OK, this should be the last one.
This year started out with quite a bang. L's dad having open heart surgery and me having a stroke. Me stuck in the hospital in North Carolina and often having no idea where L was. Getting back home, to be off work for about a month and a half. This was rather detrimental for work, we were in the midst of a development transition since my company had aquired another business and I had gotten promoted to the supervisor over the accounts payable for this entity. Not the time for me to be having a serious illness. But I couldn't very well talk on the phone when I couldn't figure out how to say the simpliest of words. But I was back in the swing of things in about a month and a half. Which for a person like me, who is a BIG believer in avoidance, it was perfect. I was able to throw myself into work and not have to deal with the issues at home.
It was early in the year when L started getting even weirder. He was very paranoid of everything. He had abandoned his starting his own business idea. He started reading odd stuff and coming up with random ideas--such as the government was out to get him because he'd "woken up" to the "truth." What truth he's referring to, I'm not sure. He had always been a little freaked out about the whole world ending in 2012 thing, but this was getting ridiculous. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had been having problems from the time I had gotten home from North Carolina. And I had almost had enough. As a matter of fact, I had actually gone out with friends one night not wearing my wedding ring (something that I never do). I wasn't out trolling for men, but I was just tired of being the married single woman, you know. Anyway. I believe it was Good Friday that this explosion happened. Dana was at the house just hanging out, burning some cds when he got home. Apparently L had tried to call me, but since we have no service in our house, I didn't get the call. I had gotten a call earlier from a number that I didn't know, so I didn't answer it. When he walked through the door, he was pissed. You could just see it on his face. He had already accused me of cheating on him one day a couple of weeks prior because he didn't see the vehicle I was driving at the time parked in front of the house (but it was there... I was dead asleep when he got upstairs). So when he saw Dana's car in front of the house and my car no where to be found(my car was around the back of the house), he was livid all over again... because he was already mad that I hadn't answered his call (which remember I didn't recieve). He came in and basically showed himself in front of Dana, I tried to apologize for missing the call (I thought maybe he'd called me from someone else's phone and that was the number I'd ignored). He was having none of it. He took a shower and then left. I had made plans with to go out with some friends that night, so I went and picked up my friend, B (mentioned in part 1, the guy that introduced us) and we went to my friend's apartment in Tennessee. We went to Nashville to hear some music. After we'd been out for a while, I started getting text messages. At first, they were flirty. Then they stopped. About a half hour later, he was blowing up my phone asking where I was. I told him. He was pissed. Especially when I told him I was with B. Apparently, he thought I was sitting home alone (like I usually do when he's out with his friends) so he thought he'd come home and 'have his way with me' as he put it. And when I wasn't there, he was livid. He told me that I'd better get home now. Against my better judgement, I had my friends leave and came home. He told me that I'd better be driving myself home...alone. Meaning that I had to leave B at our friend's apartment. By the time I got home, I was the livid one. I walked in the door and said something to the effect of 'just because you don't believe in fidelity doesn't mean that I don't. I have never cheated on a boyfriend in my life, much less my husband.' This was followed by some retarted story about B hitting on another guy's girl or something... to which I responded, I can take care of myself. If B tries to put the moves on me, I can put an end to that quickly. But he would never do that to me, B was the best man at our wedding for pete's sake. I was like, I couldn't care less if you trust B or not, but you'd damn well better trust me. Finally, after talking till 6 am, he was satisfied but I was more discontent than ever.
Then in April he started talking about the world coming to an end... we'd all be fighting for every bite we had, women would be turned into baby making machines for the government for soldiers, etc. He told me that we had to start stockpiling food for such an event. Now, I'm all for having an emergency kit, but he was talking crazy (I mean, food storage gone berzerk). He's talking about this one morning before work and I said, there's not going to be a natural disaster of that magnatude any time soon. To this he says, I'm going to divorce you if you don't stop talking like that. Excuse me. Just because I have the capacity to think rationally, you're going to divorce me?
Shortly after this conversation, he told me that he didn't think it was fair that the military were the only ones allowed semi- and automatic weapons. He thought every man should be allowed to arm himself as he saw fit. Ok, I'm all for having a gun, I have no problem with that. Having an arsenal of Uzis I have a problem with. Honestly, all I could picture was L holed up in a shack in Wyoming or somewhere with his stockpile of food and weapons looking like the unibomber. Whereas I think if there's going to be some sort of disaster, it's going to be a nuclear thing, he was like what if there's a chemical spill on the interstate and you can't get anywhere? Like I can't read a map and take other roads to where I might want to go.
One day, we could hear military transport vehicles overhead during the day (could be because there's an armory nearby... or the army base a couple of hours away, nothing unusual to hear them) and he told me that his first thought was, 'are they coming to get me.' Yes, folks, you read that right. Apparently, since they've been listening to our conversations through our DVR (yes, he wanted to dismantle our DVR because he heard that 'they' could plant microphones in them) he's a national threat.... Again, his sense of self-importance is astonishing.
He thinks that most people are slaves doing what the government tells us to do. Like a quote from his favored political candidate, 'people are quite happy to be slaves as long as they are well fed and well entertained.' He's talked about bolting 2 tractor trailers or 2 school busses together to live in... as well as converting a silo into a house. Now, kudos to those people that choose to live in dwellings like that, but I am not one of them. Kudos to those people that want to ride a bicycle to make their toaster work, but I am not one of them. He knew that when he married me. When we met, he was going to buy a motor home and travel. But he started school, trusted his company, and we bought the house. We thought things would be ok. But then he started thinking that the world owed him something. He still thinks the world owes him something. He doesn't want to have kids because he doesn't want to 'slave' to feed someone else's mouth when he can't even feed his own. He has said that he wouldn't take care of a special needs child if we had one because he wouldn't pay the doctor bills. He has told me that he doesn't want to have kids with me because he's afraid that I'll croak when I'm 40 and he'll be "stuck" raising them when he didn't want them in the first place.
His friend J called me a few weeks ago and asked me if I thought there was something wrong with him. He said that he'd noticed a lot of little things that were indicative of severe bipolar disorder. I thought something along the lines of schzophrenia, but a lot of the symptoms are simiar. J's sister works for a psychiatrist and she agreed. J talked to L, and he seemed to take it rather well, and said he'd consider meds again. But when tell him that he needs to go back on meds (he was on something when we started dating, but he just decided that he didn't need it anymore) he says he'll just smoke pot every day. And he does. When he did it every now and then when we were dating, it wasn't a huge deal, but now, it's ridiculous. I feel like I've been lied to all over the place. J doesn't think L had an intention of having kids with me, he just told me that so I'd marry him, thinking he could talk me out of it. And if he intended to smoke pot every day, he should have made that clear up front.
We had talked about getting divorced a couple of months ago, because he wasn't happy living the life that I have to live now (meaning I have to have a job with insurance, etc). But neither of us did anything about it. A couple of weeks ago, just before our anniversary, he came home mad. First he asked me if I'd put on weight (I had just come home from the gym). And he said that I needed to be doing something about it because he didn't want an obese wife. And now I was borderline grotesque to him. That was one of the reasons he didn't want to have kids because he was afraid I would balloon up to 500 pounds and he'd have to tie me to the back of his station wagon so I could run. Yes, he said that. And he said that he only needed women around for 3 or 4 things and I wasn't fulfilling any of them. Meaning, I didn't go down him whenever he wanted (sorry to be graphic), I didn't cook for him (even though we'd decided before we got married that he'd cook and I'd clean up). And even though I did the laundry, I could stop doing his until I got out strung up a line in the back yard beccause the dryer used too much electricity. Then he said something about not having kids, and I said fine, I'll call a lawyer. I haven't yet. But I had set a date in my head, of our anniversary--I was going to play nice until then then the gloves were coming off and the first time that he pissed me off, I was going to pack a bag and leave. Maybe just for a night, maybe for a week, I didn't know. So, I just took it. I knew that I was being emotionally abused, I was consciously aware of it, but I took it.
The next night, he was fine when I got home. I was pretty bitchy, and kept bringing up things he'd said. He told me to ignore all the bad stuff that he'd said because he'd just been "out of his head." Like I can ignore most of that stuff.
Later that week, we even went to a movie. Then on our anniversary the next week, we went out to eat and he bought me diamond earrings. I could barely be appreciatitve of them because it was just too little too late. He's hurt me too much.
I told J that it doesn't really matter whether he has a mental illness or not. I just want out. Does that make me a bad person? Even if he came to me and said that he wanted to go to counseling and go on meds, I still just want out. I have been so hurt by all of this. I still love him more than I know what to do with, but don't I have to take care of me? It's funny, he used to tell me that he wanted to take care of me. Of course, to this I responded, I can take care of myself. And for the most part, I can. But I need a little emotional support now. Especially with all the illness and other stuff that has happened to me. He had the perfect opportunity to take care of me, and he left it up to everyone else. I don't know what to do. I think I started preparing for divorce when he used the word in April. Before he'd talk about leaving, or kicking my ass out, but he'd never used the word divorce before. I think in the back of my head I started preparing for it. But I still don't know what to do. We're trying to sell the house, but I don't want to get an apartment with him. I want to make a clean break. Does that make me a bad person? I know there is someone that will treat me exactly like I deserve to be treated. What it is that keeps me wasting time with this person? I know when I got married, I intended to get married for eternity. But when all of the vows were broken on one side first, what am I supposed to do?
Ok, now, there are things that I have left out. I'm sure I have thoroughly confused some of you. But this is the gist of it. Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring about what goes on in my life. Thanks for caring about me. Love to you all.
Emmaly's shirt 
my shirt
