Learningthehardway's Story

My Story
I met him in 2006. We met May 2006, and he performed his final discard in May 2013...just weeks before our 7th anniversary together.

I suffered through 17 discards in this relationship.
How I got to the point where I would withstand this crap for so long, I have no idea now that my head is beginning to come out of the fog.

Who was I for those 7 years?

I was a pleaser. I was afraid. I was insecure. I was depressed. I was the luckiest woman in the world for I had the right guy! Yeah right!

I was unhappily married and was starved for attention. I made the greatest mistake in my life and regret it now...and have nobody to blame but myself. Now it's just time to go forward. This was the biggest lesson I have yet learned in my life...
When we met, it was a blind date from the internet (he didn't have a photo). When I saw him, I wasn't overly impressed. But he had me laughing with his charm, and he oozed kind of a bad boy attitude...macho, protective, very very funny, like stand up comic funny... He was also an experienced flirt, and he looked at me like I was the best thing he had ever met in his life...
Needless to say, we made a second date. During the second date, I began to see how sexy he really was. His physique was actually really hot, his smile was mesmerizing. His eyes were trained on my every breath and move. His hands were strong looking.... and, oh God, he had dimples.
He was a salesman. And a very successful one. He moved with swagger and he had a comeback for any conversation. His specialty was "closing the customer"....need I say more?

We were going to meet every week or so in the beginning, but then he would say, I can't wait to see you again, or can I see you? How flattering! Besides, my husband at the time had made a criminal mistake with our finances and put me in a bad position, which he did a few weeks after meeting my N, so I really didn't feel as guilty as I should at that point. I was in a lot of financial trouble thanks to my husband and had to take the heat for it. So my N was looking more and more inviting. Besides, turned out we lived only a couple miles from each other.

He was newly divorced from his ex, but one of the first signs is she kept calling him and calling and calling and calling...and texting and texting....
I wondered what the heck her problem was... after all, they WERE divorced... weren't they???
Well, yes they were. What I learned 1 month into this relationship was that the ex had moved BACK IN WITH HIM to his condo... then he met me.... then he kicked her out....

whoa nelly. Why did she move back in with him? Were they making another go of their relationship? Not according to him. According to him she "needed a place to stay temporarily.".....

So apparently what happened was she was discarded so abruptly once he met me that her head was spinning and she just needed some answers. Her heart was broken and she would leave message after message (one day she called 26 times) BEGGING for another chance.

The cruelest part? He would say "you gotta hear this one" or "listen to this one" and he'd be rolling his eyes and smiling! He'd push the phone to my ear and say she's a pyscho, huh?

So it grew. And I had the perfect reason to get out of the marriage at the same time. N wanted me all for himself. (Thinking back, I had mentioned and exposed too much of myself to him in our first meetings...my parents would leave me an inheritance and were elderly...plus I was an only child...etc...)
Next thing you know, the husband has moved out and N smoothly moves right in. He gave up his condo without a second thought so I figured he must be for real.
It was great in the beginning. He would tell me "as long as I'm in your life, you'll never need to put gas in your car - I will take care of the car, the property, etc) - how I wish I knew then what I know now....

Finally, she gave up (so I thought) and moved to another state.
What should have been OUR first Christmas together, I spent alone, because he decided he had to drive up to see her for the holiday to REALLY END IT with her. "Honey, it's the only way she'll really stop calling. I have to do it in person." Are you freaking kidding me? I was NOT happy but at this point he had just moved in for Chrissakes! So I begged him just do it over the phone! You don't need to drive there! You are sending her the wrong message! But he was adamant he had to leave me for 3 days to DRIVE UP THERE. I said where will you sleep? He said a hotel. Well of course once he was there he said he just crashed at her place because she had an extra room, and don't worry he loved me and only me and it would "all be over soon".... he always said that when he was doing something that was wrong. "It will all be over soon" or "None of this will matter in 100 years..." as if that exonerated him from any responsibility...

Well he came home, said he took care of it... and for a few days I thought he did. But it didn't stop. It never stopped for just under 2 YEARS she would call begging. All I could think of is that if he really didn't care and was being honest with me, he would have gotten a restraining order, changed his number, something. Then she moved back here locally and got her own place! This was crazy.
I'm going out of order a bit here... between the time she moved away and moved back, we had our first Valentine's Day. He sent me a beautiful (small cheap but still) bouquet of flowers from an online service. You do realize they send you a confirmation email, right? So i knew they were coming. Unfortunately, the same day his Ex got the EXACT SAME BOUQUET from him. Do you know why? Because she had GIVEN UP AND WENT SILENT ON HIM 2 WEEKS BEFORE.
The email confirmations also showed what the sender wrote in each little card. Mine said "I can't wait for our future, baby! I love you!"
Hers said "You will always be my little baby and I will miss you forever in my life...I'm sorry it has to be this way. I will never forget you and I will love you always."
Well, there went my heart into the trash. He was reeling her back in! But why? We had a great connection, he knew I loved him dearly, I had never screwed him over like he was apparently doing to me, and I did everything for him - from the kind of sex he liked (pulling my hair and shoving me to my knees) to making his favorite meals, keeping the house clean, his laundry done... why would he betray me like this?
I was second guessing my position and thinking maybe I made a dreadful mistake. But he talked his way out of it. With hands moving and looking like a late night show host, he stood there animated with a soothing convincing voice that while he held no credibility with me, he sent the flowers to be kind and end it correctly with her so she could move on.
I don't know how he convinced me of that, but somehow he did. Or so I made myself believe so I could continue living this "fantasy" with him.

I also want to mention one time he left me (2008 or 2009?) he MOVED BACK IN WITH THE EX WIFE! Yes! He told me he was using her for convenience yet wouldn't speak to me when she was around. He told me he was just using her as a place to live until we could work things out. We did, and the week he decided to come home, he drove out to meet me at an outdoor bar. While there, guess who showed up? The ex-wife! GUESS WHAT EXN DID??? He laughed and retreated to the men's room in the restaurant leaving me alone with her! Turns out she was a nice lady. We compared a few notes and he didn't come out until she walked out of the place.

It was all such a nightmare, looking back.

At the time, N was making an excellent salary at his white collar job. Within 6 months he decided to quit the job because he wanted more time with me at home, and the current job he was leaving warranted a 60-70 hr workweek. It was great money, but he said he didn't care. So from there, it all began to change.

He was home more as he worked a 40 hour job making less than half the salary he used to have. Being home more, he began to talk about his dreams, ambitions - I never knew someone with so many! How inspiring! Of course these things never worked out, but to tell them, they were the RIGHT things to do and would make us tons of money and success. They were all flops. He had about a dozen different jobs in 7 years. As far as I know, he quit all of them (never fired). He had glowing escalades of being a great employee. Of course, the bosses never knew that he usually stole little things to bring home...

He wanted threesomes. I would say 3 months in, we had my acquaintance over - she wasn't a close friend, and she was younger - mousey girl so no threat there, but she was a PARTAY animal... and he knew it from my description of her, so we all went out drinking (bad idea) and that night he wanted to do it and she was 3 sheets to the wind and almost passed out in his spare bedroom and don't you know, I chickened out. I know I told him maybe that could be fun (hey you never know til you try it...) but when the time came, I couldn't do it. Just couldn't. Guess what? While I walked back in to the other bedroom to sleep, I heard a headboard BANGING BANG BANG)and I hear her yelling oooh yes! - yeah. I stood at the foot of the bed and watched him fuck her. He saw me glaring at him. I walked out of the room and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I went in to talk to her. He was downstairs "hiding". She said he's kind of an asshole you know, you could really get rid of him. She walked downstairs with me and he was sitting with a sheepish smile on his face apologizing.
She hugged me goodbye and left (and I was doing the apologizing to her for what happened!) and then I was face to face with him.
He BEGGED me to forgive him. Not with tears or anything, but with his charisma and little boy face. He said it meant nothing and he misunderstood and thought that was why we went out with her.
I was disgusted but remember, at only 3 months in, he was still my Knight in Armor because I was still being idealized at that point. Of course, I forgave him.
But wow... knowing that he wanted to swing didn't sit well at all.
The kicker is that while he was banging her, there was still a picture of his EX wife sitting on the nightstand! The woman before me!
I decided to test him the next day, so I said, you know I don't think it's fair that it's 2 women one man. How would you feel about a four-some!!! He said, oh no. I don't want another man involved.
Go figure, huh? And yes this happened 3 months in. BEFORE he moved into my home. I don't know looking back what I was thinking... I was blinded.

Anyhow that happened BEFORE he moved in with me, at his place. About 1-2 months later he's in my house... that's when the Christmas fiasco happened, and shortly after, the Valentine's Day fiasco.

After awhile he told me that he preferred married women because there is no commitment. His real interests were Harley motorcycles, women, FUN, smoking pot (which actually made him a lot nicer) and drinking... just living a party life and being rich. He was 50, not 20...... but he didn't want to grow up.

I have 2 older kids in the house. While he didn't bother much with my daughter one way or the other, he did get a hard on for my son - maybe 4 years in.... he would never confront him directly, but in private he would tell me I wasn't raising him right, that he was lazy, and call him a few choice names to my face but never to my son's face. My son was a normal teenager, and yes, he is on the lazy side and can be disrespectful to me, so some of the things N was telling me did resonate, but since I didn't have strong boundaries either with the kids or with him, it was hard to be a "better" more effective disciplinarian of a mom. Nurturing people comes first naturally to me. I tried to act more like a heavy, esp now that I knew I was being watched and graded more on my parenting, but my son was a teen and it's hard to change a kid at that stage.
My daughter was fine either way with him. He would converse with her and make her laugh with his jokes at times, but overall he didn't get involved really with either of the kids. We all just co-existed in the house together without a lot of interaction from him. He would actually come home and stay in our bedroom on the computer watching videos of cars and things like that... he would watch the news, watch TV in here, and I began to notice the living room really wasn't being used.

I am so grateful now that my N didn't take on a father role with the kids. I am so glad he stayed out of it because if he had, I think he knew we were so opposite in the way we raise children that I would have kicked him out. At the time, I could take the abuse, but I wasn't going to let him hurt them. Plus I needed him financially now, and also I was in love with him.
I was crazy in love with him even if I didn't like him sometimes and I struggled to trust him.

I didn't have a home anymore and neither did the kids. We had a "house".

The abuse (verbal, emotional, and a bit of physical) began probably about a year in. Of course I'm hooked at this point, and he would save that abuse for a party of one. He only needed me an as audience. It began subtle as ways to help me "change" and do things right...

He changed jobs so much (I think he got bored) that it was really wearing on me. He had no money anymore at this point. I would pay the mortgage and he would pay everything else. At the time.

Oh, did I mention that when my husband moved out that N offered to take the home on in his name? I mean I couldn't get financing - I was a stay at home mom at the time (still am) and I would have lost the house had I not put N on the loan. Thank GOD I remained on the deed. But I pay the mortgage anyhow so basically I'm helping his credit. He would pay all the other bills but after awhile, he let his condo go into foreclosure and he was changing careers so much all he did was sit on Craigslist looking for menial work that didn't require more than 40 hours a week. He wanted the weekends free to party with me...

I cringed every time he would complain about a new job. sometimes he wouldn't make it a month there before getting bored. I never knew what our finances were going to be and I was carrying the house with my child support many months.
One thing I can say for him was that he was never late for work. Never missed work. The employers all loved him. But he never stayed, and he always cheated in one way or another...using the gas card for his personal vehicle after he quit but before he returned the card, or stealing some stupid item we didn't need.

Once at a restaurant we ate dinner and when we got to the car he said look in your purse. There was a knife! He thought this was BIG fun and was knee slapping at himself laughing. I am embarrassed to say I was laughing too because his laugh was contagious but I was shaking my head as well thinking "What is WRONG with you!" Another time it was the salt and pepper shakers in my purse. I don't know how he slipped those things in there.

So by now, you can see this guy's character is both a turn off and a turn on. He's the funniest guy I ever met, but a lost soul. Maybe I could settle him down. God knows with age he has to get better, right?

ok, rather than make this the longest novel on this website, I will now run down the things (without revealing too much personal info) that have happened to slowly destroy me.

I'm petite and thin. I was called an underdeveloped smelly bitch by him. I have no ass and I have no legs and my breasts sag. (I am in my 40's) And this is the same body same weight everything that he "fell in love with".

he would get envious of ME. Yes jealous of me. Not just with other guys if I happened to talk to the pest man in the front yard or something (that created world war 3 once) but it seemed like if things were going well in my life and I was happy, he would sulk.

My dad died in 2009. I wanted him to travel with me up there to be with me and support me. He said he couldn't because of his work schedule. I had to go alone. My dad was my everything and was the polar opposite of my N. He was my strength, my pillar and my best friend and N knew it. When I returned home, N quit that job that supposedly prevented him from being there when I needed him... he quit 2 weeks later.

I found viagra pills in his leather jacket. I know they weren't for me. But he was always checking in by phone when at work. It's like I always knew where he was so I'm not sure why he had those pills. I never found any evidence of cheating. He told me he got them for a guy he works with who didn't have an email account. (eye roll)... but what could I do? I couldn't prove he was lying. I threw them away and 2 years later I found new pills on top of a 6 foot bookshelf when I was dusting.

One night he and I were partying hard and were drinking. During sex he slapped me very hard 7-8 times and one of those slaps was so hard it resulted in me having a swollen and black eye for a week. When he saw it the next day, he said, "Holy shit! Did I do that? I don't remember!!!! he was laughing. I'm like yes you hurt me! He said come on baby you liked it a little.... no seriously ok I'm sorry sweetheart...I was drunk I had no idea... you'll be okay

We had to travel out of state for a wedding. in the hotel room I asked him to please come with me to get something for my mom. He was depressed that day. We should have been out in the city having fun and all he wanted to do was lay on the bed and watch tv. He got mad and said, what are you, like 5? Take the keys like a big girl and go yourself! If you want to do something, be an adult and take care of yourself. You don't really need me to take you to a store, do you? I tried to tell him how I felt and I was very hurt and angry and he ended up straddling me on the floor of the room while I was screaming get off me and he slapped me face to shut me up and told me he didn't want to be with me anymore, and further I could go to the wedding by myself. (it was all HIS FAMILY)
Finally in the last 1/2 hour before the wedding he got dressed silently saying "cunt" under his breath to me. I was just crying and so depressed. We get there and park to walk toward the church. He is walking in front of me - I am about 10 steps behind him. He begins to call me like you would call a dog to come with snapping your fingers and saying "come on girl"... I was LIVID. We sat through that ceremony and then got to the reception. I was meeting his family for the first time, most of them and they all welcomed me and were so nice. And my N was proudly introducing me to all of them. Now we are seated at the table and I am talking to his brother laughing and N leans over, puts his hand on my thigh and whispers, "You know I love you..." and kisses my cheek.

Do you see the crazymaking?

That night we danced, laughed, and I figured it was "just a spat".... but by morning, he was swearing at me in the car going to the airport that this relationship was O V E R! He wanted out! He couldn't be with someone like me, blah blah. I was sobbing and heaving in the car on the way to the airport just crying my eyes out. He didn't talk to me the whole plane ride home.

By now things are getting bad obviously... But did he move out? No. Not that time. Of course he had left me SEVENTEEN TIMES IN SEVEN YEARS. Not a real good track record... I was on eggshells all the time.
Sometimes I would see him sitting on the edge of the bed during the day just slumped over, shoulders sagged, silent and literally staring at the wall. I knew something was wrong - was it me again? Why wasn't he happy? If I asked he would snap at me nothing is wrong you are insecure and paranoid.
But of course something was wrong. It always was.

I began to have panic attacks. My doctor gave me xanax. I started taking those to calm down but again I'm petite so if I took more than 1/2 pill it was too much. I also began drinking. Now keep in mind I never drank unless my husband and I were out drinking at dinner or something. But at this point, N thought it was cheaper to party at home so there was always alcohol here - rum, vodka... I soon learned that drinking could numb me.
Of course as soon as I began to drink too much I would be calm and pleasant and things wouldn't hurt me or get to me, but it was a prime opportunity for N to call me a DRUNK and he said it constantly, even if I was drinking coffee.

I finally went to a counselor. I begged him to come. He said he would be happy to come and explain what was wrong with me. He said adamantly there was nothing wrong with him; it was all me.

Within 5 minutes of being with the counselor, N said to him, "You don't know me. You only know what she's told you. You can't diagnose me." The counselor could see the resistance and attitude from the first minute. N said he didn't want to be with me anymore and I couldn't let go of him. My eyes popped out of my head and I began to cry. The counselor said, "Do you love her?" And N answered very matter of factly, "No, no I don't. I'd like to leave." The counselor said, "would 1 hour be long enough for you to gather your things and go? And she can stay with me until you are gone?" He answered, yes, thank you. I want out. And he walked out of the building.
The counselor told me that in 5 minutes he knew the relationship was abusive and to let him RUN, not walk. He said he wasn't healthy for me.
So I listened, talked it out, cried a little more, and after an hour went home, only to find N sitting on the couch, recliner up, shoes off, watching TV and eating a ham sandwich.
I said, I thought you were leaving??? He said, "when I'm ready."

From there on it all went downhill. Sex went from 2-3x a week to 1x a week to twice a month, and in the last year 1x a month to 6 weeks apart, and finally he hadn't touched me in almost 5 months when he gave me the final discard. He was "too tired"...

Then there were days when he was "normal".... he would bring home steaks and grill them, or he would tell everyone what a good artist I was (I refinish furniture and paint pictures)... he would always compliment my work. There were many times he worked hard outside in the yard without being asked... there were "good" things - nice considerations he afforded me, but what should have been a normal expectation of him became a real treat if he just acted like a normal guy.

There was no hand holding. No kisses, no calling me pet names anymore. It was all gone. He said pet names and cuddling in bed were for people who were dating in the early months and to get over it. I told him that I would appreciate some support in my life (when my dad died I didn't get too much except he painted a bathroom for me - in a color I didn't like....lol) and he told me if I needed support I had the wrong guy.

I told him that I didn't feel like he loved me. His response? "I come home after work every day, don't I? You don't see me in the bars, I gave up my motorcycle, etc... so I'm here. That shows I love you. I come home." ???

I had to get up early in the morning for my mom who I take care of (she is elderly) and at midnight he would be laying in bed watching the TV LOUD (he was half deaf) and I would say please turn it down and he would huff and puff and get angry.

Then there was the business. I had a dream for years of owning my own home decor shop. I was very successful working from home with this "business" I created out of nothing, and he jumped on board with me. Decided we should make it a real shop with a storefront. Said he would be my partner and work there while I did all the behind the scenes stuff. (I found out later that his son mentioned to his mother that I "just put dad in a candy store with his pick of women" by letting him run the place while I was home....but I digress...) My exN said all he cared about was making money and we had a moneymaker. So I was very excited and jumped in with him. We got a place in Sept 2012. It did so well we decided to expand Apr 2013 (2 months ago) into a larger rent (twice the money but he said we should go for it) - we signed the contract, and one month later he wants out of it. No lie. He began to complain that I said I would work a couple days a week and I wasn't holding up my end of it. I said, wait a minute. You knew darn well I couldn't work even at the smaller shop because of my family obligations to my mom. You said you understood. Now you're bitching I have to work there 1-2 days a week for what? So you can go to the beach or see a movie? I'm running ALL day with the kids and mom, cooking dinner, cleaning house, and you are sitting at the shop socializing, making sales, watching TV and doing crossword puzzles (literally!) - he said well I'm bored. I have a life too. Sorry but those are your kids and your mother. You need to pull your weight. (I did all the buying for that shop, as well as all the online advertising and listing.) - In a nutshell, he told me either I work those days or he no longer wanted to be a partner and I could buy him out. ???? Buy him out? with what money? I told him you're cornering me in a catch 22 you know I can't do either. He said, "Well you are dragging me down and keeping me from being RICH." Yes, he said that. Because that storefront paid the mortgage for awhile. So we had to deduct over a grand a month to pay the house, which was in his name anyway! Bottom line he wanted all the money for himself. I knew it from what he had told me. Then he said he would take it over himself and to bring my truck and just load up what I wanted. He said take anything you want out of here. I loaded it up crying, left, and he said "you're never coming back here, right?" I mean I was in tears. There goes my shop dream, everything... going to shit. I said don't worry I won't be back. And I took way less than I should have because even at that point I didn't want to leave him with an empty store at a disadvantage.
So now.... he's got the shop still running but he says he's closing it and leaving. He worked it out with the landlord, telling her some BS story. And he wants to fly and go somewhere else, anywhere but here. "Where the money is..." he tells me.

I have so much more to tell you, but I would be writing all day. In the end, I always knew when the machine in his head would start up and he would leave...

He always would shut his phone, tell me not to leave voice mails because he never bothered to listen to them and just hit the delete button. He would never let me have a turn in a discussion. Once I said please just listen to what I feel and he looked at the clock and said "you have 5 minutes" and stared at the clock until the 5 minutes was up. Then he walked out and didn't come back for 2 days. Sometimes he would say "you have 2 minutes"... it was awful.

The mind fuck of the entire thing was that once he got it out of his system, he was okay so it seemed.

THOUGH HE VERY VERY RARELY EVER APOLOGIZED.... hardly ever. Because I MADE HIM say it or do it or act that way.
But just when I thought things would be over, he would be... normal again. Like nothing had happened. So of course I grasped that straw and went with it, holding on for dear life.
Every phone conversation was an automatic robotic "love you" at the end from him. Or he would call and say "do you need me to bring anything home?" or he would cook dinner some nights, or we would BBQ or watch a movie. It wasn't ALL bad. There were moments of clarity and normalcy. But they never lasted. That to him equated to boredom, I guess.

He was married 2 times. Once to the ex that wouldn't let him go, and before that to a lady for 17 years who he has grown kids with. That lady gave me a million warnings. She said he will destroy your life if you don't get out. I heard stories of constant cheating on her she told me... she said he would hide women's phone numbers under the floorboards of his car, in the tinfoil box, everywhere. She said once she found a diamond bracelet in the closet 3 days before Christmas with a $900 receipt. When she didn't get it and Christmas was over, she asked him about the bracelet. He overturned the Christmas tree on her he got so mad. She said she thinks it was for the receptionist at his job that he had a major crush for...apparently there was an affair there but other than that she never actually caught him doing anything. He was very slick.

I asked her one time about why she stabbed him with a butter knife in the kitchen when they were together. N had told me that story more than once. I used to ask him what he did to provoke her and he would just say she's insane. When I finally asked her about it, she said, "Didn't he tell you that he was chewing a plate (YES A CERAMIC PLATE) and had me cornered in the kitchen spitting blood and pieces of the plate in my face? I had to do it to get him away from me.

Also he told me he left her, but apparently this was the only time someone actually left him. She said no, I left HIM. But he found out where she was and would wait outside... finally they went to court, I guess to get divorced, and he wanted a restraining order put on her. The judge granted it from what she said, however in the parking lot right after, someone saw him harassing HER, and it immediately got revoked and turned around on him.

She also told me that when he first FIRST met me, he bragged to his ex wife that he found a RICH STUPID ONE.
He denies ever saying that of course.

If I stood up for myself and he didn't happen to leave, he would throw open the front door and start to yell so quiet me into submission. We have neighbors and he knew I would be ashamed, so each time I would try to re-engage him in a discussion to resolve the problem he would open the door and stand there and wave his hand for me to "yell now..big guy."

He told me I was more "man" than any woman he'd ever been with when I stood up for myself or got angry back. He said he wanted a sophisticated, mature, intelligent partner. He wanted someone that could compose themselves and be a lady. One time he even said to me, "If I want to be a prick, why can't you let me be a prick? Why do you have to respond? Can't you just remain a lady?"

???

Many of his discards - though I could feel the air thicker in the house and knew they were coming - came without warning. The last one was because I asked him "Do you think I am fat? Is that why you don't want to be intimate?" It drove him into his final discard and fury and he decided to move out. The problem is, the house is in his name (the loan is) and while I am struggling to pay it and keep my family in the only home they have ever known, he said he has no problem calling the bank and telling them to foreclose on it because if I don't keep up the payments it's my fault and he has no guilt because he only signed his name onto it as a favor to me so I could keep the house at the time. But he said he doesn't care what happens to the house. This is most likely because my husband had taken out another mortgage on it to pay gambling bills, and basically this house is not worth anything. We're upside down in it. I'm sure if this house was almost paid off, N would never be walking away from it.

The communication was very one way...He did this through about 5 years of the relationship. Any time I needed communication or understanding or answers he went blank. And if I didn't stop when I was told to "PLEASE STOP" then he would dangle his keys in front of me as a warning that he would walk out.

I have a lot more to say - we started a business together that he forced me out of.... that's a whole separate story, but the bottom line is he never took responsibility, everything was my fault, and he had a rotten poor childhood because daddy died when he was a baby and mom wasn't around because she had to work.

He actually loved her very much although she wasn't the type to coddle or nurture. She never said "i love you" to him, and he was pretty much ignored being the last of many kids who had moved out when he was little. So he took to the streets. But he always said she was the greatest woman alive and he never wanted to disappoint her.
The only time I saw him cry was when his grand child was born and he said he wished his mother was here to see the baby. I never in 7 years saw him cry before that or after. I don't know what that means.

And for that, I guess that's why he developed as he did. All I know is I deserve someone who can care. He still tells me I am a drunk, but the funny thing is, I don't really drink half as much now that he's gone.
I'm exhaling and learning a very hard life lesson and I still wish it could have turned out differently.
The latest plan he's made is that he is moving out of state but when I ask where he says he has no idea.... over 50 years old and no idea.... what a life.

He left 17 times. I begged just like his 2nd wife. I cried, i was almost suicidal but not quite.... just really depressed and devastated. Sometimes my begging worked. Other times not. When it didn't work I would begin to move on with my life. One time I started seeing someone else (an old friend really, nothing more) and he came looking for me. He saw the house dark and empty and told me he drove all over the city where he thought I would be, trying to locate my car. I never showed up until the next morning, and he had left a love note on the front door. He had also called me 68 times on my cell that night.
It's funny when you get a new life and begin to heal and walk away they come around.

Any time he left me (16 prior times, mind you) if I went out with my friends, or what was left of them, he would flip and say "why can't you stay home and compose yourself?" "You can't wait to get back out there, can you?" Like he CHASTISED me for not sitting home pining over him. He hated it. Now though he says he could care less what I do and hopes I find a new boyfriend FAST.

Did I mention he's an Atheist? Just saying. I believe in a higher power but he doesn't. He says none of it matters and we're all turning to dust.

This last time he left me he literally moved into our shop to LIVE. He joined a gym to take showers in. I can't tell you how discarded it made me feel that what, I drove him out of his king sized bed, my home cooked meals, our HOUSE because I was so bad he has to now live in a tiny shop and sleep on a 6 foot hard rattan couch? and he prefers that?
It just hurts.
He says come July 4th he's leaving for a month to visit family ALL around the country! Then he doesn't know where he will land. He may come back to our state, he may settle somewhere else. Somewhere the money is. And he will have lots of women he says. no relationships, just women. And he will live in a GATED community and make more than my whole inheritance someday!
This time though he said don't worry I will never try to find you, and further I already have sympathy for the next guy.
I feel like I am in the recovery of my life. And I can't fail.