It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal

cheryl

cheryl

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It Took Divorce to Make My Marriage Equal - Glamour

I spent 12 years fighting for an equal partnership, when what I needed was a divorce.

I stood in my dining room surrounded by toys and the remnants of dinner from the night before sticking to the bottom of my feet. In the kitchen, a bag of trash was tipped over, its innards strewn across the floor. In the living room, a week’s worth of laundry had been waiting two weeks to be folded.

It was 9:45 a.m., and already I was exhausted. I’d come home at midnight the night before, only to have to wake up at 5 a.m. with my toddler son and then take him and his sister to school, before cleaning for the cleaning lady. I had four hours of childcare and two stories to write. My husband was at work; I was here with the mess.

I was 33, a mother of two, and bone-tired. I didn’t want the laundry and chores to be the rest of my life. I didn’t want to always be drowning in work and childcare and housecleaning and dinner, bearing the brunt of the labor. I’d spent the past two years begging for help with the kids and housework, only to be told that I could just quit my job if it was all too much. “It’s not too much,” I’d said over and over. “It’s just not all my job.”
 
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