I got married shortly after graduation.
I hadn’t yet figured out what marriage really meant.
I thought being docile and obedient meant I wouldn’t face any problems.
And that anyone could easily fall in love with me.

I found out he was a psychopath after we got married.
He started hitting me three days into our marriage.
He cursed me and accused me of betrayal.
He humiliated me in every sense of the word.

He broke me.
He probably had an inferiority complex because I had a strong and charismatic personality.
I was liked by everyone around me, especially his family.
I belittled myself to please him.
But he only continued to break me.

I was not someone who accepted failure.
I would make up with him after being beat up just so I wouldn’t become a divorcee.
He cursed me and called me names, and I still made up with him.
I was stupid and naive.

I got pregnant.
He travelled five days after finding out about my pregnancy.
He travelled even before the fetus’ heart began to beat.
He was away all the time.
We stopped talking at some point.
He neither wanted me nor his daughter.
He didn’t provide for us.
It’s like we were never together.

We stopped hearing from him completely.
I found out later on that he married a foreigner.
He fooled me.
I also stopped hearing from his family.
They accused me of being a golddigger.
They insisted that I knew of his other marriage and agreed to marry him anyway.

We were separated for four years.
I used to tell people I was separated, and other times that he was travelling on business.
I didn’t know what to do.
I decided to stop being weak and end this charade.
I took him to court and divorced him just a few days ago.

I’m not sad over those years.
The four years when I didn’t know whether I was married or not.

The thing I’m struggling with the most is not knowing how to be a mother.
I can’t raise my daughter without a father.
I don’t let her go out.
I have a good job.
Most of the people I know think I’ve never been married.
I can’t imagine if they found out I was actually a mother.

I don’t tell people I’m divorced.
I’m not a stable mother.
I don’t know how I’ll raise her.
What’s going to happen to me?
I can’t wrap my head around everything that’s happening to me.