WRY BREAD: A Slice of My Life in Pursuit of Dough

If Your Happily-Ever-After Marriage Ends, Will You Be Able to Afford a ‘Ticket to Ride’?

By Gail Harlow

          Between June 11 and July 23, 2002, four women married to servicemen stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were allegedly murdered by their husbands. Reporters and experts searching for reasons for this misogynous mayhem speculated that soldiers, trained to kill, are more inclined to resort to violence to solve their marital problems. While the incidence of domestic violence in military families is high and increasing (the rate of such incidents rose from 18.6 to 25.6 per 1000 military personnel between 1990 and 1996), military wives are not the only ones living in the crosshairs of domestic abuse. And, while fear is an inhibiting factor, too often, a lack of financial resources is the biggest barrier, preventing women from leaving intolerable, life-threatening home situations.

            It isn’t just physical abuse that can lead a married woman to look for an escape hatch, of course.  More common in many women’s lives is the insidious form of abuse that comes in the form of assorted humiliations, power plays and verbal attacks, cold shoulders and deaf ears, which aren’t immediately recognized as abusive, but which still deliver emotional punches and can destroy the psyches of the women and children who are targeted, if they stay too long within range. But for these women, too, options can seem limited if money is scarce. It takes dough, some stashed cash, to buy that much-needed "ticket to ride" to freedom, and even more dough to set up a new, secure life after pulling up stakes on the old one. It isn’t an easy choice to make, facing the unknown with young children and little cash—and often little hope of earning more. But with the support of friends and family and community programs, and sometimes by relying on the kindness of strangers, more and more women are saying, “Enough.” I can make it on my own. I’m buying my "ticket to ride!"

           The Beatles coined that memorable phrase in their 1965 song on the “Help! “Album.“ Penny, an unhappily married 40-year-old military wife, living near Seattle, has found an enterprising way to shout, “Help!”  With no profession and two young daughters to support, like some modern-day Blanche Dubois, Tennessee Williams’ helpless anti-heroine in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Penny has decided to throw herself on the mercy of strangers. Taking the initiative to teach herself basic HTML coding, she has set up a Web site to solicit money so that she can afford to divorce her husband. “Please. Help Me Leave My Husband!” she pleads on the home page of www.helpmeleavemyhusband.com.

            Penny makes it clear that her husband is not physically abusive. She and he have simply grown apart over the nine years that they’ve been married; they can’t seem to communicate with one another without screaming, she says. “We never see eye-to-eye, and we argue all the time.” When they realized that this pattern was not going to change, at the end of one particularly bad fight, they came to a mutual decision to end their marriage. “It was only after we had heard my 8-year-old beg us to ‘stop arguing all the time’ for two years that we finally realized that this was an abusive situation,” says Penny.  “We were abusing our kids by allowing them to think it's OK for people who supposedly love each other to act so hatefully towards one another.”

             “It is no joke that I really do need money for nursing school so that my husband and I will not be strapped by debt when we divorce,” she says to those who question her motives and the authenticity of the site. “I could just get a divorce and sheepishly skulk into the welfare office to get money,“ but that money would also be coming from strangers who pay taxes to fund those programs, is her response to those who ask why she doesn’t rely on the standard safety net for single mothers. She claims that, because of her husband’s salary, she is ineligible for financial aid from the school.  While she could take out a college loan, she would rather not burden herself with that debt, if she can help it.

            Is her electronic panhandling good old-fashioned American enterprise or the antithesis of the American work ethic? Should she have tried to go it alone, finding a low-paying job, taking on debt, and paying her way through school over a longer period of time, as so many other women do? Or should more women follow her lead and take to the Internet, appealing to the kindness of strangers for aid? You decide. As she explains, she isn’t forcing anyone to give to her personal cause, and only time will tell how successful her appeal for funds will be.

            The important thing is that, whether she gets help from strangers or not, she has taken the first steps towards independence.  Penny started school this September; she posts a diary of her daily activities and expenses on the site. She reports that her husband, who recently returned from a tour of duty overseas, has moved into the downstairs bedroom and, though they still fight, the couple plan to live together, but apart, during the year that it will take Penny to complete her degree. So far, she has raised $727.92. to help cover the cost of her books and course credits. While her unorthodox method of raising money might be questioned, one thing is certain:  By choosing this orderly dissolution of their marriage, Penny and her husband have managed to put their children first. There will be no sudden disruption of routine for their daughters, and when Penny graduates and gets a job (which she almost certainly will, having chosen a profession in which openings are numerous), she will be able to make a smooth transition to a happier, new life for them all.

            Not all divorcing women have the luxury of being able to make such a gradual transition. More often divorce tends to rip like an earthquake through people’s lives, leaving the survivors stronger and wiser. But resources do exist, and whether women reach out for support through a Web site or resort to a safety net of cobbled-together social programs and the help of friends and family, any woman who finds herself in a situation of domestic violence and abuse must do whatever it takes to protect herself from the harm that befell those unfortunate wives at Fort Bragg. Their tragic end and Penny’s baby steps towards a new life represent two ends of the dysfunctional-marriage spectrum. Their stories prove that, no matter how much in love women are when they marry, they would benefit from having an exit strategy when they enter into marriage. That exit strategy is called a job. Even women in happily-ever-after marriages benefit from having a profession of their own to fall back on, a regular pay check (or the ability to earn one) that will give them the financial independence to walk out the castle door when and if the fairy tale comes to an end, for whatever reason.

            Penny’s daughters are learning this valuable lesson in financial independence first-hand. By choosing to purchase her "ticket to ride," Penny has given her daughters a priceless "ticket to pride" that will stand them in good stead throughout their lives.

_____________________________________

Gail Harlow is the Founding Editor of MAKING BREAD Magazine.

E-mail your comments to gail@makingbreadmagazine.com

E-mail this article.

_________

MAKING BREAD RECOMMENDS

Click on covers to read reviews

 and order.