I'm sorry. I don't usually do this. But I guess this is my first big rant.
This last year has been the hardest year of my life. My son tried to kill himself ( he did something pretty bad, got caught, and I guess that's the only way he thought to deal) I am also very close to actually hating my husband, and I do not hate people. And every decision that I make lately seems to be the wrong one.
We just bought our first house, and I would do anything - ANYTHING - to take back my name on that mortgage, just to avoid being trapped in this marriage. My husband thinks (really I don't know what he thinks, but anyway...) that I do nothing. He has forgotten that I raise these kids on my own. That I do everything in the house - bills, groceries, cleaning, cooking, 90% of the childcare (and I'm being generous giving him 10%). I work if I can, but I have to work around his schedule, which often takes him out of town - which makes it hard for me to work, except during the school year while the boys are in school. I do this though, and I will again starting in September. We both agreed early on that we did not want to do daycare and babysitters.
BOTH of us agreed to this. I worked as much as he does before we had children.
I never hound him for help. I know he works a lot, and pays for most everything. I don't mind doing the rest of it. I mean sometimes I do. If he isn't working, he's out doing whatever he wants, drinking and stuff. I don't do anything without the kids. But whatever, no big deal. I love my kids. But for my husband to be angry and demeaning to me considering all this? I don't mind the work, but I do mind being treated as if I'm some kind of lazy, selfish, money grubbing b*tch. Especially since I rarely to never spend money on myself, and usually only then if my jeans are falling apart or something. I'm not out spending HIS money, like he treats me as doing.
Last year I sold a book. I'd been writing for years, trying to get published. He seems to think that this means we are going to be rich and he can stop working. Its just a romance novel. I told him getting rich off one book in the romance genre was just not happening. Not a chance. I make more in a month of waitressing than I will make off this book. He doesn't believe me. He is angry at me every day because I have not written the sequel yet. He never supported me when I was writing all those years trying to get published, (support as in considered it a job and cut me some slack around the house) The writing I do is on top of everything else that I do. So I'm not slacking in any of my actual responsibilities.
Anyway, that's just a stupid thing, but the way he treats me is not. Every day its a reminder that everything is his, that he works and pays for everything, and that I do nothing.
I'm so mad. And also hurt. And resentful and tired. I just want to leave him, and I've never wanted it so badly before. The night I was at the hospital with my son after he tried to kill himself at school, I called my husband from the pay phone to tell him what had happened. We argued and he hung up on me. At the hospital. Where our son was under suicide watch. I called him back a bit later. Same thing. Again later, same thing. What the hell? I just needed reassurance that he was not going to fly off the handle when I brought Curtis home. Some support would have been nice also... But I should have left him that night. I can't get over the resentment that I'm feeling over his treatment and the stupid excuses I make for him. I feel so freaking stupid for not leaving him.
I'm also stupid for letting him treat me like this.
So remember how we just bought a house? The day after we sign papers, he gets laid off. Still no big deal. He works for the union and jobs come up every day. But his estranged daughter was supposed to come up and meet him (she cancelled last minute), and he had decided to just take the week off. That was fine, but I mentioned that he still had to look for a job. Just so he would have a job at the end of the week, rather than start looking then, and perhaps go another week with no job. Because our first mortgage payment would be a week later, with no money coming in - and since I also do all the finances I'm always the bad guy when it comes to the money that we need. He got pissed, told me I was trying to work him into the grave, decided that he was going to get EI and sit on that for a year while I went to work instead.
Fine. Except that EI wouldn't come in in time to make that payment. And if he wanted to switch roles, fine, but I needed to know a bit sooner because I couldn't come up with the extra hours and mortgage payment that quickly either.
But really. Who buys a house and then decides to completely change his lifestyle, without even discussing it with his wife? I get that he was angry, thinking I was forcing him back to work -which I was, or we would lose this house before we even get moved in. He just doesn't believe me. I don't understand him.
I think I'm also hurt because he just doesn't know who I am. At all. I am not this awful person that he thinks I am. And he really thinks it. I... I don't know what to say or do about it. But if that big "I'm going on EI now and you can work - along with the you're a lazy good for nothing attitude" had happened the week before, then I would have packed the kids, left and filed for divorce. But I signed the papers for the house, and if he isn't going to make the payments, then I have to. So I feel completely trapped.
Of course, he went out and got a job right away, one that he is making sure I know how many hours it is, how hard it'll be - and that I'm the one who forced his hand.
Whatever. You wanted to buy a house. You have a family. You can't just decide to stop working.
I have to force myself to stop thinking bad thoughts of him, but every time he makes a snide remark, they just pop up and bring me down.
On top of it, my son, who has few friends and is prone to depression has wanted a dog for some time. We finally got him one, since we got a house. He has allergies, but this is a low shedding dog and I'm going to follow all the allergy tips galore. I truly thought he would be fine, but he's been the sole dog carer for the last couple days while I pack and paint and clean (and his father drinks and goes riding ). Now he's coughing and stuffy and that might settle down once we're all settled, but.. I just don't know what to do. It might seem silly, but I am crying right now, because I might have to give this dog away and he is going to be so heartbroken, and I never should have allowed it to begin with. This is the second huge mistake I've made in the last few months.
I'm so tired of doing everything alone. I'm so tired that my son is hurting, and I'm just going to have to hurt him more because I'm a stupid idiot for letting him have the hope of this puppy. I should have gotten a different type of dog, but his father would have nothing to do with those little toy dogs and I went ahead and did what he wanted instead of what would have been best for my son... so we got a Boston which is low shedding. But it sneezes and snorts, and that gets the saliva everywhere, and that must be what he's allergic to.
I can't make a right decision. Yes I pray. Yes, I have my faith, and believe me, what strength I have comes from that. I just don't want my son to hurt anymore. I just don't want to be married to a man who knows nothing at all about me. And what he does know, he still belittles. Honesty? Well that's annoying if it gets in the way of something he wants to do (such as have the seller of our house lend us the down payment, but asking my father to sign off on that as a gift from him - my dad wouldn't do it because he's honest and I love him for it, and then he went ahead and gifted us with the money on his own, for mine and the boys' sake).
Faith? Well that needs to be belittled on a constant basis. Inability to write - pure laziness. It sure as hell has nothing to do with all the shit I've been dealing with this past year, completely ON MY OWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God, what a rant.
Thank you for listening. I don't know what I expect anyone to tell me that I don't already know. But I needed to get it out, and I feel safe doing it here.
Tammy