As of a day in mid-October, the house I believed I would live in until I died, will be auctioned.

I first moved into the house in February of 2017. I was renting it back then. I lived there when Jarrod and I first got together. Just after he and I got married he and his children moved in with me and my children. We had all 6 of our older kids living there under one roof for a while. We brought Felix home from being born while we lived there. We stayed until May of 2020 when Jarrod, my kids and I moved out of state. But when tragedy struck, we came back to Iowa…. and when the house went up for sale in 2021, I knew I wanted to live there forever. So Jarrod and I bought the house. Then massive inflation hit….and after storm damage, including high winds and flooding, and our homeowners insurance covering NONE of the repairs or maintenance needed afterwards, it fell into such a deep state of disrepair that it could no longer be maintained by us. We couldn’t afford to take care of it ourselves because the price of home supplies skyrocketed not long after we signed our mortgage. And so we declared bankruptcy last December, and this month the house is being auctioned. It will no longer be an asset, a burden, or a concern of ours. The comfortable life and security it offered us for so many years, just a memory now. I loved that house so much.

On the same day in mid-October, my divorce from the man I thought I’d go through life with will also be final.

Jarrod and I married in 2017. I was absolutely certain, without one single doubt, that he was the man I would spend the rest of my days with. I trusted him more than I’ve trusted any other man. We both got sterilization reversal surgeries within the first year of our marriage, and I got pregnant with Felix right away. We were both happy, blissful. We spent all our time together. We worked together, we watched movies together, went to concerts together, damn near every moment of the day was spent together for the first year and a half we were married. When Felix was born, it changed things because I was home with Felix and Jarrod continued to work. The plan was for me to stay home for up to 1 year, then return to work as well. But as Felix grew and didn’t hit developmental milestones, it became very clear that he was going to need extra attention. There was no uncertain insistence that I stay home with Felix so that he had appropriate care, which kept me from being able to go back to work. And with that insistence also came resentment. And about a million other factors that led to Jarrod betraying me by cheating with a coworker while we lived out of state. That’s the first time I know about. And that is the tragedy that drove me back home to Iowa. I didn’t want to be alone in a place over 1000 miles away from everything and everyone I knew, during a pandemic, no less. So we came back, and Jarrod insisted we stay together. I forgave him. I gave him chance after chance, with so much tolerance and forgiveness. Just to have him cheat again, and again. Just to have him lie again, and again. He moved out in March of last year, and I finally filed for divorce this April. He continued to try to convince me to stay with him anyway, because he was happy with our relationship and living separately… and that’s no marriage I want to be in. Especially when I’ve been betrayed so many times, and there’s no trust left. I deserve my peace. So I’m closing that door both symbolically and legally. I will tolerate and forgive no more. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less. My loyalty is hard to dissolve, as it turns out.

The last few years have been absolute hell on earth with my struggling and then failed marriage, my lost home, and a child with complex medical needs, and my own increasing medical needs. It’s hard, even now, to see any light at the end of this dark tunnel. I wish I could leave the country to be sure my kids and I have a secure future to look forward to. But all I can do in this moment is hope for better days.