I think it started about a year ago, but only now am I able to look back and see the signs…
March 13, 2010, he was let go from his job of ten years with little explanation and nothing to fall back on. After keeping it from me for a week, he worked up the courage to tell me what really went down. We seemed to be working it out together. I thought it was just another obstacle for us to overcome. But looking back he was already defeated and I was just dragging him along for the ride.
Slowly he became more involved and even optimistic, and then he received another blow to his ego. His precious baby (his car) was crushed by a tree. To those that believe that it’s just an object and replaceable. Think about this: This was the first car he purchased himself. He took care of the car and put a lot of his time into the car for the past six years. In his mind, the car was the only one who knew all his secrets. To make matters worse, the insurance company only wanted to pay him enough to get a tire, and the city settled only slightly higher, so there was no way to replace his car.
Just after he received that second blow to his ego, I got the bright idea that in order to relieve the stress of the new financial strain, we should move into a cheaper place. However, we couldn't’t find one and we were still spending as if we had two incomes. When my mom mentioned moving in with her, I originally said no, but she slowly broke me down and I thought, it would be good to have no rent and use this time to catch up and get ahead financially. He never said a word, he just went along and I took it as acceptance and started making the move happen. But in hindsight, he probably thought he had no say in the matter, since he wasn’t bringing in any income.
I didn’t realize that I was moving into the middle of a civil war or that we were just a tool in my mother’s toolbox, to use against my father. Or that once we moved in my mother would physically move out but mentally she still ruled the house. My father would mentally move out but become a very present reminder of what failure might look like. So here we were in this very negative environment, with the only escape being a 13x13 room. I felt crowded and annoyed, I can't even imagine what he was feeling.
We were only supposed to be there for a month or so, but that quickly turned into six months. Suddenly my husband went from trying to support one with no means, to supporting three with no means. In the beginning he took it on with no complaints, but eventually it became so frustrating to even me. It was as if we were caring for a rebellious teenager and her daughter, whom we loved and cared for but had no say in her well being. It’s hard to raise a child but have no say. We were the primary care givers following an impossible set of rules that were an inconvenience to our lives.
Still out of work people started calling him for favors, paying him little or nothing for these favors. He became a chauffeur, his life revolving around others. He couldn't make his own schedule because he had take this person here and pick up that person, then go get this family something to eat and take this person to the doctor. He became a nobody pretty quickly, and started to resent to the people he loved the most.
In the mean time I remained too busy to see what was going on with my husband and became angered that he was always down, even when I did everything in my power to cheer him up. But maybe he needed something else. No obviously he did, because he started to pull away more and more and then the man that I married checked out of the relationship and his dark alias check in. But once I noticed it was already too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment