Elena St. James once encountered a man who “killed my soul.”

Before becoming one of OnlyFans“The most successful innovators, Elena St. James He lived a very different life, one built on the dream of “Prince Charming.” At 36, the Midwestern native thought love, marriage and motherhood were the “ultimate endgame.” Instead, she found herself trapped in a controlling relationship, enduring years of heartbreak, failed IVF treatments, and the shattering realization that the man she loved had broken more than just her heart. Now 58 and thriving, St. James is finally starting to talk about the chapter that nearly destroyed her, and how it ultimately led to her rebirth.

Elena grew up with the promise of happily ever after, and told The Blast she spent her 20s and 30s searching for “the one.”

“I wanted Travis Kelce to be Prince Charming,” she laughed. “That love is at the end of the game where everything seems bright.” When she met a California lawyer who checked all the boxes—handsome, charming, successful, ready for kids—she was convinced she was going to hit the jackpot. She left her thriving career in sales, sold her home in Wisconsin, and moved across the country to build the life she always dreamed of.

“I walked into his four-bedroom house in Orange County and thought: ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life,'” she recalls.

The dream quickly became tense. What started as small compromises quickly turned into a pattern of complete control. She only cooked what he liked, shopped where he preferred, folded laundry his way, and stopped talking to friends or even her mother while he was home. “He would tell me, ‘When I’m here, your attention should be on me,’ and if I didn’t obey him, he would be silent for days,” Elena recalls.

Her world became smaller every week. “I wasn’t just his partner. I was his assistant, his cook, his maid, his emotional supervisor.”

When the pregnancy did not come naturally, the couple resorted to artificial insemination. Elena threw everything at it – strict diets, hormone injections, yoga, even hypnotherapy, convinced that a baby would heal their relationship.

“I told the doctor: ‘Pump it. Do whatever it takes,'” she recalled. “We needed this to work.” It didn’t happen. Every failed session deepens the cracks. Her partner’s support turned into doubt, and he accused her of wanting to leave him if she became pregnant. “The heartbreak wasn’t just physical,” she said. “It was like watching my future disappear.”

After years of fertility treatments and emotional abuse, Elena’s world collapsed. Her partner left her for a younger woman who soon gave birth to the child she was unable to have. “I felt like I was drowning,” she admitted. “He killed my soul.”

At her lowest point in December 2007, she considered ending her life. What kept her alive was a small spark of hope: motherhood. “The only thing that kept me going was the idea that maybe, one way or another, I could still be a mother,” Elena told The Blast.

Two years later, the miracle of motherhood was achieved. Elena gave birth to a healthy baby boy, weighing about 10 pounds, all on her own. “I did it myself,” she said proudly. “It wasn’t the story I imagined, but it was the story I needed.”

Motherhood became her lifeline and her new goal. “If I had a child with him, every decision, even what baby food to buy, would have been another battle. Doing it on my own gave me freedom.”