Intro...

April 02, 2008

To make a long story short....

So. Its been four months since my husband & I separated, at my request. My reasons were many, but included his mental health problems (and his adamant denial thereof); his past record of physical and emotional terrorism; and his complete and total emotional unavailability. His family robustly hated me throughout our marriage; we lost our home to his failing business while I was pregnant with our youngest; he was zero help around the house; and a totally indifferent father to our kids. He was always the guy who was so "quiet and unassuming". I can see now that the "quiet and unassuming" was really just deep and pervasive insecurity, that manifested in his being deeply controlling, jealous and turn-on-a-dime emotionally unstable. In the interest of protecting the kids' privacy, I can't really reveal more. But for many years, my "real life" sucked, while I perfected the art of the public veneer.

I gotta give myself credit- I managed to put up a damn good front of "normal". He was the small business owner, I was the PTA president and stay home mom. Our house was tidy, we never argued publicly, the kids were well-adjusted. Our separation was a complete shock to our friends and family.

After he moved out he stopped working altogether (although it appears that maybe he actually stopped working sometime last year and I didn't know it.) In the first few weeks, he spent all his time at bars, opened a cheesy Internet dating account, and saw every concert that came to town. He was depressed, sure. But not TOO depressed. He threatened to commit suicide, then got belligerent when I didn't drop everything and run to see him. He bombarded me with emails, phone calls and texts, then over-shared about his sex life and the women he was seeing. For three months he rebuilt his motorcycle and spent a week in Daytona at Bike Week. While he was there I got several phone calls and visits from folks he owed money to.

Scared to death, I offered to take over the business and let him have a fresh start, no child support, no property division, he could just walk away....He readily agreed. Three weeks into owning a construction company I now know he took over 100K from our customers over the past five months. Some of the jobs had not been touched since November. There was even a warrant sworn out for his arrest on a bad check charge the week after I took over.

His best friend of five years, who is also a Contractor, and who also separated this year, is helping me pick up the pieces. At this point we are just trying to keep my ex out of jail, and get the jobs moving again. I admit to having developed feelings for the man. He admits to having reciprocal feelings. We shall see where that goes. All I know is he makes me feel happier, stronger, more appreciated and more hopeful than I have felt in years.

My ex is still unemployed. He is dating. He has embarrassing pages on MySpace and Match.com He insists he still loves me. He is pissed about my feelings for his friend and is making threats and accusations.

Life is really difficult right now. I have about $50 to my name and I owe everyone in town, literally, money. I am just holding on tight, waiting for daylight.