I Paid $120k For My Husband To Finish Law School, Then He Dumped Me For Being “just A Waitress.” Six Years Later, He’s Begging At My Architecture Firm. Should I Give Him A Job Or Directions To The Legal Aid Clinic?
A Ghost from the Past
The day my ex-husband showed up at my office begging for help, I almost didn’t recognize him. Seven years had passed since he’d looked me in the eye and told me I wasn’t good enough for his new life. Seven years since he’d walked out of our tiny apartment in Chicago without looking back.
But there he was, standing in the lobby of my architecture firm, the same man who once said I was “just a waitress,” asking if I remembered him. Of course I remembered him. You don’t forget the person you sacrificed everything for. You don’t forget the person who threw it all back in your face.
The Seven-Year Plan
Let me take you back, way back to when I was 38 years old and my name was still Elena Rodriguez Turner. Back when I thought love meant putting someone else’s dreams ahead of your own. I met Marcus at a community college class. He was taking paralegal courses at night while working as a clerk during the day.
I was wrapping up my associate degree in architectural drafting, dreaming of one day designing buildings that would change city skylines. We were both hungry for more, both reaching for something bigger than ourselves. He told me he wanted to become a lawyer—a real lawyer, not just someone pushing papers, but someone who could stand in a courtroom and fight for justice.
His eyes lit up when he talked about it, and I fell in love with that light.
“It’ll take seven years,” he said one night over cheap takeout in my studio apartment. “Four years for my bachelor’s degree, then three years of law school. But Elena, if I could do this, if I could become an attorney, we could have everything. A real house, vacations. We could start a family.”
I was already sketching our future in my mind. I just received an email about a junior position at Rivera and Associates, a prestigious architecture firm in downtown Chicago. The interview was scheduled for the following Tuesday. It was everything I’d been working toward.
“I’ll help you,” I heard myself say. “We’ll do it together.”
That Tuesday, I canceled the interview. I told them I was no longer available.
The Sacrifice
Instead, I picked up a shift at Morton’s Steakhouse, waiting tables in the evenings. During the day, I found work as a bookkeeper for a small property management company. The pay wasn’t much, but it was steady.
Marcus enrolled at DePaul University that fall. I’ll never forget watching him walk across campus that first day, backpack slung over his shoulder, looking like he belonged there. I was so proud of him, so sure we were building something that would last.
The first year wasn’t too bad. We moved into a cheaper apartment in Albany Park to save money. I added a weekend job walking dogs for busy professionals in Lincoln Park. Marcus studied constantly and I worked constantly, but we still found time for each other.
Friday nights we’d split a bottle of cheap wine and dream about the future.
“When I make partner at a firm,” he’d say, “We’re getting you back into architecture. You’re going to design the most beautiful buildings this city has ever seen.”
I believed him.
The Breaking Point
By his second year at DePaul, the bills were piling up. Tuition kept increasing; textbooks alone cost hundreds of dollars each semester. I took on a fourth income stream doing freelance bookkeeping from our apartment until 2 or 3 in the morning.
I’d wake up at 6 to walk the dogs, rush to my day job, then head to the restaurant for the dinner shift. I usually got home around midnight. I stopped buying new clothes. I wore my waitress uniform so much that the black pants started getting thin at the knees. My one pair of nice jeans from before we got married developed holes that I covered with patches. I didn’t care; this was temporary. This was an investment in our future.
Marcus graduated from DePaul with honors. I was there in the audience, exhausted but beaming as he walked across that stage.
That night he held me and said, “Three more years, baby. Just three more years and I promise it’ll all be worth it.”
Law school was harder. Northwestern University School of Law, one of the top programs in the country. The tuition made my stomach drop when I saw the numbers: $45,000 a year for 3 years.
I sat down with a financial adviser at my bookkeeping job, a kind woman named Patricia who’d seen me fall asleep at my desk more than once.
“Elena,” she said gently, “This is over $100,000 in tuition alone, plus living expenses. Are you sure about this?”
I was sure. I had to be sure. We’d already come so far. I took out private loans in my name; Marcus’ credit wasn’t good enough and his parents had nothing to offer. My parents had passed away years before, leaving me a small inheritance of about $15,000. It was supposed to be for a down payment on a house someday. I used it to pay for his first semester.
Those three years of law school broke something in me that I didn’t even know could break. I was working four jobs and still struggling to make the monthly payments. I developed chronic migraines from the stress and lack of sleep. I stopped seeing friends because I simply didn’t have time. I missed my cousin’s wedding because I had a double shift that weekend and couldn’t afford to lose the money.
The Transformation
Marcus was consumed by his studies. I understood; law school was brutal. He had to maintain his grades, had to network, had to secure a summer internship at a good firm. I supported him through all of it. When he landed a spot at Kellerman and Rhodes for his 2L summer, I was ecstatic. This was it; this was the moment everything would start to turn around.
He worked at Kellerman and Rhodes that summer and came back changed. He started talking differently, dressing differently. He bought expensive suits on credit cards, saying he needed to look the part. He told me about the other associates, their wives and girlfriends who had degrees from elite schools, who spoke multiple languages, who could hold conversations about wine regions and art galleries.
“You should read more,” he suggested one night. “The kinds of things they talk about at the firm—politics, international affairs. It would help you grow.”
I was reading legal textbooks at 2:00 in the morning to understand his case briefs so I could quiz him. I didn’t have time to read Foreign Affairs magazine.
His third year he made Law Review. It was a huge honor and I was so proud, but he started coming home later and later. Networking events, he said. Study groups, firm receptions.
The spring of his final year, he received an offer from Winston and Strathmore, one of the most prestigious corporate law firms in Chicago. Starting salary $190,000 a year.
I cried when he told me. “7 years. Seven years of sacrifice and we’d finally made it.”
