I always wanted to be a homeowner. While my grade school friends were talking about their fantasy weddings, I was drawing up my ideal floor plan; at age 24, I created a savings account nicknamed "The House"; when I moved to New York in 2006, my first apartment was a mother-daughter townhouse in Williamsburg. My widowed, octogenarian landlord told me that she had lived in the upstairs apartment while her adult children were being raised and that the apartment became her source of income once the children were grown. From that point on, I didn't just want a house; I wanted an investment.

After moving from Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach, Queens, I decided to fulfill a lifelong dream by purchasing one of the countless homes damaged by Superstorm Sandy two years earlier. I had saved up a down payment and had the credit to get a mortgage, but I was still hesitant to take on the repairman alone. Could one person handle the hours of work involved in demolition, cleaning, and hiring contractors?

Luckily, I soon fell in love and these doubts subsided. Sharing an apartment, my boyfriend and I dreamed of living together permanently. When our daughter was born, our plans grew even bigger. As her first birthday approached, we pushed on to find the perfect family home. We finally put in an offer on a pair of 100-year-old bungalows (one for us and one for rent) on a quiet bay side of the peninsula, and it was accepted. The plan was for me to purchase the homes and finance the renovations while my partner would manage the contractors and do the finishing work himself

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I thought all my dreams would come true, but on the morning of the closing, that suddenly changed. When I woke up that morning, I knew my partner was just as excited as I was. I took my daughter in my arms and smiled at him, but my heart sank when he said: "I am not happy."

So I went to the closing alone. When the seller pointed out my partner's absence, I quickly brushed his absence aside. The moment I had spent my entire life waiting for was spent in shock. When he finally handed me the keys, I entered the main house without my family, read the welcome note left by the seller, and cried uncontrollably on the linoleum floor.

Less than two weeks after his announcement, my partner left for good. I was devastated, but the words he said just before he left were planted in me like a seed: "I want you to do this without me." It grew into a kind of mantra." Do this without me, do this, do that."

Determined to succeed, I found a contractor, discovered how to take care of my daughter on my own, and still maintained a career in the stressful financial industry. It was the toughest time of my life, but it made me stronger. My girlfriends came over and helped me scrape, sand, wash windows, and paint. My family, who live in the Midwest, could not be there every day to support me, but they came back many times to help me finish the house and to give me emotional support. Now my daughter and I live well in the house and I supplement my mortgage with rental income. I sometimes wonder if my ex-husband was right. I would not have been able to do this without the motivation my ex-husband gave me to succeed in spite of him."