ve you ever been wronged by someone to the point of utter despair and you wanted revenge so bad you could taste it? Or feel in love with someone so deeply that every minute is another thought about that person? Well I have seen both sides of that coin and believe it or not neither one is a picnic. When I first met my soon to be ex I think I was just so infatuated with the idea of being in love and never having someone love me like that before, it tricked my brain. I'm sure everyone has heard the old saying "Love is blind". But I have found love is not only blind, but it's deaf and dumb too. So let me go back 12 years ago...I was 26 he 19. I had been working at the blind school and a couple of the students there that graduated had rented an apartment on the east side of town. Well me being the person I was and still am, I worried about the fact that here are 3 young guys, 1 totally blind and the other 2 with severe visual impairments. I had always maintained an awareness of all the students I had the pleasure and pain of knowing for the simple fact that I wanted to see if something I did or said had a positive impact on their lives. I have always been one to help out anyone and gained comfort and happiness knowing that little things I did or said helped them later in life. So knowing how these 3 were, and how off the wall they could be at times, worried me. It was the summer time and they had already been moved in for a month or so when I started going over checking on them and making them dinner, taking them to where they needed to go, so I kept a clear mind knowing that they were safe and not becoming a new statistic for columbus police. Not long after I started going over, the guys said they were waiting for a friend to go swimming with, that one of them had known from their hometown. So I waited along with them to drive them over to the pool which was a long ass haul from their apartment. Enter my soon to be ex. He was young, handsome, and funny. He talked to me not as a young guy of his age would but almost as if he were mature beyond his years, something I liked to call old school, the way that I had been raised. I found out that he was living with his parents only about 2 miles from were the guys apartment was. It was a big relief knowing there was someone else close by just in case. So over at the pool he and I talked. I loved the ideas he had and the way he carried himself along with the fact that he thought people should be treated the way that he would want treated. Up until the end of "us" I would always hear him say, "you give me respect and I'll show the same respect back". I guess that towards the end of the relationship the "wife" no longer needed to be kept in the respect category. but soon after meeting I found myself drawn to him and also found myself in new territory of really liking someone and them showing the same emotion that I felt for him. My whole life had been 1 put down after another, and the few men, more like boys, that had entered my life were basically looking for a playtoy with no strings attached. He and I would sit for hours just talking about life, family, and our idea of the perfect relationship. I also found myself doing something that I had never done with any other guys that had been in my life and that was introducing him to my family. The summer was almost over with, and he and I spent a lot of time at my sisters' house spending the night wrapped in each others' arms hoping the sun would never come up. After a few months we lay in bed one night talking and I heard words that I had never heard before, and the words that I was too afraid to say thinking that it would just push him away, "I love you", and he said it first. I had not even heard that from my mom and dad, they were always more of the kind people that you showed emotions with your gestures and not so much with words. For once in my life I was speechless, which anyone that knows me is a far stretch of the imagination to picture me speechless. 2 months go by and we got the chance to live next door to my sister who was living in one side of a duplex. So we set up house, with 90% of everything for the house provided by my parents. It didn't bother me that it seemed like we never had any money cause I took for granted that my mom would be there to bail my ass out when we got in trouble, and that, my parents did a number of times. I started to bring up the marriage issue on many occasions only to hear that "marriage is just a piece of paper, I love you no matter whether you have my last name or not". But I wanted that, I wanted so bad to be a wife, and so 2 years and 4 months later we married. We moved in with my parents no too long after that because neither of us could maintain a budget and were being evicted from our place. We got our shit straight and started the look for a home of our own. We looked at condos thinking that would be the best thing, cheap payments and ownership at the same time. We moved into our "own" property a few months later. Enter a baby. We were both beside ourselves finding out we were gonna be parents, that nothing else seemed to matter. After he worked all night long he would come home and rub my feet and read the baby stories. The day came that our son was to be born, because of me being diabetic, that equaled to my pregnancy being coined "high risk", we both were excited beyond words. During the epidural I felt and could hear a big pop in my back, the doctor said "oops wrong way". Pain flooded over me and the doctors in the room pushed the medicine so fast that they had to put my legs up on the table themselves. I had only one thought on my mind...a baby. Not too long after my 1st was born I noticed that the pain that I had in my back was getting worse since he was born. I found out that I had a herniated disc and required surgery. Times were rough and there was no way I could care for a baby and recover from back surgery, so we moved in with my parents again. We ended up losing our condo because I had to quit my job and disability pay was not going to be coming for 6 months. To us it didn't matter we did not look at the "big picture" and thought we would have plenty of time to repair our credit while living with my parents. We didn't. My medical bills were astronomical, and his inability to pay anything, from having blown his checks gambling came to a head when he hadn't paid our car payment and it was up for repossession. Then comes the news of baby #2. We had no idea, it took over 4 years for me to get pregnant the first time, so neither of us thought there was chance in hell we would be blessed again, but we were. Only thing being my back pain was getting worse due to my condition being degenerative and the pressure of carrying a baby did not help. My ob/gyn told us that I could not have anymore kids because of my back and enforced the issue of having my tubes tied. Our lives went downhill from there big time. A second, more invasive and severe back surgery took place and my pain meds had me constantly in a fog. Looking back I'm sure my ex would have balked at the idea of uttering the vow of "in sickness and in health" and went running for the hills instead. Our great love faded to him drinking excessively, and me being stuck at home all the time. At times I thought about telling him to just get out that the boys and I could be bad off all by ourselves. I let the drinking slide, along with a lot of other things. Here's where it goes back to no communication. I thought that my well placed words or actions were hint enough that he needed help. I finally told him he needed help, so on his birthday he went to his first AA meeting. If I knew then what I know now, I would have rather put him out, than him be brainwashed by a bunch of ex-drunks who had lost everyone in their lives because of their drinking. What on earth made him think that these people could hand out marriage advice,and which he totally believed, blew my mind. He was never home and when he was it was for only 20 minutes at a time and then he'd be off again. When he did get home, he would be on the computer until 3am or later. There it was, I knew something was up, I knew the strange little feelings I was getting had truth behind them, but I fought back those feelings thinking who would ever want a woman who was considered damaged goods, dumped by a man with 2 young kids. So Thanksgiving day 2008 he left. At that point the blindness love had over me was starting to lift and I saw just what he had been doing to me and the boys this whole time. He used to make jokes about me and down grade my intelligence in front of people saying "oh hun, you know I'm just joking". I started thinking about all the times that people laughed at me for things he said to make me look stupid and insignificant, but I just couldn't imagine why he would do this, not only it hurt me, but for the fact my IQ was 176,way above his. I had even been accepted into a society for intelligent people and declined the opportunity because i was a mother and a wife first and foremost. It was all the smart remarks that he ever made, the way he made me feel guilty whenever he didn't get his way and the way he would shut me out and push me away when there was something that needed to be discussed, that I started to see once the blinders came off. So now he has a new girlfriend, which come to find out he met on this site before he left me, not only has he cheated on me in the past, which the person I am, forgave him for his indiscretions, which looking back now should have been a forewarning that could have been remedied by getting rid of him then, but then I wouldn't have the 2 most beautiful, special, free entertainment, wonderous kids that I could have ever asked for. He still calls and tells me his problems and when he doesn't get the answer he wants I get hung up on. I've been told to go to hell in front of my son, and my mom has been called a mother f'ing bitch while he has told the boys in the same breath to listen and be good for mommy, but not for grandma. I see all the pettiness, and childish acts that have and will be committed and i know that I will have a world of heartache in store because the law of karma is hitting that man hard, and he still knows the buttons to push that upset me, and has already told me the only way to get through to me is by being mean to the boys. I fear that my inability to leave people helpless will end up breaking my heart even more than it already is. I also fear that with what is going on in his life, and what his mental stability is now that I am going to be forced to make funeral arrangements and then explain to my kids why their dad isn't around anymore. How can you dislike someone but still care about whether they live or do themselves in? How do you separate a life that you have lived for 12 years in the matter of a few months? And most of all how do you find someone who is worthy or all the love, passion, emotion, and loyalty that one possess when their kids and their emotional needs at this point take up the majority of your time? Does it get any easier to say you don't care when in fact that if it weren't for this person who belittles you so bad, you wouldn't be at the point in your life where you are more thankful for what you have than don't? Any and all ideas that you have for me are most welcome, since at this point there is not enough xanex in the world to numb myself from heart wrenching pain and endless times where I question myself what could, and probably will go wrong next? I know I am also putting the cart before the horse here, and assuming what may or may not come to fruition, but I have a sick sense it's heading in that direction. Where can you harness extra strength and empowerment from in times of crisis? If anyone knows, can they pass along the info? Please!
