Through a Simple Twist of Faith, Part 3

The conclusion of a three-part article by Randi G. Fine

I should have seen the writing on the wall and planned an exit strategy long before I needed it, but I didn’t. Financially dependent and deeply in denial, I delayed until the last second. Then I fled, penniless, desperate.

When I left my husband, with a newborn baby in tow, the only realistic option I had was to move back in with my parents. The thought of having to go back to my childhood home terrifies me. I knew it would be emotional suicide for me, but it was the safest place for my daughter to live until she could recover.

Even though my husband had put me through hell, I never wanted to leave him, I still loved him and couldn’t imagine life without him. The loss was deeply painful, the injury almost unbearable.

Now, thinking of all the problems that had confronted me at one time, I can’t imagine how I managed to stay sane. I was a new mother, just two weeks postpartum and single. My baby was very small, weighing less than six pounds, and could not eat enough at one time to sustain himself for long. She only slept for two hours at a time, so she was nursing her every two hours, all day and night.

My parents, who were still poor at respecting personal boundaries, didn’t make things easy for me. Every time my daughter woke up and cried in the middle of the night, they brazenly opened the bedroom door I shared with her and yelled at me to pick her up. They said that she needed to be fed and held. She was trying to teach her how to calm herself so she would go back to sleep on her own and I could get some rest, but they just didn’t make it.

While all of this was going on, my husband was doing everything he could think of to punish me for leaving him. He hired his family’s attorney and threatened to fight me over visitation and custody. That terrified me, in his compromised state of mind, there was no way I was going to leave him alone with the baby for a second. He couldn’t afford a lawyer of his own. All I could do was plead with him to drop the custody/visitation issue and help me out financially. Ruthlessly exerting the advantage, he only played me and played mind games.

I applied for welfare, but the state claimed I was ineligible because my car was worth more than the allowed assets. My retired parents with a modest income stepped up: they sacrificed and helped as much as they could financially. I am forever grateful for all you did to help me. That way they made my life easier. I wish I could have said the same about her emotional support.

I kept going to Nar Anon support group meetings for a few months to help me cope with all my problems. The “Higher Power” approach, central to all twelve-step support groups, was constantly reinforced there. Although it was still a foreign concept to me, I was beginning to understand the idea of ​​an intangible force at work in my life.

Desperate for answers, I began to seek solace in books. The Internet didn’t exist yet, so the library, with its vast resources, became my sanctuary. I would stand in front of the shelves in the spirituality sections waiting for a book to “speak” to me.

What I read in these books made more sense to me than anything I had ever heard before. Through this newfound awareness, the panoramic picture of my life began to form. My eyes were opened to the incredible love that had always been available to me but that I never knew I could tap into. Although the religious perspective never made sense to me, the spiritual one did and captivated me.

I finally understood my grandfather’s spiritual connection; the one that brought so much joy in his life. He found it through religion. Je n’ai pas. I found it through adversity. It doesn’t matter how we came to this understanding. The important thing is that we know that we are loved and supported unconditionally at all times. There is no greater love. Always have faith.