Nobody's Wife

I'm writing this having just received my decree absolute that makes me absolutely, categorically not married.

The stress of this. From getting the guts to do it, to finding the time to do the forms, getting proof, to chasing my now ex-husband to sign, send them again, engage a bailiff, wait, wonder, worry.

When it came for me to sign the decree nisi (the one that comes before the absolute), I signed the section on 'uncontested divorce'. What does uncontested mean? The papers were never acknowledged, the charges uncontested, in the eyes of the law that being an admittance of guilt. They went completely ignored. The irony is not lost on me that the divorce papers suffered the condition I spent most of my marriage living in. 

When I was a child all I ever wanted to be was a wife and mother. I knew it would be a hard job - I am not afraid of hard work. I was also aware through my short-lived relationships as a young woman that many men are reluctant to make any kind of commitment. I expected that I'd have to wait a long time for my dreams to come true.

When I met Judah's father, I was 19. It seemed that straight away he wanted me to move in and share his life with me. I still maintain he 'raised' me through my journey to adulthood, there are still behaviours I notice about myself that were programmed by him. I was bowled over by this excessive demonstration of commitment, culminating in a proposal of marriage on my 21st birthday (by which time his behaviour had already began to take a turn for the worse). I reasoned with myself, this is what somebody does when they love you. Why would a man ask to marry you unless he loved you?

The wedding was called off when I left him for abusive behaviour in Christmas 2012. My attempt to leave was unsuccessful and since I became pregnant shortly after, the wedding went ahead.

My life as a wife was awful, comparable only to when I suffered depression as a teenager. I spent the first year in a dreamy haze of babies and breastfeeding, feeling reassured by the friendly presence of my roommate Shane in the house and knowing my husband was working hard to support me and Judah. I felt so grateful that I could stay at home and be with Judah, I tried to be perfect to compensate my husband for what I perceived to be my unfair advantage, staying home instead of working.

The second year was the most emotionally isolating experience of my life. As I began to gain independence through my job he became worse. On my first day of teaching Daisy, right before I left he made me cry on purpose. I felt ugly, unwanted, unworthy. I spent vast amounts of time alone, or with Judah. I couldn't tell anybody what was going on because marriage was supposed to be hard work, wasn't it? Why complain when this is what I had signed up for? I knew you were supposed to work hard at a marriage that can be strained with young children, to get the reward of having somebody always there for you, who loved you. While I was working hard, he was partying and spending money we didn't have, and taking coworkers on dates.

Divorce is humiliating, especially for a marriage so short. I am still plagued with shaming thoughts, thinking of the people who came, the money that was spent, what people must think, especially as I was so young. It has been hard work to re-frame these thoughts into positive ones and acknowledge I went into it with good faith, with somebody who never wanted me to be their equal partner. I would never say never, but I'm not sure how I would feel about marrying again, as I felt keenly what felt like a demotion from girlfriend to wife. Looking back it was like it was a license to behave worse, a trapping to make it harder to leave.

Exactly a year later, I've made the decision to no longer write about my marriage to my son's father. The future is so bright and I'm so amazed and happy that my life could be this wonderful only one year later. I am not even close to the same person I was when I was a wife. I am free.

motherhood, written august 2014

lately i sit, idle,
yet not idle - poised
tuned to the monitor in the kitchen
and a baby's cries.
then later-
stroking that sweaty, suckling head
feeling the tingling
of the milk letting down.
this is a new land i traversed,
and brought you with me, yet
you have not been where i have been.
my body is indented with marks that say
a mother lives here
and yours
shows not a sign.
i wonder if they know?
the girls on the street.
the ones that used to be me.
free, and laughing
in an empty cacophony.
know that yes, you belong to us
us and me.
just tell me-
what about me is so untouchable?
what part of this heart so unlovable?
since it became so full
with your beautiful baby.
every day i grow stronger
and i did it myself
grower, nurturer, nourisher
goddess
forgotten on the shelf.

Natural, Non-Hormonal Birth Control - Daysy

EDIT JULY 2019: As this is probably my most popular blog I feel like I should add that I did conceive while using Daysy due to a barrier failure. Since I had my daughter I have been using a basal body thermometer and tracking symptoms and temperature through Kindara, calculating my fertile window myself, and I feel much more confident and in control.

I first began learning about fertility awareness last year. Contrary to what many women believe, we are not fertile all month. By tracking your basal body temperature and cervical fluid you are able to pinpoint when you are ovulating and know when you are most at risk of pregnancy.

Hormonal birth control methods suppress our natural cycles and pose long-term health risks, for the sake of a few days out of the month. Equally, methods such as the IUD are invasive and often with side-effects that some women find intolerable.

Fertility awareness (NOT to be confused with natural family planning) works as well as any contraceptive method, being aware that nothing except abstinence is 100% effective. You can begin by taking your temperature every day with a basal body temperature thermometer and plotting it on a graph to identify ovulation (characterised by a high surge in temperature). You also take into account the fact that sperm can survive inside the body for up to 5 days and bring that into your calculations as to whether unprotected intercourse is safe or not.

With fertility awareness charts you also need to monitor cervical fluid, which varies depending on where you are in your cycle (ovulation being identified with fluid that is reminiscent of egg-whites to enable sperm to travel up to fertilise an egg).

Introducing Daysy - the fertility monitor that does the calculations for you and has a simple light system. It is clinically tested at 99.3% efficiency (rivalling the IUD). 

Bearing in mind with these statistics that Daysy is a computer, so user error is significantly reduced compared to other fertility methods.

How does it work? You have to take your temperature with the monitor before you get out of bed and it gives you a light.

Red - fertile
Green - Infertile
Red Blinking - ovulating
Amber - unsure (treat as fertile)
All lights flashing - pregnant

Once you've done that, you plug the monitor into your phone and sync the data.

When I began using Daysy I got all amber lights until my period started. Daysy treats the first five days of your period as safe. Ovulation for most women is typically 14 days after their period starts, but Daysy learns YOUR body. This is why the device will show you red days before ovulation is expected as sperm can survive and wait for the egg to be released. Once ovulation is confirmed (and 24 hours given just incase a second egg is released), Daysy will give you green days until the end of your next period.

On a red day couples MUST either choose to abstain or use a barrier method (ideally two!) to prevent pregnancy. It also does not protect from STDs.

This is my calendar so far. As you can see Daysy is already starting to 'look ahead' as to what my fertility status might be for the rest of the month.

And there's my graph. I've done a little arrow so you can see how Daysy has calculated ovulation.

So far I'm really happy with it. Daysy can take 3 months to learn your body and already I'm getting a significant amount of green days over red.

A good feature of the app is you can give your partner the login details and they can have their own version to keep up to date with your fertility status each day!

I was also really pleased that this was the first month since I had the IUD removed that I 'felt' ovulation which was great, it means my body is back to normal and I liked that I could confirm it with the monitor.

I don't believe that ANY contraceptive method can truly prevent pregnancy so if I did conceive I wouldn't blame Daysy, any more than I would blame the Pill if I conceived on that.

It's a bit pricey at £250 but it's an investment - if you did decide to try to conceive, you can use the light system in reverse. This device will last you for your fertile years so I thought it was really cost-effective. Now I really know how it works I'd be happy to use just a thermometer and paper charts too, but this way is just so convenient. 

You can save money on pregnancy tests too - when you are about to begin your period your temperature will start to drastically drop. If this doesn't happen and your temperature keeps rising Daysy will identify the pregnancy and let you know,

It also has the added benefit of if I ever experienced any health issues related to reproduction, I have invaluable information about my cycles that can be used to help pinpoint the problem. 

Story of a Single Mother

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about single motherhood. It wasn’t something I planned or wanted – if I had known Judah would be an only child and I would be divorced from his father I would not have planned to conceive him. I was talking to my friend good Vicki who I met through Daisy Birthing over three years ago. We talked about lots of things, what we would do differently second time around for subsequent children, how much easier newborns were than toddlers… then I couldn’t help but say;

“I just look back and think God, I was so naïve.”

I really was. Ever since I was a child I can remember wanting to be a mother. I would wake in the middle of the night and, unable to sleep, make believe I was giving birth to a baby. I can remember a really strong urge to be pregnant from around age 15 that I managed to suppress for 6 years.

I’ve always thought about a woman I only met once. One of my friends from work was relocating with her vicar husband to North Wales and had invited me for a farewell meal with her other female friends. I looked up to my friend a lot, it seemed to me that she had the perfect life with her husband and baby. She was a kind, decent person. I wanted to radiate that same contentedness. So although at the time I was quite anxious and shy, I liked my friend enough to want to make the effort.

I wasn’t sat next to her. I was sat next to a girl with blonde short hair and an aura of confidence. I felt miles away in my tea dress and long brown curls, I felt like a child. We began exchanging information about our lives. I was recently engaged, soon to be married. I felt something from this woman that to this day I find difficult to put into words. It was almost a scepticism, a worldly self-sufficiency, and underneath it all a discomfort with sharing the details of her life. She hid it with breezy confidence, but I have always been good at detecting nuances in words, tone and body language.

I felt like my impending marriage amused her and yet made her uncomfortable, like she knew the ending to my story. I must have seemed like a child indeed. I had nothing else to offer except a few amusing anecdotes about my cat – I was consumed by the beauty of the future instead. There was nothing I was currently doing, it was all ahead of me. I noticed her phone wallpaper was that of a blond boy and I asked about her son. She shared that she worked full-time at a gym, her son was in nursery, they lived alone together. She clearly adored her little boy. She was not in a relationship with her son’s father, I don’t even know if she mentioned him at all.

I was taken aback. I didn’t know what to say. I admired her little boy and she clearly enjoyed showing me photos and videos of his happy, smiling face. But internally I was horrified. I wanted to be pregnant and assumed I would be within the year. I imagined myself, alone with a small child, putting him in full time childcare just so I could work to support us. My dreams for the future involved me being a wife and mother, ideally staying at home but maybe working a few part time hours to bring in some extra money. My dream then was of us eventually opening a coffee shop together, to stop Starbucks rinsing my personality and hard work for their own gain. But always in my mind, the backdrop – a loving husband and father supporting me emotionally so I could thrive. There was no room in my mind for any alternative.

I have noticed a recurring theme in my life, that whenever I have slightly judged somebody for whatever reason, I find myself in the exact same circumstance I judged them for. This has been true of so many things and it never ceases to be humbling.

Despite red flags and misgivings, I became pregnant and the wedding went ahead. I look at myself as I was then and think lamb to the slaughter. I look at pictures of Judah as a baby and think: You were so loved. You were so adored. My happy baby, infectiously giggling, like a merry Santa. I think back to myself then and I could curse myself for my blindness and naivety. 

Everything slowly but surely came crashing down.

Living for so long under the control of an angry person makes those first steps into independence scary. That's one of the reasons women stay. I would be lying if I said my life was easier once I left. It is just as hard, for different reasons. It is fragmented, it is a struggle, it is sometimes very bleak indeed. Just as I knew it would be. The time I spent married was one spent in a protective bubble that revolved around Judah and the home. It was a golden apple rotting from the inside. I was kept separate from the world that surrounded me, protected from those truths that people only felt comfortable sharing once I had escaped. Where is my home now? Where do I belong?

How do you make sense of it in your head? That your life was an elaborate fantasy that you yourself created, but sustained and supported by somebody who had a vested interest in keeping your head in the clouds. 

When I was married, I always felt that I was raising Judah for his father as well as with him. This had a huge impact on my parenting. That I was investing in the family as a whole. Judah, his father, and any other babies who came along. I wanted to be the perfect wife and mother. Now I'm piecing bits of my family together, my role in all of this still uncertain. How do I know who to be under these circumstances? Who is the mother, when she is not also the wife?

That intoxicating autonomy, though. What I once feared I'm now hooked on. So much so that my innate stubbornness has reared its head many times and I am absolutely terrified of living under anybody's control again. I've given up too much for it, sacrificed too much. I've done some unbearably selfish things since, things that would horrify my old self. My past has made me what I feared becoming most, a hardened woman.

I have more happy times than I did. The brief snatches away to just be myself, not mother-me, while my son is with his father. I don't have to beg him and be grateful for that time, like I used to when we were married. More often than not I spend that time working, in a job I adore that is so flexible, but always structured around my limited childcare. That is changing this week as Judah enters nursery for two full days a week. So much for my dreams of homeschooling my many children - off to nursery he must go.

What I want to say to the single mother that I met - I'm sorry you had to sit next to me. I'm sorry I was bland and hideously naive. I think if we met again we would laugh until we cried over our stories and the things that we have done. I think my cynicism and grit could match yours and I think now I'd be somebody worth knowing, just as you are. I know about the scary, addictive independence that is always countered by the restrictions of being head of the family, and I know the frustrating barriers of childcare. The complete relief and responsibility of controlling your own money and knowing how much you have in the bank. I know the favours begged and knowing there is no consistent backup. If you have a new relationship, how frustrating it is to only have brief snatches of time available to pursue it and the new set of challenges that presents. The loneliness. I know you put your child first and I know how hard you work to keep him safe and happy in your family of two. I hope you are as happy as you deserve to be.