A Sort of Therapy: Part Six

Ok, well, let's see...it's been awhile...

I left off with my series in therapy about BY. BY, as it turns out, was not the father of his ex-wife's baby. That was one thing that he told me that really was true.

We seemed to drift through life together. I honestly don't remember a lot about it. He eventually proposed to me and I accepted. He had picked out a ring for me and surprised me with it one night after he got home from work. It was in December - he told me that he couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to me. We were always broke. He had a hard time holding down jobs it seemed. But we would get by - barely, but we did.

I remember that we eventually landed in Brookville. He got a good paying job that he supposedly liked. I liked being away from his insane family. His mom would call all of the time, several times a day. One time she called and asked to speak to BY (it was like clockwork - he would come home from work and the phone would ring a few minutes later). He was upstairs taking a shower so I asked her if I could take a message. She said, "Well, how long will he be?"
I was kinda ticked and so I yelled up the stairs (so she could hear), "B-, your mother is calling AGAIN. She wants to know when you'll be done from the shower!" Then his mom said, "Oh, no, we're losing our boy...she's taking him away from us!" Like, total drama!! I just hung up. She was nutty. So was his dad.

One time he was working so I decided I would go visit them. I got bombarded with questions. Did I want to see a picture of his ex-wife? Did I want to see pictures of his ex-girlfriends? Did I know that his ex did this and that? It was humiliating. I didn't want to hear about how beautiful his wedding was or how much they loved his one girlfriend. Why would they do that to me? But they did. They even had his first marriage license hanging up on the wall until I had a fit about it and BY took it down and asked his parents what their problem was. As always, his mom would cry and tell him how much they missed him...what if something happened and she needed him?

Another time during Thanksgiving, we told them that we'd spend the day there and then we were going out to my parents' house to visit them in the evening. While we were at his parents' house, his mom disappeared into the kitchen. I decided to get up and see if she needed help. I went in and she was laying on the floor. I said her name and she didn't respond, so I yelled for her husband. He ran in and lifted her head off the floor (she was laying on her side - how did she fall that neatly??) and slapped her. I said, "Call an ambulance!" He said, "No! She's just not breathing. She must have passed out." I'm thinking, Just not breathing? What?! BY told me to just stand back. He didn't seem that phased. So his mom "woke up" and started crying. BY and his dad took her out to the car and his dad ordered us to meet them out at the hospital. So instead of going to my parents' house, we spent the evening at the hospital where they could not find anything wrong with her. Go figure. I voiced my suspicions to BY about it and he said it wasn't the first time that she pulled something like that. It was beyond ridiculous.

I figured that if we stayed out of Punxsutawney, we'd be ok. We just had to get away from his parents. While we were in Brookville, we got married at the courthouse. We decided not to invite anyone. We didn't want his parents ruining it by comparing it to his other marriage or making rude comments and we didn't invite my parents because we didn't want to invite one side and not the other. I didn't change my last name because I did not feel that great about it. My parents and his parents both pushed us to get married. The night before I told him that I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through with it. He basically told me that if I didn't, there was the door! I felt like I had no place left to go.

Eventually, things started to not add up. He'd say he was at one place but wasn't. I caught him in several lies. I didn't know what to believe. We moved (again) to a smaller apartment and one night he just left. He left me with no car, no money, nothing. I found a note in our mailbox, of all places. He said he had to get away to think. I was miserable. I called my parents and eventually went away with my best friend. I would call the apartment and leave messages for him. He came back and got them...it was hell for me. I didn't know if he was coming or going. Then he demanded that I come home, so I had my best friend drive me back. He wasn't there. He didn't show. So my aunt offered to help me look for him one day, and I found the car (MY car) in front of his parents' house. I burst right in, did not knock, and said to his dad, "Where is he?" He didn't say anything so I went upstairs to his old bedroom, and there he was, sleeping. I started crying and asked him why he was doing this, what did I do...he said he wanted to come back and we left together.

To make a long story short, we got back together but a few months later he drove me to work and never picked me up. He had seemed fine. We talked about what we were going to do that evening. He told me he loved me and to have a great day. When I got off of work, I found out that he left the car outside. I thought he got us another car because that's what he was supposed to be doing that day. I went home but he wasn't there. I didn't check the closets. I didn't notice anything unusual. Maybe I didn't want to. I drove to his parents' house and they said they had not seen him. I called the dealership where he was supposed to have gone. They hadn't seen him all day. I said, "Well, maybe he left me a note in the car and I just didn't see it." So I went back out and checked the glove compartment. I found his wedding ring. I went back to their house and when I got onto the front porch, I heard his dad saying to his mom, "You should have told her the truth!" I went running in and said, "Tell me WHAT?!" She said that he had been there earlier and asked her not to tell me. That he didn't want to hurt me. I was so mad!! I called my parents and they just happened to be in Punxsy shopping - they said they'd be right there. My mom came in and asked his mom why she was lying for him. She didn't give a great answer. She had none. So I left...with more questions than answers. I went home and saw that he had taken a lot of clothes with him and most of the guitars (including one of mine that I bought).

I was so upset. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong...then I found out when the landlord came and demanded the rent. I thought that BY had been paying it. He hadn't. That's a big part of why he left. The bills started coming in. I changed the lock on the house and he would call me crying at 4 a.m. many times, saying that he loved me but he wanted to die, he's no good, etc. I would tell him to let me help him but then he didn't want my help. He would call me in the middle of the night telling me to come get him, and I would drive out to town to get him and either he wouldn't be there or would flip out saying to just leave him alone. It was terrible. I never knew what was going on.

Then one day I decided to get angry. I was sick of being there for him and he never cared about me. He never once asked me how I was. He never offered to help me. It was always about him. His mom would call me and cry to me about how she didn't know what was going on with him...blah blah blah. She knew enough to let him bring some other girl to live with them for awhile not too long after we had split up! But she failed to tell me that. I found this out later and when I confronted her with it she didn't have much to say. Neither did BY when he was telling me that he wanted to get back together with me. He seemed shocked that I knew. I told him to quit lying about everything and to just leave me alone. He started to slack off with the phone calls and things then.

We had been wanting to have a baby for some time. It never happened. BY had cancer at one time and I asked him if the treatments had made him sterile. He said that they did testing and he was ok. He told me that at his next appointment he would ask again. He returned home and said that the doctor said everything should be ok. BY mentioned that I had problems before with my cycle and endometriosis. Then I thought it was my fault. I went to the doctor and they told me that we'd both need to undergo testing. I told them that my husband did (because I assumed he had) and they suggested that I see a specialist. At that time, I did not have the money for it. I felt horrible. His parents would constantly ask us when they were going to get a grandchild. I told his mom many times that I felt like I wasn't giving him the family that he wanted. She told me that it would happen "someday". In the meantime, BY would get all excited when my period would be late and then we'd go through the same crap again when it would show up. He once even bought a cute little onesie for the baby that he "knew we'd have someday". It just made me feel even worse. Then one night, after he had left, he called me and blurted out that he couldn't have kids. He knew he couldn't. The doctor had suggested that he freeze some of his sperm before he had the treatments because he was certain that he wouldn't be able to after the treatments. He didn't freeze anything. He then told me that he never wanted kids anyway. I couldn't speak. I just hung up. When I confronted his mom about it later, she said, "Well, you have to look at it from B-'s point of view..." She's just as sick as he is.

It was painful. I didn't know who he was. I thought things were ok. It was like living in the twilight zone. This is a VERY brief version: again, I don't remember some of it (it's like I blocked it out) and other things are just too exhausting even to address. I was so embarrassed...