I'm waiting for a check to clear so I can file for divorce.

My husband was psychologically and physically abusive (he never hit me, but he endangered me and my unborn child by driving way too fast in a residential area just because he was angry... he almost hit someone).

He called me every name in the book, to my face and behind my back.

He called once just to tell me he'd been chatting on the phone all night with two girls who had crushes on him because they "wouldn't let him go."

He went on leave once (he is still in the Army, I used to be), and told me how he played "white knight" for his eight-months-pregnant formerly drug-addicted stripper friend because her boyfriend was yelling at her. He "lost" his wedding ring before going to see her.

He used me for money. He still calls, asking me for money, and once he accused me of "stealing" $300 from him. For one thing, it isn't "stealing" when a wife uses the joint account, and for another thing, he won't let me know what's going on so I've been supporting myself and the baby alone -- he spent that money on fast food and video games, and since he can't read a bank statement, didn't know where it went.

I was going to stay married for the full eighteen years and then get away when I didn't have to worry about custody, because I never wanted my daughter to have to be alone with him, but I can't. He forced my hand. I checked the phone bill and saw that he'd been calling attorneys. I was afraid he'd lie (he's very good at lying) and say he didn't know where I was, then get a default judgment and take my baby.

So I'm filing first.

And I'm terrified.

He's only abusive when no one is around to see it. My mother heard him say that I'd "better be nice to him, because there's a shank right there," when we were talking in the back yard and she was passing the window, but I'm sure a judge won't listen to my family.

I can't prove he's an alcoholic. A marriage counselor once put a temporary restraining order into effect until she could talk to him, but unless she's willing to let us take her paperwork (not calling it a work product), that's useless.

He used to threaten to skin me with knives he kept beside the bed. He said it was a joke.

I was getting ready to leave him, and then he apologized and turned back into the wonderful man I thought I was marrying, and then as soon as I was pregnant and he thought he had me trapped, here's the psycho.

I only stayed because I knew I needed proof that he's a danger to my baby, but it's too late now.

I'm broke because I had to retain an attorney. I'm living with my parents.

My mother is controlling (she acts as if the baby is hers, and won't listen to me), and my whole family is the biggest negative influence you've ever seen.

The baby is lactose intolerant, so I can't put her on formula and go to work, and I'd rather die than leave her at daycare, so first I was stuck with him and now I'm stuck here.

And most people tell me to suck it up. They say I create my own problems. And after a while, that sinks in and it doesn't matter that the marriage was based on his fraud (we met at church), or that I've always tried to be the positive one in the family (I gave up trying, they're making me as miserable as they are).

So now I do feel like I dug this pit, and I should lie in it.

I can't take pills because I'm breastfeeding, and I don't want to anyway because they mess with my head almost as hard as my other issues.

I don't know what to do. All I do is sleep. I was trying to make money through art online, but people have told me I'm not good enough to make it work.

It won't do any good to try and talk to my mother. I've been trying for almost twenty-five years but anything that doesn't line up with her beliefs or what she's feeling at the moment is rejected. When I tell her I don't plan to spank my daughter I get a three hour long speech about the horrible things kids do when they're not spanked.

And I can't help thinking, while she's talking, that maybe they don't grow up to be the kinds of people who feel like worthless rags of nothing and sleep all the time.

Maybe they don't grow up to sit around smoking their way to lung cancer and talking about their problems on a mental health forum because they don't want to drive a wedge into their families by talking about people behind their backs.

I guess the long and short of this is that I want to die, and that I've wanted to die for a long time.

My beliefs are the only things that have kept me from doing it. I believe suicides go to hell (no offense to anyone you may have known, it's just what my religion says). Now I've got my beliefs and my baby, but apparently it's not enough to take away the misery.

All I want to do anymore is leap off a building, eat a bullet or wrap a car around a tree, but I can't leave the house, I don't own a gun and I was so busy helping people financially all my life that I've never owned my own car (I did once, it was a gift from my Aunt, but my parents took it, saying it was "too worn out and dangerous," and proceeded to drive it to work every day).

And I don't know why I'm doing this. I contacted that group, the Samaritans, but after I poured my heart and soul out in an e-mail "Jo" gave me some ridiculous line that boiled down to "Cheer up, we're here for you."

So I don't really think talking about it on the Internet will help.

But it's either that or sleep.

One thing I forgot to add.

This makes me sound like a terrible person, but I have to get it out because I've been repressing it and it's killing me.

I keep having this dream that the baby dies of SIDS, and the divorce becomes uncontested, and I never see him again.

I move to another state.

I get a job, I move into a beautiful apartment, and I publish my autobiography as a cautionary tale to anyone looking to get married and have children.

And then I hang myself.

And when I wake up, I feel... relieved.

And I think that makes me a sick, disgusting person.