{"id":5830,"date":"2026-02-23T19:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=5830"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:29:12","slug":"you-cant-do-this-youre-27-my-husband-was-untraceable-i-couldnt-divorce-a-man-i-couldnt-find-woman-marries-divorce-lawyer-who-comfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=5830","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You can\u2019t do this. You\u2019re 27.\u2019 My husband was untraceable. I couldn\u2019t divorce a man I couldn\u2019t find.\u2019: Woman marries divorce lawyer who comforted her in aftermath of domestic abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\u201c\u2019You can\u2019t do this,\u2019 he said to me. \u2018You\u2019re 27-years-old, only a year younger than me, and we have our entire lives ahead of us.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I wasn\u2019t like him. He was a prestigious lawyer, while I was a beaten, broken, and utterly lost human being. I didn\u2019t say anything as I tried to choke back the tears, and eventually he said \u2018let me help you,\u2019 breaking the silence, and branding the words onto my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abused, raped, cheated on by my husband of eight years, I\u2019d long since given up the idea of having any type of future. I\u2019d lost all of that at the altar, eight years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was young when I met my husband. Much younger than I should have been, given his older age. But naivety wasn\u2019t the only thing working against me when he came into my life. Desperate to get out of an unstable home life, his steady job, quiet apartment, and vows of unconditional love lured me in; giving him just enough leverage to persuade me into believing he could give me everything I\u2019d ever wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But everything I ever wanted was quickly replaced by abuse I couldn\u2019t believe I was living through. And after eight years of trying to undo what I had done, my husband punched our infant son in the face, quit his job, abandoned his car, shut off his phone, drained our bank account and became untraceable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overnight I went from being a stay-at-home domestic violence victim, to a single mom, living under the poverty line, feeding my kids from the food pantry. I was unable to get divorced from a man I couldn\u2019t find, and too weary to know where to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You can\u2019t help me,\u2019 I told Mike Biederstadt, the attorney on the phone. \u2018No one has ever been able to help me. I can\u2019t even help myself. I\u2019m not you, and people like me, never get what people like you have.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What do you think I have?\u2019 Mike asked me, genuinely perplexed. And as tears rolled down my cheeks and splashed upon my bare feet, I whispered, \u2018Hope.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hope, to me, was unfathomable. It left when the police refused to charge my husband with rape because we were married, and when the shelter turned me away because they were full. Hope was gone when I asked my parents to help me, and was instead urged to fix my marriage. Years of begging, pleading, and desperately trying to fix a situation that I couldn\u2019t get out of, in the end had left my baby injured, my husband missing, and my world destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hope had no place in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike, on the other end of the line, paused. A long pause, that let me know he was thinking about what I\u2019d just said. Eventually I heard him say the words, \u2018I\u2019m going to get you out of this. Please trust me, even though you don\u2019t have any reason to do so, I will get you out of this.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know why I believed him, but I showed up to his office the very next week. Sitting there, the fact that he was only a year older than I, was what struck me the most. He, with a law degree and well respected career, and me, a young woman with nothing but children to show for her time on this earth. Separated physically by the desk that was between us, and a lifetime of walking down different paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I never knew that it was this difficult for women to leave,\u2019 he said to me. \u2018I always just assumed there was more help than this. You always hear people saying women should just leave if they are being abused, and I guess it never occurred to me maybe they can\u2019t. And I don\u2019t want that for you, because you and your children deserve better.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bursting into tears, I\u2019m sure he thought he had upset me. He knew I\u2019d been holding back details of the abuse I was too ashamed to share, and the fact that I was sitting in his office at all, was almost more than I could bear. Yet for the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn\u2019t crying because I was hurting, I was crying because I knew that someone wanted for me, more than I dared hope for, myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My life has never been the same since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five months later I was divorced, and one year later, Mike and I founded \u2018Rise From The Ashes,\u2019 a nonprofit that provides free legal representation to women leaving domestic violence relationships. Mike and I have been invited to speak in front of multiple organizations to share how our society can better the legal system for domestic violence victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the most memorable day of my journey came just two years ago, when Mike pronounced me, my children, and my new husband, \u2018a family,\u2019 as the officiant of my wedding; making good on his own vow to ensure that we got everything he thought we deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
As my children leapt into the arms of their daddy, I saw Mike wipe a tear from his eye, and smile at all that I had become, since the day he took a chance on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s been six years since my now ex-husband walked out our front door and never returned. I\u2019m happily re-married, raising two wonderful children, and a new baby we welcomed ten months ago. Yet although the trauma of my past has at times, been almost more than I can comprehend, I wouldn\u2019t change it for anything.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
I\u2019m happy now, and my future feels nothing but bright. I get to wake up each day and help other women who are standing in a place where darkness is all they see, and point out to them, the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
But I only get to do that, because someone took the time, to point it out to me first.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lwm-a2.azureedge.net\/uploads\/2019\/01\/OfficiantFinal-450x450.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lwm-a2.azureedge.net\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eden3Strong-450x450.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lwm-a2.azureedge.net\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eden7Strong-450x450.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lwm-a2.azureedge.net\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eden5Strong-450x450.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lwm-a2.azureedge.net\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eden4Strong-450x450.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n