WDILM - cont....
I guess it's true that the brain seems to shut out bad and remember the good parts. I have never really told the story and other than posting similar particular instances in posts, have never gone into the entire thing. Maybe I would have sorted this out better from the beginning had I spit the entire tale out then. Anywho...I think the rest will go faster because it became the recurring cycle of life and I don't think I will have to go through EVERY horrid tale to find what I was feeling, thinking and how I got here.
We married in Florida with his brother and two sisters as witnesses. We had agreed that once we returned home, we would have a small ceremony for my family, as well.
The second bump came immediately after our marriage, actually - right before the drive home. He stopped to get us beef tongue tacos. We had gone out the night before, last hooray before returning back home to reality. I was tired already, we left at night - later than I would have wished. We had to drive well out of the way to get the tacos. At that point, I would have been perfectly happy with a piece of cheese stuck between bread. I guess I was a little snappy when he was asking which tacos I wanted out of the bunch. I felt snappy, actually. I was irritated. I didn't give a rats ass about these stupid tacos, it was taking forever to hit the road and I was trying to go with the flow of things knowing he was the one leaving his family (they followed us to the taco place, actually) and he thought these more authentic tacos were the bomb. Truth is, I have never even tried any of it, so how would I know which I wanted? I just wanted to either sleep or get on the road already. I apologized for my snappy tone, but that was my very first experience with him and the silent treatment, punishing actions.
He drove us out of town, but was completely silent. I was so tired, I didn't really care. Maybe he realized this because it wasn't long before he pulled over and broke the silence long enough to ask me to drive since he was completely exhausted. He had actually worked with his brother while I slept in a bit, so I could see that. I drove all the way to Atlanta while he slept (all through the night into the morning hours). Truth is, I was still so tired that that was more my focus than him being silent. I turned on my favorite CD and enjoyed the music the entire way.
Once I stopped to get gas and a bathroom break, I woke him. He looked around at where we were and then reclined once again. I asked if he needed to go in for the bathroom or would like coffee or something to eat. He shook his head a bit, but did not speak. In fact, he didn't speak again until well into the afternoon. I knew he was being pissy about the tacos. I let that go too, knowing I was exhausted, he was exhausted. Once he started talking, he didn't say anything else about it, just let's stop for some food and to stretch our legs. We made it home without further incident.
The thing is, we kind of decided to marry there on the spur of the moment. So, when we get back, we both still have our places. Of course, he had been spending a whole lot of time at my place before, but we really didn't have a plan. So, I live in a house outside the city limits. He lived in a duplex in the middle of town. With the two kids, we won't quit fit well at his place. We talk about it and he tells me that he has a month and a half left on his lease and given the landlord and economy will just keep the place until the lease is up and this will give time to move whatever needs moved. Makes sense, enough.
This is where it starts getting out of control, so I am going to try to pay attention to myself here. He resigned the lease (a year lease) - telling me that he had talked to his sister and she is planning to move here as soon as she can settle things in Florida and is going to take the place. At the moment, this also makes sense. But she doesn't come. In fact, I am not sure that she was ever seriously planning to come. This became our first area of real tension. Okay, so basically he is now living with me, but hasn't moved everything and still has a place. I did mention several times that if his sister was not coming, and the university was in session, I don't think there would be a problem with it renting and him getting out of the lease. He is afraid he will owe or it will mess up his nonexistent at this time credit or whatever excuses he gave.
Over the next year and a half or so many things happened. On the home front, he started picking away at me. So many things were such big deals to him - breakfast being among them. It was never quite right. This is really when all the double-edged compliments started about my intelligence, but doing nothing with it, etc. He was terribly gifted at making me feel inadequate without truly saying anything bad. I can say one thing about the man - being able to talk like that is a gift. Maybe the same gift that many people use to help people, just knowing how to communicate and talk. I would describe this as the type that can sell you ice water in hell and have you smiling about it the entire time and not really realizing it until much later when you suddenly see you are standing in only steam in hell with nothing to save you!
Also during this time, he went back to school. I was working full time (from home) when I met him and continued to do so. The "timing is not good" thing turned into having no sense of time at all. No matter what his schedule was, it was never the same. He would come home at 4 p.m. or 11 p.m. from school/work. He was still, at least pretending, to be doing remodeling work while he went to school. He would always have a likely reason, that he worked late or stopped by here to get notes from this friend or whatever. However, I think his grand total for the year on the taxes was maybe $1500...so not really sure how much work was truly happening. It was always difficult to say because although he didn't hide his school schedule from me, it wasn't exactly shared with me either. On top of the uncertainty of knowing where your husband really is, this created just overall scheduling difficulties. With meals being such a big deal to him and not ever knowing when he would arrive, I never knew what to do. I ended up in another of this lose-lose situations with an N. If you cook it at the normal time (and God knows that he would tell you this is what ANY mother would do with kids in the house) it would many times be yucky by the time he came, or even worse, the kids would eat more than you expected/realized and I would get the "shoulda set me a plate aside" and if I waited, then the meals were too late and again, the poor kids or he would come earlier than expected and be upset there wasn't a meal. Yep, the good old no way to win scenario.
For my future ease of reading back if needed, I'm going to move to a separate entry here...and I think what will be the last or second to last :)
We married in Florida with his brother and two sisters as witnesses. We had agreed that once we returned home, we would have a small ceremony for my family, as well.
The second bump came immediately after our marriage, actually - right before the drive home. He stopped to get us beef tongue tacos. We had gone out the night before, last hooray before returning back home to reality. I was tired already, we left at night - later than I would have wished. We had to drive well out of the way to get the tacos. At that point, I would have been perfectly happy with a piece of cheese stuck between bread. I guess I was a little snappy when he was asking which tacos I wanted out of the bunch. I felt snappy, actually. I was irritated. I didn't give a rats ass about these stupid tacos, it was taking forever to hit the road and I was trying to go with the flow of things knowing he was the one leaving his family (they followed us to the taco place, actually) and he thought these more authentic tacos were the bomb. Truth is, I have never even tried any of it, so how would I know which I wanted? I just wanted to either sleep or get on the road already. I apologized for my snappy tone, but that was my very first experience with him and the silent treatment, punishing actions.
He drove us out of town, but was completely silent. I was so tired, I didn't really care. Maybe he realized this because it wasn't long before he pulled over and broke the silence long enough to ask me to drive since he was completely exhausted. He had actually worked with his brother while I slept in a bit, so I could see that. I drove all the way to Atlanta while he slept (all through the night into the morning hours). Truth is, I was still so tired that that was more my focus than him being silent. I turned on my favorite CD and enjoyed the music the entire way.
Once I stopped to get gas and a bathroom break, I woke him. He looked around at where we were and then reclined once again. I asked if he needed to go in for the bathroom or would like coffee or something to eat. He shook his head a bit, but did not speak. In fact, he didn't speak again until well into the afternoon. I knew he was being pissy about the tacos. I let that go too, knowing I was exhausted, he was exhausted. Once he started talking, he didn't say anything else about it, just let's stop for some food and to stretch our legs. We made it home without further incident.
The thing is, we kind of decided to marry there on the spur of the moment. So, when we get back, we both still have our places. Of course, he had been spending a whole lot of time at my place before, but we really didn't have a plan. So, I live in a house outside the city limits. He lived in a duplex in the middle of town. With the two kids, we won't quit fit well at his place. We talk about it and he tells me that he has a month and a half left on his lease and given the landlord and economy will just keep the place until the lease is up and this will give time to move whatever needs moved. Makes sense, enough.
This is where it starts getting out of control, so I am going to try to pay attention to myself here. He resigned the lease (a year lease) - telling me that he had talked to his sister and she is planning to move here as soon as she can settle things in Florida and is going to take the place. At the moment, this also makes sense. But she doesn't come. In fact, I am not sure that she was ever seriously planning to come. This became our first area of real tension. Okay, so basically he is now living with me, but hasn't moved everything and still has a place. I did mention several times that if his sister was not coming, and the university was in session, I don't think there would be a problem with it renting and him getting out of the lease. He is afraid he will owe or it will mess up his nonexistent at this time credit or whatever excuses he gave.
Over the next year and a half or so many things happened. On the home front, he started picking away at me. So many things were such big deals to him - breakfast being among them. It was never quite right. This is really when all the double-edged compliments started about my intelligence, but doing nothing with it, etc. He was terribly gifted at making me feel inadequate without truly saying anything bad. I can say one thing about the man - being able to talk like that is a gift. Maybe the same gift that many people use to help people, just knowing how to communicate and talk. I would describe this as the type that can sell you ice water in hell and have you smiling about it the entire time and not really realizing it until much later when you suddenly see you are standing in only steam in hell with nothing to save you!
Also during this time, he went back to school. I was working full time (from home) when I met him and continued to do so. The "timing is not good" thing turned into having no sense of time at all. No matter what his schedule was, it was never the same. He would come home at 4 p.m. or 11 p.m. from school/work. He was still, at least pretending, to be doing remodeling work while he went to school. He would always have a likely reason, that he worked late or stopped by here to get notes from this friend or whatever. However, I think his grand total for the year on the taxes was maybe $1500...so not really sure how much work was truly happening. It was always difficult to say because although he didn't hide his school schedule from me, it wasn't exactly shared with me either. On top of the uncertainty of knowing where your husband really is, this created just overall scheduling difficulties. With meals being such a big deal to him and not ever knowing when he would arrive, I never knew what to do. I ended up in another of this lose-lose situations with an N. If you cook it at the normal time (and God knows that he would tell you this is what ANY mother would do with kids in the house) it would many times be yucky by the time he came, or even worse, the kids would eat more than you expected/realized and I would get the "shoulda set me a plate aside" and if I waited, then the meals were too late and again, the poor kids or he would come earlier than expected and be upset there wasn't a meal. Yep, the good old no way to win scenario.
For my future ease of reading back if needed, I'm going to move to a separate entry here...and I think what will be the last or second to last :)
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