Help this Swiftie reclaim her life

I am looking to raise $13,000 to cover my climbing divorce lawyer fees. If you can donate $13 I will love you to the Moon and to Saturn.

I know, how Swiftie of me to have a current balance of 13k and 22k of overall fees. I promise, I didn't do this on purpose. I'll tell you how I got here.

In 2015 I was married to who I thought would be my partner for life. I moved away from everyone and everything I knew in the USA to start a new life with him in the Bahamas. His family became my family, his country became my country, his culture became my culture. Despite me missing my family and friends in the US, it was essentially communicated to me that our marriage depended on us living in the Bahamas so I made it work. I worked at his family's business and developed their HR department from scratch. When his mother's breast cancer came back, we travelled to spend time with her while receiving treatments in the US. When her battle was coming to an end in October 2018, I was the only one in the room holding her hand while she took her final breath. I supported his family while they reeled in grief over her death. I sat with his father in the hospital after he accidentally overdosed, encouraged my husband to go to therapy to process his mother's death, helped his brother re-enroll in college classes, helped his other brother apply for a new US visa, transported family to appointments, the list goes on of the support I provided for this family.

All the while I suffered from extreme neglect from him. I kept thinking it would get better after the storm died down. But it didn't.

In April 2020 my dad unexpectedly died. The bond between my dad and I was inseparable, and I was completely devastated. This was at the beginning of COVID and I was in the Bahamas while all of my family was in Missouri. International travel was closed and the only way I could get there was a private flight. I begged my husband to get me to my family and his father "generously gifted" for a private flight to get me there the same day as a thank you for supporting them during his wife's death. (After we separated my husband then demanded that I pay his father back for the flight.) My husband refused to go with me, despite the ability and flexibility to work remotely. I flew alone to Missouri and grieved at the loss of my dad without his support. But the Swiftie community and Taylor's music was there for me. I was showered with flowers, cards, custom watercolor painting of me and my dad, words of encouragement, you name it. The support I received from Swifties and Taylor's music during that time was one of the most profound acts of service and expression of love I have ever received in my life.

I was able to come back to the Bahamas in May 2020 and was severely depressed and anxious. I missed my family terribly but wanted to make my marriage work. We started seeing a different marriage therapist and she advised me that my anger and depression were due to my hormones and encouraged me to exercise more. She never addressed the neglect/cruelty that I communicated to her that I was expressing. For 2 years I worked even harder on myself, while my husband sat back and watched me suffer.

In September 2022 I started developing extreme vertigo and expressed to him that my body was literally telling me I can't keep going in circles and something has to change. We agreed for me to stay with my brother for 1 month in Missouri and I will come back to the Bahamas for us to work things out.

I left the Bahamas with 2 suitcases thinking I was getting to spend quality refreshing time with my brother but I had no clue I what would come next.

Upon my arrival in Missouri, my husband stopped sharing his location with me, changed the password for our shared bank accounts and security cameras, and notified me that he was filing for divorce. He proceeded to tell me that he would pack and ship me all my belongings, that my car was gone, that he had changed the locks on the doors to our newly built home, and that I was not permitted to have or visit our 2 dogs that we shared. I was devastated and in shock. He became increasingly aggressive, threatening to file a restraining order on me if I called or emailed or texted him. I made an emergency trip back to the Bahamas to attempt to enter our home. During my time there, while he was at work and no longer living in the home, I kicked our newly locked bedroom door down to try and retrieve my birth certificate and other legal documents from the safe in our closet and he filed a police report on me. To this day I still do not have my personal documents, but he had the decency to send me a suitcase of some of my Taylor Swift shirts. I was able to collect a large part of my collection but again to this day, I still have items there that I was unable to bring back with me.

This is when my lawyer fees come in. I have a Bahamian lawyer as we were married in the Bahamas and the divorce laws there are very strict. You are only allowed 6 reasons to get divorced:

1. adultery which I did not commit

2. cruelty which I did not commit

3. desertion which I did not perform

4. living apart for 5 years which we did not do

5. having sex with an animal which I did not do

6. rape which thankfully I did not do nor experience.

With this information, I learn that he has no grounds to divorce me. So I am then forced to file for divorce against husband upon the grounds of cruelty which I have to prove.

Have you ever been forced to recount your abuse? I hope you never have to experience that. It took me months to come to terms that I was getting divorced, it was daunting to think of having to recount it to a judge and possibly a crowd and share evidence of how my husband neglected me and treated me with cruelty. It was grueling. But I did it, I had to.

In March of 2024 I stood in front of a judge with my family in the audience, and with he-who-shall-not-be-named in the front row and I spoke the truth. I was finally granted a Decree Nisi, meaning I met the requirements to get a divorce. It was a sweet victory, but it is still not over. I have not seen my dogs in over a year. He refuses to divide our assets and claims that the home and everything we shared is all his. He offered me a negligible settlement and told me to "accept a fuck ton of money" and "if (you) choose to fight then (you) have to pay...because that's how the real world works...spending money you don't have."

I have since relocated to Florida to be closer to my family and managed to get a job throughout all of this turmoil. But last week I was terminated because I refused when my boss asked me to perform credit card fraud.

I am in my reputation era and live by what Taylor said to someone on my birthday, "Be like a snake. Be nice to everyone, unless someone steps on you."

I am reaching out to my Swiftie community to see if I can have some financial support during this chapter of my life. I am fighting to reclaim my assets and the funds will be used to pay my lawyer so she can continue to fight on my behalf.

I can't wait until the day that my divorce is done and I can celebrate with the ones I love with the biggest dance party and shake it all away with Shake It Off and other of Taylor's music blasting.

I want to thank the Swifite community for the love and support you've shown me thus far. I haven't been as active but love to interact when I have energy on Twitter/X at @heyshannonmarie. You may know me from #Swiftiehoodofthetravelingcardigan where we sent the folklore cardigan to other Swifties around the US. Or for #SwiftieBachelor when I tried to set my brother up with a Swiftie. Or for the compliment thread I used to do on Mondays in reference to Paper Rings saying that Mondays were dreary.

And Taylor, if you see this, I love you. <3