I got married just three months after finishing secondary school.
I was only eighteen, still hanging up my school uniform, with my head full of dreams and illusions.
Everyone at home knew I had a boyfriend.
My parents pleaded with me to wait, to study, to take advantage of the opportunity they wanted to give me to go to university.
But I didnt listen.
I married a man five years older than me, absolutely convinced that love would be enough for everything.
We started our life in a rented room, with a borrowed bed, an old cooker, and a fridge that rattled like a lorry.
The early years felt like a race against exhaustion.
By twenty, I was pregnant with my first daughter, and soon after came our second child.
He worked sporadically, coming home tired, irritable, often short of his full wages.
I did wonders with the food we had: stretching rice, saving oil, learning to cook lentils in ten different ways.
I washed clothes by hand, carried buckets of water, slept very little.
I never liked to share my problems.
On the outside, I was composed, tidy, a well-married woman.
Inside, I was utterly worn out.
After five years of marriage, and having finally managed to own a small council house, everything fell apart.
I heard rumours he was seeing a married woman.
It wasnt just gossip.
Her husband started looking for him, turning up near our home and sending him messages.
One morning, my husband packed his clothes, said he needed to leave just for a few days, and never came back.
He didnt simply leave; he abandoned me, alone with two young children, bills to pay, and a house to maintain.
Thats when my real life as a single father began.
I started working as a cleaner in a local primary school.
I got up at 4:30 every morning, half-cooked lunch, woke the children, dropped them off with my mum, and headed to work.
My wages barely covered the essentials.
Some months I had to choose between paying the water bill or buying new shoes for the kids.
There were weeks when we lived on bread and beans, rice and eggs, thin soup.
I never went asking for help.
I gritted my teeth and carried on.
My mum was my anchor.
She picked the kids up from school, fed them, bathed them, helped them with their homework.
I came home every evening completely drained, my back aching.
Sometimes Id sit on the bed and cry quietly, so no one would hear me.
I never wanted my children to grow up feeling sorry for me.
Meanwhile, he never returned.
Now and then, hed send a text apologies, promises he never kept.
Child support came if he felt like sending it, sometimes not at all.
I learned not to rely on it.
I sold insurance to fix the roof, took extra shifts in offices, gave private photography lessons (Id taught myself).
On Sundays, I washed clothes by hand late into the night, as I couldnt afford a washing machine.
The years passed.
My eldest, Emily, grew up watching me leave early and come home late.
She learned responsibility very young.
My son, James, became disciplined, serious, protective.
I had no social life.
There was no time for dating, walks, or holidays.
My break was the quiet nights after everyone was in bed.
The day Emily graduated as a lawyer, I cried as I never had before.
Seeing her in her gown and cap, confident and articulate, I remembered that eighteen-year-old girl who gave up her education for love.
In that moment, I felt my sacrifice hadnt been wasted.
And when James graduated as an officer in the Army standing tall in his spotless uniform the lump in my throat was just as strong.
Looking back, Im still surprised at what I endured.
I was a single father for most of my parenting years, raised my kids with hard work, discipline, and love.
Nobody handed me anything.
No one carried me.
Yet here we are, together.
