Faithful and Homeless

Sitting within the wreckage of my failed marriage, I wondered how I found myself in a situation where I had been faithful, yet still ended up homeless. My ex had been encouraging me to agree to sell the house for months. He was already planning his exit strategy. I just didn’t know it yet.

We ended up in an apartment with black mold growing in the corners of the bathroom. Whenever it warmed above sixty degrees, the faint smell of Indian food wafted through the walls. With two young boys, a dog, and a cat, the two-bedroom apartment was chaotic. Our outdoor cat lived in terror when raccoons climbed onto the porch to eat his food. I remember the black, almost human-like hands grasping the grains of kibble through the cracked wooden rails while he huddled in the corner, shaking and growling almost inaudibly in fear.

Our spoiled dog was so unhappy with the new living quarters that he refused to stop barking whenever we left the apartment. When I came home from work, I found my first official residential warning clipped to the door. If the dog doesn’t stop barking, you’re out. It was the first time in my life that I felt I could lose everything, including the beds we slept on.

Our marriage was on life support, but I convinced myself that all marriages go through rough patches, financial struggles like this. I refused to give up. If we loved and supported each other, we could survive. But no one ever told me that a marriage cannot be held together by the efforts of just one person. I was faithful to a fault, but it wasn’t enough.
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