Let me make something abundantly clear. Make sure you're sitting down, and all the shit is out of your ears. You ready? Ok, get a fucking bottle of water out of the fridge. I'll wait.
You ready now? Good.
I did not- repeat, DID NOT cheat on England with Jamie.
I think that bears repeating:
I DID NOT CHEAT ON DAVID WITH JAMIE.
I loved David. I wanted to spend the rest of my fucking life with him, and give him the world. I wanted to be his wife, and him be part of my family. All I asked for was to be loved just as much in return. Yeah, I have a job that nets me a lot of money. David does not. Yes, it's true that out of anger a few times I demanded he leave that godforsaken shithole and try to find something better. But I knew (know) he loved Wild Bills, and that he believed in it. So, I told him I'd try to be understanding if he would at the very very least learn to manage his money better, so I wasn't the one having to pay for everything.
What did I pay for? Rent. Power. Cable. Internet. Gas. Food. Going out. The cruise (all $4000 of it). His cell phone service (which I am still paying for, for the time being). Our massage memberships, and ALL gratuities for massages. No, wait. I won't say all. He did pay the tips a couple of times. See? I can admit when I'm wrong. The tanning bed, and $100 bottles of tanning lotion. Dinner for his family on several occasions. His full car note on at least 2 occasions, and part of it on at least 2 other occasions. Moving into my beautiful house. ALL of the shit we bought during the 2 years we spent together. Christmas for his daughter and brother, in addition to what I bought for him, of course, and the all the stuff that had his name on it that my son got. To this day, Corbin does not know that David did not give him a damn thing for Christmas, nor does Isabelle. It all came from me, because I'm the one that makes the fucking money.
What did David pay for? Dinner a handful of times......... He bought me a new phone with his Chase card... but oh, wait. I paid the Chase card off... Uh.... Oh, he bought me cherry coke sometimes, cause he knows how much I love it. Alcohol for the house. Aw, he got me this awesome camera for my birthday the first year we were together. I love that fucking thing. It's blue. That was the birthday he took me to Wild Bills (yay!) and encouraged me to get trashed, then bitched me out for being drunk in the limo on the way home. Made me cry. But, I do that when I'm drunk. Oh, but his dad ended up having to pay for the limo, cause his card got declined. My diamond earrings that I have in right now. He claims they cost him almost $1000, but I don't see how they were that much, unless he just went somewhere, and they handed him a jar of vaseline and told him to bend over, fat boy. But, the best part about the earrings was that after Christmas, he couldn't pay his car note. I truly felt awful, and tried on several occasions to give them back. What kind of person accepts something that the giver can't truly afford? No, he wouldn't take them, and ended up taking more money from his (awesome, sweet, funny, wonderful, I miss her, she's beautiful and I hope to CHRIST they know how lucky they are to have someone so special as she) grandmother to pay his car note. Then I caught him in a lie about how he paid it. Why do people lie, then get mad when they get caught?
Oh, my bad y'all. I forgot to list something else I paid for. Oh, well. I'll just list it here.This one is a doozy, and I think it might just be a game changer. My engagement ring. Yeah, you read that right. I bought my own engagement ring, because David had absolutely no way of doing so. He couldn't get it on credit, he didn't have anyone he could borrow the money from, and he certainly didn't have the money on his own. And you know what? The damn thing only cost $700. And that was after shipping. Overstock.com my friend. That site is fuggin' awesome.
Here's how it all played out:
David's parents were divorcing. Everything was all up in the air as to what was going to be done with their house, and it looked like his mother would be moving back to Abingdon. That left the problem of David's visitation with Belle. The court papers specified that Belle could not stay in the same dwelling if David was anything less that married. Not cohabitating, as we were. Married. So, the options were: David move back to Virginia to be close to Belle, or we move way way way way forward with the little bit of planning to get married we'd already talked about. That, hopefully, would convince Summer to change the court paperwork. I flat refused to move to Virginia, because I'd have to leave Corbin. Ain't happening. No way, no how, bitches. So, we turned our attention to plan B. We found the ring we both liked online, and after asking a couple of people, holyshit! including Jamie!, if he could borrow the money and coming up with bupkis, I broke down and bought it. I wanted it, and the idea of a fairytale wedding had sunk in and you know what? Fuck you guys! I loved him and wanted to marry him! Fool that I was, I thought that things would be better. The proposal was a goddamned performance. I knew about it in advance, because David is that transparent. But it was real. We loved each other, and I wanted to be happy with him. I chose bridesmaids, wedding colors, music. I spent $1200 on a designer gown and veil. Oh, and Summer did indeed change the court paperwork, and Belle was allowed to stay with us.
But money continued to be a problem. Not that we struggled. I just got tired of busting my ass and paying for everything, while he slept all day, and didn't even keep the house clean or laundry caught up. Or even cook. He claims he loves to cook, and he'll tell you that I always wanted to go out and that's why we never ate at home. Well, when you get home at 6:30 or 7 in the evening, and your domestic partner greets you from the couch with the tv on, and his laptop in his lap with "Hey honey! What's for dinner?" you don't really feel like going back out to the store to plan a meal. Much easier to go out.
So, I gave him an ultimatum: Learn how to manage your money, and get to a point where you can help me with bills, and so we can start setting money aside regularly for the wedding, or we were going to have to rethink things. This was back in September or October, as I was handing him $535 for his car note. He made a token effort, at first. I didn't have to give him any more money for his car note, at least. But after that, things went downhill quickly. We were hanging out with Jamie a lot, and spending a lot of money. Well, Jamie and I were. David just wracked up the bar tabs. Then, he and Jamie had their falling out, and I didn't agree with what David had to say about Jamie. I was starting to see David for what he really was: a manipulative, devious, resentful pathalogical liar. A taker. He took advantage of my love and generosity for 2 years. When I let him move in with me, yes, I told him not to worry about money at first. When he got on his feet, then he would start giving me money for bills. Problem was, he never got on his feet. But that was because he spent all of his money that didn't go to Summer and Belle on cigarettes and other bullshit. Sometimes on Sunday mornings, he'd have $200 in his wallet. By Sunday night, after he'd filled his tank up and bought a carton of cigarettes, and other crap he didn't need, he'd have $60 left, and he'd say "where the fuck did all my money go?!" Really? Yeah, really.
I'm sorry. A person can only take being treated like a doormat for so long. I got sick of it, and decided that we needed to rethink things. I reminded him of my ulimatum back in whatever month, and told him I wanted him to leave. Not a week long break where he constantly texted me about how much he missed me and how much it was killing him to be away from me. Like when I found out that he'd cheated on me with Alicia. No, a real break where he moves out, and we don't get together and have sex every once in a while. It was ugly. He was angry. But he calmed down and agreed that maybe it was for the best. He admitted that he'd taken me for granted and taken advantage of me.
The week that Atlanta shut down- because we can't seem to function as a city in snow- he dealt the final blow to our relationship. I was on my period- tmi, I know, but I have a fucking point, so stick with me. I was also sick, and had medication that I needed to take twice a day. Monday afternoon, he decided he wanted to go to his mom's house and visit with his brother and grandmother before they went back to Va Tech and England, respectively. I didn't want to go, because I didn't feel good, and the roads were covered in ice. I was afraid we'd get stuck. He pulled his whiney baby bullshit and bugged me into going. There's love for you: drag your sick Lady out on ice covered roads when all she wanted to do was sleep. We got to his mom's house, and he and Matthew promptly immersed themselves in video games. I told David that we needed to leave in like 2 hours so we didn't get stuck in the neighborhood, unable to get up this one really steep hill. I laid down to nap, and the next thing I know, it's dark out and David was shaking me saying dinner was ready. I didn't have any supplies with me because we were only supposed to be there for a couple of hours. I was not happy. But I ate dinner because it was always very yummy at Karen's house, and then David wanted to stick around for dessert. So, it was around 9:00 when we finally got in the car to leave. Keep in mind, my tampons and medicine were screaming my name from Lawrenceville, 10 miles away from where we were across frozen roads. And lo and behold, we couldn't get up that hill. David tried his damnedest, but nothing doing. I was, understandably, upset. Angry, even. I started to panic. David took it as bitching. Here's the final nail in the coffin: He leaned over the width of the car and put his face so close to mine that I could feel the heat of his breath and screamed at the top of his lungs " Shut. The FUCK UP!!!!!!!" In that moment, underneath the crippling fear and overwhelming hurt, was the pinpointed realization that nothing was ever going to change. I'd continue to work myself into the ground at a job that, at best, I'd be able to do for another year, not get myself into college, and I'd only just ever have enough money to live in the moment. Never for the future. David would keep his 'fun job' as a nightclub manager, and stay content to float along as he was, with no ambition to better himself, or make any longterm plans for the future. In that moment, I was done.
Afterwards, back at his mother's house, he tried to appologize. But, ' I'm sorry' hasn't meant shit to me in a longer amount of time than I care to admit. Besides, 'sorry' doesn't cover that. There is no coming back or recovering from saying and doing something like that to a person you claim to love. When I wouldn't accept his appology, he got angry, and tried to blame his reaction on me. All of a sudden it was my fault, and I'd deserved to be spoken to that way, because I knew he was stressing about getting up the hill, and I should've kept my mouth shut.
So, we spent the night there. And I, without any supplies, had bled through my underwear and jeans. I had to borrow underwear and pajama pants from his mother. She didn't have any pads or tampons. Just some wispy little panty-liners. I stuffed my pants with these little pads and half a fucking roll of toilet paper so I wouldn't bleed all over myself again. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life, and I could barely lift my eyes up from the ground as I asked David for help. I couldn't go to his mother; I was too embarrassed. And I went 18 hours without taking my meds- thats 2 doses. All because David wanted to play video games with his little brother, and insisted I go with him. Even though we weren't even in the same room for the majority of the day.
The next morning, we got dressed and tried to get up the hill again. No dice. So, we decided to try and break up the ice enough to get traction to get up the hill. David screamed for his brother to come down and help. When Matthew told him to hang on, because he was helping their mother with something, David was instantly furious, and screamed obscenities at him along the lines of fuck you, I'll do it my fucking self. I've never understood why David thought it was ok to speak to his brother that way, and this time I let him know. "Don't talk to him like that! It's not his fault we're stuck, and there is no reason to treat your brother like that!" GOD it would make me so mad that he thought it was ok to treat people- especially his brother- like that.
Needless to say, we didn't make a whole lot of progress busting up ice. I just fell down a lot, and got more and more upset. Naturally, this caused another bout of name calling, and him telling me to 'do what you want. It's all about you, anyway. It always is." Since when? Oh, yeah, it's so fucking selfish of me to be frantic to get home so I can take care of my body. Ok....
I needed to get away. Had to. I wanted nothing more than to get as far away from him as possible. So, I grabbed my stuff, including David's garage door opener, went inside and asked Matt where the key to my house was. I grabbed the key, and as I was walking out the door again, David asked how the hell he was supposed to get his stuff. This stopped me in my tracks, and I asked if he really thought I'd do that. He said, "well you have all of my access to the house!" I honestly couldn't believe he thought I'd keep him from his things, so to show him that I'm not that kind of a Bitch, I gave him back the key. As I was walking away from him, he called out, " It's been fun!"
This is where you have permission to start mentally composing your hate mail. All I ask is that you finish reading this blog before you write it.
I called the one person I could think of that I knew I could realistcally count on: Jamie. Actually, he was the very person that came to mind. I did consider other people, briefly. But everyone else would have demanded payment. That reminds me; I still need to give Jamie gas money for that ride. But, I digress..... I walked out of the neighborhood and stood on the side of the road, waiting on Jamie. Who should come along, but David and Matthew with offerings of Propel. Then he ruined it by spouting, "So, when will Jamie be here?" I stared at David, thinking, what the hell do you expect? When he saw that I was determined, he walked off. At first he was making idiotic claims of walking home, but Matt and I told him he was being a dumbass, and he went back to his mom's with his brother.
Jamie and his brother, my knights in a shiney red mustang, drove me safely home and dropped me at my driveway with reassurances of " If you need anything else, please call." I shuffled up my driveway, hoping against hope that I didn't have a giant bloodstain on my ass. When David made it to my house, he came to me with crocodile tears, and I'm so sorry baby. I hugged him, and told him to just leave it alone. He mistook that for forgiveness, I suppose.
Now, he's gotten it in his head that I cheated on and/or left him for Jamie. One day after he'd moved back into his mother's house, some silly little mouse called him and told him they'd seen me walking through the mall, holding hands with another guy. So, naturally, instead of calling me to see what was going on, he called to find out who I was with. When I said Jamie, he commenced with the go fuck yourselves, and the fuck yous and so on and so forth. Eventually I got him to calm down enough to figure the situation out. To this day I have no idea who saw me in the mall. BUT, I was not walking though the mall holding Jamie's hand. I WAS, however, walking though the mall with my hand in the crook of Jamie's arm. He was carrying my bags for me. Regardless, what does it matter if I was holding his hand? David and I had broken up, and it was nobody's fucking business if I wanted to run through the mall with no clothes on, shouting " I'm the Queen of Botswana!!" Much less who's hand I was holding. David hinted around that the person was supposedly my friend. But, if they were my friend, they would've come up to me and asked what was going on, or come over and said hi. That's how friends act. They don't run off to a corner, call your ex and say "Oooooo!!!! Guess what Amandas doing!" Fucking middle school bullshit, right there. The little girls in my son's class do that shit.
David asked me one afternoon about a month ago if we could meet up and talk. I was having dinner down in the city with my sister, so it was kind of a headache to arrange, but what the hell. So, we met up at Starbucks and he flat out asked if there was any hope at all that we'd get back together. Any hope at all. It took every ounce of respect, love and maturity I could muster to look him square in the eye and tell him the truth, instead of sparing his feelings and giving him false hope. No- no hope whatsoever. He claimed that was what he needed to hear to make the decision to move back to Virginia. I honestly thought then, and I still do, that that would be the best thing for him to do. He'd be happier there.
This brings us pretty much up to the past week. Watch out! Here comes another opportunity for hate mail. David asked me to bring Rick's carpet cleaner to the club. He couldn't come get it because his car was full of shit. And mine's not? Plus, that fucker is heavy! So, and here's your hate mail fuel, since Jamie and I were going to go out to dinner anyway, we figured we'd be nice and take Rick his carpet cleaner. I didn't respond to David's text about it, because I was pretty pissed off at him for spending the entire night beforehand talking some serious shit about a really good friend of mine to his ex-wife. I didn't think that everyone and their mama would be in the parking lot when we pulled up to the club with the carpet cleaner in the back of the truck. I didn't want any drama. I didn't care if everyone knew I was with Jamie, I just didn't think it was going to generate the shitstorm I've found myself in.
The next morning I received a beautiful narative from David about what a bitch I am. In fact, he called me a whore. Now, that's just lovely. Isn't it? I poured my heart and soul into trying to build a life with him. Gave him chance after chance. Even after finding out that he'd cheated on me with a girl known to have spread disease, and lied about it to me for 6 months. I put up with and tried to change the fact that he was content to live off me, let me do all the work and pay for everything for 2 years. I'm not saying he never gave me money. But I had to plead for it. And after my money started rolling in, more than a year went by, and not a single solitary penny did he contribute to household expenses. That's why I broke up with him. Not because I found something better. Not because of anything anyone might have told me about him. I saw him for who he really is, and I couldn't see tying myself to him for the rest of my life. No one stole me, because I'm not a weak little girl that can't make her own decisions. And Justin Wade, I will never in my life be anyone's seconds. You ought to be absolutely ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing. I know your mama taught you better. Besides, as I recall, you were the one trying to hold my hand literally behind David's back.
I refuse to end this withough telling you all the things I loved and appreciated about David and his family.
June- I can't thank you enough for the kindness you showed me when David and I didn't have anyone else to turn to, and we were going to be on the streets. You are beautiful in every sense of the word, and if the world had more people like you in it, it'd be a pretty awesome place to live. I'm sorry things worked out this way. I consider myself truly lucky to have had you in my life.
Karen- Thank you for opening up your home to me when I needed somewhere to stay until my apartment was ready. Thank you for all the unbelieveable help with taking care of and loving Benzo. And Poke. This whole thing has turned into such a mess, and I'm so sorry. But let me quote you for a second: "Someone who applauds your strengths, understands your weaknesses, and appreciates the combination that is you, are worth holding on to, if they can't do that they are not worthy!" There is a fine line between supporting someone, and coddling them. I refuse to take resposibility for someone's basic tasks as an adult. You're hurting David a lot more than you're helping him. Make him take some damn ownership of himself. Let him drown a little. Stop sending his bills out for him! For fuck's sake, he's 26 years old. Not 16. What is he going to do when you and June are gone, if you don't make him do it himself?
Matthew- Kid, I love you so fucking much. I'm going to miss you the most of all. I know you're furious with me, and I don't really say I can blame you. I don't care what your brother has said. I never once lied to him, or you, or your parents or grandmother. I loved each and every one of you like you were my flesh and blood. I wish you were mine. My little brother. You ought to kick his ass for the way he talks to you.
David- Get your head out of your ass. The world is not out to get you. I did not cheat on you with or leave you for Jamie or anyone else. I left you because you walked all over me, constantly shoved me in a corner and put me down. Lied to me about who you are, and made false promises of the man you would be for me. Took advantage of my kindness, love and generosity. I was a trophy and a gravy train to you. You delighted in pushing my buttons, and pushing and pushing until I couldn't take it anymore and I erupted. Then you took that and made me feel like shit; like the whole episode was my doing and you were merely an innocent bystander.
You will never be happy until you shed this " I deserve to have the world handed to me" attitude. Get off your ass and work for it, if you want it. That's what a Man does. Go find your "Aha!" moment.
Fyi, I'm not holding your stuff ransom. It's all neatly, carefully, and respectfully packed up, and ready for you whenever you're able to come get it.
Thank you for the wonderful times we did have, and all the times you made me laugh til I cried. I've had precious few laughs that deep in the last 20 years. Thank you for helping me learn that I can do it on my own. That I don't have to be afraid to be a Big Girl. Know this: I love you. I loved you for the person you are deep deep down on the inside that's terrified to come out. I just couldn't handle the other person you are on the outside. He's Bad News Bears, Paddington, and you need to kick his ass out.
I'm not perfect. I never claimed I was, nor will I ever be. I was a shitty wife to Kris, for all I tried not to be. I was not a perfect girlfriend to David. I was mean to him a lot when I should've shown more patience. Maybe I expected too much out of too short of a period of time. But, the difference between David and me is that I take responsibility for my actions, shortcomings, and faults. David, as in every other aspect of his life, finds somewhere to place the blame. He seems almost incapable of accepting or admiting that something might possibly be his fault. I'm not saying that our breakup was totally his fault. I know I'm partially to blame, and I accept that.
But, like I told David: I have an example to set for my son. I have a life to live, and it's time to get to living it. I know what I want, and if something is holding me back from reaching my goals in life, I'm going to detach myself from it, and leave it in my dust.
And if you don't like it- any of it- you can shove it up your ass.
