So I can't sleep.  I'm trying to adjust my sleep schedule so that I'm not sleeping during the day when we are up north.  Wish it was easier!

I'm going to broach a topic now that I need to deal with.  My marriage sucked balls.  Of course it didn't in the beginning and I loved that man deeply.  As a matter of fact, I still love him.  I don't think I'll ever be free of him in that sense.  We could have been so good together.  We truly could have had it all. 

In the beginning, I never realized how much he drank.  Call me naive, call me whatever you want, but I never understood.  It took me over a year to realize that he was going to the bar almost every day after work and having a few beers with the guys before coming home and drinking a few more.  Almost exactly a year into our relationship, he went to a strip club with the guys and gave me a detailed account of it.  I was extremely jealous.  I felt like something was wrong with me, that I wasn't good enough.  He was so drunk that night.  He couldn't understand why I was upset and he finally promised to never go again.  Que in the lies after that for when he did go.  I knew when he went as he smelled like the strippers, the cheap perfume and lotion.  He thought I didn't know.  It would send me into depression and just breeded more hate. 

We went on to have 2 kids and had 2 teens at home as well.  I know I wasn't perfect and I did a lot wrong too, but I was overwhelmed with 4 kids at home.  I went back to working full-time when my youngest was 6 months.  Granted I worked from home, but I worked every chance I could as his industry took a tumble.  I felt no self worth.  I did everything for everyone else.  My needs were always last. 

My EX is a flirt, flirts with all women.  Except for me.  For years I dealt with the neighbor woman coming over flirting with him.  She was single with 2 kids.  He treated her son better than his stepson.  Her son turned around and shit on him years later, but the damage was done.  But she would openly flirt with him, ask him to do things when I couldn't get him to do a damn thing to help me.  She would see him out in the pole barn and go out there and bring him beer to help her.  This went on for years.  I hated her.  I hated him.  She had lost a bunch of weight due to surgery and I felt so fat and ugly.  She finally met someone and got married, had 2 more kids.  She didn't talk to the EX for quite a bit.  I think her husband put an end to that.  But then, she started bringing the babies around.  She would take videos of her youngest son talking about "Named EX" and think it was funny.  I don't think her husband found it funny.  I kept telling the EX this was not normal behavior.  Her kids would stand across the road and yell his name.  She finally came knocking at my door one day.  She apologized for her past behavior.  Said she should have come to me and talked to me before ever approaching my husband.  You think?  But I fell for this, she was nothing but a demon in disguise.  I think she finally realized he wouldn't ever commit to his flirting with her and make something of it, so why not friend the wife.  She married a man that was quite ill, actually had 2 kidney transplants by that time.  She and I actually became friends, but I didn't realize it was a game.  I ended up confiding in her how unhappy I was, this was after a year of her friendship.  Big mistake.  She would confide in me about the issues she had with her husband.  For his 40th birthday party, I held a surprise at a bar.  We had quite a few friends there to celebrate, one being this neighbor. 

I ran into her a few weeks later at the pharmacy with DS3.  DS3 went off to look at toys and she proceeded to tell me how I needed to leave my husband because he had dry humped her backside in the bar and that he wasn't drunk at that time.  I knew she was lying.  The way that she talked, her mannerisms, everything.  My radar was going off big time.  Do I think now that it could have happened?  Yes it could have.  But to this day I believe she was lying.  I'm more pissed that he involved us with a sociopath that could do something like this.  At that point, I forbade my boys from ever going over there or talking with her kids, etc.  I felt like she was trying to set him up.  I think all out of the name of jealousy, that she wouldn't have her way.  I do believe she wanted my husband.  He was a good man, good father to his own, and to others that were not his stepchildren. 

Let's go back to my cousin's wedding, New Years Eve approx 12 years ago.  My mom watched the kids for us and DS2 was pretty sick.  We were at a hotel about an hour and a half away.  EX and I got into it, for starters, he wouldn't dance with me but then turned around and danced with my sister.  He had never once in our marriage danced with me, no matter the pleading I did.  But yet he danced with her.  Then my mom called, said DS2 was getting sicker and probably needed to go to the ER.  EX, of all people, said she was playing a game and trying to get us away from my dad.  This man who protected his boys tooth and nail, did not give a shit.  I wanted to leave and take care of my son but he wanted to stay.  I had enough at that point, everyone was drunk and giving me a hard time.  I went up to my room.  He finally came in hours later and slept in the other bed.  I decided at that point to pack my bags and slid a note under my dad's door to make sure someone gave EX a ride home.  I went to my mom's and took my son into the ER.  He had severe bronchitis. 

Six months later, I find out from my stepmom that New Years night after I had gone upstairs, my sister and her had found my EX in the bar flirting with another woman.  My sister walked up to him and brought up to the other woman that he was married and apparently she didn't know that and left in a huff because she was pissed at him.  He did admit that he knew he was flirting but that it didn't mean anything.  BULLSHIT.  The other woman leaving abruptly tells me all I need to know, he was full on flirting away trying to get a piece of ass. 

These are just 2 examples of what drove me crazy for years.  He will never comprehend any of this.  I did try to explain to him numerous times when we were trying to reconcile, not to blame him for the downfall of our marriage, but to try and explain why it drove an even further wedge between us.  There are several, probably another 3 or 4 just like the above that I know about.  What about the ones that I don't know about? 

All I ever wanted was his attention, to love me for who I was.  Who was I?  I was a broken down little girl that only ever was looking for love.  I didn't grow up with a lot of love and neither did he.  I really thought the two of us would have some understanding of that.  I needed help, I never felt adequate for him, never felt like he truly loved me until we tried reconciling.  That is another story in itself.  I think I've written enough for tonight.  Maybe I can cry myself to sleep now.