I’m always asked by friends and family what was the hardest part of deciding to end things with a man that I had built a home and a family with after five long years together. Most people are shocked by my answer because they expect to hear things like, “It was really hard to adapt to being on my own again,” or “becoming a single mother was a lot harder than I ever imagined it to be.” I would be lying if I said that those thoughts had not crossed my mind several times, but those couldn't be any further from the truth.

                Honestly, our relationship had died months before either one of us had the balls to actually end it. Our relationship lacked the essential foundation of honesty, and trust, but we would use the excuse that since we had been together so long it would just have to work out in the end; the truth of the matter was that we just didn't want to see each other with someone else. I was nervous to call him and tell him when I found out about our unborn child, but to my surprise he was very excited. Like most young fools who thought they were in love, we both believed that staying together for our child could help us repair our dead end relationship, and during the pregnancy all of our joy and excitement seemed to do the trick.

                Neither one of us could hide the happiness that our tiny seed was bringing, so it was not uncommon to see pictures of us with smiles a mile wide posted on social sites for the whole world to see. I gladly filled my Facebook time line with a baby calendar that explained how my body was changing and sharing the proof of my growing belly for all of my friends and family. To those who didn't have the opportunity to know us on a more personal level it appeared that he and I were living a perfect life. I remember at one point I was not allowed to do household chores because of his fear that I might injury myself and hurt the baby. So naturally, I found pleasure in sharing that I got to enjoy a relaxing bubble bath while surrounded in candles as he did all of the dirty work.

                When I reached my seventh month of pregnancy my doctor placed me on full bed rest because of high amounts of protein in my urine and my blood pressure was constantly at a dangerous level. Bed rest may sound like heaven to any exhausted pregnant woman, but since I was the bread winner of our household it only added to the amount of stress that I was already feeling. Without my regular hours, bonuses, and overtime, some bills fell completely behind while others were not able to be paid at all. It was bad enough that our relationship had already been on thin ice but it definitely couldn't stand the pressure that the financial stress was adding on top of everything else.

                Due to all of the complications with my health during and even a few months after my pregnancy I was out of work for a total of 5 ½ months. During that time, I was constantly stressed out, anxious, sad, and agitated. It also didn't help that I was suffering with insomnia, and even though I was hardly eating I just couldn't stop gaining weight. I felt like I was constantly in a daze and it made me feel like I was just going crazy! For a long time I just tried to deny those feelings and I kept everything to myself, and then I remember one particular evening when Khloe  was going through her crying spells, I thought a few thoughts that no mother should ever have about her child and I realized that what I was feeling was not normal. I tried to speak to him about my concerns because even though we were not really getting along, I thought it would help us if he knew what I was thinking. Instead of getting that support that I was longing for from him, it seemed like he would use to use my feelings against me whenever we would get into arguments. The anger that I was feeling from not enjoying motherhood as much as I had imagined and the fact that we were about to lose the place we worked so hard to make comfortable of our new one really added even more stress! As much as neither one of us wanted to, we had to tuck our tail between our legs, admit defeat, and move back home with my mother. It was already hard enough to get along with all of the space that we shared in our own place, so it was nearly impossible when we had to live in a full house and the three of us literally had to share one bedroom. As difficult as it was, we managed to live there for almost a year. That was almost a year of little to no intimacy and sometimes days would go by without so much as a few complete sentences to each other.

                In February 2012, despite our constant fighting and bickering, we figured that moving into a cozy place of our own could help eliminate some of the arguments that we had been having. I had been back to work and he had received a raise at his job and started working on a few side businesses so we figured that would elevate our financial issues. Once again, with all of the blessings that seemed to come our way we found ourselves sharing our happiness on every social site that we could think of.

                The first two months went surprisingly without incident and then one day during a fight over something that we had argued about at least a thousand times he said something that even I didn't think he was capable of saying. He had always prided himself on not disrespecting women by calling them b-tches, so I was completely appalled when he took it upon himself to call me a ‘stupid b-tch’. My mother had always said that once a certain line had been crossed with disrespect there was no turning back, but he seemed so sincere in his apology I just wanted to believe it would never happen again. Even though I hate admitting when my mother is right, it seemed like once he got away with it the first time we could never have an argument without him calling me a b-tch, hoe, stupid, or picking at my weight even though he knew how hard I was trying to lose it. He even found himself comfortable enough to use those terms with our little girl present! After the verbal abuse became excessive it was no wonder that a few physical altercations shortly followed.

                After months of everything just getting progressively worse I had completely had enough! I was able to live with the fact that I would be doing everything alone, and I realized that it would be weird having to eventually start dating again, but the hardest part of ending the relationship was that I had to admit that I failed another relationship. Back in the day when you broke up with someone the only people who knew were those that were immediately around you, but since we had made our relationship public on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, I now had hundreds of people aware that despite all of our efforts it just was not going to work out. The moment I selected ‘single’ from ‘in a relationship’ everyone and there mom wanted to know what could have possibly went wrong. It was difficult enough with all of the changes that were going on in my life, without the added nosiness of everyone I had ever met in my life. I remember running into a friend at the mall who compared our relationship to Jay-z and Beyonce, and the craziest part is it seemed she was more heart broken about the break up then I had ever been!