An Ex-Wife Perspective

The other day, my baby daddy told me he got fired. He was scared to tell me. He honestly probably wouldn’t have but we were married for 5 years. I know when he’s weighed down by something, so I pried until he told me. Probably one of the reasons we didn’t last.

Before I continue, I need to give you some context.

When I met my ex husband, I fell in love quick. His humor, his smile, his stocky rig. He’s a sweet man, a good father. But he grew up, like many, with lack of male guidance and a black hole of a mother wound. He liked my spunky personality and bull headed resilience. Used to say my back arch was divine. But I was too untamed and stuck in the patriarchy mentality of “provide or be worthless.” So we found ourselves drained and unrecognizable after the kids. I was tired of carrying the burden alone while suffering internally. He was tired of the verbal abuse and the impossible climb. So we separated.

I’m a woman, so I thrive being single. It’s been the best time of my life, so this isn’t gonna be a romcom story, relax.

But after he moved out, I watched him start to slowly decline. He got demoted at work which came with a pay cut. It started with him getting bushy from not seeing his barber. Then came “call me on messenger” because his phone was off. Suddenly he’s needing me to “cover him” with the kids. What started as two weeks on two weeks off became just weekends. So yeah, this time, when he came to drop them off, I pried.

He couldn’t look me in the eye. His upper lip quivered and his hands fidgeted.

“Listen, I haven’t been able to keep the kids as much because I got evicted.”

Okay… I think to myself. I already figured. But I don’t show him that.

“I lost my job. Money has been tight.” He shuffles. Tone becomes almost defensive, like he’s bracing for an impact.

“I’m sorry. Are you able to stay with your mom? Your sister?”

“On and off yeah. You know how they are.”

“Okay. Do you need anything?”

“No. Thank you. I’ll pick them up in the morning.”

He cut the conversation brief, obviously not wanting to go into more detail.

I think about that conversation a lot. How nervous he was. As though he deserved some sort of lashing for being misfortuned. He’s trained this way. This is the only kind of woman he has seen, even in me. Women are too used to berating a man when he is incapable of serving her. The woman I once was would have looked at this and rolled her eyes thinking that bum can’t do shit. I would have seen his downtroudedness as weak, uselessness. Incapable of relieving me of the hell he caused me. But I am not that woman anymore.

I understand the origin and harm of that thinking now. The dehumanization of it. I would never want that for my son.

You see, we have been sold a lie so deeply embedded it feels like biology. That a man’s value lives entirely in what he provides. What he fixes. What he leads. Strip that away and there is supposedly nothing left. Not a man. Just wreckage.

We take boys and we train them before they can form full sentences. Don’t cry. Toughen up. Get money. Be the man. We sever them from every emotion that makes them human and then wonder why they are emotionally unavailable. Why they can’t communicate. Why they disappear into themselves when the pressure gets heavy.

That is not an accident. A man who equates his worth to his output is a man capitalism can use. He will grind past his limits. Sacrifice his health, his family, his peace, for a number on a paycheck. He will not ask for help. He will not admit he’s drowning. Because that would make him weak. And weak means worthless. And worthless means unlovable. So he holds it. All of it. Until he can’t.

Men die by suicide at four times the rate of women. Not because they are weaker. Because they were never taught that falling apart was survivable. The provider mentality does not just drain men financially. It eats their sense of self. When the job goes, the identity goes with it. When the money dries up, so does his reason for existing in his own mind. He was never taught to be anything other than useful. And when he can no longer be useful, he does not know what he is.

That is not masculinity. That is a mule with a man’s name.

My son will not be that man.

After a period of watching him couch-hop, I offered him to move back in the house. The decision came from spiritual downloads I received in silence. I felt a pull toward responsibility. We love the idea of a baby daddy paying for his baby mama’s house because “he still has to make sure that mother is taken care of for the kids’ sake.” But the woman gets off free in that hymn. That is the father of my children. I couldn’t watch him struggle.

Now I don’t have one of those baby daddies, to be fair. He changes diapers, reads bedtime stories, teaches self defense. He never asked me for money the whole time he was down. When he had the kids, they ate, stayed clean and stayed in safe familial environments. He’s always struggled with his worth and money, but his heart is pure enough to be an offering.

He’s still an ass don’t get me wrong. I was reminded why I liked him gone almost immediately. The mean bully style humor. The messiness. The negative energy. I definitely see these things, but I’ve grown to not only see these things. Now I see the full picture. The give and take. And I’m choosing to give so I can take.

See what I’ve noticed in this period of him being back in the house, is that he has also changed, and he’s noticed I’ve changed. Papa’s been humbled since he’s been back in the streets and it shows. He’s realizing what he lost and so am I. So he’s been working.

I told myself I’d help him differently this time. I wouldn’t try to guide or mother him. Because I didn’t want him to start fighting to become my expectations again. So this time I decided to inspire. I’ve been inviting friends over regularly. I’ve been on my own grind. Working hard for myself. See I don’t care for him to save me anymore, because I don’t need saving. I don’t need his help. I can work a 9-5, build a business, single mother these wild ass chaps, and stay cute and joyful all the while. My ancestors were cooking dinner from scratch for they 11 kids and abusive husbands, surely I can survive capitalism.

So the fighting stopped because I just don’t give a fuck anymore. I’m gonna do me and he can bask in the glory. And he has. He’s started his own business now, and the best part, I didn’t help him. I didn’t stick my nose in and point out what he could do better this time. I just gave him a safe environment and a stable energy to find his motivation again. It’s been beautiful to see.

So as his business picks up, he’s promised to find a new apartment. I know, not the happy ending you wanted. This was not about a love story. This was about a lesson in the masculine feminine balance. About the power and divinity of operating within our true roles.

This is what it looks like when a woman stops fighting nature and starts working with it. What happens when we remember we are leaders too. Because the feminine does not lead by force. It leads by environment. By energy. By becoming so whole within herself that she stops needing to drag anybody anywhere. And all leadership must come with compassion and grace. I had to get out of the way of my own power to understand that. Stop trying to build your man into what you need and start building yourself into who you were meant to be. A man in the presence of a truly sovereign woman will either rise to meet her or remove himself. Either way, you win. That is the balance. That is the divine design. And it is far more powerful than anything I could have manufactured by controlling, berating, or staying stuck in my own fear.