bed until after I had left for work, and would often not come home at night until after I was asleep, not because he was forced to take graveyard shifts or anything, but because his schedule was flexible, so he would choose to work odd hours.
I never knew when or if I should expect him home for dinner, unless I called him about three or four times, pestering him for an answer as to what time he was planning to come home. 8 pm? 10 pm? 2 am? It could be any of those at any night of the week. It was like playing “will you be home for dinner?” Russian roulette, with the one bullet being the one day of the week he would be home by 8 pm and I wouldn't have to eat by myself.
Some weeks, there were no bullets in the gun at all.
He would also choose to sleep on the couch, never quite understanding why leaving me alone in bed made me feel rejected and lonely. I couldn’t even seduce him. He wasn’t half as interested in having sex as he used to be when we were dating.
His work hours and sleep habits wouldn’t have been such a big issue if we had been able to reconnect during the weekend, but that didn’t happen as well. He preferred to dedicate his weekends to watching TV and engaging in Facebook arguments than doing anything with me.
He could park himself on the couch in front of the TV on a Friday night and not get up until Monday morning. I was welcome to spend time with him: sit next to me, let’s watch this ten-year-old episode of Law and Order, or this basketball game between two obscure colleges you’ve never even heard of before.
Those were our weekends. That was our life.
So, when I took a hard look at how much money I was making, it’s no wonder I wanted out.
It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to maybe share a place with a couple of roommates, or even, if I got lucky, find a studio apartment I could afford on my own. And those possibilities sounded so much better than living with my husband, because if I already felt alone, then I might as well just be alone.
Thinking of leaving still scared me, though, because it meant my marriage would be over, and I wasn’t ready to give up on it. I thought my marriage could be saved. I thought things could still get better somehow.
My thoughts then reverted into wanting to leave my job. I started finding issues with it, reasons why I couldn’t keep going, all so I would depend on my husband again, and therefore have a reason to stay married to him.
It’s hard to say what scared me the most, the desire to leave my husband, or the realization that the only thing that would make me stay was to revert back to depending on him. Where was love in all of this? Nowhere to be found, apparently.
Of course, a lot of those thoughts reflected the confusion and pain I was going through at the time. Marriage had turned out to not be what I had expected, and despite having a fun job in a nice environment, I wasn’t doing what I had always dreamed of doing for a living. Not even close. My low self-esteem, however, whispered to me that if I left that job, no one else would hire me. Ever.
To leave my marriage, I would have to hold on to a job I didn’t want to keep doing in the long run.
To leave my job, I would have to hold on to a marriage I had already realized I wanted to get out of.
It would take me about another year and a half to ask for a divorce, but if I haven’t had that first taste of financial freedom, it might have taken me even longer.
Sometimes I regret not having left when I first felt inclined to, but I’m still thankful I left when I did and not a day later.
Becoming financially independent was the first step into believing I would be fine on my own, no matter what. It helped me overcome my low self-esteem, and it made me see that I could literally afford to increase my standards for what kind of partener I wanted to share my life with.
I will never again accept as a partner someone who doesn’t act like one just because I can’t pay my bills without him. I’ve been paying my own bills ever since my divorce, and I intend to keep it that way, whether or not I ever remarry.
