The Tides Will Change Part 2

Within a few months of having my second son, we were back to the same old routine. I would pour out my heart and try to get him to understand my side of it. How I needed help. How I was so tired at the end of the day I just wanted to sleep: not have sex every night. And each time, I was told it was the pill. The pill made me crazy and I shouldn’t be on it anymore. Or that I didn’t love him because I didn’t want to have sex. Or that I was being selfish. Or he wouldn’t talk to me for day. Occasionally, he would humor me for a short time and then it went back to the way it was before. His drug and alcohol consumption continued to increase as well. It was a cycle that just wouldn’t be broken no matter how hard I tried.

About 14 months after the birth of my second son, I became pregnant for a third time. Again, we were both so happy and excited. We went to find out the gender of this baby, but of course, baby wouldn’t cooperate. I was so caught up in the excitement of not knowing if we were having a boy or girl, that I didn’t see much that was going on around me. Okay, lets be honest here, I’m not sure if it was the excitement or the fact I was pregnant with my third baby and taking care of two toddlers at home. Or I just didn’t want to see the truth. I was running on empty and really struggling with the lack of help and the long hours alone with the children. My ex would leave the house before I was awake and come home after the children where in bed. We needed the money, so I never questioned it. I really should have questioned everything!

When I was 8 months pregnant, I found out about the first woman my ex was involved with. He left up the messages between them on his computer and I just happened to see it. I had never been so hurt before in my life. He knew I had found out, and the first thing he said to me when he saw me after he got home from work was, “Did you find what you were looking for?” As if this whole situation was my fault. He sat on the bed next to me, but I moved away. I wanted nothing to do with him. I didn’t want him to touch me, or to be anywhere near me. I felt hurt, betrayed, abandoned, unloved and used. After much crying on my part, we managed to talk a bit. Somehow, the whole conversation was turned around on me invading his privacy. By the end of the night I was apologizing to him. The conversation was then over and was never spoke of again. If I ever tried to bring the issue up, I was punished for bringing up past issues and holding grudges. Constantly walking on eggshells wasn’t new to me and I learned early in the relationship to stop before it became a huge fight. I learned to keep the peace and always make sure he was happy. This way of being made me extremely unhappy and I ended up taking it out on people who didn’t deserve it: the kids. I was quick to anger and yelled at them all the time. I was even super short with my parents when I was with them. Because I was pregnant, I blamed it on the hormones: a complete lie of course.

About 2 weeks later I had the hardest labor and delivery of my life. My daughter was born 4 weeks early. She hadn’t dropped, she was laying with her spine against mine (sunny side up), and she was born in the sack. The reason I went to the hospital was because I had a lot of sudden bleeding and since I had my previous baby in 1 hour, no one want to chance it. Once we arrived, he was in and out of the hospital room, talking on his phone. I never found out who he was calling. All I knew was he was in the room for maybe 5 – 10-minute intervals while I was being induced and back laboring for over 6 hours alone. I felt very alone and unsupported. He was in the room to see my daughter born, but then left again and I didn’t see him for approximately 3 weeks. I had such a complicated and traumatic delivery that I had to be in the hospital for a week before they would discharge me. My daughter was jaundice and had to go under the lights. Luckily, she took to the lights amazing and was only under them for 48 hours. I never saw him once during this hospital stay. In fact, my parents had the boys every since we dropped them off on our way to the hospital. And they were the ones who picked me up for the hospital and took me to their place about 10 days after my daughter’s birth. The 3 kids and I stayed there for about 2-2.5 more weeks before going back to our home. I told anyone who asked, that he was working and couldn’t get time off. He was taking care of our family. He was providing. He was doing the hard stuff to make sure we were taken care of.

Things continued to get worse once we were home again. I came to find out, he wasn’t working the whole time. He didn’t have a job. I came to find out about the second woman shortly after this. At this point we weren’t sleeping in the same bedroom anymore. Despite everything, I was willing to work on it. I was wanting to go to counselling: to figure it out. He led me to believe he wanted the same thing. One evening he went out with a friend of his but he didn’t return home afterwards. On April 4, 2016, my friend and the wife of the friend my ex was out with, came over and chatted with me about what my ex had told her husband. They believed I had a right to know what was going on. Within a few hours I was on the phone with my Dad and he was driving to pick the kids and I up. I just couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t a choice I made, really. It was more of a reaction to what I was hearing. I packed one suitcase for me, one suitcase for the boys and one for my daughter. I left everything else and went to my parent’s place. Once there, I text him saying the kids and I wouldn’t be home when he got home because we were at my parent’s place. He asked when I would be home, and I told him that was up to him.