I told my kids...

Ex's past drug use was always a secret I never intended to divulge to our kids.  He'd promised me that it was in the past and that he'd never use again.  I believed him.  Now that it appears he might be using...or might just be mentally unbalanced...I was encouraged by multiple people to share the information with the kids.  The biggest fear was that the kids would be shocked and unprepared if their dad should OD.

Telling the kids felt like a betrayal.  I'd never promised Ex that I wouldn't tell, but it was an unsaid agreement that it was his secret to tell.  The kids had no response.  I don't know what I expected from my three introverted progeny but what I got was silence.  My youngest had facial expressions...shock and dismay.  I sometimes wish I could be a fly on the wall when they talk to their friends.

I Believed an Addict

When Ex and I first met we were just 16 and 17 (did you hear that song from Sound of Music?  I did) we both started working at Chuck E. Cheese, it was my first regular job.  A few months in, I was working with him in the dining room and as we did our rounds we'd talk.  He admitted that he'd had a drug problem but that had all changed after he went on a ski trip with his sister's church.  He said he saw Jesus standing there on the stage next to the person talking.  After that he decided to give up drugs forever.   I believed him.

Well forever didn't last very long.  He went ice skating with his brother and while trying to execute a spin he fell and knocked out his two front teeth.  He went to the dentist and his teeth were cemented back in.  The pain got to be too much for him so he went back to smoking pot to combat the pain.  In the early years of dating I was very VERY naive.  I had no idea what pot smelled like.  I didn't recognize that when he kept saying his eyes were red from being in the sun, he was lying.  I believed him.

He eventually was afraid that someone would tell me that he was using again (duh, he'd chased one of my friends down and asked if she knew where he could get some mushrooms) so he told me that he'd smoked for a little while because of the pain in his teeth, but that he'd stopped.  I believed him.

We went ahead and got married and various friends kept asking me if I thought he was using again and I denied them all.  I denied them, and forgot the interactions entirely.  It is amazing how flexible your brain can be when you don't want to see the truth.  For our fifth anniversary we went to Las Vegas and I walked in on him in our room, hanging out the window, waving away the smoke.  He told me it was just a cigarette.  I let myself believe him.

I let myself believe until he got paranoid.  I remember sitting in bed when he shushed me.  I asked why?  He pointed to several places on the ceiling and said "They might be listening."  I asked who?  He just shook his head and looked at me knowingly.

I'd had enough.  He was only working maybe 20 hours a week and using the rest of the time to skateboard and smoke.  I was working full time and I wanted to go back to college.  I finally decided I'd had enough and I moved out.  I was a chicken, moved my stuff out of the apartment when he wasn't home and left him a note.  He came home and called me at my parent's house (he knew I'd be there) he hadn't even seen the note but he thought we'd been robbed.

I told him I left him and why.  Over the next month he threw away all of his paraphernalia and swore he'd stop and he'd go to marriage counseling with me.  I believed him.

By the time an opening came up for an evening appointment for marriage counseling...he decided we didn't really need it.  I should've refused to move back to our apartment until he went to counseling...hindsight.

Many years passed, I graduated from college, I had three babies, he worked full time, things seemed pretty good.  Our house was too small and in the housing boom of the early 2000s there was no possibility of us affording a place that would fit our family in the bay area of California.  We decided to look elsewhere and I fell in love with the Eugene area of Oregon.  We bought a house and the kids and I moved.  He swore he'd join us once he found a job in the area.  I believed him.

It took ten years and a threat to get him to move here.

I'm reasonably certain that during those ten years he was using drugs at least occasionally.  I KNOW he used alcohol to excess.  Like finish a bottle of tequila in just one or two days, heavy use.  He swore it was just to help him sleep.  The guy insisted he had a sleeping problem.  Once I was trying to go back to sleep after his snoring woke me.  He suddenly stopped snoring, got up and went to the bathroom to take a sleeping pill because he "hadn't slept a wink all night."  I asked him if he was using a chain saw in our bed.  He didn't find it funny.  I didn't believe him.

He also abused prescription drugs.  I often found prescription bottles with names I didn't recognize.  He'd get mad at me if I threw any of them away, even if they were long expired or something like three antibiotics left of a prescription which wouldn't do anyone any good.  Every time I took a pill, be it an aspirin, a decongestant or a Midol, he'd put his hand out for one.  Sometimes he'd say "just in case."  I'd get mad at what I saw as wasteful without ever recognizing it as addictive behavior.  I'd stopped believing him.

Now his emails to me are disjointed and hard to follow.  He insists his family is "having meetings to put me in prison."  That was because I told him that since his mom hadn't heard from him since November she wanted to file a missing persons report on him.  He is paranoid again.  I'm sure he is on drugs again, if he ever stopped.  I'm worried that he is self destructive and without me sees no reason to stay away from the drugs.  I don't feel that I'm responsible for his actions, he is an adult and he does whatever he does by his own choice.  However, his choices effect our children.  They haven't seen him since early December.  Now I'm afraid to let them see him.  I don't know what kind of shape he is in.

I can't believe that I'm one of "those" ex-wives.  The ex-wife of an addict.  I'll never be able to believe him again.

Mixed Feelings

While I feel that divorcing Ex was absolutely the best choice, there are still times when my emotions get the better of me.  Today is one of those times.  After weeks of little to no communication from Ex he suddenly started emailing me.  His written communication has always been difficult to read, understand, and follow.  These were particularly bad.  I'm starting to realize just how mentally ill he really is.  He hasn't called nor contacted anyone in his family.  His mom is understandably worried.

His sister and my sister work at a bank together.  I've been passing information to his family via that network...yes...I am a weasel, why do you ask?  My sister asked if they should file a missing persons report on him.  I told them when I'd last gotten an email from him.  I then emailed him and told him to call his mom or she was going to contact the police to file a missing persons report.  As far as I knew my email had no effect.

Yesterday he sent me six emails.  Part of it had to do with finding a renter for our old house.  Part of it had to do with his rants about his family trying to put him in prison.  "Why" I asked "do you think your family is trying to put you in prison?"  After much back and forth I realized it was because of what I'd told him about the missing persons report.

Part of me still wants to fix it...as I did for our entire 28 year marriage.  I wanted to go to him, reassure him and call his mom and make him talk to her.  I feel badly for the state he is in.  I want him to be "normal" again.

Another part of me wants to run away as fast as I can.  I remember that he looks like a homeless person, that he isn't bathing, and that just having him near grosses me out.  I often wondered why someone who was so paranoid would drive around a car that looked like he was living in it.  Why he'd engage in behaviors that caught police attention.  He was patted down multiple times and his car searched for drugs.  I've never had that happen and it never happened to him when I was around.  I lent an air of normalcy to him when we were together that he couldn't maintain when he was alone.

He never cared about anyone's appearance,  He never cared about the state of anyone's home.  He judged no one.  I liked that about him.  However he thought that everyone was like him and that his own appearance and the appearance of his home would matter to no one.

One of the worst things for me was that multiple times we got letters from the city or county about the state of our home.  It drove me nuts since it was always the piles of junk he had everywhere on our property that caused the complaints.  The worst thing was that the letters would increase his paranoia that "they" were out to get us.  Not once did any of our neighbors ever ask "Hey, do you plan on cleaning this up?"  If just one of them had come to him just once and let him know that the piles were not okay it would have made him aware of the social contract he was crossing.  Because not one of them was willing to ask him to clean it up face to face he didn't believe me when I told him how much they hated it.  He called me a liar.

I want to fix things but I know that this is beyond my capability.  I don't have the knowledge or training to deal with mental illness.  I've contacted a lawyer and have started the divorce ball rolling.  The separation needs to be complete because I cannot fix this.

If Only...

I've been dreaming a lot about Ex.  Not the Ex that I left, but a better, more perfect version of him.  I'm thinking of the person I wanted him to be and wished he could be.  When I told him I was leaving he said he'd change.  It had happened before, and he did change for awhile, but he always reverted back to his true self.  I told him that I knew that he couldn't sustain it and that I didn't want him to try.  He deserves somone who is happy with him as he is.

It is easier to stay, far far easier to just continue on in the same path if there are no outright dangers or abuse.  Leaving is hard...the mind wants to go back to the familiar.  My dreams are a sign of that.  I'm trying to create a list of the "perfect" man, the man to fulfill all of my needs.  I've been told to visualize what I want.  I did that with the place I'm living in now and it worked perfectly.  I need to do it with my job again because I might be heading for a layoff and I don't want to be jobless.

But a person?  Can I really visualize a person into my life?  If I do how do I go about that?  What do I wish for?  I've been told they all have to be positive, so I can wish for a nice dresser, but not wish for someone who is not a sloppy dresser.  What positive traits do I want this time around?

Yesterday was Ex;s birthday.  I had such mixed feelings.  I'm pretty sure he was alone and I feel badly about that, however, he did bring it on himself.  The kids would've been willing to spend at least part of the day with him if he'd only contacted them.  He chose not to.  As far as I know he hasn't contacted his family either.  I don't understand how he can refuse to contact his own family and let them know he is okay.  If anyone had asked me at any point in our marriage what was the most important thing to Ex I would've said "Family."  Funny how you can be married to someone for 28 years and not know them at all.

Married too young

 I recently saw an article online about the 8 Signs Your Marriage Was Doomed From The Start.  Go ahead and read it, I'll wait for you. 

Okay, back?  Did any of that make you nervous?  I can't tell you how accurate it is, but in my case a lot of it applied.  I married Ex when I was 21 and he was 22.   We also had friends and family who divorced and argued about money our entire marriage.  We also had very different drinking habits.  He liked to drink and it'd be nothing for him to finish off a bottle of wine (or something harder) in an evening "to help [him] sleep."  I drank only occasionally (in part because all of the alcohol in our house disappeared with confusing regularity.)  Yes, I was blind.

I think the fact that we started dating when I was 16 and he was 17 and never dated anyone else after that was probably the clincher.  The person you are at 16 is hopefully a very different person than the one you are at 49.  Your dreams change, your plans change, you're more settled and established.  The things you enjoy doing change...for example, the internet was in its infancy in 1986.  Zuckerburg hadn't invented facebook yet!

We honestly had nothing in common.  I've always loved reading.  Part of our family lore is that my mom was not a reader when she and dad married but she soon learned to enjoy reading.  Ex wasn't, and still isn't, a reader.  I'd hoped that he might learn, but it never happened.  That was something we were never able to share.  I also love comic strips and the political and social commentary within.  I'd gleefully read a particularly funny one to him and he'd say "I don't get it."  Even after I explained it to him he'd say "I guess I just don't get the humor."  

I loved to sew and crochet.  He loved to watch TV.  He loved what I called "stupid comedies."  The kind that rely on slapstick for laughs, think "Home Alone" or "Dumb and Dumber."  I don't like slapstick humor because whenever I see someone get hit in the head or balls I cringe, imagining the pain.  I prefer plays on language, "in jokes" where you have to understand something in order to get the joke and laugh-at-life humor.  

We never had the same goals in life.  I didn't want anything different than other average Americans, a family (the 2.5 kids that I rounded up to three) a house, a new car every five years or so, a vacation to somewhere with the family every year.  Ex wanted far less.  He wanted a roof over his head, enough food (even if it was stale) and to not have to work (or to work as little as possible) in order to survive.  He'd be happy in a camper trailer permanently on a plot of land (maybe owned by a friend) and going out once or twice a month to make a bit of cash to be able to afford some food.  Anything he could get free would be best.

I felt that pets were family and that the cats and dogs should be in the home with us.  He felt they were animals and they should be outside only.  I felt that we should be early to everything, he felt he was on time if he arrived before the main feature started or the party was in full swing.  On time to him was within 10-20 minutes of when he said he'd be there.  If a business said it closed at 6, then they should have no problem with him wandering in at 5:59 to start his shopping.

So why did I pick him?  Why did I say "I do?"  I'm not sure anymore.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Mental Illness

I was emailing my mother the other day and said something about being excluded from couples invitations from other couples in the church I went to.  At the time I wasn't sure if there was something about ex that was offputting, or if it was simply because he didn't attend the church with the kids and I so no one there really knew him.  I think it was a little of both.  My mom then said:

"He really is bizarre and some of his strangeness is offputting.  When he talks he avoids eye contact, he giggles and moves around; he manifests behaviors of the mentally ill and nobody is going to include that in their lives voluntarily.  Not your fault, of course but you are judged for your mate's behaviors.  We saw people look at [Ex] and move away from him almost like they were afraid of him.  It's easy to understand why they would feel that way."

I read that through twice and started thinking, really?  Was I that blind?  So I, like any normal woman, turned to my best friend who has known me since before I even started dating Ex.  I sent her my mom's quote and asked her if she agreed.  She said:

"Yeah,  I did notice.  He always seems very jumpy and nervous, unless he is asleep!  LOL.  I think people steered clear more because he latches on to them and won't stop talking. When you put it all together it really does spell mental illness.  I doubt he will ever get help though because no one will push him."

I knew that Ex was a hoarder which is considered a mental illness.  I also knew that he had zero social skills and no social awareness.  Once when I told him after we'd moved that our neighbor was mad at us for years for the mess that he kept in the yard, he accused me of lying.  "She accepted help from me, she wasn't mad at us."  Of course when her husband was in the hospital and she came home with her two young kids and the front door was wide open she was perfectly willing to let you go in and see if anyone was in there!  Didn't stop her from being mad at you for bringing down the home values on our block.

Like my friend mentioned, he'd latch on to someone and talk their leg off.  Complete strangers in a store would be walking sideways trying to get away from him and he'd confuse their polite unwillingness to be rude or mean to him as interest in what he was saying.

He got stranger as the years wore on.  He stopped wearing clean clothes.  After his father died he'd only wear his father's old clothes, even though they didn't fit him.  He stopped showering and shaving or even getting his hair cut.

He drank...lots.  He never acted drunk, but he'd wake me up in the middle of the night too drunk to walk, falling on the floor and crying.  I gave up on ever having alcohol in the house for an occassional drink because it'd disappear.  He always said it was to help him sleep.

He slept, all the time.  His protestations of insomnia to the contrary, he'd fall asleep in the movies, while watching TV, even when we were talking.  He'd be snoring LOUDLY, then suddenly stop get out of bed and be rattling around in the bathroom.  I'd ask him what he was looking for and he'd say "A sleeping pill, I can't sleep."

I think I was blind, the behaviors came up so slowly and just one at a time so I'd get used to them before another would appear.  I didn't notice how "off" he was because I wasn't used to looking at the sum of his parts.

Food can be clutter

When I moved out I only took the food with me that I knew the kids and I would eat.  That was a huge relief...Ex liked to haunt the sales.  He loved clearance stores, he'd buy 20 single serving bags of almonds for 5 or 10 cents each...all of them tasting stale.  He'd go crazy at Grocery Outlet buying whatever off brand item he thought we might eat.  He had a friend who was a district manager for a grocery store chain, she would give him milk carton crates full of food that were either past their expiration date or couldn't be sold for whatever reason.  

A family of four could’ve survived the zombie apocalypse for years on the food that was stored in our house.  As long as they were willing to eat food that tasted stale the day Ex bought it or was missing the label or was some sort of food never heard of in the US.  After filling our house with these stale and inedible foods he'd get mad at me for buying stuff at the grocery store.  "We have so much food already, why don't you use this stuff up first?"  Because Ex, I can't figure out what to do with frozen escargot, stale, off brand Ritz-like crackers and mystery jelly that the label fell off of.  I tried, honestly I did.  I got on that website where you enter the items you have and it'd come up with recipes for you.  Even that site said "Sorry, no can do."

He would eat anything, literally anything.  But there was never enough condiments no matter how much I put on.  Back in my Susie Homemaker days I would make his lunch every day for him to take to work.  Every day he wanted the same thing, tuna fish sandwich.  He wanted the tuna salad mixed up and put in a different container than the bread so the bread wouldn't get squishy.  Every day he said "That was great, maybe a bit more mayo and pickles next time?"  I was tempted to just put mayo with pickles mixed in to see if he'd notice the absence of tuna.

If the kids didn’t finish everything on their plate he’d eat it or put it in the fridge telling them “You can finish this later.”  They never would.  He would be appalled at any wasted food…the moldy fruit, he’d find the one spot that wasn’t moldy and eat that.  Same for bread and cheese.  I think the condiments were the secret to his success here.  I’d refuse to eat the cheese that he’d cut the mold off of because I could still taste the mold.  He’d insist it was my imagination.  He’d try to slip sandwiches into the kids’ lunches with bits of the bread pinched off to remove the mold spots.  Of course the kids could taste the mold and refused to eat it.  No wonder they decided that hot lunch was a better option.

He’d fill our refrigerator with all sorts of containers full of leftovers so that I couldn’t find anything at all that I’d put in there.  He NEVER labeled them, so every single one was a mystery.  Produce would go bad in the back of the fridge because I couldn’t find it and would assume that it’d been eaten.  All of this would make him crazier and his craziness escalated.

The pantry we had was so overloaded that I had a hard time finding anything.  All of my attempts to organize the food containers by type, or purpose were thwarted by his "throw everything into whatever spot I can find" methodology.  Things were always falling and spilling off the shelves so we usually had stuff a foot or two deep on the bottom.  It was useless to find anything I needed quickly.  With five people in the house who all could cook, how was I to know if that ingredient was used up or lost?  Was it worth my effort to look for?

I have a very small fridge now, leftovers are eaten or tossed.  My cabinets are organized and the pantry is nearly bare.  This feels so good!