Welcome to The Spiritual Lioness

Hi everyone and welcome to The Spiritual Lioness. My name is Erica, I'm a 36-year-old single mother. I want to create a place where women can come together and support one another. I have found that there are not a lot of resources for women who are rebuilding their lives after divorce. More so they have resources but sometimes they do not benefit us all.

Let's start with my story...

I was married for 10 years to an Army Veteran. We have two children together. I am not here to scorch the earth when it comes to my ex-husband, but I want to be truthful. Life was not easy being married to him. My Ex struggles with PTSD and Mental Illness. I will never blame him for those things, but I have to hold him accountable for his downfall in our marriage, as well as my own.

I was a giver; I gave everything to my ex-husband. I was a working parent and wife. I was always running ragged, riddled with the stress of providing and putting everyone else's needs before my own. My ex-husband struggled with keeping a steady job, being a good partner, and father to our two girls. We parented differently, he parented with fear, and an iron fist. I parent with understanding and kindness but I also discipline.

When the Pandemic came and the world shut down, it opened my eyes to who my partner was. We were all locked inside, and Furlong'd for a year. My ex was laid off by his employer. I felt like I went through an identity crisis at one point, I have never not worked. My ex-husband and I never really spent that much time together ever, maybe a brief 4-day getaway without the kids but that was it, we could never afford vacations. I was always on the move trying to advance my career and make more money for our family. So, it was a learning curve for me. I have always been a creature of routine; work, kids, dinner, bathtime, laundry, cleaning, shower, and bed. So, I had to adjust which I did but once I got called back to work that's when life got complicated.

I was the only one who was working at this point, my ex-husband hadn't found a new job yet. We took advantage of the Forbearance program for our mortgage, mind you the mortgage was in both our names, but my Ex was the main loan holder because it was a VA home loan. I had no access to the mortgage information. It all went to his email, and he grabbed the mail every day because he was unemployed. I was dealing with the stress of working, providing financially, and being a good mom, daughter, and wife. I was barely hanging on. I hid a lot from my family and friends because I didn't want people to know about the mental and verbal abuse that was going on at home. I was good at hiding in plain sight, slapping on the smile, and just saying everything was "good". It wasn't good. How is a woman supposed to support 2 children, and a grown man on a single income? I wasn't rolling in the dough; I made good money but not enough to support all 4 of us. I was treading water and was about to sink but I couldn't give up. My little girls were watching their strong mother hold down the fort while Dad sat on the couch for hours playing Call of Duty. Things got worse with my stress level from work.

My ex-husband finally landed a job, and he told me what the pay was. I was on board and made the arrangements, so someone was home when the kids needed to be picked up from school. I had to adjust my hours because I couldn't afford extra help. The stress from work was increasing by the day but I had to do what I needed for my kids. Finally, when May of 2022 rolled around, I couldn't handle the stress, I was breaking. I was broken and I wanted to take a leave of absence to get some mental health help but when I approached my former employer, I felt like the only option I had was to quit. I had been with the company for 12 years. My ex-husband said that he could provide for us while I took the time, I needed to get some help, so that's what I did but I had no idea what I was about to endure.

I quit my job, and it killed me. It made me feel worse. What no one knows is that my ex never liked my job or who I worked for. The night I made the private call to my Boss, he stood outside the door and listened. I thought it was strange. Mind you I was not good with my extended family at this point either and my ex-husband was communicating with them but saying things like "I'm the only person who can protect Erica" or "I'm taking care of Erica" or "I'm the only person she trusts". I didn't even trust myself. I had no idea that any of this was happening. I was being isolated without my knowledge. Later in May of 2022, I found out my ex-husband hadn't paid the mortgage in over a year, when I asked about it, he told me he was speaking with the bank and worked out a payment plan and needed me to sign some documents. I did whatever he asked me to blindly. I honestly don't remember most of the timeline after this. I do remember telling my "close friends" at the time about what was happening in my life and that I think I'm going to be divorcing in 6 months. No one believed me.

Well fast forward to July, and friendship fallouts were happening, which was crazy, to say the least, my ex-mother-in-law came to stay with us which added another layer to my mental breakdown. We went on a trip to Lake George which I was told we could afford at this point, but we really couldn't. It was a disaster of a trip besides getting the call about landing a new job. A lot of people didn't understand what I was going through and didn't care. When we got back from LG, I started at my new job, and not even a week on the job my ex-husband's truck got repro'd by the bank and he ended up in the ER with a "knee issue" and wants to go on workers comp, which he was denied because he didn't hurt himself and I know this because I sat in 2 different Er's with him. At one ER he tried to break the glass "due to a flashback" and the cops were called. I was done with being embarrassed and mothering a grown man. This is when more information comes out about all the lies. He never paid anything to the forbearance and the loan was in default, his truck had a non-payment for over 6 months, and he lost all our family money to the stock market. I did not know because we banked separately, and he was intercepting the mail. I reconnected with my parents at this point because I knew I needed to plan an exit from my failing abusive marriage. I was meeting them without my ex's knowledge, and they were giving me money, but the terms were "he cannot know we are helping you".

So, now I was working, taking care of my kids, a grown man on crutches, and his mother, cleaning, cooking, and killing myself. This is now August of 2022 and I'm resentful. I'm helping my ex-husband bathe and care for himself while I'm up at 5 am and working till 5 pm just to make money to keep us afloat and "fix things". I'm being accused of having an eating disorder by "friends", they were harassing me via text (I never responded till I found out they took pictures of my kids and sent them to people I didn't know) and they're spreading rumors about me. I was just mentally cooked.

That's when August 20th rolls around... I remember this day like it was yesterday. I was getting my kids ready to take them shoe shopping. I was trying to get myself together when I asked my ex-husband, who was mobile at this point, to refill the toilet paper in one of the bathrooms. He lost it. He started to scream and yell that I was cheating on him, which I wasn't. He accused me of working long hours and having an affair. I guess my reaction wasn't the best because I turned around and laughed because it was crazy. I told him that intimacy for women is all connected. You can't be a bum and expect me to want to sleep with you and the stress killed my libido. All I was doing was working so he could sit his butt on the couch and not do anything for our family. He kept yelling and accusing me, then asking for a divorce. I quickly ran down the hall to my oldest daughter and told her to pack an overnight bag for her and her sister. When I returned to my bedroom, I closed the door. I can remember looking in the mirror with tears rolling down my face and saying out loud "WE DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER" as he screamed at me from the other side of the room. That's when he opened the bedroom door and started to scream "YOU" RE MOTHER IS A SLUT AND WHORE", in front of my children and then on the back deck for the neighbors to hear. I begged him to stop and it's not true. I decided to try to take my dog for a walk to defuse the situation before it got further out of hand, but as I grabbed the leash from the front hall, he got in my face and called me those names again. I told him to stop, and he said it again, that's when he finally got me to react. The look in his eyes scared me, it was like a shark ready to take a bite. So, I hit him, not my finest moment in life. I whipped him with the soft handle of the dog leash. He continued to say, "You're a crazy whore and slut" and I followed him to the deck and punched him 3 times, he blocked all of them but that's when he decided to call the police. I ran to my room and started to collect whatever I could because I knew I was going to be arrested for assault. After 10 years of marriage, I finally physically stood up to him. I packed as much as I could and waited in the back of my car for the police to arrive. I was a complete and total mess. The Police Officers spoke to me, and I apologized for hitting him and told them that I was not a violent person, but he finally got me there. He got me to hit him. The cops interviewed my ex-husband who was threatening to press charges. I was told to leave with the kids and not come back. I packed the kids, left, and never went back.

That day changed a lot for me. It woke me up to what the kids and I were living in. We moved in with my parents. DCPP showed up the following day, I hid nothing. I won't go into the specifics but there was a lot of emotional and verbal abuse going on as well as other forms of DV. My ex never hit me, but he was heavy-handed with spanking the kids. We got resources for therapy. It's eye-opening when your 8-year-old can verbally tell the intake people exactly how everything happened. I am forever grateful to the Police Department and DCPP. They saved my life. He never pressed charges even though he texted my family members saying he was going to put me in jail, he wanted me to come home and I refused. I told him our marriage was over. It's too toxic and unhealthy.

I filed for Divorce in November of 2022. It was defaulted because he refused to sign any paperwork. He didn't show up for the custody setting. He moved out of our home which I had to sell fast to prevent it from going into foreclosure. He lived there from August 2022 to Feb 2023, and he destroyed our home. I had to do a ton of renovations to get it ready. I can remember walking back into the house and the smell. Like something was rotting. The kids' rooms were trashed and he left me with a complete mess to clean up. He took whatever he wanted and left me to pack and clean the house alone. Thank God for my parents and 2 very close friends. They saved me and helped me get back on my feet. Once the house sold, I settled all back owed balances including the back owed amount of the mortgage. He didn't pay any bills while living there. He was like a squatter.

Fast forward to today 12/29/2024-----

I'm still with my parents trying to get my place. I'm in therapy, working, "single momming", and just living life. My ex-husband disappeared to Florida in February of 2024.... he decided on a whim to move back to Jersey to "be a dad" and showed up Christmas Eve without warning. Thankfully I was in the shower and never answered the door. We do not co-parent well because he is mean and nasty. When he does speak to our oldest daughter, her trauma dumps on her. She chooses not to speak to him.

I'll say reflecting on all of this before the ringing in the New Year has given me some insight into how much I've changed and how strong I have become. I used to be ashamed of this story, but it actually was the day I "woke up". Some people call it a Spiritual Awakening, I just know it felt like an out-of-body experience and that if I didn't leave, I wouldn't be here today.