Create with ME entry: Will I Ever Find a Decent Man?

Will I Ever Find a Decent Man? 

Brought up in care from the age of eight, I never felt much love or support in my life. Kicked out after my sixteenth birthday I was thrown head first into the big wide world: I was terrified! I had a job, so I had money, I found support from my social worker; she was lovely. She found me supported living, placements and eventually my first flat.

I worked hard to become a police officer at the age of eighteen. Then stupidly at the age of twenty-one I fell for a guy, he was like my prince charming taking me away from the rubbish that came before. He introduced me to a family where at last I felt secure. Being immature and foolish we were married far too young, then soon after my daughter came along.

It all changed after that my husband didn’t want me going back to the police in case I left my daughter without a mum.

I started working as a care assistant, my husband worked at a factory, my daughter went to nursery; life went on. As the months went by my husband's drinking became more and more out of control, he started getting verbally abusive. He snapped at my daughter and made her cry: that was the last straw! I said goodbye.

I was a single mum supporting my daughter all alone. After a while I got a job offer in London, so we moved. A new start, I thought. The job was great. One night I was invited by a friend to a party at a pub ran by her parents and managed by her brother.

Can you see where this is going? So, I don’t usually drink but I had a babysitter sorted for the night so I thought, ‘what the hell, let your hair down girl’. I caught the eye of my friend’s brother straight away.

It is rather clichéd ; he was tall dark and handsome. We started dating and decided that we would move back to Devon, where we were both from.

This time it was two and a half years before we got married and a year later in July we had my son. I was in my thirties now and married; so what could go wrong?

Then reality set in, the outgoing husband, turned into a lazy slob, happy doing a mediocre part-time job whilst I did a fifty-hour week, just to make ends meet: Then came the verbal abuse, threats and insults. I really tried this time to make things work; I talked to him, suggested marriage counselling but nothing worked, so as with the first husband, I kicked him to the kerb.

Here I am at thirty-five, with two failed marriages and two awesome children. Working part time, a single mum again.

Will I ever find a decent man? Who knows? Ever the eternal optimist I live in hope that one day my knight in shining armour will whisk me off into the sunset.

Charley Quigley.