I have been where that young women is, millions of us have.

Getting training, finding a job, having your own money will open up your life in ways you can't imagine. And a plan for getting there couldn't be better than the one Cary Tennis has proposed.

It may take years, but you will have goals and so much more self esteem, as one by one you achieve them. It will make a huge difference to your daughter. And you will make wonderful friends along the way. You are not alone.

It will be a long hard and mountainous road for you but take the high road. If you and your husband are this miserable, then separate. Keep good relations with everyone. His family must care a lot for you as well as your daughter. Are you trapped financially? Of course you are. Time to grow up and stop blaming everyone else for your lot in life.

This will take a lot of thought and planning on your part. So find a well paid job... computer science, healthcare, medical coding is fast degree and well paid, nuclear med and occupational therapy are in high demand. So suck it up, get down to the community college, take the aptitude test and go for it.

I mean, it sounds overwhelming to me to ask this woman who seems to be at the end of her rope to start making phone calls to bureucratic slackers and figuring out if she eats enough Vitamin B.

Okay. I know that stuff helps. But here's what I think is missing from the mix: An attorney.

The woman wants out. She wants custody of her child. She doesn't want to go back to her family in Florida because she fears their previous problems with drugs will taint her ability to retain custody. The husband seems equally confused on a day-by-day basis as to whether or not he would really want custody. His family, however, will be the sore point for her and end up probably influencing the husband when push comes to shove.

I think her first call need to be to a counselor who can get her pointed in the right direction for a job to demonstrate that she can financially provide for her daughter. She then needs to understand Iowa divorce laws to see if there are unique items that might get in her way. A divorce attorney, one that is highly recommended, is her next call after she gets the job (providing she doesn't have one already). Then she needs to find qualified child care and that's where the counselor can help her find a situation that works for her financially and is considered acceptable to the court.

She needs to plan this out with the help of a counselor. I think she needs to plan an exit strategy and not disclose that strategy. Once she has a place to go to - her own small one bedroom apartment or studio lined up - she can tell her husband she is moving out, has child care lined up, and have him served with papers establishing their legal separation and move forward with divorce.

She clearly doesn't want to remain in the marriage. She needs to handle her business in a mature way as the first step in living an independent, stable life for herself and her daughter.

Common, you say? What I actually said was "Since our LW, in spite of her excellent grammar, ability to colloquialize at will and organize her thoughts/proposition extraordinarily well, ..." Sounds like a compliment to me.

The simple point I was making is that her sophisticated writing bespeaks intelligence and/or education, thus how is it that she seems not to have found readily available social service resources but can find Salon? Still seems odd to me. But not earthshaking.

Steele the Antisemitic? Think I'll skip that one:)

The LW sounds "common" but she really doesn't sound any less intelligent than a great deal of Salon commenters. Have you read a letter by Merely Mortal Male or Steele the Antisemitic lately?

What makes you think my reference had anything to do with location?

In fact, what provoked the thought was a perhaps foolish assumption that it takes a slight modicum of ability to navigate web information to even reach Salon. Since our LW, in spite of her excellent grammar, ability to colloquialize at will and organize her thoughts/proposition extraordinarily well, seems not to have done any research at all into what legal and social services would be available to her. Yet has the moxie to contact Salon. Just seems odd somehow.

Cary gave her excellent advice. No harm done in any case.

BTW: Some of "dem der flyover states" are home to much of my family.

Also, pretty moniker you have there: Thinking process a little quick-draw, but could be worse I guess. Stay cool.

Do you honestly think that people in dem der flyover states don't get the interwebs?

I hope this mom takes most of Cary's advice; it may be the best I've ever seen for a stressed out, potentially over-the-edge person in deep trouble.

One caveat has to do with the church attendance. While that sounds good on the face of it, it could be just another source of demands upon her and, if it's the same one the in-laws go to, it could just worsen her situation. Big time.

One thing surprises me: How does she happen to be reading Salon?

Something odd about that.

I'm a divorce lawyer in NY and state law is pretty all over the place with this stuff, so take it for what it's worth. Nice civilized places like Iowa generally favor neither the mother nor the father in a custody dispute, so do not operate under the assumption that a court will necessarily side with you should you get into that kind of a dispute. I am disturbed by your willingness to abscond with your child absent a harm to her, your own unhappiness aside. Think long and hard about how this will look to a judge, should that time come. They generally don't like parents to engage in self-help, particularly where that parent is as likely to inflict a harm on the child as the other parent, which appears to be the case here. Your husband is also likely to go ballistic and involve the police if you take off with the child. Again, perception is reality. It may not be "kidnapping", but it doesn't mean your husband cannot make your life extremely difficult for taking off with your daughter.

My advice is to deal with your husband and your problems with him before disrupting your child's world more than you already have. If you think she's not picking up on this, you're wrong. It's your and your husband's job to control yourselves around her and to make life as placid as possible for her. That's your starting point. Godspeed.