Quoted because that’s how men talk about us: as if we’re cattle at an auction, losing value by the second.

My father and my mother met in high school, at prom, no less. They had different dates but, as my mom says, “they felt an attraction” that they couldn’t help.

For his part, my father was an almost dropout whose only saving grace was my grandmother saying, “military or jail”. He chose military and proceeded to do the bare minimum to survive.

For her part, my mother had raised her (~15 years) younger brother, as well as doing color guard, volunteer work, and maintaining a high enough GPA to get a full ride to Penn State.

They married, and as my mother says, had just enough sex to make three children and literally no more. She went to school full time as well as worked multiple part-time jobs to keep us afloat because my father was worthless. He would lock me and my siblings in a room so he could watch p* rn all day; If he came to get one of us it was a problem because it meant he would m*lest us.

That was the most attention paid until we were old enough to remember; then he focused on emotional abuse and sexual shame until I cut him off (i left the house at 18).

All of this awful story is to say: THERE IS A REASON WE VET THE MEN WE DATE, even beyond the point most people would deem “acceptable”. When I was 3 (and already a victim of my father) my mother left him.... but her church friends told her, “He may have his problems but divorce is a sin.”

I am here to tell you, the fuck it is! The only reason women are told divorce is a sin, is because men are afraid to lose any power they have over any woman. That shit is fake. You will sooner suffer the consequences of having a child with an LVM than you will any long-term problems from divorcing them.