So this is what my relationship with Melissa is reduced to: 9 pages, single spaced in 11 point type. Can this really be all there is of the last 5 years of my life? I guess so. It is now mid-July 2011 and I am still alone. I haven’t slept with anyone or been on a date…because technically I’m still married and if I did that, I wouldn’t be any better than those people I’m angry with. I haven’t seen or heard from the kids since December of last year. Apparently, the five years I spent helping to raise them doesn’t mean much of anything. I do miss them and I think about them all the time…hell, I loved them like they were my own. She won’t even so much as send me an email telling me how they’re doing. I sent the youngest a birthday card and gift card on his birthday last month but I don’t know if she gave it to him or not. I have not had any contact with my wife in over a month now and that was just a three word text message. Before that the last I heard from her was in April. I have sent her emails and texts but she ignores them and I’m sure she’s blocked me by now.  I just sit at home most nights being lonely. But, I’ve got friends and my dog. I’m even playing live music again with a buddy in an acoustic project called Driveway Revival. I suppose it’s not much of a life...not super exciting…and it’s not as fulfilling as having a wife a kids, but it’s my life and it’ll have to do for now because I refuse to break my marriage vows and cheat on my wife.

She still has not explained to me any of her reasoning behind all of this…why she wouldn’t work on things or why I wasn’t good enough for her all of a sudden. Maybe she’ll tell me someday, but right now, I think she feels guilty because she knows she’s committing adultery. I don’t think she realizes the strain she’s put on her parents and her kids…at least, I hope she doesn’t because the alternative is that she doesn’t care. Her parents are good, Christian people and she’s either gone against all of their advice and wishes or she’s lied to them about me and things I did to get them to agree with her. I don’t know what she’s doing…she’s dating a guy that she broke up with once before because she wasn’t happy with him and now she’s going to be? This guy is neither a Christian, nor a good person. He is an adulterer and a pagan and a homosexual (he swears he’s not, but, sorry guy…if you have sex with a guy, you’re gay…just because the guy had boobs and long hair don’t make it right). This man is going to lead my wife to the depths of hell and I hate that I can’t do anything about it…and it’s amazing to me that the people who love her seem to be okay with it. Now, maybe you think I’m just saying these things because I’m hurt or jealous and maybe I am, but that doesn’t make them untrue. The truth is that, as much as losing her and the kids hurt, I want her to be happy. There are plenty of guys out there who would be good for her and the kids and would maybe make her happy and be a good father for the kids, but Troy is not him. Troy is a bad person and he is going to make her life and her afterlife miserable. But I know she won’t believe me…all I can do is hope that she sees it before it’s too late.

Of course, I still love Melissa after all of this, but I don’t think I could take her back now anyway after the way she’s treated me…after she cheated on me…after she abandoned me. I am still sad sometimes and miss her and the kids, but I refuse to shed any more tears for her. I refuse to waste even one more day thinking about her and wishing and asking why. I am angry now (one of the five stages of grief?) but I am going to figure out how to forgive her and move on with my life. It won’t be easy to forgive and it may take a while, but I will do it. I hope she can someday forgive me for the bad things I’ve done as well…that was something that she could never do and it’s made her unhappy all these years…she was just never able to forgive the people in her past that did her wrong. 

So, I don’t know what the future holds for me…maybe I’ll keep posting crap on here just for something to do or maybe I just needed to regurgitate this story as some sort of exorcism, but either way, gentle reader, know that I am okay. 

Current Mood: calm

Melissa filed for divorce against me in April 2011.  It was supposed to be an uncontested divorce because neither of us could afford to go through a long drawn out process through the courts.  When I read through the divorce papers everything looked good to me except for one thing.  Remember the house we bought less than a year ago?  Well, she wanted her name off the mortgage and wanted me to sign stating that I would assume the mortgage, refinance or sell the house.  There was also language in there that would make me responsible for all cost associated with this.  Now, we have had this house for less than a year, so we have no equity in it…in fact, we’ve barely started paying on the interest.  Never mind the fact that she quit paying the mortgage when she left so she had only actually put into it 6 months.  All that aside, though, the housing market is in the toilet in the US right now and we owe more on the home than it is worth…much more.  So, I’m supposed to go into debt for the rest of my life, lose everything I own, have to move back in with my parents and end up paying around $40k out of pocket because she found another man she likes better and she doesn’t want to be obligated on this mortgage?!  I don’t fucking think so! 

 

So I let her attorney know that I’m not going to sign those papers as is and that I will attempt to assume the mortgage (because honestly, I don’t want her name on my mortgage either) but that selling the house and refinancing are not options unless Melissa agrees to pay for everything.  I get a call back a couple days later saying that she’s going to hold off on the divorce until I get the decision back on whether I’ll be able to assume the mortgage on my own income.  I still haven’t gotten it back and we’re still legally married.  In the meantime, I have been taking care of the house and paying the bills and mortgage all on my lonesome. 

 

In April I got a dog.  Melissa and I had two cats that I got her for her birthday last year named Knox and Sox.  They were the coolest damn cats ever.  They really helped me those first few months and, in fact, when Melissa told me she was coming to take them I freaked out.  That’s right, I freaked out…those cats were my only companionship in that big empty house.  They loved me when it seemed that the whole world had turned against me.  Melissa never did understand why I freaked out…she only knew they were HER cats and she wanted them.  She never did understand that she had the kids and her parents…and apparently a boyfriend, but I had nobody at home.  I came home to nobody but those cats.  She did eventually come and get them but did ask me first…she guilted me into giving them up by saying the kids really missed them so I gave them up.  I loved those cats and I still miss them.  I sometimes wonder if she still has them or if she took them and gave them away just to spite me.  I’ll never know, I guess.

 

So anyway, I got a dog in April.  He is a Swedish Vallhund named Buster and he is awesome.  He’s like a miniature version of a German Shephed (Vallhund means Shepherd).  He small, but not too small…he’s about 37 lbs.  He is full of energy and loves everybody and is just funny as hell.  Unfortunately, he’s got the heartworms, but we’re taking care of that.  I’ll have to post a picture of Buster on here if I can figure out how. 

Current Mood: weird

 I was baptized in March on stage at church in front of the entire congregation. I was the only adult that got baptized, and it was somewhat nerve-wracking experience, but it was exhilarating and amazing at the same time. It was the symbolic death of the person I was and the birth of the man I was becoming. I invited Melissa and her parents to the baptism, but they didn’t come. That hurt me more than anything else, I think, because it was the first time I really started to realize that she didn’t care about me any more. 

I continued to go to counseling as did Melissa, but, where I was going every week, she had been maybe twice.  Her counselor kept having to go out of town for surgery and never did have the sense to link Melissa with another counselor. I think Melissa may have gone to five counseling sessions total. At the end of March, I got together with my counselor and hers and composed an email asking Melissa what her intentions were and asking if we could sit down with the counselors and discuss the plan for our marriage. Well, she went ballistic and finally told me what I suspected all along…that she never had any intention of working on the marriage and that she only went to counseling because her parents made her. She went on and on about how I had sent her texts and emails asking her to talk after she told me she needed space. And yes, I did send those things…nothing ever mean, just telling her that I loved her and asking her to go take a walk and talk about things. She used that as an excuse, though, to show that I hadn’t changed. But in the end, none of it mattered…she already had someone new and she had already buried our relationship and our marriage…I just hadn’t been invited to the funeral.

I think what hurts the most about all of it is that she lied to me. She lied about everything…that she loved me, that there wasn’t someone else, that she was going to try to work things out. They were all lies and I, for the life of me can’t understand why she wouldn’t just come out and tell the truth. It could’ve saved a lot of heartache and I could’ve gotten on the road to recovery much faster instead of spending all that time thinking there was hope. 

In June, on a hunch, I did a Google search for Troy and found his page on DeviantArt.com on which he had a picture of the two of them with the caption, “The Light of My Life”. It devastated me…I had believed her when she’d lied to me and told me she wasn’t seeing him or anyone else. I called her and left her a message (she hadn’t replied to anything from me or spoken to me since around April) asking her how she could do this. I then sent her a nasty email telling her that she has been committing adultery and that I know. I asked her again how she could cheat after she had been cheated on in the past. Melissa used to tell me how horrible cheaters were and told me that the only way she would ever leave me was if I cheated on her or if I hit her or the kids. I guess that was BS too…there was one other reason she would leave me…if she found somebody she liked better. The ironic thing is that Melissa had dated Troy before and she had a one-night-stand and cheated on him. Now she has cheated on me with him...everything comes around full circle, I suppose. I know that someday, both of them will get what they deserve, though. 

Current Mood: angry

As the February chill was settling in, I was going to Christian counseling and Melissa was supposedly doing the same thing. I was learning about the biblical aspect of marriage and being a husband and what that meant for me. I was learning how to accept God’s gift and to live as I should. I was learning to control my temper. I was learning how to live a good live, in other words. It was really helping me and I was thinking that my marriage was on the road to recovery, as was my soul.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was only going to church and counseling in the beginning to save my marriage and my relationship with Melissa. However, on February 6, I had an enlightening experience at church. I went and sat there by myself as I had been doing in the hope of running into my wife and her seeing that I was trying to change. On that particular Sunday, however, the topic of the day’s sermon was marriage and how to live a biblical marriage. Pastor Patrick talked about how a man should only have eyes for his wife and the reasons why looking at pornography and other women is wrong. He talked about the marital relationship and the things husbands and wives were supposed to treat each other. He talked about what a marriage is supposed to be and what it should not be and I tell you, gentle reader, that God himself spoke to me that day. Not in a literal sense, but rather He spoke to me through the Pastor because He knew that I needed to hear what was being said. I felt as though a spotlight was on me the entire service and I felt a shame and an understanding that I have never felt before or since. I knew that I was being judged on that day…not for my life as a whole, but for my wrongs as a husband. I looked at pornography…I looked at pretty girls in their short skirts when they walked by. I played video games and watched TV when I should have been spending time with my wife and the kids. I did all of these things and I thought they were okay. I thought that, as a man, I was supposed to look at other women. I thought that Melissa was being overly sensitive when she told me that it hurt her. I thought I was “unwinding” when I was spending all that time neglecting them. I thought all of these things and I was as wrong as wrong can be. I was not a good husband or a good father and I was paying the price for that by losing my family. 

Melissa was not wrong for leaving me. A separation was not the wrong move for us. Her wrong was in giving up and deciding that our relationship was a lost cause before she ever even tried to fix it. My wrong was walking away from God so many years ago because of the horrible things I saw human being do. However, at this point I still believed there was hope for my marriage, but what I didn’t realize it that The Deceiver had his hooks in my wife and he was not letting go. 

Current Mood: contemplative

Now, when Melissa and I started getting serious, we discussed children because I knew that she had her tubes tied and she already had two.  But,  I want a child of my own so we talked about it and she said that, at the time she had her tubes tied, she was 100% positive that she didn't want any more children, but that now she had met someone who she wanted to have another one with ( that would be me).  So, that was the way it went...we carried on with our relationship and made plans and got married.  The idea was that we would have a surgical procedure to reverse the tubal ligation and then we could have a baby.  I agreed to have a vasectomy after that so she wouldn't have to have yet another surgery to retie her tubes.  We even went to see the fertilization specialist and they tested me to make sure that I could have children and all that.  So, you can imagine my surprise when she came home that night and told me that she didn't want to have a baby.  Of course, this upset me, but I didn't fly into a rage or anything.  I raised my voice and was all self righteous about things for a bit...but then I went outside and calmed down.  When I came back in, I told her that I loved her and that, we didn't have to have a baby...that I was happy with her.  All I asked of her was that she not take it completely off the table and that I wouln't mention it, but if she ever changed her mind, to let me know.  I thought that would be the end of it, but she then sat back down and told me that she wanted out of the marriage. 

Melissa never did explain to me that night why she wanted out...just that she wasn't happy and wanted out.  She said there wasn't anybody and else and, God help me, I was naive and believed her.  She left that night and I saw her about three times after that.  She came and got some things the next day and we went to church together the next two weekends, but after that she told me she didn't want to go to church with me any more.  Now, I had never been much for church before that.  If you had asked me if I was a Christian, I probably would have said yes, but the truth was that I was an agnostic for many years.  I believed there was something out there, but I didn't know what it was  or what it was for.  But, I went to church with her because it meant that I got to see her and I wanted to see her (At this point, the plan was for us to separate, but go to marriage counseling).  We texted back and forth a little in those early days of our separation, but she wouldn't talk to me on the phone or meet me other than those two times at church.  She told me that she would call me to talk a couple of times,  but she never did. 

At the end of January, I got into her Facebook account and read her messages because I had been suspicious that she had been seeing Troy again.  I didn't want to believe it, but I couldn't help myself just the same.  I had to know and she obviously wasn't going to tell me.  I had seen on Facebook that Troy had broken up with his transvestite girlfriend (boyfriend) not a week before Melissa had left me, so things were going crazy in my head because I knew she had been talking to him again for a couple of months before she left.  So I logged onto her Facebook account and I see two messages.  One message was to him from her that said how she was sorry she had left him and that it was not him but her.  The second message was from him to her and, without going into too much detail, it said things that were wholly innapporpriate to be saying to a married woman.  Things of a sexual nature...and I'll leave it at that.  So, needless to say, I essenttially lost my shit.  I called her and called her and texted her to find out if it was true.  She wouldn't call me back, but did eventually txt me to say that she was sending me an email.  In that email, she said that she still loved and cared about me and always would (another lie, apparently).  She said that she wasn't seeing anyone else and that I don't trust her because I thought that she would do that.  Why would I trust her the way she walked out and wouldn't talk to me and wouldn't even tell me why she was gone.  But, I did...I did trust her when she told me that and I was ashamed of myself for not trusting her and I was ashamed of myself for going into her Facebook account. 

So, I believed her that she wasn't doing anything and counseling was beginning.  We had been going for about a week by this time and the only catch was...we were going to separate counselors at different times and no plan for going to marriage counseling together.

Current Mood: crappy

All in all, I thought that Melissa and I had a good relationship.  Of course, we fought and sometimes I would get angry and throw something across the room or punch the wall.  I put a hole in the door at the apartment once.  But, I never hit her and I never hit the kids...and none of those things I threw were ever thrown at them.  Now, I'm not saying it was right because it wasn't.  What it was is the adult equivalent of a temper tantrum...which I'm embarrassed to admit, but I've got to tell it like it is.  Melissa always made a big deal because I wouldn't let her leave when we were fighting...of course she doesn't mention that most of those times she had been drinking and I just didn't want her to drive drunk.  Of course, I did have a bad habit of wanting to continue an argument instead of letting her have some space to cool off...and that was stupid too.  But, that's just how I was...I wanted to get the argument over with, not prolong it by sitting around fuming about it.  Anyway, the bottom line is that I had a problem with my temper and I wish that I would have gotten some help with it then instead of after the fact...I know I put Melissa and the kids through a lot with that crap and I am ashamed to my very core for that.  Like I said, I never hit any of them...never even thought about it...but I'm sure it wasn't very pleasant for a long time living with me and my hair-trigger temper.

Still, on September 21, 2009, Melissa and I were married on the beach in Destin, FL.  She was beautiful with her hair up in her white dress.  She looked like a goddess and I couldn't believe that I, a mortal man, was going to have this beautiful creature as my wife.  I was happier than I had ever been.  The kids were there, her parents were there and so were my parents...we said our vows and we kissed under the sunset and it was perfect.  We spent the next week in Destin lying on the beach, making love, going out to dinner, shopping and just being together.  It was a great, great week and one that I will never forget as long as I live.

In June of 2010, we moved into the house we bought together in Southaven. At this point and time, I knew that I had a problem with my temper and I knew that I had to somehow get it under control.  I began to try with all my might to improve my attitude and to not get upset at the little things and I think I did a pretty damn good job.  I should have gone to counseling, but I didn't...I thought I could do it on my own.  And, lo and behold, things did start to get better...to the point that Melissa asked me if her dad had had a talk with me.  He hadn't, but I just told her that I had been trying to change because I loved her and the kids.  In November 2010, Melissa started talking to Troy again.  He was dating a transvestite and Melissa said that she was happy for him that he had found someone.  Now, I don't know exactly when her feelings started to change toward me, but I am guessing that it was around this time.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with our families at our new home and that night Melissa told me that she had been thinking about leaving.  She told me that she had talked to her parents and they said that she could move back with them if things didnt get better between us.  She told me that I had gotten a lot better and she told me that she was not still thinking about leaving. 

We celebrated Christmas and Santa Claus came for the kids.  On the Wednesday before New Years Eve we went out to eat dinner.  On Thursday, she wanted to go have margaritas with her brother and his fiancee and left me home to watch the Tennessee Game.  She came home that night and we made love.  She got up on the morning of New Years Eve to go shopping with her future sister-in-law and when she hadn't come home by about 7PM that night, I called her and she said she was on the way.  She said that she was going to eat a little something and then would come home and eat dinner and celebrate New Years.  When she still wasn't home at 9 I called her again and she said she was just finishing up dinner.  I got a little upset because I was waiting for her to go eat.  I went and got some dinner and she was home by the time I returned.  She made herself a drink and sat down on the couch looking sullen.  I asked her what was wrong and I felt like she didn't want to be around me.  "I have been pulling away lately", she said.  When I asked why, she hit me with it:  "I don't want to have another baby".

Current Mood: sad

Melissa and I met in High School way back in 1996.  That was the year she graduated and my Junior year.  She wa a bit of a strange girl, with dyed red and purple hair, tee shirts and baggy torn up jeans.  She was the type of person that we called a "freak" back then, but my God was she beautiful.  She had porcelain skin and everything was just right on her 5' frame.  We were in the same computer class for one semester and, although I did ask her out once, she had a boyfriend and that didn't happen.  But, we did talk and joke around every day during that one class...I was so happy that she sat next to me.  She went on to graduate that Summer and I didn't see her again for 10 years.  She sent me an invitation to her graduation but, for whatever reason, I didn't go.  I did, however, keep the invitation for all those years...I'm not sure why, I just did.  Maybe it was fate or some grand design, but it was probably just coincidence now that I look back.  I still have that invitation...the last piece of her I still have other than what's in my mind.  I've kept it for the same reason I kept it before, I guess...just because.  I'm reminded of the movie, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where Jim Carey has a procedure done to erase Kate Winslett from his memory.  Sometimes I feel that I'd love to be able to erase Melissa from my memory, but like in the movie, I'd end up wanting to keep the memories even though they hurt.

In 2006, Melissa and I became "Myspace friends" and began sending messages back and forth.  We ended up deciding to meet for dinner and drinks to catch up.  She was still beautiful and she was still just an amazing person to talk to.   She had two kids and, although I was a little hesitant to get involved with a mom, I couldn't help myself.  She was the most intriguing and beautful woman I had ever met and I knew on that first date that I wanted to her be, at the least, my girlfriend.  She had been engaged to her kids' father and he cheated on her so she had her tubes tied.  She had just broken up with her last boyfriend, Troy, in Ocotber because he was a "loser" and had no direction.  She said that he was a great guy and she wished him the best, but he just wasn't for her (all of this is important for reasons you understand later).  After a few months of dating, I knew that I was in love with this woman and I asked her to marry me in the Spring of 2008 as we sat by the lake at the Memphis Botanic Garden.  When she looked at me and said yes it was the best day of my life.  I knew that we would be together forever...turns out that forever was  just a couple of more years. 

Melissa and I and the kids moved into an apartment together in the Summer of 2008 after we were engaged.  The apartment was okay...nothing special, but it was a place to live and we made do.  Melissa and I got into regular arguments over things ranging from the kids to money to what we were having for dinner.  Most of the time things were pretty harmonious but about once a week we would get into a fight over something stupid.  Most of the time it was because I lost my temper over something I shouldn't have...there is no doubt that I could be a complete asshole at times and the kids frustrated me to no end.  It wasn't because I didn't love them, because I did.  I loved Melissa and those kids with all my heart...it was just that I didn't know how to deal with them all living with me.  I needed to learn how and Melissa was too busy criticizing me or getting mad at me to help me figure it out.  Of course, it wasn't her fault, necessarily...she just didn't know how to make it work either.  Melissa had come from a messed up childhood and had grown into an adult having one dysfunctional relationship after another.  She just didn't know how to make relationships work and her answer to conflict was to run away.  That was one of the things that led to me losing my temper so much...she would shut down and refuse to talk about anything at the first sign of any kind of confrontation.  Melissa needed counseling in the worst kind of way....so did I, but neither one of us could see it.  Maybe if we had both gotten the help we needed, then things would be different now.  There are a lot of maybe's in life and not so many certainties.  But, one thing that I believe is that everything happens for a reason and that God is going to help us through. 

Current Mood: nostalgic

In China, 2011 is the year of the rabbit. Now, I don’t know what this means and the only reason I know is that I read the placemat at the Chinese Buffet. Hell, it might be just one of those things that got made up for stupid Americans…like fortune cookies or Jackie Chan. Anyway, it’s the year of the rabbit…and that means absolutely jack-shit to me because for me, 2011 has been the year of the Duck-billed Platypus. The Platypus is one of those creatures that you look at and say, “What the fuck is that? Why is it here?” It is an animal that makes almost no sense whatsoever and it seems almost to be something made up, like a unicorn or a dragon…but it is, in fact, real. I say that 2011 is the year of the Duck-billed Platypus, because that is how I feel every day. I wonder if what is happening to me is real or if I’m in some Matrix-like dream world where instead of being Keanu, I have to be me. I often wonder how I got to this place in my life and I just don’t have the answers. I lie alone every night wondering where it all went wrong. I lie awake looking at her side of the bed and the emptiness there…and I just. Can’t. Sleep.

She left me on New Years Eve at 11:36PM, December 31, 2010. She said she was going to stay at her brother’s house that night and think. I watched her walk out the door…stunned. I watched the door close and I heard her pull out of the driveway. Then I laid down in the bed and listened to the fireworks and the celebration going on outside and I thought about what had just happened and that my life was over. I thought about how this would be the first time in over two years that we had slept apart.  I thought about the things she had said before she left. I thought about the kids and if I would ever see them again (I wouldn’t). I thought about our plans for the future and how they had all just shattered in the blink of an eye for, from what I could tell, no discernable reason. I thought about all of these things and I cried. Now, I know it’s not very manly to admit that you cried. I wish I could say that I grabbed a bottle of Jack, downed it, went out, got in a fight and got laid…but I can’t. I laid there in bed and I cried until I eventually fell asleep at some point. Maybe you think you would do it differently…hell, if you had asked me prior to these events, I would have said I would. But the truth is usually not as glamorous as we would like it to be.

I woke up the next morning about 5AM and I sat in the darkness trying to figure out if it was all a nightmare or if it had really happened. All I had to do was look to my right and see her empty side of the bed to know it was all real. I stumbled into the kitchen and fed the cats and then I sat down and I just stared at the wall. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t eat…I was numb and scared and I sat there for about five hours, maybe dozing off here and there. The phone rang around lunchtime and she asked me if I was okay. I told her no and she told me she was going to come by to get some of her things. I asked her if she was okay and she said no and that we would talk when she got home. I knew I wasn’t going to like the outcome of that conversation, but I didn’t have much choice. 

When she came that afternoon, she told me that she was going to stay with her parents for the week and do some thinking. She asked me to leave while she and her mom gathered up some things of hers and the kids’. So I went outside and talked to her dad, who told me he thought “this was a railroad job”. I told him that I would never see the kids again and he said, “I promise you that’s not going to happen”. Turns out he was wrong about that but he was right about one thing…it was a railroad job. Melissa never had any intention of working on things. She had told me that we were going to go to counseling (and we did…sort of), but she never had any intention of even trying to work on our marriage. As far as she was concerned, it was already over…one year and three months after it began. 

Where to begin…the last 6 months have been the hardest of my life and I’ve never really been one to keep a written record of things but, for some reason, it seems important now.  It always seemed to me to be extremely egotistical to believe that anyone might actually want to read someone else’s day-to-day bullshit.  Now I’m thinking that it doesn’t matter if anyone ever reads it…just knowing that it’s here seems to be cathartic somehow.  Pouring out all of the pain and the anger onto a page seems like a much better outlet than becoming a serial killer or an alcoholic (both of which I have contemplated, but dismissed due to their inherent lack of monetary compensation).  So, where to begin?  All good stories and epics begin at the beginning and, being confident that this will turn out to be neither a good story nor an epic, I will start in the middle…or at least the present.  I suppose I could die tomorrow, which would make this the end, but in that case, the rest would never get written anyway so rather than sit here and wax philosophical about these things, I suppose I’ll just get started.

Current Mood: contemplative