How did I Afford to Get Divorced and Become a Single Mom? 

 The idea of getting divorced was a frightening one.  The thought of being alone for the rest of my life was taunting me.  The thought of not being with my children every day was torturing me.  Then to add fuel to the fire I remember being terrified of how I was going to make it on my own. 

 At the time I had reduced my lucrative full time professional job down to just three days a week so I could be home with my small children more.  I absolutely did not want to give that up.  It didn't make sense to me that during a time of emotional upheaval to put the kids into even more daycare.  So I sat on it.  I stewed about it.  I thought and thought and thought. 

 One day I was at lunch with a friend of mine and I had an epiphany.  Life is just way to short to spend it miserable, especially having arguments escalate in front of the children.  So I realized that at that moment that there was a way.  (There always is, sometimes we're just not ready to see it yet.)  There was no law that stated that I had to put my entire portion of my settlement from our house back into a house.  So I realized that I could scale back the kind of house I was going to buy, and put the rest into savings for a slush fund.

 For the next 5 years I drew on that slush fund to help pay my bills when I needed to.  Of course with the free time I had, I was able to get a couple of fun part time jobs to fill my time without the kids and not always rely on the slush fund.  Once I realized I had the safety net, I leapt.  I never looked back.  It was the one thing that pushed me thorough, and I finally made the move to leave.  Since then, there of course have been some tough months, but nothing as tough as sticking it out in a situation that absolutely made me miserable.