In reality, I wasn’t healed from within. Emotionally, I was shattered and convinced that I couldn’t live alone. Looking back, I realize that my life has been a series of bad decisions and wrong choices.

A few months later, I met Jean-Paul on social media. Single, childless, from a polygamous family, and the eldest of three siblings. Parents separated and in conflict with his father (who himself was in conflict with all his children). Already, these different points should have alerted me. But no, I was ignorant, and moreover, I loved with my heart, my eyes, and not my head. His father was fundamentally against two things:

• Marriage. You can have a woman, live in concubinage with her, have children, but never marriage.

• Single mothers.

The only person my ex-father-in-law loved was himself. He had many women and married none. Main characteristics: anger and resentment. He never loved me. If he had to choose for his son, it certainly wouldn’t be me because I was a single mother. But for me, it was “never without my daughter.” As much as possible, and throughout my relationship with his son, I always managed to keep calm. My strength lies in the fact that I don’t talk much.

I observe, I understand, and I remain calm. Many single mothers are stigmatized for having children while being single.

Becoming a single mother is a situation that one does not necessarily choose. I saw my mother have all her children with one man, my father, despite the difficulties. No marriage is easy. So, my paradigm was that: to have my children from one and the same father. But life circumstances led me down a completely different path. Am I therefore a bad woman? Am I therefore a leper to be stigmatized? Do I not have the right to believe in love? Must I always be labeled as a “Woman who had a child, a father” = not serious woman?

I sincerely believe that we must stop judging without knowing the real reasons behind a person’s choices. Personally, I have no shame in presenting myself to a potential “future,” telling him that I am the mother of two princesses, from different fathers. Or even saying that my parents are divorced. If he wants to run away because of that, he can. I won’t chase after him. I’ve learned to stand up for myself, and having two children from different fathers doesn’t change who I fundamentally am: a wonderful person in every way.

My ex-mother-in-law, on the other hand, was the opposite of my ex-father-in-law. A Catholic Christian deeply rooted in the charismatic renewal, she had sacrificed everything for her three children. She had suffered a lot from her concubinage with her partner.

If you want to have an idea of what your life will be like in marriage, look at your mother-in-law, analyze her life with your father-in-law, and how they lived.

I lacked discernment. I should have observed the life of my ex-mother-in-law and discerned through her son’s story of her life what my life would be like with Jean-Paul. But I was ignorant at that time.

We got married after three years of relationship. Although aware of everything that was wrong (anger, lack of flexibility, constant arguments, lack of trust), I clung to it, thinking that with marriage, things would get better! Mistake! I learned the hard way that marriage hardly fixes things, but rather amplifies them.

In the end, what did I love about this man? His determination and courage not to give up. He is sincere, even in his mistakes. However, he’s quick-tempered!

I really desired a joyful couple life. My husband, me, our children, at home… happy. I mistakenly believed that marriage makes you happy. I believed that all my sorrows, my emotional fragility, my doubts, my soul wounds, and my fears would find a solution in marriage.

So at 33, I got married in front of the Mayor and the priest, three months after giving birth to my daughter. It was a modest celebration, given our limited means. Yes! At that time, sex before marriage, the birth of a child out of wedlock were completely normal situations for me. I only learned there was another way much later.

As a teenager, I dreamed of having my children with one man. That’s what I saw my mother do, despite the challenges she faced with my father.

However, I didn’t dream of marriage, of a long white dress, and all that goes with it. My parents were not married in the true sense of the word. All the symbolism and the real values of marriage were unfamiliar to me. The most important thing for me: to be financially independent, to be able to take care of my children, to build a stable relationship with my partner. Nothing more.

When Jean-Paul proposed to marry me, I didn’t see any drawbacks, although I was aware of what was wrong. That “YES” at the town hall and at the church, on April 26, 2014, would become the worst and most thoughtless decision I ever made in my life. A real bone in my throat, from March 2016 to July 2021.

The reality is that I entered this spiral without any real knowledge of marriage, or of my roles and responsibilities in this Institution, which is both familial, legal, but above all divine, that is marriage. Ignorance destroys, and I almost perished because of it.

Familial, because marriage is the union of two families, and thus of four family entities. Legal, because marriage is validated by the Civil Officer. And divine because the father of marriage is God, not men. This information, I only had and understood much later.

To become a doctor, you study for at least seven or ten years. To be an engineer, at least four years, but to enter marriage, you have ten days of classes during which you skim over the divine principles of marriage that are not really taught. At that time of my life, I was a woman with the lowest self-esteem and self-confidence.

I had no reference points. I entered into this marriage completely blind, and the outcome was predictable. My parents ended up divorcing, with all the warfare that entails not only for them but also for us children. I thought I couldn’t live alone and make it on my own. I didn’t know my identity… Normal, I didn’t have one, or at least the one I had was fake. Falsified by life’s vicissitudes, romantic failures, family rifts, fear of tomorrow.

The tragedy when you don’t know who you are is precisely that you take everything, accept everything, because you’re convinced that’s what you’re entitled to, what you deserve. MISTAKE!

A woman who enters into marriage without knowing what her identity is is a time bomb, worse than those of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Not only did I not know my true identity, but worse, I didn’t know the owner of the marriage, let alone its manual. Another disaster: I didn’t know where this man I was about to marry was leading me. Blind himself. Two blind people deciding to get together without a guide.

What a ruin! What a waste!

My emotional health was very fragile, and I had no spiritual maturity. That was exactly the state I was in.

Today I can talk about it with detachment and without emotion. I have learned from my mistakes and, above all, I have forgiven myself for my foolishness due to my ignorance. Ignorance of the principles of marriage cost me extremely dearly, very dearly!

This text is an extract from the book “How I overcame a divorce and took control of my life” written by Flore DJINOU.

We invite you to read the following article “A MARRIAGE OF ILLUSIONS AND IGNORANCE“.