crap

When people say "life ain't easy", they weren't fucking around. Really, this is not a post just anyone will want to read. It is going to be long, drawn out, depressing and full of colorful, yet explicit language. Some people may wonder why I am choosing to write about something so personal and private on the world wide web, and I don't really have a good answer for that. Perhaps a part of me is putting it out there to make it more "real" to me, or maybe I am just a jackass...I don't know. I just know I need to get it all out and my family, though they NEVER turn me away, has got to be so tired of listening to my nonsense!

So, here it is...my husband wants a divorce. I am wife #2, and the mother of his three children, ages 3, 17 months and 6 months. We have been together almost 5 years, married 3 years and pretending, almost the entire time, that we had a real relationship. Truth is, we met, and 2 months later, I was pregnant. I did not put any pressure on him to stay with me, in fact, I told him he could walk away free and clear and I would raise the baby by myself. He wanted to stay.

It was obvious about a month or so after I got pregnant, that our relationship wasn't going to be one of fairy tales and romance. We are basically polar opposites. We have separated many times, the first time I was about 8 months pregnant with G. I want to say that if I were smart, I wouldn't have gone back to him at all, but then I wouldn't have little G or E, and I wouldn't trade any of my children for the world. I think I left him 4 or 5 times, and each time I returned home after him telling me he was going to stop lying, or hiding things from me, help more with the kids, stop the verbal abuse, respect me, etc. Every time he promised these things, I was advised from many people that things would probably stay the same, yet I would go back anyway. And sure as the sun rises every morning, he never changed. Things would be okay for a week or two, and then right back to the same old shit.

The last time I left was June 2006. I caught him talking to his ex fiancee, and when I confronted him about it, he made up some lame excuse I didn't fall for. So I called her myself to find out what was going on. I will remember the night as long as I live, I was standing out front of our home with a heavy heart, trying to figure out what was going on, and he came outside, knowing I was on the phone with her, and called me a psycho. He purposely put me down in front of his ex fiancee. I packed my things and left that night.

We were separated for a month or so and then he started with the promises. Obviously, I ended up going back, and a day after returning home I found out he had been talking to her the entire time we were apart. I mean hours and hours of talking, every night. Her number is long distance, and when I saw that the phone bill was missing a page, he lied and said they "must have forgotten it." The next day, I pulled the bill up on line and saw what I had feared all along. He promised he would never talk to her again, he was so sorry, blah, blah. My anxiety was through the roof and I was hurt and angry, but I tried to move forward. A week later, while he was out at a class on a Saturday morning, the credit card bill came in the mail. When I opened that, I saw that not only did he send the ex fiancee two hundred dollar flowers, the DAY AFTER I left, but he also took my little girl an hour away to meet and have lunch with this women. Less than a week after I left him for disrespecting me in front of his ex, he took my child, behind my back to meet her. I felt sick to my stomach. It was the 4th of July, I was supposed to go to work that day...I had to call out because I wasn't able to function properly.

I confronted him, he talked his way out of it. He was so sorry, he loved me, he wanted to be with me, he would do anything to show that to me. I was so confused and hurt and scared and angry, I didn't know what the hell to do. He promised me that was the end, yet, even after finding this stuff out, I caught him talking to her again. He said he "felt bad" for her that he "used" her while I was gone and he didn't want to just blow her off. Finally, I made him call, in front of me, and tell her he would be cutting off all communication with her.

I tried to keep moving forward, but I was a mess inside. I had constant panic attacks, wasn't eating and was exercising like an addict to keep my anxiety manageable. I lost about 40 pounds, and had sex, literally, once or twice...and I got pregnant. I knew in my heart I should have left him, I knew it was a mistake to stay. He was a liar, a cheat and wasn't going to change. But then I was pregnant, and between the stress I had been under and the pregnancy hormones flooding my system, I had a meltdown. You can read more about that in my post about E's Christening.

Once I worked through the meltdown I had, I decided I would stick it out through the pregnancy, and then move on after the baby was born if things didn't improve. He was not supportive through my pregnancy and nothing changed in our relationship. In the meantime, his spending habits were really catching up with us. I begged and pleaded with him to stop with all the spending. He is very materialistic and has to be up there with "The Joneses" He traded his car in every few months, literally, and rolled negative equity into each new vehicle he got. It got so bad, that at one point he owed $60,000 in car loans. His credit card bills were through the roof, but he wouldn't stop spending. He has about 10-12 watches, Movado, at around a thousand a piece. He pays $200 a month for his hair piece, he has to have new clothes and shoes and expensive cigars. He put our family in jeopardy, and ruined his credit.

I planned to leave once little G was about 6 months old, but that didn't exactly work out as planned. I am not making this up, we had sex ONE time in over a year, and I ended up pregnant with E. Little G was just 2 months old, and I was pregnant again. Now, anyone who knows me well, can vouch for the fact that "intimacy" was a huge problem in our relationship. He has the drive of a 95 year old women that died five years ago. Seriously.

Anyway, I couldn't really up and go with a 2 year old, a newborn and another baby on the way...so I stayed. Nothing changed. I caught him having conversations with a girl he works with late at night. He claims it was innocent, that she is the girlfriend of another guy in the office, and he just talked to her to vent. Whatever, I don't believe him anyway. E was born in March, after struggling for a couple months with high blood pressure, bed rest and absolutely NO support from him. I remember one evening when I was supposed to be on bed rest, his mother was over to help him with the kids. He wanted to order a pizza for dinner, and I told him there was frozen pizza in the freezer, it is cheaper and to just make that instead. He wasn't very happy about that, and mumbled all the way down the stairs about how controlling I am. I swear, he came upstairs 20 minutes later, demanding that I get out of bed to come look at the pizza to see if it was done or not. I was baffled, and kinda thought he was joking. He wasn't. I asked him if he cooked it according to the directions, he said yes. I said "then it's done." He still continued to harp on me about going to check it. I asked if the cheese was melted, he said he thinks so. I said it was done, just go eat it. He still gave me a hard time. Finally I told him that there was a serious fucking problem if neither he nor his mother could figure out if a frozen fucking pizza was cooked, and if they had doubts, ask G, you know, the 3 year old...I am sure she could figure it out.

So, here we are now. He is insisting on a divorce, he wants to go get an apartment and move on. I am torn. Deep down inside, I know that is the best thing for everyone involved, given that he isn't capable of changing. It is sad that he wasn't able to stop lying to me, being verbally abusive, hiding money from me when we are struggling a bit financially right now. I am not claiming to be innocent, because I do fight back, and I can be a cruel, cold hearted bitch. I know what buttons to push, and I will cut you like a knife if I need to. We have both said some horrible, hurtful things...things that will never be forgotten.

At the same time, I am sad and scared. I have 3 small children, and he wants to leave...what do I do? I am a nurse, and capable of making a decent living, but what do I do with the kids? Not only would it break my heart to have to put the two little ones in daycare (G is a little older and loves being with other kids) but how could I afford it? He went out this afternoon to look at apartments, while I am at home with my 3 children, trying to clean and get prepared for my babies christening tomorrow. How can he just walk away without worrying what I will do to make it? Yeah, I know, there is child support...but my God, I struggle with the kids now, I am terrified about being on my own, working full time and then coming home to be a single mother of three small kids. Meanwhile, he will be out living the good single life. How is that fair? Not that I would want him to have custody of my children, if this is what he wants, then he can be a weekend dad and go fuck himself...but it still kills me inside to know that he would rather walk away, at this point in time, than to stick it out, really try to improve, seek therapy...something. I forgot to mention, we have seen 4 different marriage counselors, starting when I was pregnant with G...none of them did us any good.

So, is it the change I am afraid of? I know it is going to be hard and I am scared to be a single mom. I am scared to face the dating scene again, someday. (Not that dating is going to be an option for some time, but still, just sayin.) Where will I live? I certainly can't stay here, in the home I brought all three of my children home from the hospital to. The house I put my blood, sweat and tears into making a home. How do I leave the kid's rooms that I so thoughtfully, and with love, painted, decorated and felt proud to have done all that work for each one of them? I cannot afford to stay here, no matter how many hours I worked...and that rips me apart. This is my home. This is where my children play, eat and sleep. This is where we live, and he is taking all that away from us. He made that decision, how is that fair?

It is after midnight, and I am having a houseful of people tomorrow after E's baptism. I don't want to see his family. He has taken our personal business and spewed it all to his mother, and she gossips like a teenager in the school bathroom...meaning everyone knows at this point. And, unlike my family who can step back and see that both of us have faults, his family tends to think I am the enemy. This is all my fault. We don't have financial problems because R spends too much, it is because I don't work. Well, forgive me for being a dipshit, but remember those three kids I am raising? We have a horrible romantic relationship, but, "his father was the same way"...oh, right...that makes it all better then. Fuck, why am I even trying to explain any of this? It is what it is, and will be what it will be. I cannot change him, I cannot change the situation. He wants to leave, and I am hot and cold about it. Although our relationship sucks, it has still been my life for half a decade and change is scary. Imagining my children with another women in their lives makes me want to burst into tears. I don't want to share holiday's, I don't want to argue over who gets to claim who on the tax returns, I don't want to have to worry about the safety of my kids when they aren't with me, I don't want my baby to be taken away for overnight visits with a father she hardly knows.

I just want more time. I knew it would come to this at some point, I just thought I had more time. But I don't. I am going to get divorced, become a statistic and struggle for a long time to put the pieces back together. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and keep your fingers crossed for me.