Just showing off my family…

We had so much fun yesterday. We hung out with Lynn, Paul, Kelcey, Lexi, Tommy, Mary & Jerry. It was a great day!!

More on Flickr…

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Why is it so difficult for my husband to have some tact when dealing with the kids and their issues? I just don’t understand him or his thought processes. He makes me so unbelievably angry with what he says to them; I can only imagine the level of anger that they themselves must dealing with. Instead of making his arguments valid he uses the “forbid” card, threatens them and gives ultimatums. He undermines all the work I have made with the kids… each time he pulls a power trip on them. Weeks of gaining their trust and getting them to lower their defensive guards are flush in seconds once he starts yelling and threatening them.

Last night Ashley came back from going out. She was hanging out up at Gala and ran into Caleb and his family… who were bowling their league. She ended up talking with Tammi for quite some time about her and Caleb. Ashley really wants to give it a second try. She wants to be sure …for her sake and her daughter’s sake…before she walks away from him forever. Now I don’t like it much either but I have to respect it. It’s not my life. It’s not my choice.

During all of this talk Ashley mentioned if they do get back together, having Caleb, spend the night here occasionally after the baby is born. I don’t like this either…at all. And Ashley knows how I feel. I don’t trust them. I don’t trust Caleb. But I wasn’t going to fight with her over it now. It’s a moot point dependent on many other things and it makes no logic sense to argue about it now. Besides she is 18 and for the sake of my granddaughter..IF Caleb was really trying I think I could meet him half way. But again…it’s too early to know what’s going to happen so why worry about it or fight over it now??

Rick on the other hand flipped out and started yelling at Ashley about it. “He will NOT be sleeping here. Period!” He was being a Brut for no reason. He played the “Forbidden” card…which was stupid and is sure to make her go do the one thing we’d rather she not do. He threatened her and tossed out several ultimatums and “If you do, I will…[ insert stupidity here ]” comments. Then when she argued back he pulled me into the argument demanding I “side” with him. And when I didn’t immediately jump up and start yelling at Ashley as well he took his aggression and anger out on me and started yelling about how I always side with the kids and I never support him.

Of course Ashley told him not to pull me into it. It wasn’t my fight. And then when he wasn’t winning he ran off to bed. Essentially starting a huge fight to run away leaving it hanging in the middle. I didn’t want the fight to happen in the first place for medical reasons. Ashley is 29 weeks pregnant. She doesn’t need her blood pressure to fly up. Just yesterday she was telling me she’s starting to lose her muscus plug. Now most likely it’s no big deal but surely fighting and stress won’t help the situation.

And of course like most problems or situations in this house. I am now angry at his response. I am angry that even after I asked him twice to chill and not start arguing with her right now for medical reasons… he kept on going…telling me several times how he didn’t care. I am angry that HE started a fight and then when he was losing he dragged me into it. I am angry that when he dragged me into it and I didn’t respond the way he wanted then he started fighting with me and pushing off his aggression on me. It kinda reminded me of a temper tantrum that one of the kids might throw.

So in the end now… as far as he’s concerned I am the bad guy and everything is my fault… fan-fucking-tastic. I love sitting here minding my own business and having him blame shit HE does… on me. Wonderful!!

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I spent most of my day last Thursday and Friday cleaning up financial messes. And one of the things I focused on was my husband’s fines and crap. So… tired of waiting for him to be a man and go deal with his responsibilities…. *I* drove out to the county he got the tickets in over 2 years ago ( 30-45 minutes away from here) and *I* went to the court house and *I* paid his fine. Then I got all the paperwork in order for him to go to the DMV and renew his license. When I got home from that… I took him and his suspended license plates up to the currency exchange and there *I* fix that problem for him too.

All told, it was roughly $500 dollars of a mess that I cleaned up that day. This whole disaster from beginning to end has now officially cost us just shy of $1000 dollars. And just think… he could have fix it 2 years ago for the happy sum of…$120 bucks. But it was much more fun to make it cost a grand I suppose.

Now all he has to do is be a big boy and go renew his license and then go into court next month and show the judge that it’s all done. Anyone wanna take bets on how long he’ll wait to get his license renewed?? I mean I don’t see any reason why he can’t go on this coming Saturday. Our DMV is open then from 8am to Noon and the website says they allow the road tests to be done on that day as well.

But if he follows his normal pattern he won’t go unless I hold his hand and walk him through the process. If I sit back and let him handle it himself…who knows when he deem it important. And honestly I only care because he keeps getting pulled over and ticketed for driving on an expired license. I am afraid it’s gonna happen again and it’s gonna cost us even more money we don’t have. If this wasn’t the case then I wouldn’t care how long it took him to fix his license. ::: Sigh :::

I know at this point the problem is fixed and I shouldn’t be angry about it anymore. I should be letting it go… and I am trying to.

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I don’t know if I have said this here yet or not. But ya know it makes it really hard to ignore your marital issues when I am faced with the things Ashley is going through. Her boyfriend was treating her badly in many many ways. And a good portion of them were things that I deal with and tolerate each day myself from my old man. I have been doing my best to support and encourage her. So she doesn’t cheapen her self worth for a man… any man. So she doesn’t allow a man to disrespect her…ever! I have been reminding her that she’s worth more and deserves more.

And then I find myself staring in the proverbial mirror and realizing that, pretty much everything I am telling her not to do or tolerate, I am. And have been for a very long time. It’s a major wake up call for me. In these last 3-4 months I have come to really see my life, who I am, and what I allow people to do to me. I can see now all of the things I ignore or over-look. My drive to “keep the peace” and to avoid the constant confrontation and fighting has allowed me to walk around wearing blinders. I don’t see… or more honestly…I choose to see 100% of the problems.

But what message have I sent my girls by doing so?? I feel like I have betrayed them. Like I have given them false impressions of what a woman should be in a relationship with a man. It makes me angry at myself and sad to think I may have taught them that it’s ok for your man to be rude, call you names, be waited on, verbally threaten you when the mood suits him and to have complete control of the direction your lives go into. Even if that direction is the poor house. That it’s ok for him to cuss at you and your future children, to make unreasonable demands about the child… such as..not letting them co-exist in the same room… without telling them to, “Shut the fuck up and get out of here. That it’s ok to allow him to be manipulative and hurtful. And that your role is to suck it up, internalize it, smile and keep on trucking through with each day.

NO!!! That shit is NOT ok. I don’t want my daughters to ever have to live like that! They deserve better!! I deserve better!

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I thought long and hard about putting a password this entry. Mostly because I am sure as I start talking and getting angry all over again… I’ll be cussing quite a bit.. and also because I didn’t want to have to defend myself to my husband, for the millionth time, for anything I write here tonight. But then I realized that I also needed him to hear me and how I am feeling. So I left this entry open. I hope it will make him see that he is creating more problems for us by ignoring his responsibilities, by not acting like a grown up and accepting his role in the things he does, and by expecting me to handle 100% of everything… from the bills, to the house, to the kids, to waiting on him, to his personal issues and so on. I am not super woman… nor and I his servant. I can’t not… nor am I willing to.. be at his beck and call doing all his grunt work.

Today I had some pretty shity finance things happen. I am not going to bore you with all of the details but I will summarize parts so it all makes sense. One thing I will say is I am tired of the financial holes that I keep falling into. Especially the ones that are not my fault, or my responsibility.

Situation #1 :
My husband got pulled over on March 3rd, 2006 for speeding and not wearing his seat belt. Obviously he got tickets for both… AND they took his drivers license. It should have been an irritating but fixable situation. The fines were for $120.00 bucks. However my dear husband decided to ignore paying those fines. So he never got his license back. On February 24th of 2007 (11 months later) his license expired. It was time for him to renew it. But he couldn’t… because he didn’t have it. He still had not paid the fines from those 2 tickets. You’d think at this point he would have made it a priority. Nope not my husband. By now I had set the money aside for him to go pay these fines at least once. Probably more like twice. And He would refuse to go take care of it on his own. He said he worked M-F till 6pm and that I needed to go handle it. When I told him I tried and that they refused to talk to me over the phone… He said he’d “try” to get a day off so that WE could go handle it. Insisting that I had to be with him… and if I wasn’t he continually says… even today… “That it will never get done then!!” To date… he has NOT taken a day off to drive over and pay those first 2 tickets.

So now it’s June of 2008 (OVER 2 years after the initial tickets.)… and he’s been ticketed twice more now… for driving on an expired license.. ohh and he’s been arrest and tossed in jail for blowing off the first of those new tickets and it’s court date. Which by the way… Cost us $313 dollars, we did not have, to bail his ass out! Furthermore.. the money came from his children’s savings. And obviously that wasn’t a wake up call for him either… because he got a second ticket for the same thing. AND it’s now June of 2008, as I mentioned above, and NONE of the tickets have been handled. And he still has en expired license.

Tonight when we were discussing all the money problems… I said to him.. that this issue was 100% HIS fault and that I was angry he hadn’t taken care of this stuff AGES ago. He’s 39 years old… Grow up!! And ya know what he said to me… He looked me in the face and said, “I don’t see how you can say this is 100% my fault and problem.”

WTF??! Are you fucking kidding me?? I wasn’t driving the car when he got pulled over and ticketed! I didn’t tie his ass up when it was time to go renew his license. and I have set aside the money for him to pay his fine at least 4 times now.. and he’s always found a reason why HE can’t go handle it. Now he says how we never had the money or how the money got used for something else. But he neglects to acknowledge that the money was waiting for him for weeks, EACH TIME, before it got used for something else.

So in his warped, fucked-up, little mind.. this is now… My problem??? My responsibility??? Excuse Me? I don’t fucking think so!!! Where in my wedding vows did it say… “I shall be your doormat and drive all over god’s county cleaning up your criminal activities for you while you sit on your ass at home… watching nascar, drinking your pepsi and bombing the world in Call Of Duty 4???”. Last time I looked… that line was not in our vows.

Forgive me while I take a breather… I am ANGRY!!!!

Ok Back… I have regained my composure. I just do not see how he can pin even 1% of responsibility on me for any of this. And I know that no judge is gonna buy the defense of… “Well, I told my wife to handle it, Sir.” And the fact that he expects me to take partial responsibility just shows me that I am wasting my time in this marriage because he obviously wont ever grow up and be a man. He wants to be a little boy pushing all of his problems on someone else… expecting.. MOMMY to fix it. Well, I am not his mother!

Situation #2 :
Rick claims that he has NO idea were any of our money goes… and yet he has 2 laptops and a main PC, 2 HD tv’s… one is plasma. All 4 of our children have their own computers. I have laptop and main PC… and a Cannon Digital Camera…..He’s got 6… no maybe 8 RC cars…a project Camero in the garage… as well as various other misc. items in the past, and present. We spend every large sum of money we get… bonuses, tax returns and so on… mostly on toys.

Having those things isn’t the big problem its how and when we get them that is usually the problem. We make bad choices, take stupid risks and spend money on big items when we really shouldn’t.

I say we because I have been right there for most of it. And honestly I have no back bone and my husband knows it. He whines about how badly he wants something and how hard he works and how much he or we deserves it.. and I agree that he does work hard… but very often I am reminding him we can’t afford “X” thing and that he has to wait… and then as soon as he gets the money…via tax return..bonuses, stocks.. and so on… he buys whatever it is. Without checking to see if we need it for anything else.

About 50% of the time I manage to get some money out and I put it towards general living or bills. But we really should be putting like 80% of that money towards our bills and daily living… and because I don’t want to deal with his temper tantrums … I don’t push hard enough and I let him do it his way. Almost every time I regret it after the fact and I am angry. But normally it’s too late to change it.

What most people do not see is the hostile, argumentative & sometimes destructive side that comes out when Rick wants something and I wont let him have it. He’ll break things, dismantle things… like a person’s car. Hide things… take back gifts. Start arguments at midnight when I am trying to sleep and so on. He’s also been hostile towards the kids.. and then he’ll tell them to blame me because I won’t let him have or do… “X thing”. Like he’s saying.. “I’ll make the kids miserable if you don’t get me what I want.” And I can’t live and function in the house when he’s like that… and I get tired very fast of those games.. so in order to keep the peace…I give in and let him win. And sometimes I don’t even try to tell him no in the first place. I can usually gauge him and tell how bad the fight will be if I say no and I go off of that.

Now in all fairness.. he has gotten better over the years, by about 20-25%… but the patterns are already laid… the habits are already created in him and in me. I know this behavior… this pleasing, keep the peace thing.. I am doing is wrong and is only adding to our financial and marital problems. But if I had to chose between dealing with him in a tantrum or keeping the peace. I tend to fall on keeping the peace. But times… they are a changing and after 15 years I am finally tired of this game now.. and I am not keeping the peace anymore! I am finally burnt out completely. My level of energy for this is gone. I have reached an emotional point of not caring.

Situation #3 :
This one ties both of the previous problems together.

Rick doesn’t listen to me, we aren’t a team. And he doesn’t take an active role in anything important in our lives. He doesn’t take parenting seriously… He doesn’t take our bills seriously either. He really believes that since he works a full-time job and I do not, currently, work outside of the home that everything beyond him going to work each morning is my problem. Period! Even if the problem was of his soul creation (like the tickets).. He expects me to fix it.. or hold his hand while he fixes it. And if I don’t he won’t either. And in all honestly… even when I worked a full time job outside of the home… he still acted like this.

Rick got 6 credit cards over the last year or so…after not having credit for about 10 yrs because of previous credit problems and us having to file bankruptcy early in our marriage.. They are all OVER-maxed. And currently all but one of them is in default! Last summer he had maxed them all up (for about the 3rd time) and decided to take out a small consolidation loan to pay them off. We discussed this at length and I told him it was bad idea. Because we couldn’t afford to pay on the cards… and the loan. And I didn’t believe that he’d stick the cards in a drawer and leave them there.

BTW… the loan and cards are solely in his name. I have student loans on my credit and until I get them paid down… I do not want, nor can I handle, more credit problems, lol.

My fears came true when not 90 days after he took the loan and paid off the cards… all of the cards were once again maxed out. Now he has reasons for why each card was maxed.. and by themselves doesn’t sound bad at all. He also feels as if he’s being picked on and has done nothing wrong. Additionally he feels I am EQUALLY responsible and to blame in this financial burden. But I did not charge the 6 cards up.. over and over.. and I didn’t take out a loan to pay them off and then charge them up again. Only to have over extended my financial means… and now have 6 credit cards that I can’t pay…which are screwing up my credit.

He did this things…knowing I disagreed and that we couldn’t afford it… and he didn’t care. He wanted what he wanted. But now he expects me to help him clean up the mess. I think that bullshit. and it’s VERY selfish. This crap has a LONG lasting penalty on our lives.. not just his,,, but on mine and our children too. And yet he has the gall to stand in front of my and tell me, “He thinks he’s very self-less and that he always puts us first.”
He also doesn’t see how these financial things have a domino effect and how something stupid he does will screw us up for months and months to come.

————-

I am tired of not having enough money to pay our bills because when I had the extra cash it was spend badly (either on toys or on cleaning up yet another of his self-created messes) … instead of being saved… or put on something really important for the whole family and not just him. And I am tired of being made to feel like an moron because I want to be responsible. I am tired of arguing with him for hours that, No he can’t buy that car part, or computer… because we need to pay the rent, or electric bill. And I am tired of the bullshit guilt trip and attitude he puts on my as if he’s being neglected and denied. I am tired of his messes being dumped in my lap to handle. I am tried of him taking money from this house that’s needed for the kids, for food and for the bills… to clean up one of his stupid messes. I am also tired of him treating my mother with disrespect… and then expecting me to call her and borrow money when we have problems.

I told him almost a month ago now if things don’t start changing … I am done. I do not believe that he thinks I am serious. But I am. I really cannot take anymore. At this point I do not believe he has any intention of changing anything… for the long haul. He wants to stay the same and continue to dump everything on my shoulders. and I am putting my foot down. I refuse to be his dumping ground or doormat anymore.

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A lot has been going on around here. I have been very reluctant to come and blog about it all. I have 1000 emotions and I am not sure where to even begin sorting them out. In a bulleted format…

• My mom had an accident just over a week ago. She fell and doesn’t remember it, or getting back up and getting home. She really doesn’t even remember calling me. When I took her to the ER they also discovered she had Hydrocephalus. (The short explanation of what that is…is…water and pressure on the brain.) They aren’t sure if this is something she’s had since childhood or a new development. She has to go for tests next week so hopefully she’ll know more soon. My mom isn’t taking this news well at all… and while that doesn’t surprise me (especially since I don’t think anyone could take news like this well.)… I am scared and worried for her. I feel helpless.
• Nikki is having more out of control days then she has good days and that’s causing additional stress on our family… and on my already shaking marriage. I am dealing with emotions ranging from anger to sympathy for Nikki. I don’t know what else I could possible do to help her. She’s got to start taking control of herself, her emotions and her behaviors. She turns 14 soon and that’s playing a big part in my ever-rising frustration level. I mean I know she has a disability.. but so do I. I can only be so patient and understanding before my own issues start to get in my way.

  Yesterday was so bad I had to take Drew and leave the house because I was feeling some serious homicidal vibes. All I could see was rage when I looked at her and I wanted to hurt her. So I did the big girl thing.. and left. Which as I mentioned only served to place another ton of stress on my marriage.

• Speaking of my marriage… it’s on very shaking ground right now. If someone asked me today what I thought our future held I’d have to say… it doesn’t look good that we’ll have a future.. at least not together. I love Rick with all my heart. But sadly I am finding that love isn’t nearly enough. Love isn’t a fix all nor is it an eraser. Love can’t solve our parenting issues, or the money problems, or close the rift that’s popped up between us. And that rift keeps us from really dealing with anything of any importance or value. Rick thinks ignoring it or giving it a 5 minute conversation solves everything. I, on the other hand, am tired of being the only one who wants to really solve our problems instead of shoving them away in a drawer. And I want more then just love. We’re not a team anymore…and I am now beginning to wonder if we ever really were. I find myself thinking..”What the hell am I doing??”

  And I’ve already made up my mind… if things go bad… I am not sticking around here. I am moving…far away. Maybe Kentucky, or Montana, or Colorado. Somewhere away from here. I just can’t stay here in this town or even close to it. We’ll just keep playing the same roundie-round games over and over. The same ones that we’ve been playing for 15 years. I mean we’ve been separated 4 times. Granted the first 3 times were for only a few weeks and mostly were due to my Bi-polar freak outs. But the 4th time was a dozy.. we were apart for over a year and the problems that made it necessary were real. And ya know I find myself re-visiting many of the same problems and thats making me angry because I don’t see how we could have made it this far without really solving anything. I am angry that he doesn’t see to be bothered by that either.

  And with many of the old problems that have risen back to the surface, Rick and I, just do not see eye to eye about them… STILL. His idea of dealing with things is too ignore it all. And I am running our of steam very fast. I just don’t think I can keep going like this anymore. Ya know through everything we have been through over the past 15 yrs… it always felt “worth it” to me. But lately I find myself numb and without any feeling at all. I am too tired to care about most of it anymore. I find myself thinking.. I don’t want to be 80 and still fighting over this same crap. And I am starting to want to leave… I want to go away…somewhere else.

So that’s part of whats been going on. It’s not really a pretty part of my life. But that’s my life right now.

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He said a lot tonight… and I said a lot tonight. And I really hope he means what he said. I really hope he plans on following through this time. Because I can’t keep playing this game. But I’ll hold my comments and reserve judgment… for now. I am tired and have no fight left in me… so for me this is a last resort. If things don’t get better this time… I am calling it quits… permanently.

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He says:

* He needs my emotional/mental support. To know that in the end it’s him and I against the world.
* He needs time for him and I to spend together alone. Maybe to go out together without the kids more often.
* He says he feels like I’ll make time for everyone but him.
* He says I don’t listen to his feelings and needs.

And me…I don’t know what to say to that. I feel like if I say anything other then just, “Ok” It’ll end up being another fight. Those statements make me so sad. In my eyes, from my perspective, I feel like I am doing all I can to give him those things. Especially for the first 2 items up there. I don’t know what else I can do. And I feel like if I say my side of things to him he’ll do what he always does… and that’s to shut down and say, “Whatever… See!! You don’t take my feelings seriously.”

My response to those…

1. I thought I was making it clear that we were a team. That it was he and I against the world. I don’t know what more I could do. I don’t know what to change or what to say.

2. I would love more alone time. I would love me “you and me” time. I don’t know what more I can do for this either. The reality is we have 4 kids and very little money. So sometimes in order to be alone it would mean simply going for a walk, or for a cup of coffee, or to the library.. or something else that costs next to nothing. Other side of me says.. well maybe instead of buying another RC car you should consider taking me out for dinner and a movie. I feel like you’ve laid this responsibility completely in my lap and it’s my job to be sure we get “alone” time… and that you will only do your part of… showing up. But the planning is all on me. I also feel like we have to spend money in order for it to qualify as… good enough… alone time.

And another thing… in the house on a regular day. I try to start conversations and I try to put myself into “your little world” so we can spend time together. But more often then I would like you push me away because you are busy. You don’t want to talk. You don’t want to even give me a kiss. So I am depressed and discouraged. I don’t know what to change or do differently. I don’t understand what is wrong with the effort I am giving?

3. This one makes me especially sad. Firstly because I thought I was spending time with him on a daily basis. And secondly because I rarely go out with anyone else. And I mean RARELY. I might go to my mom’s or for coffee… or out with a friend… MAYBE 2, 3 or 4 times a year. Sometimes maybe 5 times a year. If you count the camping we did last summer… then in 2007 I might have gone someplace without him… 10 times in the course of the year. So what is he saying?? The 300+ days last year that we were together wasn’t good enough?? and the (less then 50 days) time i spent camping or having coffee with my mom.. was somehow denying him my love and attention? I am not being sarcastic I am really truly confused and am asking for it to be spelled out to me like I am a 2 year old. I don’t know what more I can give.

4. I think I do listen to his feelings and needs. But I also think he and I do not communicate properly. I don’t know how to fix this. So he’ll feel like I am listening.

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