Bad Mummy! No Cookie!

Three Little Words – Part I is over here.

There are things that are missing from Part I. His excuse for the drinking and then the telling me how horrible I was – that he could only talk to me and be brave enough when he was drunk.

His constant defense for all things he would do – being sexually abused by his mom’s boyfriend from the ages of 4 – 9. I don’t negate this. But countless times I asked him to get help, to talk to a professional about it. I found agencies that had programs for adult survivors. He would later say that if I had cared enough, I would have taken him by the hand and led him to the agency and doctor and therapist.

I was 19 when we met. He was 30.

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The day after his drunken escapade that led to the calling of the police…I knew. I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t imagine a future with this man. He was too damaged. I was too damaged. We were not healthy for one another. He needed a cheerleader. I needed to stop expecting grand things of him – that the next get-rich-quick scheme would come thru or that he would turn around and grow the fuck up and realize he was a husband and father and a grown-up with grown-up responsibilities.

I spent the rest of November wrestling with what decision to make. To stay. To go. He wanted me to stay. He wanted me to say I would stay and then he would work on it. I remember calling his sister to ask her to please talk some sense into him. For him to at the very least get a job – any paying job – so that we could dig ourselves out of debt. He came into the kitchen while I was talking to her and I turned to him and begged the same of him. Again, he had excuses – it wasn’t worth his time, he couldn’t stop doing what he loved. Writing this and remembering the excuses makes me nauseous.

We were behind on daycare and hydro and the mortgage. I sat down and divvied up the bills. I took on the mortgage and life insurance and groceries; I would pay these because they were most urgent. We needed a roof over our heads and food in our bellies and, if he was going to threaten his life, life insurance. He was responsible for the rest: utilities and such. In later months I would get collection calls from the utility companies and have to explain the situation. That we were selling the house and we would be able to resolve the debts then.

We hosted Christmas with our families. It was tense. It was so tense. I was sleeping in The Mook’s room on the futon and our entire family knew that we were falling apart.

In January, he went on the road. I refused to fund his airfare, so his sister did. While he was away, I learned that we qualified for a daycare subsidy. I called the women who he had given all his tax info to six months earlier to ask whether it was done because we needed the info to apply for the subsidy. She told me the truth – that he had never given her the paperwork. For six months he had been lying to me. And, deep down, I knew it. I knew by then how to tell when he was lying and when the excuses were made up.

I called him and left a message for him. I wanted a divorce.

He returned. There were some attempts at counselling. Nothing could convince him that I was done and that there was nothing he could say or do that would keep me in the marriage. I couldn’t leave and move out because I was paying the mortgage. He simply refused to leave. He didn’t have any place to go.

From February to May of that year (2007), we lived together by focusing on The Mook. He would continue to drink and I would continue to cry and fall apart. I took The Mook to my parents’ place when I needed a break. I felt hollow inside. He would insist he loved me. I would go thru the motions of living and parenting and working and getting thru each day.

By May, he agreed that it was over and we put the house up for sale in June. It sold within days and gave us enough money to pay our joint debts and pay back those people who had lent us money.

We closed on the house in early August. It was me who found the movers. I paid for it too, even tho I knew he would never pay me back. The movers  packed everything we owned into one truck. They drove first to his apartment around the corner and unpacked his things. Then they arrived at my brother’s house, where everything I owned fit into 2 rooms.

I lived with Andrew for August, September and most of October. We wedged the couch into his living room and a table into his dining area. The Mook and I shared a bedroom – her on a big-girl-bed I’d bought and me on a futon mattress on the floor. Our only possessions not shoved into my brother’s 3rd bedroom/den was enough to get us by, clothing and toy wise. By early September I had found an apartment suitable for The Mook and I.

Picture, if you will, The Former Mr showing up on my brother’s doorstep, after The Mook was in bed, and asking me out on a date.

I don’t think he will understand that I’m not coming back to him (because he tells me that he’s changed and he’s improved and he is sorry and he is wrong) unless I re-marry. He drags his feet on the paperwork needed to file for divorce. If I mention it, he assumes I’ve met someone.

There are so many pieces missing from this.How manipulated I felt. And still feel. How I cannot trust anyone. That I can’t imagine a relationship with a man every lasting because I will always be waiting for the shit storm. How I would hear him say ‘I love you’ and believe it and now…I don’t believe in love. He only used it to get his way. If that was love, then I don’t want any part of it.

It’s 2  and 3 years later and I’m sure if I pursued counselling I would be diagnosed with Post-Tramautic Stress Disorder. But instead I’ve put this all down and can only hope that some of the ghosts are exorcised. Above all, I think I need to forgive myself for falling in love with a liar and a fucked-up man. I was young and knew little about love. Now I am older and I don’t know if I’ll know love again. True love. But I know I won’t allow myself to be manipulated and I will keep my cards close to my chest and will never again have a joint bank account.