Tomorrow morning I see my therapist. I missed my appointment the week before when things were messy and if the rumors are true about my husband going on leave next week then things will be messy again as of next week for two weeks.

No, he hasn’t bothered to tell me personally when he is coming. He never does. But he expects me to accommodate him, entertain him, and meet all his needs when he shows up all on the drop of a dime. I’m done with that. I’m done with enabling this shit, this stress, and this drama. Not when he just goes back to playing around only to blame it all on me. I don’t make these choices for him. He does. I’m all done bending over backwards for him, holding the bag, and rescuing him from himself.

Now he says he isn’t getting treatment for his disorder anymore because mental health care is all bullshit and they all make it up as they go. Apparently he doesn’t think he’s sick any more. He keeps saying his only problem is that he has “lust issues” like I’m supposed to be forgiving and accepting of that. Yea, I have Bipolar and yea, I have struggled with hyper-sexuality most of my life but I have never done to anyone what he has pulled with me. Maybe because I am female and was raised Mormon to boot and was taught that what I was experiencing was the evil of all evils? I don’t know. I just know that back in my single days I would have sooner ditched someone clean before I cheating and far as I know not once did I ever touch a soul that was taken. He keeps telling me that he finds me incredibly attractive like I’m supposed to be satisfied with that. Wrong. I need someone to love me. I need to be someone’s one and only. I am none of that for him. I am just incredibly attractive. Just an object that he gets to take out of the box once in awhile. I could have had that status as a single person. That’s not why I got married. So now I’m married and I was taught that come hell or high water you make this shit work. But it’s not working. It takes two to make a marriage work in a healthy way.

But that’s not what’s happening. This man repeatedly triggers me, in the same way for the last 7 years, and every time claims he forgot that I was raped before we met. The last time he stayed in our home when he was on leave he didn’t get that far. He just started yelling at me. How dare I flinch away from him. He has rights as my husband to receive affection from me. He repeated this statement again on Facebook chat after returned to the Army. So ever since then I told him I have the right to be safe and he needs to find somewhere else to stay when he is on leave if that’s the way he’s going to be. I also told him that I want a divorce and his response is that he doesn’t want one and he would do whatever it takes to change my mind. Ever since he’s been playing games with the money and all the while he’s still playing around and still posting his photo around on Craigslist looking for dates. Like I wouldn’t find out? And when I confront him with it he denies it and then says it’s my fault for wanting a divorce. Nope, this is the way you have been since the beginning of our relationship so try a different lie. Now the line he’s feeding me on this one is that he’s been a shit husband, but he won’t beg. The thing is he has never begged. It’s always been me that has begged to be worthy.

I suppose that alone would be fine but he goes out of his way to make me the villain with the boys too. He waits until just before bedtime to call and extends the call until way late. Now I’m the bad guy for calling times up. Everyone’s at Grandpa’s house and husband gives them LEGOs for gifts. Grandpa says they can’t open the LEGOs there because he doesn’t want them all over his house. Husband waits until Grandpa leaves the room and that’s when husband says, “if you ask your mom really nice, maybe she will chance her mind about the LEGOs.” Dude… it’s not my house and not my rule and Little Bear doesn’t get it. So again I become the bad guy.

I don’t even want to get into the phone calls I used to get from my father-in-law telling me how to be a wife. Seriously I got badgered non-stop from the both of them right up until I dropped out of college 2 courses away from my degree. Shortly after that he got nailed for shoplifting from Wal-Mart during his shift. At that point I decided to simply pack my things and move the boys and I back in with my parents. My husband decided to drop out of college and move with us. All the while he was claiming he would make things better. A year go by living with my parents with much drama and bullshit and then he suddenly ups and enlists in the Army. Right from day one of our relationship I made it clear I couldn’t move out of the state due to custody and visitation arrangements regarding my first two sons. Every time he mentioned joining the Army I would remind him of this yet when he joined the Army he expected me to move with him anyway. Even my father told him it wasn’t happening because I wasn’t even willing to move for a dietetic internship after getting my degree and the only dietetic internship available in our state is a Master’s Degree. If I wasn’t willing to move out of the state for my passion and dream just to stay with my children what makes him think he is different?

Yes I know I could go to court for a different arrangement, but my oldest son’s father was nailed for assault with a deadly weapon… against his last wife. Yea I know supposedly it’s no longer legal for him to carry a gun. But this is a man that threatened to kill her but then was willing to look at the judge in the eye and say it was just a joke and that the gun wasn’t even loaded. Fuck you people. He doesn’t come around as long as we don’t switch towns so I’m keeping my head low and staying the hell out of trouble. I simply don’t have the money for that kind of lawyer anyhow. I don’t know how that man managed to keep himself out of prison, but he did. I’d say he got himself a damn good lawyer given the circumstances. This is the same man that threatened to take my oldest away from me if I ever went to college. No idea how he found out that I applied, but he did so I reported him to DHHS. They took care of it and he never showed up the entire time we lived on campus housing. But the moment my oldest started riding the bus in the school district over where my parents live… he mysteriously just showed up. Barely said a word to our son the whole time and followed me around the house like a lost puppy complaining how terrible his ex’s have been to him for taking him to court. Wow… not once did he even think it was because he is a controlling, stalking, abusive asshole that they felt the need to protect themselves through court. The part that burned my ass the most about that last encounter is he had the gall to complain that our son is a nerd – polite and smart like his mother, but a nerd. Excuse the fuck out of me for not raising him to be like you. But there was something else behind it too that I can’t quite put my finger on it. He has daughters with three other women. The oldest daughter just passed away. I only ever saw pictures of her and I know she had Down Syndrome. Man did he blow up when I said it. Anyhow, once I burned bridges with him he doesn’t treat me the way he treats them. My dad says it’s because I have brothers that he is afraid of, but I don’t think that’s it. If that were true he would never show up when they are around, but he does. Almost like he prefers it. And he knows that my dad has a better gun collection than he does too. No… it’s something about me that is making the difference. Something I did right to protect myself and my son. Whatever it is I think he sees it in my oldest too. At least that’s what I hope. I just wish I knew exactly what it is because I need it now with my husband. Somehow I have the sinking feeling it’s got to do with boundaries.

Somewhere along the way I drew a clear hard line with this man and for better or worse, he respects it. It is beyond past due for me to do the same with my husband. I’m tired of him treating me like a door mat with his boots, crushing my heart only to suck me back in with empty promises, and just do it all over again. The worst part is how he tries to convince me how my judgement can’t be trusted. How the people who are honestly helping me can’t be trusted. How supposedly I can’t function without him. Hello! I was a single mother, never married, for YEARS before I met him and did just fine and dandy. In fact, I was doing even better in many ways than I was now. So why or how did I ever buy into this line of bullshit?

My husband’s current casting of doubt right now is him trying to say that the mental health hospital I’ve been taking Little Bear to is probably not good for him and maybe I shouldn’t be taking him any where any more. Like what fuck? This kid has yet to make it through an entire year of public school yet. The first year they yanked him out of Kindergarten and that was the reason I took him to that hospital in the first place. The second year he had a growth spurt and his meds stop working so we tried putting him into the day program while we stabilized him. Yes, the day program wasn’t a good fit. It happens. We’ll know better for next time and yes, there will be a next time. This will likely happen with every damn growth spurt he has. He really didn’t sound pleased at all when I told him I have made arrangements to get a referral with another facility so Little Bear can get a full neuropsych eval that includes a dyslexia screening since this hospital doesn’t do them for children. Him and his father both have dyslexia and neither of them are very willing to admit it. Neither of them are very happy that I am so open and willing to get Little Bear all the help he can get. They both seem to think that he will just “grow out of it” but no you don’t just grow out of brain disorders people. That’s not how neurology works. DNA determines how your brain is wired, that is nature. Everything else determines how well you adapt and cope, that is nurture. It’s time we start accepting that, stop placing blame, and start identifying these disorders early to teach the proper coping skills from the beginning. These kids should not be waiting until their midlife crisis point to find out and then scramble to learn the skill sets they should have already had. That’s bullshit.

And the worst part of it all is he is Little Bear’s biological father so even if I do get a divorce I’m still stuck with his ass. Unless he has done something truly, profoundly harmful to Little Bear that can be proven in court I cannot go “No Contact” with this man for the rest of my life unless I am willing to sign away custody of Little Bear and go “No Contact” with him too. I’m not willing to do that. Not when I know my husband and his father both seem to think that mental health care is nothing but a bunch of quack unless it gets you want. That’s the last thing that Little Bear needs to be learning. It’s the last thing anyone needs to learn.

The part that kills me the most is that Little Bear is already blaming me for my husband and I fighting. I don’t know what he told our son, but Little Bear often times gets upset and tells me that I need to be nice to Daddy. I need to stop being mean. How do you tell a little boy that young his father hurt his mother and that it’s not safe for her to be around him anymore? This was so much easier when my oldest son asked me when he was 5-years-old why his father didn’t live with us and I was able to simply say that we fought so much that it became unhealthy to live together so we had to move away. He didn’t understand what that meant until he was 12-years-old when his father showed up that day at my parents’ house and complained about that gun case in court in front of him like he wasn’t even there. Then my oldest son understood what I meant and was mortified.

No I don’t fully talk about all that’s happened and I probably never will. A part of me still wants to push it away and pretend it never happened. Even with the stuff that’s happening now.

I’ve finally got Little Bear somewhat stable and I’m pretty sure my husband will be showing up next week for two whole weeks. He will be in my face the entire time demanding every second of that time with the boys. But how am I supposed to accommodate for that if he isn’t planning ahead with me? My biggest fear is that this will destabilize both my middle son and Little Bear just like his last visit did. I know the hospital documented the timing of that. It doesn’t exactly prove anything though, but it does raise questions. At least they agreed that it was a good idea that I took my dad’s advice that we stayed at my parents’ house during his entire visit rather than stay home. I hope we can do the same this time around. I just wish I knew when exactly he was coming.