Aubrey wasn’t lying when he said, “Married in her 20s? nah, where the fun in that?!” because WTF was I thinking getting married at 23?

We met during my last year on The Hill right before college graduation and fell Dangerously In Love within 2 business days. The rest was a wrap. He checked off all the boxes…tall dark and handsome, he made me laugh and he loved him some me. He got along beautifully with my family and we had a blast together, he was really my best friend. We were married 2 years later, had a beautiful baby girl and were living the Black American Dream by 25.

While most of my peers were still searching for work after attaining their degrees and living with their parents or roommates, I had already secured a position in my field and was living in a beautiful home with my new little family. We had it all…the house, the cars, the kid and then damn dog.

5 years later and I had to serve that man them papers three times before he signed them. I was only able to convince him to finally sign them the third time because I threatened to kill his ass if he didn’t. I had had enough and I am not cut from the same cloth as my mama was. That generation was a special kind of loyal, they really meant it when they said “for better or for worse….until death do us part….” Baby not I. Get TF. Married at 23, divorced by 28. Fun times.

On a serious note though, I did try… Marriage counseling, church, and all that….but the truth was that we were both so young and immature. We just weren’t ready. Right person, wrong time is really a thing.

It took a while but after some time, reflection and acceptance I was able to live my best life. I was happy, healed and glowing. My 20s were full of love, marriage and divorce… but my 30s have been lit, I’m doing everything I should have done in my 20s…except with money.

I was shook when my ex-husband decided to slide in my DMs and shoot his shot. I’m thinking to myself, “sir, your jersey is retired…what you doing?”

I ignored him at first, but then the DMs turned into 4 page letters of him professing his love for me, flowers being sent to my job, gifts left at my doorstep…

His timing was trash. When my daughter was with him on the weekends, my Self-Care Saturdays consisted of me sitting on my patio, watching the sun rise, sipping my tea and enjoying my sativa, or being laid up with my sneaky link minding my business and here he go…disturbing my peace.

He spent months trying to convince me to give us another shot. Sending me designer bags, money, love letters, you name it. All of that stuff was nice but it was the time we were starting to spend together with our daughter that was really making a difference.

We usually co-parented separately, but our daughter started asking to do more things together. I kept it very platonic when the three of us were together despite her dad hoping to bring “us” up. She understood that mommy and daddy were friends and we were family.

After a few Months of health co-parenting time I had started asking him to chill out because I was legit getting tired of curving him. I didn’t want to admit that he was really starting to get to me with these attempts to show me that he was a “changed man”. He was even going to male black therapist who was being real with him about the mistakes he made.

It took a while, but we figured out a rapport and were looking like co-parents of the year…. until I got a phone call from his girl.