I married a man decades older than me because I believed he could give my children the stability I couldn’t.

At thirty, I was raising two kids alone—a kindergartner and a second grader. Their father had disappeared not long after our daughter was born, and I had no idea where he’d gone.

I worked full-time as an accountant, but it was never enough. We were always just scraping by, one unexpected expense away from everything falling apart.
And I was …