3 years on...

3 years ago today I was getting married. I was 21, and 16 weeks pregnant with my second baby, and about to marry the guy I’d been with since I was 16. 5 whole years.

Today, I’m 24, and a lone parent to 2 children, on benefits and with a divorce petition that’s just gone to court.

Didn’t see THAT one coming 3 years ago… I’ll be the first to admit I got married too young. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, or didn’t want to marry him… but the one small thing I wish I’d known in hindsight was that, for all me saying ‘’I’ve always been mature for my age, and I’ve ‘done’ my youth, I’ve got kids and responsibilities, this is it for me. Time to settle down. I’m not going to change. This is me.’’, quite simply I was wrong. I have changed more in the past 4 years or so than even I think I realise. I’ve grown up. A lot. I’ve become a different person who has gone through utter hell and had to reassess and correct the course of my life on numerous occasions. Here’s a brief timeline of the past 5 years or so..

2004 -
June – Find out I’m pregnant and due March 2005
August – Get engaged
October – My mum is diagnosed with lung cancer
November/December – My mum undergoes radiotherapy, all the while claiming she was getting better and the doctors were saying she’d recover, but I’ll leave that for another blog. It’s the anniversary of her death next month…

2005
17th March – Ashli, my eldest is born.
May – I start work at a Nursery as a trainee nursery nurse.
June – My mum is taken into a hospice.
August – My mum goes into ‘Palliative care’ at a local residential home.
14th September – My mum passes away.

2006
14th September – approx hmmm….April/May 2006?? – Can’t remember any of it. At all. I guess it was the grief. I went onto autopilot for most of it. I can barely remember any of the wedding prep.
April/Mayish – Find out I’m pregnant again, due Jan 2007.
5th August– Get married
November – Go on early maternity leave due to Symphysis Pubis Disorder, in so much pain I could hardly move and relying on a special belt to essentially hold my pelvis together.

2007
29th January – Kaitlyn is born…. screaming…. Should’ve known we were in for trouble then!
Feb/March approx – Sink into postnatal depression.
May – Due to return to work but end up having to leave due to the depression and extortionate childcare fees.
August – Decide to turn my life around and get myself out of the depression, as the antidepressants were simply keeping me reliant on them and nothing else. I start playing bass again, join a band, and get a Saturday job to get me out of the house. Start reinventing my image and trying to get out and make friends again. I literally gave up all social life when I left work and was depressed. I had NO friends. Except online. I was determined to do something about it, and get me out of the depression a the same time.
September - Took myself off Antidepressants

2008 -
Jan - Started going out to pubs with my then best friend. Started making friends within his group of friends and slowly creating my own circle.
Feb - Decided to volunteer for the CAB, with a view to eventually having a career as a debt advisor. Started my general advisor training doing 2 mornings a week and
Apr - Started work at the CAB, and also became self employed working for Ann Summers, working around childcare home life so I could work 16hrs plus and get tax credits to help with the childcare while I was at CAB, and also just to get out of the house.
May - signed up for an open university course 'you and your money' on personal finance to supplement my CAB work.
Sept - Separated from my husband, forcing me to leave my saturday job, as well as Ann summers. But I carried on with my CAB and OU work. Focusing on it to be able to get me through the stress. My husband moved out, and I became a single parent and on benefits for the first time in my life. My husband took the car, so I was pretty much housebound apart from the 2 mornings a week he let me use it to continue my CAB work, (He doesn't know it, but even through all the stress I am eternally grateful that he let me use it, as at that point the only thing keeping me going was the kids and my job).
November - March 2009- Become romantically involved with my best friend. Who inevitably broke my heart numerous times and destroyed my self esteem and confidence at a time I was most vulnerable. This may be the subject of a blog in the future. I've not decided yet. It's a time I don't really like to think about, but either way I'm not naming anyone as you never know who reads these things. Plus that's not really the point of this blog post. For the record though, I've forgiven and forgotten the whole thing, although it did, and probably still does affect me to some degree. But life's too short to hold grudges. Just hope that maybe one day we can be friends again.

2009 -
April - Became a qualified CAB advisor and around the same time found out I'd passed my OU course.
May - After pestering and request from my ex husband I started divorce proceedings. Also was offered position as a paid advisor at CAB, running a newly weekly outreach, and finally got my foot on the employment ladder.
End May - Started dating my current boyfriend, who, full aware of everything inc the best friend stuff, was totally patient with me and just gave me space to be able to work out the kinks to allow me to put my heart on the line again. I'm still scared of having my heart broken again, but on the whole I'm slowly coming around and much more relaxed now.

.. and that... in not so great detail.. is how I came to be where I am today. In just over a month Ashli starts school, and I'll be looking to go into more hours at work and come off benefits completely, and pay my own way again. The divorce has gone to court and just waiting to hear from that. Work is great, and bar usual up and downs which frequent my life (My life wouldn't be mine without drama..) life is good in general.

I don't really want to go into the reasoning behind my separation. In the end, his behaviour, and me heaving myself up out of depression and moving on my life inevitably left him behind, and we grew apart. There are other factors which I won't go into on here. But the choice to leave was mine and there are times I still feel guilty for hurting him, but it's a 2 way thing and end of the day, we've both moved on and now getting on with our respective lives.

Everything happens for a reason, and I truly feel that the reasoning behind everything that has happened is to create a stronger me. I'm the strongest I've ever been, even when dealing with continual crap. I have wonderful children, my own (admittedly rented) home, and a decent career on the way. Just sometimes you kind of sit back and wonder what the hell happened. My best friend (female) said to me not long ago..

'' What with everything that's happened to you, how are you still standing?''

In all honesty?

Not...a....clue.




Note: This is too long for me to be bothered reading through for grammatical errors. There's bound to be some, but please ignore them.