When Did You Know It Was Over?
Well, I am in the process of filing for divorce from my alcoholic and crack-addicted husband who I made leave and who is now living with his mother. We have no children together, thank God. Of course, his aunt got him another job, he is living there for almost free, and is using my health insurance to pay for a personal trainer so he can, as he said "Get in shape for his new life." As soon as I get a divorce he is off my insurance.
Last month I was in acute renal failure due to a combination of methotrexate and ibuprofen for my rheumatoid arthritis. I was carrying around 15 extra pounds of water yet going to work every day full-time as a charge nurse. He had the nerve to call me and ask if the insurance under which I cover him will pay for his gym membership and personal trainer. He did not care about me or if I died. He has only called since I threw him out to find out things about money: getting his stuff to sell it, are his W-2's here so he can get a rapid refund, and can he get a personal trainer. I did tell him I was filing for divorce and of course he cried on the phone but I realize he is just a narcissistic liar and manipulator and probably a sociopath. The first three years of the marriage were good, the next two I tried after he relapsed, and after he ruined Christmas of 2007, I made up my mind in Jan 2008 to leave the marriage after I was suicidal because I would rather be dead than live with an addict or have to admit to my family that he had been using for the last two years. I bought and read "Co-Dependent No More" and made my plans to detach emotionally and legally. Fortunately, I have the education and means to do so; I was on my own from age 17 to 31 and had never depended on a man to support me.
This man has blown over $80K in marital funds (money he earned and did not use to help me with bills) and sold both of his vehicles for drugs. Once he relapsed in 2006, after 8 years clean, he had no interest in pulling his financial weight in this marriage even though he is a professional
The last straw for me was when I opened his cell phone and found that his background as well as several photos were of a crack ***** he met in a crack house totally naked and playing with herself. He was so close to her with the camera and he had the money so there is no way he can tell me he never did anything with anyone. Prior to that he was talking to a woman online and offered her money for sex and had actually made plans to meet her! He refused to take a lie detector and I told him if he wanted to stay in the marriage he had to take a lie detector and go to counseling and he refused. The topping on the cake was when he was in rehab and I met with him and the counselor and he owned up to the verbal and mental abuse and said, "I knew exactly what buttons to push on her and how to make her cry. I felt powerful and I wanted to control her and squash her down."
The last year we were together, his excuse for not paying any bills was "You're an RN and you make $26 an hour. I only make $14 an hour." WTF!!
Fortunately, when I met and married him, he had five years clean but I knew he had a possibility of relapse so I never had joint finances with him. He is not on the title of my house (my equity before we met) nor am I on any of his credit cards even though these people called me (yes, I changed my phone number). My car is also mine, clear and free. I had checking and savings at a different bank then him.
All I want to do is resume my life as it was for years before I met him: go to work and go home and enjoy my life. My daughter is 18 and works FT and lives with me (I raised her alone until I married a-hole when she was 12). I also have three dogs that he claimed to love but wouldn't pay for food or a vet; it always fell on me.
His family picked him up and brushed him off his entire life and now they are doing it again even though they don't blame me for making him leave. He told me that his mother didn't say anything when he told her I was filing for divorce; she put up with his alcoholic and runaround cheating absent father for 17 years until someone finally took him out with a shotgun. Now she has a 41 y/o unemployed alcoholic drug addict son living with her and a 42 y/o soon to be divorced alcoholic drug addict son living with her. His family knows that the failure of the marriage lies on him because of his drug abuse, verbal,mental and bordering on physical abuse, and adulterous behavior. I gave him time to get an apartment and he did get a room on a weekly basis and lasted two hours there!!
I have had a hard time because I am Catholic and I took vows to stay married. One priest told me "You need to focus on the good in him." Another one told me that adultery is sufficient grounds for leaving. However, he is not who I married; well, actually, he is: he was a wolf in sheep's clothing for the first three years while I helped him finish college and he worked as a maintenance man. Once he got his degree and landed a job as a Drug and Alcohol Counselor, he relapsed two months later!!
He had the nerve to say that he had to put up with my rheumatoid arthritis. I never burdened him with it except that when I had a flare I didn't feel like cooking, cleaning, or having sex. He also, on the day I made him leave, said "I just used you to get a degree," and called me "stretch marks" and said "You look like a beached whale when you ****" and his BMI is higher than mine (I'm a size 14, he has alot of nerve.)
Well, I cannot wait to legally disentangle myself from him. I need to it before he committs a crime to get money for crack because he would not qualify for a publeic defender with my income and I am not going to be forced to pay for his attorney and in NY I would have to. My sister is a lawyer and is doing this for me. She even tried to talk to him twice and he always had his own plan.
I don't hate him, I actually pity him, because he is so clueless as to how to treat people that he will never be able to share a life with anyone and he will end up living with his mother until she dies (and then he and his brother will get her house.)
I have finally fixed my kidney problem and I am taking my Enbrel/Methotrexate for my RA and able to work FT. I have told him that he had better not contest the divorce because I have plenty of evidence including the fact that he committed insurance fraud when he sold his truck for crack and claimed he was car-jacked and got a huge check which he used to buy a new truck outright (which he then sold for crack). Now he whines that he has to take a bus to work.
He had the nerve to say "You gave up on me. You threw me away. My mother put up with my father. I thoiught you loved me. What about the vows you took?" I guess he forgets that the first time he chose to leave and get high after 8 years, he was walking out on his marriage, job, everything. That was October of 2005. Where exactly did he keep his vows.
I am also changing my last name in the divorce decree, and not back to my maiden name either. I am changing it to "Abbastanza" which is Italian for "enough" as in "had enough" and "good enough."
Thanks,
Teresa