A few more bad decisions, a few less organs, one more kid and I'm starting to learn.... or am I?

I am now in a good job with a degree, still in a horrible relationship but I have a house I adore. So... horrible relationship now helps me make a few more bad decisions. At this point in my life I have carried a $500 credit card balance once to finance my car and a $1100 balance because I was advised to wait a little to pay it off until the house settled but I pretty much have no credit card debt. Pretty impressive at twenty something not to be lured into it. I budget my monthly expenses and live within my means. I have had the same car (which my parents did give to me- thanks mom and dad!) since I was 17. I am ok with that... there is no car payment and its a little Nissan Stanza.

So... crappy relationship hits on something I adore... my house. I did, in fact, finance the house. It was the only debt I allowed myself because it was an investment. And even then my monthly payments are only $502 a month- less then rent. I also at some point went into debt for my college education. I knew I would make more when I finished and it was also a good return on investment, plus I didn't have to make the payments until I graduated and was actually making more and could afford it. However.... the bad relationship offers to help work on the house. Somehow, probably because I am blinded by love for the house, I reason that its ok to put home improvement purchases on the credit card. Of course, once the debt is there it becomes hard to pay off and well... he convinces me $100 more is not a big deal. I end up much more in debt than I should be.

I finish school and eventually we break up. There are lots of things that lead to it... the internet relationship he has I spoke about earlier was the big one, several lies that come to the surface, and I start to realize he is coming between my family and I and even my daughter and I. It's weird when we break up. I think he sleeps on my couch for about a month before I finally tell him he can't stay there anymore.... maybe longer. I finally put his stuff in storage to get it out of my house... he just wouldn't leave.

I date some during this time... ok... maybe a lot. I am not sure what I am looking for, but I do know that I don't have time to find it. I reconnect with a guy who I once thought was the love of my life. Time changes people... I'm not sure if it was me or him but it definitely changed us. I am independent, he wants to really take care of someone. Like, uncomfortable with them making more than he does take care. At this point my career is taking off. I am in IT and it is the beginning of the IT boom so every time I change jobs I get a lot more money. So he is just a bad fit. There were other issues, but really it was about the fact that I was not ok with him pigeon holing me into some cute wifey role. I wanted to be able to live up to my potential whatever that was. I am not against staying home and raising children. I would love to have had that opportunity but I wanted it to be because its what I wanted to do not because he would feel bad if I made more. Love yourself first then love me for who I am.

So that doesn't work out... I move on, date a few other guys, hang out ALOT with my bestest friend. She has moved an hour away but its ok I still go down and she comes up. She is now pregnant and we joke that it's my baby not her boyfriend's. We are closer than close. I am sure that when she goes into labor I too will feel it. Our kids hang out... I get along with her boyfriend but I can feel something pulling at us. I don't know it at the time but eventually he make her choose between him and all of her friends that came before him. He does and says little things that make her question where her loyalty should be. Don't get me wrong- I believe your spouse (and they do get married) should be your best friend, but its ok to have 2 best friends if they don't compete. I didn't compete.... ok maybe the joking about who's baby was a little competitive but not really. I wasn't in the delivery room, and I think I knew my place.

Anyway... I have had an ongoing problem with upper abdominal pain since I was 16. One night it gets particularly bad and I take a half a bottle of Tums and it just won't go away. I call my mom.. because yes, we are now close. She makes me go to the ER and my dad watches my daughter. Seems I have some gall bladder issues. They take it out. During this time the bad relationship shows back up and offers to help with me and my daughter. Feeling bad that my mom has to take care of her grown daughter for 2 weeks I let him. Somehow he charms his way back into the picture. I am sure he has changed. I am sure that my "hard love" of kicking him out and not speaking to him has worked. He has a good job and seems to be ok with me spending plenty of time with my family. He is less of a jerk to my daughter and seems to understand I do not want to be super strict with her. Ok... he puts on a good act.

I have bought a jeep at this time and I also have realized that credit card debt sucks. My student loans have come due and I decide that it makes more sense to refinance it all into an overequity loan against my house. I mean why not... I can deduct the interest and the payments are about the same and the interest rate is a little more but when you figure in the tax saving... well I don't take the time to figure it but I think it must be right. It feels good to be out of credit card debt.

Bad relationship keeps up the act and we end up getting married... and pregnant. Not necessarily in that order. My sister tells me you don't have to marry every guy who gets you pregnant, I laugh but it really isn't like that. We were planning on both anyway. I think about delaying the wedding until after the baby once I find out we are having one, but he convinces me that we should keep our plan of getting married on the beach and not tell anyone. Not even my daughter comes and really.. it isn't a wedding at all. It's worse then the JOP thing. I still don't get to dance with my dad. Maybe this is why I still cry ridiculously when the daughter dances with the dad. HUGE RED FLAG.. but once again, I don't see it. Everything changes after that. We don't even have sex on our wedding night. I know some women will think that's a gift but... really... it makes you feel pretty unattractive. It only happened the next morning because I start crying and tell him we aren't really married unless its consumated. Bad way to start a marraige but I am convinced it WILL work. I don't believe in divorce. I can forgive the first time because we were two kids that got married because we thought we had to and we never really acted like married people anyway. But this time, I chose to get married and I thought it was the right thing. The man I married was not who I thought but that was my choice and I was going to make it work.

My wonderful son is born in December. By that time the lying has begun again. First about little things like the porn collection I find in the bathroom (we still have no sex life.. it stops completely in July before my son's birth), the "dip" he supposedly doesn't do. then its bigger things like a large purchase I never see who it went to for a leather something, pictures of him without his wedding ring, he takes a while to tell his parents we are married or expecting, all kinds of stuff). I am still determined to make it work. And to make matters worse- his mother seems to hate me. I get another better job, we buy a bigger house and he starts to rack up debt. I find out how bad his credit is when we are buying the house. I get it straight and pay everything off. He just really likes his toys, and, afterall, I have a better job now and he got a promotion. I make twice what he does at this point but I am completely ok with him spending whatever as long as the bills are paid. I probably should have paid more attention but I don't want to fight over money. I feel like I make plenty and well, we'll figure it out. We can't go into THAT much debt can we? We buy a new SUV for him to drive. I am still very happy with my jeep, but really it doesn't carry both of us and all the baby stuff so ok... why not. I hate driving it so I drive my jeep. It makes me happy. My jeep and I have been through a lot together. At some point during this my best friend's husband makes her choose and my now husband pretty much does the same to me. We lose touch- something both of us will regret later but once we realize how important that friendship is we will vow to never let happen again.

I wake up one July morning in abdominal pain again, this time in my lower abdomin and I feel nauseous. I tell my now husband. Husband gets mad for waking him up and tells me I probably just need to go to the bathroom. I try that. Nope, not it. I take a long bath at about 4am, it helps a little but nothing. Its getting worse. I call my mom. She tells me I need to go to the ER. I tell the Jerk, but it is now morning. Jerk grumbles and tells me he will get ready for work and take me. I can't remember whether my dad came to watch the kids or whether we dropped them off. I just remember being in pain. I sat on the couch and when Jerk comes down I tell him it feels better when I sit still. He yells at me and tells me to make up my mind if I want to go to the ER or not... I probably should mention 1) its normal for me not to want to go- I despise gong to the Dr 2)I never said anything about not going, just that it felt better when I sat still and 3) he was a paramedic at one point so should have known what my symptoms were pointing to. We get to the hospital. My mom comes. I love my mom. This is who I really want to see anyway because Jerk is constantly complaining about being there and talking about himself and I just want someone to tell me its going to be ok. Hmmm... this sounds like the labor room scenario all over again. Probably should have known there was no hope then. Anyway... he tells me he has a meeting at work and my mom is there so he's going to leave. He does. At the time they are pretty sure we are talking about surgery for me... but wow. I can't believe he leaves me, on the other hand, I am greatful for my mom being there. She helps me through it. Yep, my appendix has to come out. I have the surgery without my husband, Jerk, there. I am thinking I should have gotten some kind of discount or something... counting my son this is 3 times in a year and a half I have been in the hospital.

Somehow I end up going back to work to early. Probably because Jerk tells me I'm fine and also to get away from having to take care of everything because "I'm home". I don't recover well and it hurts a while. I also start to realize that the Jerk is not being nice to my daughter. He is also spending a crazy amount of money and I can't figure out where it is going. To this day, I still don't know. I really think he is just that bad with money. We almost have our phone cut off... together we make more than six figures and we are having to worry about this. I sell some stock and take care of it. Bad move... now he knows I can bail us out. We have a tight Christmas and I set a tiny budget for Christmas shopping. I am able to use coupons and such to get him quite a few things. He overpays for one for me. I am truly not upset, except that I realize he really is that bad with money and I need to get a handle on finances. I set up an account just for his "allowance" and one for mine- which is less than his because I am realistic about what we can each endure. I put up with a lot of grief from his parents... until one night I finally explode and drop a rude reality on them.. by this point I make 3 times what he does so why are they complaining about me being gone on business trips and him needing to pick up the kids after school when he is home by then anyway. This sort of shuts them up... or rather her up... his dad was always pretty nice to me anyway and I kind of felt bad for deflating his image of his son. But she deserved it.

I realize that he seems to be getting more than his allowance. It's the credit cards. We are in A LOT of debt. And I catch him in some more lies... bigger ones this time. I try to work on our marraige. I get a bonus and we use part of the money to go on vacation together, just the two of us. We have a good time, but I realize we aren't really happy. I wonder what kind of example I am setting for my kids, my daughter in particular. I want her to love herself enough to be happy. Then through a work experiment I find more lies. And again, they are silly lies. I decide he is a habitual liar and I don't want my kids to think that's ok. He has messed with my head a bit. There are times when he has told me that I am wrong about what happened and here it is in black and white... I am right. He does believe what he has said, and that scares me. I talk to my mom. I tell him that I am through and he just ignores it. Pretends it doesn't exist. He does some crazy stuff. It sort of scares me. This is the point my mom thinks he will cut me up and stuff me in a mattress. I find out he has stolen from my daughter and at one point picked her up by the shirt collar and thrown her across the room on the bed. He's not nice to her. My mom has, in fact, tried to tell me this before but now I really listen. He has hit her with a plastic bat... not hard enough to do real damage, but enough that I should have paid attention. I just believed his side... it was an accident. The room thing was her being dramatic, he was rushing to see what was going on with my son and may have knocked her on the bed. She must have lost the money. I know now, it wasn't the case even though I am sure he still believes that to this day.

I tell him in January we are through. In February I reinforce this by taking off my rings and telling him they are not going back on and he needs to find a place. In March I send him to the guest room. He's dramatic and won't sleep on the comfortable double bed in the guest room so he sleeps on the couch... until July. He keeps telling me he can't find a place. I find one for him. I take all the debt. I refinance most of it into the house. I later refiance the rest into an equity lind and am done. I am back on my own.. a single mom with 2 kids this time. But I am happy. I have a great job and I am going to jump back into the dating scene and enjoy life.... which lasts about 10 seconds when I meet Plastichead. He's pretty fake, but really I didn't need real then. I had been hurt enough and just wanted one of those 2.5 kids, a white picket fence, and a cat and a dog relationships. We have it. Yes dear, no sweetie. He's honest he moves pretty far away a new "best friend" tells me I shouldn't put up with this or that. Later I'll realize I never want to be in a relationship like hers. In the meantime, it does wear on the relationship with Plastichead and I. We eventually break up. I date a few more guys during this time. One who decides I am "the one" but I have sense enough to know I am not. In the meantime I get a random phone call... one that makes my life complete.

It sounds like this, "hey gal, its me. I know its been years but I was just randomly thinking about you and looked you up on the internet". The funny thing is I have run across her baby shower pictures and really missed her too. We meet for drinks and after an hour of catching up... I am getting divorced, she has survived breast cancer and yes... he did make her choose and she chose wrong. We are talking like no time has passed. We are just as close as we ever were. I realize that this is what a best friend is and that I have had a void in my life. I am thankful she is there. I have another friend from my childhood that also got tossed aside because of the Jerk, I also decide I will find her and fix that too. I have too few really close friends to lose any of the real ones.

My bestest friend and I are now two peas in a pod again. She is there through a few more dating relationships including the one that wasn't the one for me, and she supports me through it by reminding me I don't have to feel guilty for taking care of me too. She meets a wonderful guy... but that's her story. He becomes my friend too. We joke that I am his second girlfriend... get your mind out of the gutter... nothing like that. He just wants to make sure I am ok too and watches out for me because I am her best friend. I am happy that she is happy and that he beyond accepting of our friendship but actually supportive of it and seems to understand that I am not a threat. I also meet someone.. but that is a long story for another post.