Taking Back Control

When I first met my now ex-husband, I had a successful career in banking, I owned my own 3-bedroom house, I was an independent young woman.

When we decided to marry and move in together, I sold my property, making quite a large profit. This I saw as my opportunity to take some time out from the banking world and focus on a goal I had held dearly for many years – to write a novel.

I achieved this goal and subsequently wrote four more books – all of which you can find information about on my website.

I think it was after having our daughter that the balance in our relationship began to shift. My ex began to travel a lot more for work and being at home with a young baby was lonely. The decline really happened over time, so things never struck me as strange as we seemed to sink further into a rut - when we didn’t have joint bank accounts or when he would never disclose what bonus he had received.

Oh, he would give me a small amount of money each month to ‘treat’ myself, but I would have to ask him if I needed clothes or things for our daughter, or even a hoover. I would hate going shopping with friends around Christmas time because they would just see something for their child and buy it, and I would have to go home and ask for it.

So yes, I was soon heavily dependent on my husband, but I guess I allowed it; I enabled it.

Until I didn’t anymore.

Last year, I found he had been having an affair for six years, and that was my ‘STOP!’ moment. That was when I realized enough is enough. If I were to stay in this subsistence of a life, what would that be teaching my daughter? And what kind of life was it, anyway?

So, I got out. I rented a place with my daughter, and after twenty years of never paying a bill, guess what? I know how much things cost! I am in control of my finances and more importantly, I am free.

Yes, I worry about money, every single day. But I sleep a good night’s sleep. And I wake with vigour because I am in control; I am here.

And every morning I greet the new day on my terms!

Bio: Amanda Armstrong is an English author, mother to Mia and lover of cats.

She has written five published novels and a number of short stories and poems, details of which can be found at her website: www.amandaarmstrong1974.co.uk

Motto: “When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen…” ~ Harley Davidson.

In the novel, Naomi and Ruth: Loyalty Among Women, after Naomi's husband dies unexpectedly, she finds herself a single mother in a foreign land with no way to support herself. And yet, she is strong, and the help she gets from local Moab women impels her to start her own successful business as a seamstress.