From Family To Strangers

From Family To Strangers

Raw Sadness fills this house
As the burning of fragrant candles
Is the only form of light.
Beating.
The lonely hearts barely live
As people are torn away from them.
The word family is gone;
replaced with strangers.

Hurt.
A lame duck wife cries herself to happiness
Destroyed.
She swallows pills to hide the pain from herself.
Ashamed.
She cuts the sadness from her unblessed soul.
Her soon to be ex-husband
tells himself that things will turn out fine;
a way for him to sleep at night
even if it's on the couch

Divorce.
An awful yet easy solution;
a way to give up all hope.
A way to replace a family
With strangers.
Who once so deeply loved
with hearts that are now empty.

Today was more of the same. I tried to speak to Lee about working on our marriage, we only ended up arguing more. Nothing has changed, if anything it has gotten worse. He sent me a text message telling me he was sorry...yes a text, instead of coming to me and saying it he sent me a freaking text message. Needless to say I was underwhelemed because this is a pattern with us. I make up my mind to leave and then he sends me an email or a text message saying he doesn't want me to leave and he wants it to work things out...but nothing every changes or gets worked out. Rinse. Cycle. Repeat.

This hurts so much because I do love this man. When I married him on July 27th, I thought it was for keeps. I watched the VHS tape of our justice of the peace wedding the other day. I looked so young--I was 19 and he was so hand some--he was 27. We looked so happy and so in love. I am going to take the VHS tape tomorrow and have it made into a CD because it is getting worn and no matter what, I want to have that tape forever. I want to remember that beautiful, young girl who married her handsome Prince and thought that they would live happily ever after.

I look around this house and all I can do is cry. I have lived here my entire adult life. My husband was at work and I went house shopping with my dad. Lee told me, get any house you want in our price range in the best neighborhood you can but it has to have two things: a two car garage and an in ground sprinkler system. Well guess what? I FOUND THAT HOUSE and we made a bid on it that day and we closed on it within two weeks. The day we moved in it was empty; the moving truck was not there yet and we went downstairs and rolled around on the floor like two crazy people. We had a HOUSE! A beautiful little house in a great area with an excellent school system. Back then it was so much larger than our 2 bedroom apartment because when we moved here it was just me, Lee and our 2 year old son Chris. We never even thought about having more children--yet we went on to have three more!

Well, the house is a lot smaller now, but I still love it. I love sitting on my new couch and watching Tivo and reading books in my favorite chair by the bay windows. I love laying in my Temperpedic bed, I bought it for $5,000 because Lee is a paraplegic and his feet get swollen so I got the one where the feet go up and down so he can raise his feet at night. But he doesn't sleep with me anymore. When I leave, I'm leaving the bed here. In fact, the only think I'm taking is my television from the bedroom, my laptop, my cell phone, my clothes, shoes and books and of course my new Subaru Forester aka The Buru! I don't care about things anymore. I used to. I stopped a while ago. I used to make so much money it was insane. We never went without, I was like a human cash machine and everyone had my pin code: my kids, my husband, my "friends". I gave and gave and gave until I turned 30 and said, wait, I want to quit on my 36th birthday and focus on genealogy, psychology, my writing, maybe do a radio show. So I saved a lot of money. My 36th birthday was on a Saturday and the following Monday I went to work and gave my boss the keys to the company car, my gas card, my AMEX card, my last expense report, my laptop and told her "I quit." These were the people that generously gave me 4 days off after the murder of my son even though I had more than 12 weeks of vacation time due to me. They thought I had lost my mind, they told me to take a week off and think about it. I said "A week? Really? I didn't even get a week off when Matt was killed. No, I quit. Bye." My sister picked me up and my things were already packed in the back of her car. I was FREE! Free to be the wife I always wanted to be, the mother I wanted to be and to do the things in life I always wanted to do. But when the money left; it seemed that my husbands love took a hiatus as well.

Every fight we have now is money based even though I earn a six figure income FROM HOME! I give away more money then I spend on myself; in fact I look good but I buy my clothes from Target and Walmart...I', rockin that look people LOL! No fancy Versace sandals, no fancy purchases, no jewelry of any kind. I even got rid of my $2,800 Raymond Weil watch. My husband still has his. So I asked him today, is this all about money? If we had like....$2 million dollars, would you love me? He didn't answer me. He didn't have to. I have always taken care of him, the kids, the finances. And now that our income is limited and he has to do more (but does nothing) he is angry. Angry that I quit my job, angry that I do not wish to be a human cash machine anymore.

I have found that even though I financially have less, I have more to give. My husband tells me I give away too much...easy for a person to say who can not even love his own wife of 20 years. I guess if you have never had a lot, money is important. Lee grew up very, very poor and never even knew when or if he would be eating that day. His fears are based on this. I grew up wealthy with a physician father and a mother who was a trauma nurse. I had everything I could have ever asked for financially...cars, money, jewelry, clothes...but I didn't have love. Sadly, neither did Lee. He never knew his biological father and his mother who is German is very distant and cold and has NEVER not one time told him that she loves him. I will hear him say it to her "I love you mom." And she will just walk out of the house and say bye everybody as if he has said nothing. She calls my youngest son Eric, the little one. i keep telling her, "Ohma, his name is Eric. Can you please call him by his name?" She will give you the shirt off her back...but don't try to hug her and don't tell her you love her. There is a part of me that understands my husbands fear, insecurities and his lack of intimacy. He has never seen love. I have never seen love. So how can we love each other?

The day I leave here will be hard. I know I will not cry in front of my kids but when I start driving I might have to pull over before I hit the turnpike. I don't know where I'm going. I know I was asked to leave on October 3rd because that is when my royalty check comes. That is soon. I could hire a lawyer, fight him for the house, fight him on everything...but I don't want to fight. He can have it. He can have it all. I care little for these small victories at this point in my life. Will I miss having a home? Yes. Will I miss my children? Yes? My parents? Yes. But I will not miss the ache of knowing that the man I love, does not love me anymore. That the man I love is asleep on the couch while I lay in our bed tossing and turning just wanting to be held by him. I know I will never marry again because I refuse to look another man in the eye and say the vows I said to Lee Foreman to anyone else. I will be 40 soon. A new chapter in my life is starting, another ending. Actually it ended years ago but I have been too afraid to close the book. I will miss Jacqueline Foreman. I have been her longer than I was Jacqueline Williams. When I am divorced, I think I should just use my first and middle name Jacqueline Susanne. No last name. Because I am not a Williams and I am not a Foreman. I am Jacqueline X. I am nobody anymore.