I’m coming up on the three year anniversary of my divorce absolute and a recent conversation I had caused me to go back and look over how things have changed since 2020. I wanted to offer some words of hope to those of you who are going through the brutally crushing process right now.

I was near the end of my rope after the divorce. I was completely shattered. A longer story, but I’ve been through a few different twists to the screw, at one point I was living in my sister’s attic with my credit cards maxed out while still subject to mandatory large monthly child support payments to my ex-wife, who refused to earn anywhere near her earnings potential.

It was pretty bleak.

I’m now in a much better place. I’ve moved to a great city with lots of culture and food and a good social life. Have a nice group of friends that I see regularly. Financially, my ex-wife made decisions that were short term money grabs, which meant she missed out on some more recent professional success of mine.

I can’t say that dating has produced a miracle, but there are very attractive women who are nice to me, and maybe one or two of them will want something longer-term. Certainly I found my new city is a great place for casual.

There was a woman I was talking to who’s got a very well-paying but boring professional job. She is a single mother. She was complaining about how stultifying her work is which pays her $250,000 a year. I offered up the observation that people get trapped into professional inertia, and if you take a risk, you may be able to find new opportunities. She proceeded to really lay in to me that I didn’t understand the financial burden of caring for a family of two and having credit cards maxed out and depending on family, when I had to care for a family of four with court mandated, monthly payments, irrespective of my own income or ability to house or feed myself. But I took a risk that paid off.

Thankfully, I’m not looking to get married again, but her attitude reminded me of how unbelievably lopsided the laws are in the US, how big a burden I was able to overcome, and how I was able to persevere.

You may be in a tough place now, but there is hope, and if you stick with it, you can find a better life.