being a 23 year old single parent 20 some years ago

my oldest celebrated her 2nd birthday with her parents signing divorce papers. I was so busy living one day to the next not only with taking care of a child on my own-that was the easy part, but having to work and deal with everyday issues, like when someone close to you dies, the world should stop until you have it together again and can handle the day to day living. but the world does not stop and you have to keep up with life and living.
Not only was i by myself I had to live with our friends taking sides. I did not want them to get into the middle of a "friendly" divorce, but they all felt they had to "support" one of us, so I have fewer friends and i have said friends talking about how he cheated on me so I must not have been a good wife. Or I should have known he was cheating because everyone else knew. The things i was trying to deal with was -how are we going to live on one income (knew he would be no go on paying child support). The worst was dealing with a cheating husband that wanted to keep cheating (because the other women did mean anything to him) and come home to happy wife and child. At one point I felt like he was a vampire and when he ran out of xz@#$#@, he came home and drained us and when he had taken all we had he would leave. I felt like I had to put up with his visits because it was the only time he was there to be a father. I also wanted to believe that he did care for me and not the others and that it was my choice that we not live together. I felt shame and pain but looking back that is what caused the most hurt not the fact that i loved him-i dont think i wanted to be married and thought he would fit the role of husband-he would change and improve once we were together. at 3 most after wedding i realized that it was not a good marriage and i did not want to be married to him. I was going to leave but i let his family talk me into staying, so then i thought if we had a baby our marriage would get better, but when we had a girl he said he did not know how to be a dad to a daughter, that if it had been a son he would have been a better husband and father. ......to be continued