Three years ago today, I left.
Last night, I slept through the night for the first time since I left.
On January 25, 2023, I slept on a mattress on the floor in a house with no furniture on the east side of Lansing. I had lived at the same address for over sixteen years—with my kids’ dad, and then with our family—but in early December I’d filed for divorce. He made enough noise every day that I knew I needed to leave fast.
I have good friends, and they’ve instinctively checked in on me today. They don’t know the exact date. They just know that things are cold and hard and frozen here, and they’re kind enough to reach out. It’s not bad. It’s just heavy. It’s a heavy day.
At the same time, they can’t know how important it is.
I joked with my sister earlier that talking about my marriage is like speaking Dutch in Cambodia. There are people in Cambodia who speak Dutch, and I know they’re there. No one who doesn’t speak Dutch is offended if I speak it around them—but they have no idea what I’m saying. It’s a rare group who will understand, and I’m always surprised when someone does.
As a present to myself, I’m going to speak Dutch here. Just for a minute. Just for you.
From the very beginning, I assumed I was the problem, and I took responsibility for that. Very early on, I knew that no matter what I said or did, he was going to do whatever he wanted. If the marriage was going to work, if I wanted to stay near the kids, I was going to have to change. And if I wasn’t around, no one would know how to take care of them.
So I changed.
When I got pregnant, it was made very clear to me that it was my choice to keep the kids. When I saw two lines on the stick, I knew that I couldn’t raise a kid on my own, so we talked about getting married. However, I had to beg him to propose.
He didn’t come to prenatal appointments much after the first ultrasound. He’d just been appointed to his job at the state and was saving his time off for when the kids were born. I kept trying to talk to him about the nursery. He dodged the question until I finally cornered him and asked, “Do you like things with animals on them?”
That became the first of many jokes about me being too intense. A crazy pregnant lady.
I’d quit my job because I had hyperemesis. I think he believed I sat around watching TV all day. In reality, I had to concentrate deeply to keep food down, wasn’t gaining weight, and my hair was falling out.
I thought this was benign neglect. I thought that men didn’t know anything about pregnancy, and I’d heard so many stories of women being nuts while pregnant. It made sense.
We did get married—downtown, across from the capitol, in the church with Governor’s Row carved into the stone. When I walked down the aisle, it was the first time I waddled.
Two weeks later, he came into the room with his phone open and asked for a picture.
I said no. I was wearing his boxers and a campaign t-shirt. I told him I was disgusting.
He said, “Not of your face.”
It took a second to register. I told him I didn’t do pictures. He said it had been such a long time. Please.
I took a deep breath, pulled down his boxers, and lay back. I heard the camera sound. Then: thank you, thank you, as he rushed out of the room.
I had no idea what to feel, so I didn’t let myself feel anything.
At church every week, everyone told me what a great dad he was going to be. I smiled.
I made it to 36 weeks and six days. It was mid-July, hot as hell. I’d eventually gained almost seventy-five pounds—I joked it was a mercy C-section. In reality, I had pre-eclampsia, and after some brief moments when I tried to breastfeed, the babies were whisked away and I was put on a magnesium sulfate drip. I puked through the first night of my babies’ lives. I slept through the next day.
I found out later that he’d taken over a conference room and invited guests into the hospital. At least a dozen people held my babies that day. I did not.
I told myself I’d been sick. He was proud. He loved them so much he wanted to show them off. They made other people happy. They were twins—when do you get to see twin babies in real life?
They weren’t even a day old, and they were already on display as his children.
In the first ten days of their lives, they met both the governor and the host of a public television political talk show. I was high on Vicodin for both events, but on the show, I predicted the next president.
Everyone was kind. But I was his wife. The mother of his children.
Three weeks after major abdominal surgery—three weeks after giving birth to two babies—he told me it was time to have sex again. When I said the doctors said to wait six weeks, he said they only said that to “cover their asses.”
It took a few seconds.
I thought about how I had no job. My name wasn’t on the house. I had no money. I was about to declare bankruptcy over medical bills. I thought about the two babies in the crib eight feet away.
What was I supposed to do? Go to the hospital afterward? We had one car.
We’d been married for three months.
That was just the beginning. I stayed for over fifteen more years.
It became ordinary. That’s the scariest thing about learning to speak Dutch in Cambodia. You don’t even feel like you’re lying. You convince yourself you don’t speak Dutch at all—that you’re speaking Cambodian. You learn key words and phrases and can say them with a perfect accent.
It sounds like fluency. But you can’t hold a conversation. You just know how to signal that you can.
When I left my marriage, everyone was surprised. Family. Friends. No one knew. No one could have known. I’d learned early what not to say, and I’d memorized what I needed in order to pass.
But the truth is, many people didn’t want to know. I was told directly that they didn’t want to talk about my marriage. People I thought cared deeply about me said they didn’t want to talk about my divorce.
Some said they’d stay friends with both of us. I told them that was fine. They could stay friends with him. I’d make it easy.
I couldn’t stay friends with people who thought it was a normal Cambodian divorce. I couldn’t even speak the language.
He could. I’ll write more about that another time.
For now, it’s snowing in Michigan. There’s a snow day tomorrow. It’s late, and I’m tired.
But it’s been three years. I’m out. I’m free. I lost almost everything—but I’m alive.
And last night, I slept through the night.
I have a good feeling about later.
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