Hello First Wives World community! I'm a relative newcomer to the blog but no stranger to the experience of divorce. I've been divorced for four years...was married for five. And at 31, I'm a non-traditional college student attending school in New York City and working toward my B.A. in Sociology. I'm going all out-going to school full-time-to complete my degree.

My story has a lot of twists and turns and bumps, and I'm sure that's like a lot of women's stories. I guess you'll discover all the bumps and detours here on the blog. I was raised in Gainesville, Florida, but born in Cincinnati where I lived for the first six years of my life. My roots are distinctly southern and Florida is my home; I am a hillbilly! I was raised almost exclusively by my mother who also juggled my four siblings; my father wasn't a contributing factor in my development. When I was 14, my parents finally divorced, a long overdue move by that point.

I left home four years later to start my life and tried the college route. Three semesters later, the attempt proved to be a bit premature. So shortly after leaving Florida State University at 19, I enlisted in the U.S. Army, where among other experiences, I met and married my husband at 22.

Without going into too many details about our split, I will say that if ever two people did NOT match up, this was IT! I wasn't who he wanted, though he tried in a very warped way to make me into that person, chipping away at who I had already become by this point and leaving a very brittle exterior.

And he, in turn, wasn't who I needed. I had a feeling that this might have been the case even before I married him, yet I ignored my gut feelings (and other people's warnings), and married him anyway. I was sure that I knew better than all of my naysayers and was convinced that I could "change him" and that we would, in fact, make the "happily-ever-after" vision a reality. That proved not to be the case, and our divorce became final in late March of 2003.

I'm looking forward to sharing more with you...