I was advised by my therapist when I told him about writing this blog. He advised me that I should think about it very carefully before going any farther, that to go back into the blackness of the depression I was in during that time, reliving everything, all those feelings, could cause me to backslide in my healing. I totally understand what he was telling me. Feeling this again is very hard even after all these years. So tough, in fact, that I am typing this with my eyes closed because it hurts to see the words.
I am not going to be able to go on the actual timeline. It's been a long time. But I can tell those who are reading this that you don't want to live through something like this if you can avoid it. How to avoid? Listen to your inner voice! You know, the one that nags you. It tells you that something is wrong but your brain or your heart says "nah" so you ignore your inner voice until that teeny tiny voice fades away and you can't hear it anymore. And then you wonder HOW DID I GET MYSELF INTO THIS?
He was sentenced to 15 years no parole, in fact, the judge said he was going to make sure he stayed in prison until all the girls were over 18 years old. "Oh yea that'll be a big help....no child support..." For some reason I still took phone calls from him for at least 9 months. I was trying to be a good wife and understand that he was sick. God would want me to try to keep my commitment, I mean I was really afraid that I would go to hell if I divorced him. Back then my evenings were filled with reading alot of the bible hoping it would help make sense out of everything and guide me. I went to bible studies with a Messianic group, I studied with Christians all of who told me the same thing, that God wanted me to be happy and yes He would bless me if I stayed in the marriage but He, also, would not expect me to stay where it is dangerous to me or my children and He would forgive me if I left the marriage.
Once I reconciled this with myself that it was really that simple....that God loved me, that He wouldn't want me to stay in an abusive situation, and that He would forgive me for breaking my marriage vows. Why didn't I divorce him immediately? Let me tell you why....I was shell shocked! I stayed in that condition for years only functioning to survive. I did what I had to do. I went to work, I took care of my kids, I settled their arguments, I took them to the doctors appointments and therapists appointments. All three girls had different emotional needs and they all wanted me to help them yet they resented me and treated me like pure shit! Being the single mother of teenage and preteen daughters is bad enough but when they have been through a trauma like ours made things at home a hundred times...no...a thousand times worse.
When I filed for the divorce I found out I would not be able to get child support (duh!) or even an order for child support as long as he was incarcerated. "Well isn't that convenient?" The only I could do was get an order for him to seek work immediately upon release. "Fat lot of good that's gonna do for me in 15 fucking years!" At least I had the deed to the house Quit Claimed over to me at his sentencing just in time to be able to tell his bill collectors where he was and that if they filed any kind of lien on my home they would be sued and I would own them. I paid all the bills except his loan that I wasn't signed on. LADIES-do not sign on the dotted line for credit with your man! It will save your credit rating if things don't go right! Believe me, it's better to have no credit than to have bad credit. Lucky for me I had established my own good credit before all this happened and I wasn't about to let him ruin that for me when he went for his loan. Of course, at that point in our marriage I knew something wasn't right and things were not good between us anyway.
A few years later my middle child became pregnant at 15 years old. BOOM! "Now what? How the hell am I going to do this? I make less than $20,000.00 yearly, Oh shit! She isn't even the maternal type, she only thinks about herself, how is she going to take care of a baby? She is still in school! What now? Oh God, help me!" This was about a year after my divorce was final. Even after sitting down and talking with her and her boyfriend with them assuring me that they are going to take care of the baby and finish school and all that stuff I knew better. Her pregnancy went normally but as her belly grew so did her temper. I worried about my grandbaby. Was I going to have to protect it from her like I protected her from her father? She is very self centered and immature and short tempered. I was really afraid she would not know how to control herself with the baby.
Oh shit...rubs her head, her eyes, lights a cigarette, sits at the kitchen table and cries....
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