Marriage was absolutely my downfall as well. I finished my MA degree in English with a writing emphasis just before we got married, adopted his niece, and got pregnant with our first.
I remember every community college was hiring for full time English instructors right then as well, but showing up 7-9mos pregnant to interviews obviously didn’t work well.
My ex took a job in rural Wisconsin five months after our son was born (essentially because he couldn’t watch him while I worked a full time job [not in my degree area]), then I spent the next 8 years having 3 more children and being a stay at home mom.
Obviously, very long story, but the gist is he wanted me to stay home and take care of the kids, him, and the household and not have anything else in my life. He also had mental issues.
I wouldn’t change any of it because my kids are my everything. But, I also can’t provide for them in the way I would like to. They all have “special needs,” so, with all the IEP meetings and work I do to try to keep them in school, and having to physically take and pick them up from school, I can’t really work a job outside of the home. It’s been a tough road. My oldest just finished his first year of college, and it didn’t go very well for him. I really thought of all my kids, he would be the one to do well in college and find a decent job when he was done. Now, I’m worried about all of them and how the cycle will continue with them.
I think all of us who had a bad marriage (my first marriage ended in divorce; happily married 19 years to a good guy) have the same feeling about regretting the man but being glad to have the children.
We lost basically all our money when I was 40 years old and my husband was 39. I went to a good college and a good law school. My husband was a CPA. At the time all three of my children were under the age of 10 and I have a child, who is now an adult with a developmental disability. He is doing really great but as of yet there is no cure, he has to live with serious deficits which people who do not know him to not understand. Despite that he works at the Amazon Warehouse doing different things for them. FIRST I had to take responsibility for my actions. It was all my fault, not my husbands. He let me invest our surplus money, did not pay attention to what I was doing and I BLEW IT ALL!. Because I was an attorney I was able to use a legal strategy which allowed us to keep the house that we all lived in, so we were never homeless. But there are still other bills to pay besides payments for shelter. Again all my fault, but we were able to get out of it and we are doing REALLY great now, 20 years later. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!
Oh yes, my first husband was definitely the wrong choice. When I divorced him, I did my own legal discovery of assets to save fees and found money he had stashed all over. But then I made wrong choice #2 - I went to grad school for the degree that became quickly practically worthless. But I pulled together enough hours and side hustles to get a small pension and married a great guy. Now I have another small business abd I am proceeding carefully.
I'm an attorney, from a poor family, and lived in poverty for all of son's childhood. I have so much to say about this. I wish I would have seen this when I was struggling to survive as then I would've known I wasn't the only poor, struggling mother who also was an attorney. Knowing this would have helped so much. Thank you for writing this.
"So, I think there's an element of vanity in it" - You think?
If she hadn't --taught-- her kids that people's "worth" is based on their position and status in life, their opinion of her would not be different based on what job she had.
Don't look down on people that do gig work like Instacart, Door Dash and Über. Or any other kind of work!
They're doing what they need to do to feed their families and should be commended for it; not mocked.
Not to mention, there's a fair number of homeless people with advanced degrees that due to a combination of unfortunate circumstances, ended up homeless.
That's the whole problem with our society. Everyone's looking for an excuse to look down on the next person, rather than help them, or build them up!
Wow. So Richard feels like a savior, because he's exploiting Lauren's skills for poverty wages while paying her for a "fraction" of her work. What a swell guy.
Marriage was absolutely my downfall as well. I finished my MA degree in English with a writing emphasis just before we got married, adopted his niece, and got pregnant with our first.
I remember every community college was hiring for full time English instructors right then as well, but showing up 7-9mos pregnant to interviews obviously didn’t work well.
My ex took a job in rural Wisconsin five months after our son was born (essentially because he couldn’t watch him while I worked a full time job [not in my degree area]), then I spent the next 8 years having 3 more children and being a stay at home mom.
Obviously, very long story, but the gist is he wanted me to stay home and take care of the kids, him, and the household and not have anything else in my life. He also had mental issues.
I wouldn’t change any of it because my kids are my everything. But, I also can’t provide for them in the way I would like to. They all have “special needs,” so, with all the IEP meetings and work I do to try to keep them in school, and having to physically take and pick them up from school, I can’t really work a job outside of the home. It’s been a tough road. My oldest just finished his first year of college, and it didn’t go very well for him. I really thought of all my kids, he would be the one to do well in college and find a decent job when he was done. Now, I’m worried about all of them and how the cycle will continue with them.
I think all of us who had a bad marriage (my first marriage ended in divorce; happily married 19 years to a good guy) have the same feeling about regretting the man but being glad to have the children.
Really enjoying this ongoing story. It really humanizes different kinds of situations we can get ourselves into.
I wish Richard would pay off Lauren's credit card debt and then have her pay him back at a zero or low interest rate. Clearly he can afford it.
We lost basically all our money when I was 40 years old and my husband was 39. I went to a good college and a good law school. My husband was a CPA. At the time all three of my children were under the age of 10 and I have a child, who is now an adult with a developmental disability. He is doing really great but as of yet there is no cure, he has to live with serious deficits which people who do not know him to not understand. Despite that he works at the Amazon Warehouse doing different things for them. FIRST I had to take responsibility for my actions. It was all my fault, not my husbands. He let me invest our surplus money, did not pay attention to what I was doing and I BLEW IT ALL!. Because I was an attorney I was able to use a legal strategy which allowed us to keep the house that we all lived in, so we were never homeless. But there are still other bills to pay besides payments for shelter. Again all my fault, but we were able to get out of it and we are doing REALLY great now, 20 years later. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!
Oh yes, my first husband was definitely the wrong choice. When I divorced him, I did my own legal discovery of assets to save fees and found money he had stashed all over. But then I made wrong choice #2 - I went to grad school for the degree that became quickly practically worthless. But I pulled together enough hours and side hustles to get a small pension and married a great guy. Now I have another small business abd I am proceeding carefully.
I'm an attorney, from a poor family, and lived in poverty for all of son's childhood. I have so much to say about this. I wish I would have seen this when I was struggling to survive as then I would've known I wasn't the only poor, struggling mother who also was an attorney. Knowing this would have helped so much. Thank you for writing this.
Thank you for reading it. I am glad to hear it resonates with you.
"So, I think there's an element of vanity in it" - You think?
If she hadn't --taught-- her kids that people's "worth" is based on their position and status in life, their opinion of her would not be different based on what job she had.
Don't look down on people that do gig work like Instacart, Door Dash and Über. Or any other kind of work!
They're doing what they need to do to feed their families and should be commended for it; not mocked.
Not to mention, there's a fair number of homeless people with advanced degrees that due to a combination of unfortunate circumstances, ended up homeless.
That's the whole problem with our society. Everyone's looking for an excuse to look down on the next person, rather than help them, or build them up!
Thankfully, this case appears different!
It isn’t just what kids learn at home, though. It’s what kids learn from the world.
Ain't THAT the TRUTH!!
Wow. So Richard feels like a savior, because he's exploiting Lauren's skills for poverty wages while paying her for a "fraction" of her work. What a swell guy.
On the contrary. He's paying her EXTREMELY well -- it comes to $120 per hour, hardly poverty wages. See Part 1 for more details.
(I'm going to edit the piece to add that the flat rate is for far less than 40 hours.)
Thank you for clarifying. Now my opinion of him is restored.
That was my first thought too.