A Change is Coming

My parents let me get my clothes the next day, and my friend and her husband helped me get my furniture and everything out that weekend.

My relationship with my parents was once again marred. My relationship with Don was better. And I think I ignored my relationship with myself and just kept on keeping on.

There was a birthday party for my neice, his sister's little baby, in October. He didn't think we should go, which was rude, and they lived right down the street from us. But he didn't want to get out of bed, so we hadn't shown up at the party when it started. His sister came down to get us.

When we got over there, a surprise guest was there.... the girl who had also been invited to the wedding and sat at the family table! Seriously, I couldn't believe it. This time, though, I didn't blame him for it because I knew it was his sister who invited her.

We had some major issues come up again, as always. We had some major fighting again, as always. But we were still getting married on December 19th. We were going to the Justice of the Peace, he was going to marry us, and it was going to be a done deal.

So, we got married on December 19th at the courthouse. My dad said he would come, but I misunderstood him and didn't call him back. None of my family was there; it was only his who came. He seemed to be happy getting married to me, but I guess he wasn't.

I didn't know that over the next few years, he would blame me and say I tricked him into marrying me. And now, some 20 years later, he's saying he "endured a pointless marriage." I think he forgot that he begged me to come back to him... because he was definitely not thankful I was with him. However, I wanted to be with someone so badly, I let him do these things to me in the name of "love." Well, I can tell you this. It was NOT love!

Love is patient and kind, and his side of our relationship was anything but that. Yes, he was kind to me sometimes, but you never knew when he would blow his stack and do or say something heinous to me.

He refused to get a job, and he stayed up all night long looking at pornography. And he continued to drink beer.

I could go into all kinds of detail about what happened during this time, but I won't. It's because it's all the same! Same story, different day.

I was still riding the bus to and from work, I was still supporting us, I was still ignorning the facts (but now I was actually married to him), and he was still doing nothing.

We had to move out of the apartment in April because we were not supposed to have pets. I bought a puppy so I wouldn't be lonely and have someone to love me. We had to either get out of the apartment or give her up. So, we moved back to the other side of town again. Closer to my family, farther from his.

And in this four-plex, lots of things happened. At this point, we had been together for over three years, married for a short time. This is where things started changing. This is where I started growing as a person and changing, and he was remaining the same.