ReadyToLiveAgain’s story—warning: long and rambling

I’ve typed and typed and typed until my typer’s sore and still don’t know that I’ve told all… that I even remember all. My brain is fried. Today is my first appointment with a rock star, hopefully bloodthirsty attorney. So I have thought of little else except that meeting.

But I wanted all of you to know where I am in this journey and for you all to know how glad I am to have found you and this community. Thank you for sharing all that you do and for offering advice and wisdom so that we all will benefit.

Here, now, is my story.

Where to begin? It’s a long, sad story with an ending that has yet to be written… but an ending that will be much happier and brighter than most of the earlier parts.

SA and I met in January 1996 and married that November. I was in graduate school at the time, working 30 hours and taking a full course load. I was 26 and he was 33.

I have memories of our earliest days being happy ones. We had both been around the block, though this was a first marriage for both of us. He worked long hours at his job (where he still works) and I was pursuing my masters degree.

He had told me during our courtship that he was a recovering alcoholic and had been sober for 2 years. He had attended a few AA meetings and had actually been in an in-patient rehab. (this was his third attempt at sobering up and had come to that point because –finally– his boss had threatened to fire him. Nothing his family or the law had threatened him with had worked previously. He had a DUI, spent time in jail, paid massive fines, and still wasn’t ready until his boss said something. This boss-employee relationship is an interesting one, as you’ll see later.)

Looking back, I should have bailed then. Nothing against alcoholics, even recovering ones, but I had a healthy fear of addictions then. Now, I’m obsessively afraid of them!

I can vividly remember being slightly annoyed that he would be in the den of our new home, watching tv and relaxing, while I was in our bedroom at the far end of the house, studying my tail off. Trying to get through grad school. And he would come into our room, all lovey and amorous. And I felt like I had to stop studying and be intimate with him. Not that I at that point didn’t want to be intimate… but I really was stressed about my studying and he wasn’t caring at all about what I needed to accomplish. (now I know that it really was his selfishness… and the controlling aspect.)

At some point during all of this, I realized (I don’t remember how I learned this–probably blocked it out of my mind!) that he wasn’t just coming to me because he wanted me. He had been watching porn in the den… and needed some outlet. So, to use a friend’s incredibly vulgar terminology, I was simply his cum dumpster.

Those late night sessions were nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. Looking back, I feel sick just thinking about how he used me and my love for him. And robbed me of years of my life. Ugh.

He also robbed me of my self-esteem. While I’ve never been a twig, I looked great and was healthy. I started doubting my looks, my sex appeal, my sexual abilities to please.

It was during this time (seriously, the first month or two of our marriage!) that I discovered his EXTENSIVE porn collection. Box after box after box after box of magazines and VHS tapes he had used to record the pay-per-view movies he had rented from Directv. I’m not exaggerating–there were hundreds of videos (with all the titles carefully recorded on the stick-on labels) and years of magazines. Maybe even a decade’s worth. It was stomach-churning.

I confronted him. He threw them all away. We were done with that chapter and back in love. Or so I thought.

My mother had open heart surgery two months after we married. Of course, she came back to our house to recover. And it was while she was there that I discovered another stash of magazines in his car trunk. (I don’t remember why I checked there, but I did.. and I found stuff.) When confronted, he swore that they belonged to one of his friends. Yeah, right. I don’t think so, scooter.

I promptly made him pack his bags and go across town to his parents’ home, where he told them I had found his stash of gentlemen’s magazines (such a misnomer!) and that he needed a place to stay. And he stayed there for 4-5 nights.

Finally I did allow him back home, but only after he came with me to counseling at the school where I was going to grad school. I had free counseling there… and as part of my treatment he could come. But to get his own treatment and counselor, he would have to go somewhere else. Which he did. For several months. At our private pay rate, since insurance didn’t cover it.

At that point, SA was just becoming a buzz word. I do remember buying Patrick Carnes’ book and it stayed on the shelf for many years. He swore he wasn’t addicted (“I’ve been through addiction before, remember???”) and as far as I know, he didn’t make a real effort to curb his actions, just to hide them.

It was early in our marriage, too, that I found out he had a nicotine addiction. He dipped (and still does dip) Skoal (smokeless tobacco). I asked him to stop that vice, and he tried, but couldn’t break it. Or wouldn’t break it. For many years, it has been a thorn in my side because of the expense of it… plus the expense of life insurance (which we don’t have) because it is 3 times as expensive for a tobacco user than it is for a non-user.

Eventually, I became resigned to the tobacco use and I did truly believe that he was done with porn. And life continued. My career was going well. I was well-respected by my colleagues and my boss. And my best friend from college and I had reconnected and traveled on girls’ retreats, one in particular to Europe. That trip was memorable because it was after that trip that I decided I wanted a baby. We had been married 6 years, I was 33 and he was turning 40 later that year.

So we decided to try….and I got pregnant right out the gate. 🙂 (and while he had always said he didn’t want kids… and I had said the same thing… he was (or at least acted) elated when we found out I was pregnant.)

And while I may regret so many parts of this story, I would never go back to re-do them because if I did, I wouldn’t have my beautiful daughter. She is my life and I am so in love with that child, it scares me sometimes!

I had a fairly uneventful pregnancy, a healthy, bright child and up to a few years ago, was incredibly happy.

We were not intimate a lot in those first years after baby was born, but I think a lot of relationships have a similar dip. Pure exhaustion was a big part of it… but I also felt unattractive and fat. I wanted nothing to do with him in bed. Looking back now, I don’t think we had sex more than 10 times in a few year’s span. I just couldn’t feel *that* for him, even though I did crave sex, I withheld it from him because the thought of him touching me made me sick.

And as I write that, I realize that I haven’t mentioned a major part of this story: his lack of ambition (or what I perceived as a lack of ambition). When we first met, his goal was to one day own the company he worked for. It is a small retail company and the staff consists of his boss (the owner), my SA, and a handful of college students (the business is in a college town).

The plan was, he told me then, was that his boss had promised him that when he was ready to retire, he would sell the company to SA. Nothing in writing, mind you, but a verbal gentlemen’s (there’s that word again!) agreement.

Years go by and this is still the plan. He has some conflicts with the boss over how a situation should have been handled (essentially gets his ass chewed) and tells me later that he’s decided that he isn’t cut out to be the owner, that we certainly don’t have the money to buy out the business, and that it just won’t work. Well, being the strong-willed, determined type, I pushed the issue.

This retail operation is being run by two full-time employees and a few part-timers. I ask the question, “when your boss retires and you take his place, who’s going to take yours?” I think it’s a valid question. He doesn’t and blows up at me. “We’re trying to hire someone. Of course, that’s a major concern to me too!”

And I tell him, you’ve got to hire someone or I’m leaving. I can’t stand to watch you day in and day out, missing out on knowing your daughter, working Monday through Saturday, 8:30 am to 6 pm, many days without a lunch break. It’s killing me! You’ve got to find someone (your replacement) or accept the fact that your boss is just using you and when (if!) you ever buy the business, it will fail, because you don’t have the support you’ll need.

So that was a conversation maybe 3-4 years ago. I didn’t leave when I said I was going to… although I did think a lot about it. Why did I stay??? Part of it was for my DD but the biggest part of it was that I realized that I had a pretty good situation. I had changed gears after our DD was born and was now working from home with a great business selling promotional products. (you know, the pens, caps, shirts, coozies with your company’s logo on them!) This enabled me to keep DD at home and not in daycare. We had wonderful times together. And he was NEVER home. He’d leave 7:45-8:00 am and not return until close to 7 pm at night, six days a week. I didn’t have to put up with his actions, his voice, his attitude most of the time. Just evenings and Sundays. I decided I could tough it out for a few more years. Maybe even until DD went to college. I mean, not having to work hard (because he was bringing in a good salary), being able to stay home in our own home with DD, and not putting up with him except for a few hours a week was a fair trade-off. I wasn’t completely happy, but rationalized it by saying that no one really is, truly.

It was about this time that I reached out to a friend, a man who had been my boss at a job way back when, and we had an affair. I’m not proud of it, and while it lasted for a few years, it wasn’t an emotional contact for either of us. We didn’t see each other often and I never imagined us being together. I eventually broke it off by just not being available. We are still friends, but he’s moved on and I’m not sorry it’s over. I do not know if my SA knows about that relationship or not. He’s never said anything and certainly I haven’t. It’s water under the bridge and it really was just a validation for me, that someone found me attractive.

Not that my SA stopped trying to get in my pants. Ever. He is still acting like he still wants me. Like he’d like us to be intimate. And I reject him every time. I have no idea if he’d actually go through with it if I agreed. Sometimes I wonder … and then put the idea completely out of mind. NO!

So now we’ve established that I had decided that I wasn’t giving up my comfortable home and lifestyle just because he hadn’t found his replacement and had decided to give up on his plan to own the business.

And every so often he says he’s changed his mind, that he does want to own the business now. Bleh.

And life goes on. I have struggled with many physical ailments over the years. Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a possible case of celiacs, headaches, vision problems, persistent lower back pain and a messed up thyroid. Probably a little bit of depression mixed in too.

And all of those things contributed a great deal to my low self-esteem too.

So fast-forward to last October. He’s been seeing a massage therapist for years because of neck pain. (and while I have neck pain and really should be seeing a massage therapist too, I’m not, because I feel guilty spending the money on myself) (rest assured, I don’t feel that way any more!!)

His first therapist was a fruit-cake and actually came recommended by his mother. That lasted a while, but she was out of town and a single mom, so she often had her young son in the sessions (performed in her home office). He then got a recommendation from his boss and stayed with that therapist for a while, but she ended up having surgery and wasn’t able to work for 3 months. So I gave him the name of someone I’d used before, whose office was close to our home. He started seeing her.

And I got weird feelings about their relationship. Like one time he told me that he stopped on his way to see her to buy her a King size candy bar. That he did that every week, it was a kind of ritual with them. ??? Really??? Is that her tip or are you just being overly generous. (this from a man who passes multiple grocery stores on the way to and from work but can’t be bothered to stop and buy bananas when we’re out… and then he pouts because he really wants one, but I didn’t go to the store to get them.)

So I checked his cell phone. I knew that her normal method of communication was via texting, simply because she didn’t have to play phone tag and have to worry about returning calls in between customers. This is a cell phone I pay for. It’s connected to my phone via the Verizon Family Plan and we share minutes. At this point, we don’t have a texting plan since it’s $5 a month per line and each line would have to send up to 20 texts a month to justify the expense (25 cents each x 20 texts = $5.)

I didn’t find “I love you and need your body” texts, but I did find suggestive ones, like “What are you going to do with me tonight?” and “Looking forward to your magic hands working their magic tonight!” (and yes, I did take pictures of the texts, simply because I instinctively knew that they might be important some day.)

Last fall, after this small discovery, I took my daughter to Disney World. I had wanted to talk her for years and kept waiting for him to take the time off, but he never could or would. So I took her myself. We had a great time and I truly think he would have ruined it if he had been there, so I was secretly delighted that he didn’t go.

And after that, I’m embarrassed to say I did peek a few times here and there on his phone, but never really found anything else. There was a weird Verizon bill that I got a call about. It was regarding some large number of texts sent from his phone in January. They wanted to know if I wanted to upgrade his plan to include texting, since the charges for just that one day were over $30!!

When I questioned him about the texts, he told me that he had a customer who needed to correspond about a certain product he sells at his business, but was also working and couldn’t be talking on the phone. And none of the college boys that work for him was working that day…. those boys who all have unlimited texting plans. And he told me that his boss had said he’d reimburse him for the bill.

And I believed him. And added the $5 texting plan that would give him 250 texts per month.

It wasn’t until early August that I had the urge to check his cell phone again and found the fateful text message that sparked this whole HUGE discovery. It said, “my text phone is down. try tom. Kisses.”

It was sent to a number I didn’t know and the number was in his contacts as nm. ??? At that point, I had access to 6 months of old phone bills online. I searched through all the calls and texts he made and found a day in April when numerous texts were sent to that same number. I couldn’t access the January bill at this time, though, so I have no proof of that texting person’s identity.

But now I knew there was a secret cell phone, one I wasn’t paying for. Where was it???

I searched all over our bedroom, the bathroom, the closet, his dresser. No where. Finally in desperation, one morning, I waited until he was in the shower and quickly searched his car.

OMG. There I found the receipt from when he bought the secret cell phone. February 13. What a romantic thing to do. I found an airtime receipt from when he bought more airtime for his secret cell phone. And I found 3 “barely legal” magazines under his car seat….right in front of where my DD sits in his car. Where they could have slid out from under the seat and been seen by her!!! And then I found a portable DVD player and a stash of porn DVDs in one of those portable CD/DVD zip up binders with sleeves. Ugh. I also found the phone bill from January… the one he’d never brought in to me. Hmmmm. And I found a bill addressed to him but from one of his work vendors. Curious and curiouser.

I was hurried, knowing that he’d be out of the shower soon. I took a ton of pictures and flew back inside.

So at this point, I know there’s porn and I know there’s a secret cell phone. But that’s all I know.

I started tearing the house apart. Looking wherever my eyes lighted next. Found more DVDs ( those same zip up binders with sleeves) in the top of his closet. Over 150 movies there alone. Found three more movies (in cases) in his bedside stand. Puke.

I still haven’t found the cell phone. I’m crazy by this point. I still haven’t confronted him about the porn and don’t want to until I know more about the cell phone. Because once he knows I’ve been looking through his stuff, he’ll hide it so well I’ll never find it. I would rather suck it up and bite my tongue off than to give him that kind of control right now. So I keep quiet and keep looking.

I guess it was a secret sense that made me look in the bathroom closet under a package of innocent looking replacement razor blades one night. And there was the phone!!!

I was thrilled to find it and made good use of it…. took pics of everything on the phone… texts back and forth, the X rated pictures they sent each other. I have copies of all of it!!

Oh, and I shared them with a close group of friends on facebook! Not under my name! Oh, no, I created a special new identity and shared them that way.

And I find great joy in reading one of her texts to him where she says “I don’t send you pictures when you’re at home because I don’t want you-know-who to find them.” So the friggin’ homewrecker knows I exist and the only thing she can think of is keeping private her stupid pictures. And he told her, “Oh, I erase all of those each night before I go home. Why else do you think I’m always asking for more.” !!! Liar!!! Wonder what she’d do to him if she found out that not only did I find them, but I photographed them and put them on facebook?!?!?! 🙂 hehehe

The phone has been in the same spot every night. I don’t always read it, but I did again this morning… and I also snuck it out of the room and took more pictures of their recents texts. Such fun I’m having collecting evidence.

I’ve also discovered various other receipts for airtime (in his shorts pocket), for the DVD player (on his dresser) and one receipt for a couple of DVDs. Who knew porn was so expensive!!! Damn!! I had given a low estimate that he probably owns 200 movies. At $20 each, that’s $4K!! But according to this receipt, $40 is more likely. So $8K. Grrrr…. makes me so MAD!!! That’s a lot of money to have wasted on such stuff.

As I’m searching through the rest of his personal belongings, I start coming across cash receipts that have spindle holes through them. His company is a small retail establishment that still used handwritten receipts and nothing is computerized. It’s kind of cool and kind of strange all at the same time.

So I’m finding these sales receipts (sales write-ups) that appear to have been placed on the spindle at some point (hence the hole) and I’m not quite sure why they’re here, in our home, instead of being at the business.

Then it dawns on me. These are receipts for purchases made with cash.

Many of the customers that visit SA and his boss shop with a credit card. They’re usually making large purchases and it just wouldn’t be prudent to carry that much cash around.

My SA is usually the first one at the business in the am and balances out the previous day’s drawer, reconciling the sales to the receipts. So enter in my biggest fear. He alone has access to that money, receipts for cash sales are at my house, and I think he’s assumed a debt of the store’s in order to cover his ass with the boss, who is on the rampage.

I question myself, “Could he possibly be stealing?” What else does this evidence suggest???

Remember the invoice that I saw in his car, the one from one of the business’ vendors? Well, I found a few more of those…. addressed to my SA at our PO Box.

And it certainly does appear to me that he is in the process of paying that vendor over $5K!!! I did not mention to him that I had seen these letters, but casually asked how this section of the business was working and told him that it incredibly worried me because I couldn’t deal if we had to pay them too! With our non-existant savings and checking accounts!!

(and this goes back several years ago, to when we DID pay them $1900 for some debt that supposedly my SA had incurred from an error he had made–and his boss held him liable for the debt!! So I have a very good reason to assume that is happening now, but he is withholding that information from me because he knows I’d blow a gasket. And I would…. because he made the error, he had been warned about it, and it appears he did the same thing again! ARGH!)

So now I’m terribly afraid that he is stealing during his drawer balancing time, destroying the cash sales receipts or bringing them home.

Why? To pay off the possible $5K owed to this vendor??? To be able to support his “ho” habit and secret cell phone for a while longer? I don’t know that he is stealing. Certainly, that’s not anything i can ask him. Because, again, once I confront him, he’ll start hiding and I won’t be any better off.

Actually, I have to believe he is stealing. He is 1) stealing from my daughter and me, 2) stealing from his boss via the sales drawer, or 3) a combination of both. He has to be coming up with the money for his porn and his cell phone from somewhere. And I do believe he is paying off the $5K owed to that vendor.

And add to all of this, I actually stooped to looking in his wallet during all of this. Something I’d never done. I’m sure you all won’t be surprised to find out that I discovered not 1, but 2! debit cards for banks issued in his name… banks we’ve never had accounts at!!

Yes, we do have a joint checking account. We combined financials when we married. I maintained an account at the credit union from when I had to have direct deposit from an old job. Basically, I’d get paid into that account, then withdraw all of it to pay bills. Since that job ended, I kept that account as my PayPal account, where I could buy small items on eBay. I probably have never had had more than $50 in that account and the balance is frequently closer to $5.

Add in the fact that I have no idea exactly how much he makes. With finances being so tight, we often didn’t pay bills until they were absolutely due. Which means we couldn’t wait the 5-7 days our bank took to clear deposited checks. So he would just go to the bank next door, where his business banked and cashed his check, bringing me home the cash. Which I then deposited and paid bills immediately with.

Recently, because of a dental bill with our daughter and our car taxes being due…and there being NO extra money, we talked it over and he agreed to skip a few massages to make up the difference. My sacrifice was doing a lot more at-home cooking, which I HATE.

So he did bring home an extra $100, which was the massage money he was keeping out plus a bit for lunch, gas, drycleaning.

Now I’m wondering how much he really does make and how much he really is keeping.

I know from the bits and pieces of research I’ve done on divorce in SC that there are 4 grounds for divorce, one of which is adultery. To prove adultery, you must prove intent (which I’m pretty sure I have with his secret cell phone texts) and opportunity (which I do not think I have as of yet.) Since I posted all of these texts for a few close friends to look at, NONE of them got the feeling that SA and the ho have actually been intimate, that they sounded like a couple of middle schoolers playing fantasy games.

So I can’t get him on adultery. The other options don’t apply to our situation, so then it’s a no-fault divorce, which in SC means I must be separated from him for a year before we qualify for a divorce.

I don’t make a lot of money, remember? I have no idea how I’m going to come up with the $3000 retainer the lawyer wants, much less living expenses. While I am determined that I will not remain married to him–not a chance in hell!–I may be relegated to living with him for a while until I can save some money and figure out how to provide for me and my daughter.

I am asking the attorney many questions today. One of them is how can I get full time custody with no visitation. It’s not a normal situation and it’s not a normal request. I am hoping that I can “convince” my SA that if he signs over those two things to me that I will not reveal his addiction. Will it work? Will my attorney go for the idea? I don’t know.

I do know this: I would give up spousal support and child support in the event that I need to in order to gain full custody.

His reputation is everything to him. He works in a small town, where he’s lived all of his life. He works with an exclusive clientele and was an elder in his church before we married. He would be mortified for his secrets to be out.

Whether or not he would give in to my request is not known.

And, truthfully, if he is guilty of stealing from his job, then he’s going to be in jail, paying back the business and probably will never find another good job again. Especially in this town!! So giving up support, while it looks foolish as a bargaining tool, might be the kicker he needs …. and would be no real loss financially to me, since I know what other things his future may hold!!! Prosecution, jail time, being some big guy’s bitch…. 🙂

So I’m raising funds as quickly as I can… another yard sale this weekend!…. saving money as much as I can…. more coupons to clip!….and looking for ways I can make money. I do have a blog, but that doesn’t bring in tons of money yet, although I think it will one day.

Right now, I’m sitting still with all kinds of gears moving. He doesn’t have a clue what all I know and will not until I’m out the door. I am strategic and will plan this out to the nth degree. I am not leaving my or my daughter’s life up to chance.

And, yes, I have thought about staying put for the duration of her childhood (she’s only 9) but truthfully, I think she will benefit far more from seeing me being strong and making a life for us than she will seeing me as unable to leave and function on my own. It will be hard. I know this. But I think it’s what I have to do.

And now I’m off to my meeting. Thanks for reading this long, long diatribe and for being part of this community!