As many of you know I will be going through a HUGE life changing event. Many of you also know how heart broken I am about it all.....I am still pretty raw but just for today I am strong and focused.
I've been married to my husband for 19.5 years....if you count the very short dating scene we've been together for 20 years. My husband is very uncomfortable being affectionate....I could never hang on his when he dated, when we were in public he was either ahead of me or behind me. I always chalked it up to "shy" During my pregnancy with #1 son we completely avoided me at every chance he had. Right at first I believed the story which was he didn't want to hurt the baby, but he still refused to kiss me, feel the baby move and sex was out of the question. Since I was pregnant soon after we married, I chalked it up to him not knowing how to be a husband before he had to learn how to be a dad. At that time I had a minor telemarketing job and he was in Insurance sales. Because neither of us could keep up on the rent, by the time our first born was 4 months old, we lost our apartment and lived in a car for a short while before I gave in and went to his mother for a roof over our heads. During the 11 months we lived with her I held 3 different telemarketing job which gave me the option of staying at home. Not long after we moved into her home, I found out I had an ectopic pregnancy and was a day, if not hours, away form certain rupture and death.
Fast forward......I found a telemarketing job that advanced me from telemarketer to office manager in charge of telemarketers. My boss then had decided to open an office in Tempe and asked if I would accept the promotion. I knew my husband hated Tucson so I accepted the position and began the move. The day that we began the drive up to Tempe our first born had a very high fever and was very sick....he stayed in my lap sleeping during the whole trip. By the time I arrived in Tempe and began to unload the U-haul, I discovered that my hubs was overdue....we didn't have cell phones then so I couldn't call him to get an "ETA"....Walter had lost his vigor for insurance and was unemployed. This made me sole breadwinner and responsible for rent, food and all utilities. Though I was making quite a bit of money it soon got to where, again, we got evicted. In fact of the 8 years we lived in Tempe, Walter had 3 jobs none of which were helping me keep us afloat. I got pregnant with our 2nd son and was determined to make it work...."for the kids". One day he casually mentioned to me that he was bleeding from his rectum....naturally I panicked and thought the worst. I offered to take him to the ER or make an appointment with his to see a doctor. Every option and suggested was met with a no. One one particular day I received a phone call from a woman who asked how Walter's doctor appointment had gone. I didn't know what to tell her because 1) I didn't know he had had an appointment and 2) how the hell did she know and I didn't? That was the (first) straw that broke the camels back. I took our sons and high tailed it back to Tucson....on Christmas eve of 2003. Long story short he ended up feeling lost and remorseful about his treatment of me, said he wanted to come home and the rest is history.
Fast Forward.....We bought a house, he bought a car, I had a meager job at a pet clinic and he was finding a niche for himself in car sales. Soon he wasn't making enough because the economy took it's first dump and his car was always up for Repo but each month he would ask me to call the lender and "work yo magic baby". One morning we understood that my magic wasn't enough to save the car. The tow truck driver was nice enough to allow us to get the stuff in the car that belonged to us. Now we both had jobs and no transpo....I was close enough to my job that I could walk, his on the other hand required him to walk a partial distance and then bus the rest of the way in. I decided I needed more money coming into the house, so after careful planning I began my own home based business and it was glorious! Money kept rolling in sometimes faster then I could get to it and at one point I was sleeping while still making money. It was also during this time that all the promises and agreements that hubs had made to me were burned and I was left feeling alone, unloved and neglected. It was very apparent that he was jealous of me making more money than him at the time and his back biting method it to loudly and at great length attacked my business model which he felt was not enough or smart, he attacked my method of attracting new business, he attacked my way of insisting that I be paid in one of two ways, he attacked me for taking time to grieve my best friend's death (if I was grieving I was leaving money on the table). I discovered someone online through my MySpace account ( yeah I know...lamo!) He lived in Sweden and he would call me nearly every day and we would talk for hours. He whispered all the right things, made me laugh, told me I was important.....stupidly because I didn't want my husband to think I was cheating I told him about my friend.....BIG MISTAKE! Christmas morning 2009 he cracked me a good one in front of our kids. I knew then that I should leave but I also knew that he really wasn't okay with my friendship and thus deeply hurt. I forgave and tried to move forward.
Last weekend we had a chat, hubs and I. Like I always do I wanted to fix what he said was broken. The last thing he said to me a week ago today was "love ya Omie" and off to work he went. Prior to this conversation he kept acting weirdly. I found a wrapped condom on the front porch, a son had mentioned he found a unwrapped condom in the front seat, hubs would text his "buds" for hours, when he got a call he would suddenly go to another room, he was going to work earlier and staying later.....nothing added up in my mind and so I was prepared to dike it out with him for the truth. Alas he never showed up and when I woke up Sunday morning the car (the one in our names) was missing. I panicked again......maybe he was dead? Maybe he got busted for drinking and driving? Maybe he's with another woman? I called his phone 62 times and texted him 5 times thinking that he was ignoring my calls. I was advised to call 911 but because I have some legal matter's still pending I could not call. 0940 he rolls in skinnin and grinnin and acting like nothing was wrong. Said he was "up all night partying" and naturally I lost it. Every painful emotion I have kept tucked inside, every disappointment I overlooked, every fight, every unkind word, everything just kicked me in the twat! As I tried to regain composure I happened to look at him and he was staring at me like he would if he was watching a b-ball game....just waiting and watching....no remorse....just staring at me arms crossed over his chest, asking why I threw my glasses at him? When I got to a place emotionally that I could talk to him I asked if it was another woman? His words were "Omie, I told you there is no her, I was out with my buds. I never meant to hurt you"....still not believing him as soon as he took a shower I snatched his phone scrolled through his text file and there for anyone to see were pictures of himself addressed to "Angela" and the words she wrote were " I had fun last night"
As of today he's asked me to give him 6 months to "figure things out". His intention is that he will continue to "do her" and if he doesn't come home one night I'll at least know why. He's gone around the bush several times and always ends up at the same place "this is your fault Omie...you won't have sex with me. A wife is supposed to have sex with her husband. You're not enough of a woman for me" I have also found his Zoosk page and I am amazed at the lies he used in his dating profile. He is 44 he is 47. He never graduated college and has told me and our son's several times that that is why he is so hard on them about the importance of a good education. When I mentioned to him that Angela was seeing him based on lies and inaccuracies he said he's have to change that. Last night he was online. He claims that because he doesn't know how to log off it shows he's always online. This morning however his profile shows "recently online"............what bothers me the most is not that he's cheating. This day was bound to come. What bothers me is that he is still lying, still acting as if I wasn't already wise to him, still seeing her or someone else for that matter, and he just doesn't have clue one! No respect for me, for Angela, for his son's who are watching him and also for himself. No regrets appear to be present for the damage he is continuing to do, no remorse that he's living a social life that upsets his son's, no regrets that they have lost all respect for him and have told him as much. He continues to behave as if he NO responsibilities at the end of the day.
Folks I would be lying if I didn't mention that yes, twice now I've swallowed enough pills to end the suffering. I'd lying if I said I was disappointed that God made me wake up. I won't make excuses for what I did because when it comes down to brass tacks, he would have won and I would have no chance to reteach my son's that this way of acting is NOT manly and not respectful. So I know that I have still more work to do. Without divulging any details I can say that I will come out of this disaster cracked, bruised, worn out and pissed off but I will come out alive and on top (pardon the pun). I am holding on to every detail I can find about him, I am holding on to every sadness he caused me, every neglectful act he made towards me, I am holding on to every sleepless night and every night I cried myself to sleep, I am holding on to every pit of despair that I allowed him to dump me into, I am holding on to every lie, every broken promise, every negative I can draw from so that I can move forward and not fall into the "I feel sorry for you" and end up shooting myself in the foot. 20 years has been a waste in that my health declined in part because of hubs but I will regain some dignity knowing that I am about to deliver a swift axe of judgement.
To all who listened to me bitch, to all who talked me through the depression I can not begin to explain how dearly I appreciate and love you. You , along with the support of family saved my life... oh! And other than the smiling black man, none of the pictures in this post are from my files.
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