Year Four

When I came home from having our daughter, I didn't get a break. The house was unkept. No one had done any of the dishes, trash was pilled at the door. Laundry wasn't done, floors weren't mopped. I had cleaned the house before going to the hospital, and I was only gone for 2 days, and I came home to a disaster. I was embarrassed that his dad had to see the house that way, I usually am so clean. And because in the past he has held the cleanliness of the home against me, I felt that I needed to clean because I was worried I would be ridiculed later for it. 

So I was 3 days after having a baby, and I was deep cleaning my house. I even took out two loads of trash, down the stairs mind you. I was in so much pain. But I felt that I needed to. He didn't even offer to help. He said I should stop, and when I asked if he was going to do it for me, he said he was tired because he had 'issues' sleeping while I was at the hospital. And that now that our daughter was home, he wasn't going to sleep much either. He decided to take a nap, and I was left with both kids and a messy house. 

Of course, while his dad was here, he put on his 'mr. perfect' act. He made me plates of food, because his dad raised him to do that, and yet he only ever does it when he is around his dad. I usually plate his food. He commented on how I cleaned house and wouldn't let him help. Which wasn't close to being true. 

He would even help with our son while his dad was there, and show interest in our daughter, which after his dad left he barely even held her. When his dad did leave, we didn't go back to counseling for about a month. We were adjusting to our new home life. There were a few times that he was nice and even went grocery shopping for me, with our son and even took him to the park early in the morning a few times to allow me to get extra sleep, but after October, that too stopped happening. At my 6 weeks post checkup we re did my papsmear to see if my HPV went away. It hadn't and had progressed to severe grade dysplasia. My OBGYN said that my only option was surgery to remove the first layer from my cervix, and with it the bad cells that could later turn to cancer. 

I was scared, and when I told him he was playing a game and simply said 'I'm sorry'. He gave me no comfort for what I was going through, I essentially had to go through it alone. He didn't even seem concerned when I told him it was possibly pre cancerous cells. 

On September 30, I had surgery. He was there till they wheeled me back. And came back when I was done. On the way home, he complained the whole time because our daughter was grumpy and our son wasn't listening. And it was hard for him to handle. 

I was told by my doctor that I was not to partake in sex for at least 7 weeks to prevent wrongful scarring, or otherwise. 

When I was 5 weeks post, he begged for sex, and because I wasn't able to refuse I gave in even though I kept telling him no because I wasn't supposed to. He convinced me nothing bad would happen, and he'd be gentle. 

We stopped going to counseling at that point And life kind of just drifted back to what it was. He worked. I was a stay at home mom (he had convinced me to quit my job in May because we couldn't afford daycare). I did the care of all the kids, every doctor and dentist appointment, school pick up and drop off, as well as all the housework and cooking and even taking out the trash. I had learned to just, not complain.

I had found in December that he had been sexting off and on, even when I was in the hospital after having our daughter. I never brought it up. It was becoming my 'new normal' so to speak. I just tried to come to grips with the fact that he was never going to change, and he would always be this way. And for the sake of our family I needed to accept it.

In February, Brent moved out and the two of them stopped talking. He and I had a few good months, no fighting, things seemed ok. Though we were lacking on dates and alone time and that was wearing on us. Our daughter breastfed and co slept. And he wasn't really making time to spend with me. And since I had stopped pressing the help issue, that was really the only thing we fought about, was the lack of attention. He was a very firm believer that even if he worked 10 hours, it wasn't his job to clean house. 

In April, I went to get a check up, because my cycles were way off. And that was when I was diagnosed with PCOS. And it explained why getting pregnant with our daughter, I needed to take clomid and why I wasn't making progesterone the way I was supposed to. I had had a feeling for a while, that this is the issue I had. But to hear it be confirmed was a hard pill to swallow.

I really needed support, as I was just told that I was infertile in a sense. Or that fertility at least for me was hard, and that I would have issues with my hormones affecting my body and emotional health for as long as I had cycles. And possibly even after. 

I went home, and he asked how it went. I told him, choking back tears, hopeful that maybe just this once he'd be somewhat supportive and caring. Sadly, I was disappointing yet again and got nothing but a 'it will be ok' and turning back to his video games. 

Thankfully, on my way home I had called my mom and cried on the phone with her, but I was in such desperate need of affection from my husband. It was around that time that I realized how little affection he really had towards me. He never hugged me, and he only playfully showed interest in me whenever he wanted something from me. He never gave me compliments and whenever i asked him for them, he told me he shouldn't have to reassure me. That if he thought I wasn't attractive, he wouldn't be with me anymore. But that wasn't the point. So many times in his sexting adventures he'd call a girl sexy, or beautiful. Compliment her on her body or her mind even, he rarely ever did that. Not even in the beginning, he literally never complimented me. 

I always made it my mission to make him feel validated. I would support his ideas, his adventures. Any time he wanted to pursue a career, I always backed him 110% because i beleived in his ability to conquer anything. He never did that with me. 

He writes books himself, and he's actually a really good writer. I've always complimented him on his creative mind. It's different than mine, but still good none the less. And I would always help and support him with his books, his campaigns for dnd, I would help develop stories and worlds and characters with him. It was something I loved doing together, and honestly now probably the hardest thing I have had to let go of.

But he never showed interest in the things I did. I don't think he ever even read my main book, The Gothic Rose. He wouldn't ever push me, and when I took a leave from college, he never encouraged me to not give up chasing my dream. It was always about what he was going to accomplish. And anytime I told him about an idea, he never seemed very interested in it.

I think a combination of that, and stresses at home is what forced my creative mind into a hole. For the last two years, writing has been impossible for me. I can't even remember the last time I wrote a poem, and I even chose to close the chapter of the gothic rose because I feel like I will never get the spark back to write it again, like it's a lost cause. He took my creative mind from me, and focused all my energy on him. Whether it was intentional, or not, isn't the issue. It's that little by little, day by day, he was taking me apart and breaking me. And he took joy in it. 

Off the rambles of that, and back to the story at hand. 

In May, he switched jobs. He had gotten a management position offer at Big Lots. And we decided it was a good choice, as he felt he wouldn't move up the ladder at Smith's here he had been since we moved here. In the middle of June, he mentioned to me that he was thinking he wasn't happy anymore. And he felt that maybe it was the marriage that was getting him down.

It took me by surprise, because I thought we were doing ok Not the best, but not the worst either. 

A couple days later, he was sleeping on the couch and I went through his phone. He had been texting a couple co workers and I found out that he had actually made out with one at work, in the break room. He was confessing to another that he wanted to leave me and pursue a relationship with her. Even though they hadn't even known eachother a month.

I confronted him on it, and he apologized. Told me he wasn't happy but that he also didn't want to lose me. Promised it wouldn't happen again. 

He refused to stop talking to her.

Around the middle to end of June, I was feeling sick. And my friend Kayla, convinced me to take a pregnancy test, as I hadn't had a cycle in a month and a half. Granted I wasn't worried. I had PCOS, my odds were so small of getting pregnant on my own. I did start taking a drug called metformin to help with my symptoms though and it raised my chances a little, but I still wasn't worried.

He was still asleep, and I loaded the kids up and went to the store and got a cheap test and came home and took it. Lo and behold a positive showed up within seconds. I almost cried. I was scared. I had a marriage falling apart, money issues, and my daughter wasn't even one yet. I wasn't ready to have another baby. 

I went and woke him up, and told him we had a problem. I showed him the test and told him I was pregnant. The first thing he said was 'we can't have a baby, we are trying to fix our marriage, what happens if we get divorced'. I told him the only option was to keep it or get an abortion. He actually pushed me to get an abortion, he said it would be the best choice, because we couldn't handle another baby, not right now anyway. I told him I'd think on it, but I knew I couldn't get an abortion. Sure the timing was all wrong, but it was a baby. Apart of me. We let everyone know about it, and announced that we were expecting another baby. People were shocked but supportive. 

 Around that time we decided to go and get him a second car, and even though I knew we didn't have the money for it, he wanted to lease a brand new little sports car. Because it was flashy. It wasn't even family friendly or the cheaper option, it was new and it looked cool. Of course, my signature was on the car, but he made it clear it wasnt my car, it was his. 

Then, to make matters worse, he went out and bought an X-Box one, because he had like two friends that played it, and he wanted to join. He wound up spending almost 2000$ n 4 days. And it wasn't fair, because our daughter had a birthday coming, and she needed all her 12 month clothes, I too needed clothes as did our son.

He told me to ask my family for help, because he didn't want to front the money himself. Which I did wind up doing, reluctantly. I even had to sell some things to try and raise the money for it too. 

We seemed, aside from the money and the car, to be doing ok. We went to his  friend Chase's house for the fourth of July. We met his wifes sister, who we will call Missy there. She seemed nice, very taken to the kids. She honestly reminded me of me before I got pregnant, young, reckless, smoking and drinking without much responsibility. He kept playfully messing with her, and I know him, I knew it was flirtatious. I had never met or heard of her before that day. She even offered to watch the kids sometime for us, for when we wanted to go out on dates. She even asked about my pregnancy and congratulated us. 

So, 3 days later, when he asked if he could go give her a ride home from work and hang out, I wasn't too concerned. But when he left, something told me something was wrong. He wasn't responding to my texts, and he was gone for 5 hours. Our daughter, she was sick that night. And he couldn't even be bothered to come home early and help me with her. Granted he never could. I was always the one who handled the kids, he made it clear if they were sick they were to stay away from him. But if he got sick, I needed to wait on him hand and foot too. 

Lets go off tangent for a second and talk about the kids. Because I have mentioned before that I did all the care things for them, and I am not joking. If I needed to go to the store, and he was home, I had to take our daughter with me. Because she would cry whenever I left, because she wasn't used to him. And he didn't want deal with the crying because he was too involved in his video games. Once when she was like 6 months old, I went to get my hair done for the first time in forever, and when I was almost done he sent me a picture of our bedroom window, the glass broken from the inside like it was hit with a round object in two places. 

He claimed he had no clue what happened, and I put a work order in to have it fixed. But the thing was NOTHING was by the window that could have caused that, it looked self inflicted. So I asked him about it again, and he told me that he had been holding her, and she was crying and he couldn't console her. So he went into the room, and picked up his BB gun, and shot it at the window 3 different times. He claimed he didn't know it was loaded, but then why shoot 2 more times after the first released a bullet? And better yet, why the hell are you shooting it at the window?! 

So the next morning, I couldn't sleep that whole night long. And I messaged her that morning, and I asked her about what their visit had. She told me that she sat in the back seat, and that he dropped her off at home and left. She claimed she would never do anything with a married man. That she hoped I didn't feel uncomfortable, and reassured me she wasn't a threat. I still felt very irked about it. I confronted him on it and asked him where he was if he wasn't with her like he had claimed to be, and he told me that he dropped her off and left to play pokemon go, and that that's where he was for the four other hours. He said he needed a drive to just clear his head. 

I still didn't believe him. The next day, we got into a huge fight and he asked for a divorce. He was so calm and cut off about it. He kept making me sit down to hash out details, because he didn't want to go through the courts for it. I was broken. He was texting the entire time, showing no care or concern for how he was making me feel. I wanted to know who he could possibly be texting at a time like that, who was so important? 

I refused to sit down and hash out details, and that made him angry. He wanted 50/50 of our daughter, and he refused to pay for any bills for my medical care while I was pregnant, he said it was my fault anyway, I didn't tell him I was on medication. 

Later that night, while he was asleep on the couch, I hacked his phone again. And what I found had me shaking and mad. The texts between him and Missy showed she completely lied to me about the night before. They talked about kissing each other, and how he was the biggest she's ever seen, and how she wanted to do more with him but couldn't until he left me. He told her how he wanted to choke her, make her his. Two hours after he told me he wanted a divorce he told her it was done and asked her to be his girlfriend. Complained about me being upset over everything going on, and even asked if she wanted to go for a joy ride because he wanted to get out of the house. 

I was livid and I confronted him on it at 3 in the morning. That was when all hell broke loose. Remember how I told you guys to remember when Jesse wrestled me for my phone? Yeah, remember that here when I tell you this next tidbit. 

So I woke him up, throwing his phone at him, confronting him on how he pretty much left me for some girl he met literally DAYS previous. He of course got defensive, smirked when I brought up him pretty much having sex with her. I told him he cheated, he claimed he didn't because apparently kissing and groping eachother isn't cheating anymore. He literally kissed me goodbye and told me he loved me that night before he went to go see her, I was crushed. I had our daughter, at some point because she had woken up, my phone was in my bra. I told him I took pictures of the texts, and he went to grab my phone and I tried to stop him, but he persisted. Pushing on my upper chest, trying to get my grip on his arm loose while having ahold of my phone. All while I held our daughter, he knocked me over at some point from the twisting around he was doing. I got up and told him I was calling the cops because he put his hands on me. He claimed he didn't do anything wrong. 

I went to the room and called them, they came out and agreed something happened because I had red marks all over my chest from his arm. I told him jesse had pulled the same shit with me and I wasn't going to let this one go. The cops asked him to go to work early, as they couldn't force either of us to leave as this was our marital home and we are both on the lease. 

He decided to stay at Chase's house from then on, but he was only there for 3 nights. I couldn't eat or drink anything I felt sick, and drained. I went to the ER twice for dehydration, and passed out once. He claimed I was doing it on purpose for attention, when reality was I truly couldn't eat no matter how much I forced myself to.

The kids needed things, he refused to help. Told me I needed to get a job, because he wasn't going to help me anymore. He refused to even see them, because he didn't want to see me. 

I begged for him to come home. The thought of doing it all alone, scared me. Even though a part of me knew I was better with him gone, I knew I couldn't work while pregnant. I couldn't afford daycare. And I had no friends and no family where I was. 

He agreed to talk, and came over. We sat in our daughters room, and talked. He said he would come back if I agreed to have an open relationship that allowed sexting, as well as to furfill his sexual fantasies. Which was to have a threesome with another woman. I hated the agreements, but I said ok. On the condition, that anyone and anytime he sexted he needed to share it with me. 

I tried to get excited about it, but it was hard. I tried to make it a positive in our relationship, hoping maybe it won't be fun for him and he will just be better off staying faithful. But that isn't what happened at all.