Shelly
It was understood since I was a young girl that I was going to get married and have babies. I was Polish and Catholic, as such one of my “roles” in life was to follow the path so many other women in my family did. I decided I wanted to live a little before that and get to know myself, for me that meant finishing school becoming an X-ray/MRI technologist and traveling for a few years to see the world.
Twenty-five rolled around and I was ready to get serious about marriage and children unfortunately finding a willing male was difficult. I graduated by the time I was twenty-one, had my own place, and had a career in my chosen profession. Although I would continue to date and attempt relationships, I was single a lot and even when I was in a relationship it would seem I was the only one involved in that twosome. Ok so what now?
Travel travel, travel…to Poland, Caribbean islands, Paris twice, Italy, Greece, Vegas, Savannah, Charlotte, Nah Orleans etc…Work, work, work… twelve years in New Jersey, move up to Salem, Ma purchase a condo and continue to work the next ten years. That would define my twenties and thirties, also unexplained miscarriages at twenty-five and thirty.
Finally at thirty-nine I met a man who said he wanted to get married and have children. I thought wonderful my dream of motherhood and being a wife will come true, it was a whirlwind romance that included marriage and divorce in the one year we knew each other. He was abusive and narcissistic and the one thing that benefited me in that year of hell was having had a very full and enjoyable life before I met him.
I didn’t know it at the time but I was in panic mode, I knew my time was running out and I so wanted to have children. I was the perfect “victim” for him, I was scared of being childless and what that would mean about who I was. I felt like a failure in the mommy arena and the wife arena. I was also one of the only women in my family that didn’t have children or a husband. I was a bad Catholic and bad Polish girl. I didn’t realize any of this until I heard the Jody Day podcast.
I’d like to say that was the worst of it but in that year of marriage and divorce I would have two more pregnancies. The first would end in a miscarriage at home which was extremely traumatic and painful; of course he would blame me for the loss and in the same sentence say it wasn’t his child and that I cheated on him. The second pregnancy which was the only one I ever had that was viable I chose to terminate. I could no longer stand the mental and verbal abuse. Although it never got physical I suspect it may have eventually as I was never a woman to back down to any type of abuse or controlling behavior. I grew up in a household where domestic violence, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse was very common.
At forty-one I was divorced and grieving a grocery list of issues that had started to pile up. I sought out grief counseling for both losses, which worked out different issues but I still found myself at the bottom of a bottle. After many doctors, counselors, coaches etc.. where I found the most help was podcasts that involved Jody Day and Sheri Johnson (I also saw Sheri one on one). I met Michael that year and he would eventually be my husband and also a huge support. He listened to me, followed some of the podcasts so he could better understand, and when I needed help out of the bottle he found a method that worked called TSM.
The part that is really infuriating to me about these last ten years is that no one told me it was ok if I didn’t have children. It wasn’t till I was at the bottom of the bottle that my mom would say, you know so and so never had children. All I have ever known was get married and have children, that was my job and a huge part of my value.
So now after several years of guilt, shame, and self-loathing I’m going to tell my self that it’s ok to be childless. It’s ok to be the cool “Auntie” fashionista with great shoes, lots of photo albums with my travels and adventurous stories to tell nieces and nephews. It is ok to cultivate an amazingly, loving relationship with my husband without children that inspires others to do the same.
