To every young woman who dreams big, please listen to me. Love should not cost you your future. Marriage should not erase who you are. I paused my dreams for someone I thought loved me. I trusted. I sacrificed. I believed that “we” mattered more than “me.” And now I’m trapped in an abu$!ve marriage, trying to claw my way out with nothing but fear, exhaustion, and tears I hide from my children. No one tells you how hard it is to leave when you have no support. No one warns you what happens when you give up your education, your certifications, and your career “temporarily.” Temporary turns into years. Years turn into dependence. Dependence turns into a cage. I want to work. I need to work. But every rejection reminds me that I have no papers to prove my worth, no certificates to show what I can do. I want to start a business, but dreams don’t survive without capital. Hope doesn’t pay rent. Strength doesn’t buy food. Some days I feel like I’m drowning quietly. Some days the thoughts scare me, the dark ones that whisper that it would be easier to disappear.
But then I look at my two children, and I stay. Not because I’m okay, but because they need me alive. Please, young women, don’t let love talk you out of your independence. Don’t shrink yourself to make someone else feel big. Don’t believe that suffering is loyalty. And never, ever pause your dreams without a safety net of your own. Love should add to your life, not destroy it. And if someone asks you to give up everything for them, ask yourself what they are giving up for you. I am surviving so my children can have a better story than mine. But if my pain can be a warning that saves even one woman from this hell, then my voice matters. Protect your future. Protect yourself.
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