"No matter what I have to do, I'm not going back:" One young mother's bold move to save herself

Amber Neumann married "a stranger" at 18. By the time she was 25, she had three children. And by the time Amber hit 28, she found herself completely overtaken by a life she didn't want.

"I couldn't see myself reaching my 30th birthday living this life," recalls Amber. "I reached a point where I was so unhappy that I wasn't careful crossing the street."

Amber grappled with the thought of leaving her husband, but feared the potential negative effects it could have on her kids.

"To have my children be another group of kids from my family who grew up in what they call a 'broken home'... it was hard, hard, hard to think about."

But Amber reached a tipping point. "I really felt that I was at the point where I was putting my own existence in jeopardy."

This is how Amber was feeling when she came across a posting for a PR job in Cario, Egypt. She applied and the next day, she got a call and was offered the job. 

"Without any discussion with my husband, I said right there on the phone, yes I'll be there."

And so began Amber's "year of chaos."

In Cairo, Amber found a passion for her work, the magic of the Egyptian sunset and a sense of agency.

"It was the first year entire life where I felt free. I felt like I was just able to be Amber."

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But the change was not without hardship. 

When she moved, Amber took the kids with her and they lived with her in-laws... despite Amber having ostensibly left her husband. With time, Amber came to face to face with hard choices.

Her mother-in-law scolded Amber, and stressed a woman's worth depended on her role as a wife.  Amber's husband threatened to sue her and take sole custody of the kids unless she came back.

But Amber couldn't go back to that life — and so she gambled it all.

Amber banked on her husband bluffing, and offered him sole custody if that was what it took to secure a divorce. She returned to Canada, left the kids with her husband and walked away.

Despite the odds, Amber proved to be right. Soon she was reunited with her three children, finding their father completely overwhelmed. She and the kids left town.

Looking back, Amber chokes up thinking about the difficulty her children may have had in going through the separation and that time of instability, but she is confident taking care of herself was in their best interest as well.

"If I had to do it all over again, I would still do it ten times over because I couldn't have survived otherwise."

"I hope I give them an example of what it means to be strong, and to work hard. I wish I could have been a better mother, but I know for sure that I was the absolute best mother that I could have been at the time."

About the producer

Naheed Mustafa is an award-winning producer, writer, and broadcaster. She began her career as a freelance reporter when she left Canada and moved to Pakistan where she worked for both local English language media and newspapers back home. After coming back to Canada, Naheed added broadcasting to her list of media platforms and became a regular documentary contributor at CBC Radio. Alongside documentary, Naheed has also worked as a producer for a variety of news and current affairs programs at CBC Radio including Dispatches, As It Happens, The Current, and Ideas. She will spend the upcoming year as a William Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto as the CBC/Radio-Canada fellow.