Drive By

So I saw my husband in passing the other day.  I turned my car around and followed him.  He stopped at a gas station and then drove to Wal-Mart.  There is no way he was up to any good, no way he drove over an hour to go to Wal-Mart, when there is one significantly closer to him.  He also had a guy in the car, who I am sure thinks I am completely crazy, god knows what my husband has told him.  I told my husband to get out of town, part because I was mad and part because he has two warrants in this county, how dumb can he be.  Just seeing him made my blood boil.  How can he be so ignorant and selfish that he is giving up his family to do dumb things.  Can the drugs and life of crime really be that much more appealing than me and the kids?  What could I have done to keep him clean, could anything I could have done honestly saved him?  Sometimes I consider texting him, but I know that will only lead to lies and manipulation from him which will only hurt more instead of helping.  Is there anything left for me to even hold on to? He has 3 warrants out for his arrest. Yes, I said 3.  The first one because he hasn't paid child support on his son in years and its only $70 a month, one because he worked for a meat company back in 2006 and he stole all the meat out of the truck and just left the empty truck outside, and then the one for domestic violence, because he thought it was ok to choke me while I held our baby.  He is looking at jail time and lord knows how much.  And on top of the jail time there is trust, honestly, and loyalty he has broken with me and the kids.  I am close with my family and staying with him would create a wedge with them. I just don't know what reasonable kind of life we could have, but I do love my husband and don't really know how to let him go.  All the damage my husband has done will take years to repair and honestly I don't see him willing to put in the effort to fix anything.  The drugs have destroyed the man I love, or maybe he turns to the drugs to live with the person he is.  Maybe this is just who he is and the drugs are just merely an excuse.

Missing the Man

So I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, not really sure it that is a good or bad thing. I miss my husband, but not the man that he has become. I don’t honestly know who he is anymore or how we got to his point. When we first met, I didn’t expect to fall in love with him at all. He wasn’t that attractive, he used people, he was a party boy, and had no sense of responsibility among other things. Somehow though he managed to win my heart. He allowed me to just be me with him and he made me feel so special, in a crowded room I was so lost in him that I didn’t notice anyone else. I remember one time he was at a football party, he had been drinking all day and wanted me to come hang out with him that night. He texted me all day to make sure I was coming, he even ruined his phone by dropping it in soda and had my number memorized he borrowed someone else’s phone to make sure I came. I am not really the party type, honestly I am a homebody. I told him that if I got home and he didn’t bug me I was not going to be able to motivate myself to leave, and I love that he listened to me. He made my step outside my bubble. I let him in on my deep dark secrets (which looking back now I regret, the addict in him used that information against me and to hurt me), I told him little corky things about me that no one knew. Like the fact that I had bought a wedding dress and I use to try it on, because even though I didn’t have anyone in my life it made me feel better about myself. Every girl talks about how beautiful she feels on her wedding day in her wedding dress, how could you every feel bad or ugly when you are wearing a wedding dress. It made me feel better. My husband had a way to get me out of my shell and to just allow me to be comfortable with just me. Our relationship started out so brutally honest it was perfect, he was truly my best friend. We would go to bed at like 730-800 every night and just spend hours lying in bed, listening to music, and laughing. I thought I had found my soulmate. But then the drugs took over. I didn’t know that it was drugs at the time thought, I was so lost and confused. He would start arguments with me and make it seem like everything was my fault. He lied and about everything. There is honestly so much that went on back then that I don’t ever want to relive. Looking back I should have known, the signs were all there. Why did I honestly hold on as long as I did? Why did I allow myself to go though as much pain and agony as he put me though? Why do I still love and miss him as much as I do? Why can’t he just love me as much and as honestly as I love him? I had blocked my husband from being able to contact me, it’s what I had to do for my own sanity. I recently unblocked him. Why you ask? I know that he is still doing drugs and chances are that is not going to change, at least not any time soon, but part of me wants to know that he is still thinking about me. I want to know that all the hurt and pain I went through wasn’t for nothing. I want to know that he does love me and I do matter. My marriage is a joke, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t take it seriously. I have stood by my husband though thick and thin, most of the time he didn’t deserve it, but I was there. I have been doing some reading, not much because between work, school, and the kids I am just down right tired, but I am learning that maybe I am just a codependent person. Think I need to do some more research before I begin to discuss this concept, but the way I am and have been doesn’t seem to be fixing his or my problems. I am not happy and I have been trying to make him happy for far too long. I have been trying so hard to fix him and help him and make him happy, that I have lost myself in the mix. I know that I can’t save my husband but it doesn’t mean that I don’t wish that I couldn’t I have done everything in my power to do so. I don’t know where my husband is or what he is doing anymore, but I do know that he is not doing the right thing. If he was I know husband and things would not be the way they are with us. I love a man that I am not sure that even exists and I hold on to hope that he is still there, but the long and longer this goes on I wonder what I even have left to hold on to.

trying my best

So yes, my life is complicated and no, I don’t have a clue what I am doing, but I am doing the best I can. I have cut my work schedule down to two days a week (12 hour shifts), I am going to school (which is hard with all my current distractions), and I am doing everything in my best power to be the best mom I can. I was put in charge of my husband’s money, VA deemed him as incompetent, but in light of the way things have been he says that he got it changed. Did he really I don’t know, but if he did I can’t afford this place on my own right now esp not with all the bills he had failed to pay. I am going to go to the VA on Friday and find out so I can plan accordingly. So anyways, I have made changes in my life to help me cope. I have switched to cloth diapers for my son. Yes they cost more up front, but in the long run could save me money, plus we will not be contributing to the landfill. We are on day 3 of it and oddly using cloth excites me. I am using Charlie banana cloth diapers, and they are so easy and work extremely well. I know nothing about cloth diapers, a friend of mine has been using them since day one and these are what she recommended. Within 5 minutes of trying them out my son decided to test my ability and pooped, we made it through it. I work in the hospital, I wipe asses for a living a little bit of my son’s poop is not going to scare me. He seems to like them and be comfortable in them. We were using huggies before (and his baby sitter will still be) and I loved them, but the material on them seemed to fuzz up and come off leaving little pieces of fuzz around my house, plus everything stuck to those diapers. I am breastfeeding my son. I get judged for this a lot, he is 9 months old, a big boy, and has 8 teeth. I am so tired of the looks people give me, yes we are still breastfeeding, he is only 9 months for goodness sake. The recommend that you breastfeed until at least 1. Yes, he has bitten me and yes it hurts, but it is not an all the time thing and he does not do it purposely. When did we become such a judgmental society that using cloth diapers and breastfeeding gets me criticized and disgusted looks? I know that my head and my thoughts seem to be all over the place right now and truly they are, I am working through a substantial amount of things, but I am strong and I will make it through and me and my children will be better because of it.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Beth. I am 27 years old, married with two kids. I have a six year old girl, Cheyanne, and my husband and I have a 9 month old boy, Kylan. My husband is an addict. He has been for over 10 years. Last year in August he went to a rehab was clean for a while. Being married to an addict is definitely a struggle. My husband has recently relapsed. On September 4th, I woke him for a piece of paper I needed for our children’s health insurance, well that resulted in him choking me. I called the cops and days later on Tuesday September 8th DSS showed up at my door and wanted to take my children from not just him, but me as well. DSS told me that I was a victim and could not protect myself so how was I supposed to protect my children. That night while in tears, I came up with a safety plan with DSS and signed my children away to my parents. I stayed that first night at my parents with my kids. The next day after I got off work I was on the way to my parents to be with my kids when my mom had my daughter call me and tell me I was not allowed to come see or stay with them that night. That was my first night away from my baby boy (who was and is actively nursing). It was truly the hardest night of my life I didn’t sleep, I cried A LOT. I am very thankful to have some amazing friends though. My friend Christy and her husband talked me through a lot and my friend Amanda allowed me to stay the night with her. The next day first thing in the morning I went and sat all day at DSS waiting for someone to talk to me. So after a very long day, it turns out that safety plans are and optional thing and without a court order DSS cannot take your kids away. They made me involuntarily voluntarily sign my kids over to my parents. We could not come up with a safety plan that we could agree upon, mainly because they only wanted me to sign them over to my parents who wanted to dictate when I could and could not see my kids. DSS and I departed that night with them telling me that they were going to EPC my children. So I took my kids and moved into a domestic violence shelter. We stayed there for a month, that place is nice for security purposes; however, has a lot to work on. For one the place was disgusting, I have a baby who is crawling and could not put him down because of the filth. The place was full of several other people, some of which were addicts. So I took my children out of a house with my addicted husband and moved them into a place that was filthy and had more addicts. I would leave during the day for work or school and come back to find pills in the bed that my children sleep in or pills on the floor, this was not at all acceptable conditions. We stayed there though because at least at the end of the day my babies were with me. Finally in October, the kids and I went home, only because my husband was not there and he was supposed to be turning himself in to law enforcement. He did not turn himself in, which honestly should not have come to a surprise to me. I have had to change the dead bolts to the door so he cannot get in, but who am I kidding if he wants in he will find a way. I have to check the house every night to make sure he is not here. I look out the windows before we leave the house to make sure he is not outside. Now don’t get me wrong I do love my husband, but when he is on drugs he is capable of anything. Back when we first got married, I realized the extent of his drug problem. He came home one night, accused me of cheating (when he is using he gets extremely paranoid and always tries to accuse me of cheating) well I answer his questions and show him my proof. Well with this I honestly have no idea how it progressed, but next thing I know I am push up against the door with his hand in and on my mouth, I am crying that I can’t breathe, and that I am pregnant (which I had just found out and told him the day before). I am fighting scared for my life, I had never realized that he could be this person and did not know how far he would take it. He knocks me to the floor and continues to hold his hand over/in my mouth, as I look down the hall I see my daughter sitting up staring at me unsure of what to do. I felt like such a horrible person, how I could get myself into this situation let alone let my child witness it. As I lay there looking into the eyes of a man that was supposed to love me I saw only hatred, this is what the drug do to the ones we love. After this a few other incident me and my husband split up. We began our split up by him emptying out my bank account, which resulted in me being evicted. So here I am pregnant and with a child now with no money and nowhere to live. My dad did help me out of this situation, he put a deposit down on an apartment for me and even cosigned. I began rebuilding my life. In August my husband called me he was going through detox and looking to go to a long term rehab (which was one of my requirements if he wanted to be there for our son being born and part of his life.) Honestly that phone calls was the best one I could have ever gotten I had such hope and I was so proud of him. He got into a rehab program and I was there for him supporting him the whole way. I answered every phone call no matter what time of day or night it was or how tired I was and I never missed a single visit. I did everything I was supposed to and could do to help him and he was doing so well. He was able to come and see my and even stay with me while our son was born and went back to rehab from the hospital. He stayed there for a few months and then finally came home in mid-February. I was not honestly expecting him home until March 1st, but he said he was ready. We originally agreed on March 1st because my lease was up and my maternity leave was ending, and since I had worked 60-72 hours the entire time we had been together and worked those hours all though my pregnancy all the way up until the day I had the baby, I didn’t want to work that much I had missed so much with my daughter and I wanted to be with my kids some. He had already taken so much for me and this was something that I truly needed. Well now that he is using again it’s my fault, because I forced him to come home before he was ready and I did this and I did that. He gets a VA check for his disability (drug addiction) which pays our rent, so he is paying all the bills so he says and this and that all so I don’t have to work so much so I can be with the kids, he is doing all this for me and I am just such a horrible wife. I know that in the last couple months I was not the most loving and affectionate wife, but there were reasons. He isolated himself from the kids and I, he was lying about everything, money was disappearing, and I found stuff that pointed to drug use. I tried to confront these issues and talk to him even went as far as talking to the rehab he was at (he still volunteered there), they told me that I knew him the best and if signs pointed to him using then he was. He denied and denied and lied and lied, I don’t know what more I could have done to try and get him back on the right track. He said he couldn’t do things because of the kids so I found them daycare and he didn’t have to deal with them at all. He said he wanted a family but refused to be nice to us or spend any time us. He said he wanted to feel useful and since has the VA disability he cannot work so I pointed him in the direction of volunteer opportunities. He did nothing and this is somehow all my fault. I was a horrible wife and I must be cheating and I did this and I did that. It took him until last week to finally admit that he was using again, I was not an idiot there was THOUANDS of dollars missing over the last few months, he kicked in doors at the house, tried to break my cell phone, track marks on his arm, the babies piggy bank was left with only pennies, and items were missing never his though (sold to the pawn shop). Today is his birthday, today my husband is 32 years old. I am debating whether to text him or not for his birthday, I have been strong and am ignoring him (which honestly pisses him off.) I feel bad if I don’t acknowledge his birthday, but I am afraid of what one simple text could result in from him. Being the wife of an addict is truly not an easy task, I love my husband very much, but I do not like who he choose to be or his actions. And yes, he is an addict and it is a disease; however, my husband weather he chooses to or not is responsible for his actions.. I am not sure what the future hold for us or for my children, but I will not settle anymore my children deserve better, I deserve better.