KnittedScarf, thank you for your eloquent and often thought provoking posts both here and on other threads. I hope you don't lose your patience and stick around on the forum.
CG & MrB ... my respects as always.
nsw:
You seem to have lived a very protected, idealistic life for someone of your age. Murder is not something to be taken lightly or in jest. Until you have lost someone close in that manner (which I do not wish on anyone) you cannot even imagine what it is like.
I'd like you to read this and think very carefully about it: "If you seek revenge, you might as well dig 2 graves" Lao-Tzu
Good luck.
M:11 | T:12 | Status: Married 4C's of WAS communication: Cool, Calm, Collected and CONFIDENT
Just to be fair I am the one that used the murder example in my most recent post. NOT to compare it to being left in a R but to point out there is a HUGE difference between justice and revenge.
Justice is when a criminal is served with the appropriate punishment for their actions. I can assure you that anybody who has lost a loved one to a crime doesn't have revenge on the brain.
At first it seemed that it was a bad situation you were in, but now it seems that things make sense about why your ex ditched your mooching butt. You don't have a job, yet use your time to look up ancient laws that wouldn't help you at all. Instead of using that time to look for jobs, you might as well be learning how to become a wagon wheel maker.
I've been told I shouldnt explain myself...but that hit a nerve that harkens back to my ex trying to rewrite our R history calling me lazy and whatnot.
In the almost two years I've been unemployed...I've had to get my ex to pay the bills a grand total of zero times. Because it's based on the percentage of your previous position, I made enough money on unemployment to pay the mortgage, the gas bill, the electric bill, the water bill, the phone bill, and any and all household repairs/upkeep every month without missing a payment. She paid for the food, garbage collection (quarterly), and general household necessities like toilet paper or hand soap. That's it.
In addition, I'm looking online for jobs every day and sending out resumes as often as position come along in my area. I could have gotten a McJob like my ex wanted me to...making less than half of what my unemployment is providing, causing us to struggle to pay the bills and forcing my ex to truely assume half the bills.
It pisses me off to no end to hear her or anyone else call me lazy or say I was mooching off her, when my income (on unemplyment no less) was much more than what she is making even with her under the table pay. I'm sick of her rewriting our R history making it sound like she had to go without because of me...when I never bought one damn extravagant thing...and yet she who makes $9/hour bought $40 to $50 a week in lottery tickets, spent over $100 every couple of weeks to get her hair and nails done, bought tickets to every kind of raffle and charity event anyone came around selling, bought a new designer purse or two every couple of months(real Coach, real Louis Vitton), bought a new pair of shoes every two or three months instead of just keeping the ones she had clean (in fact...this past week she bought a new pair of shoes because the ones she was wearing, which werent that old to begin with, "smelled"...instead of washing them she tossed them and bought a new pair at $70).
This is the kind of crap she pulled day in and day out...and then has the gaul to say I'm lazy and she spent all her money on me while I layed around at home doing nothing. And that "nothing" to her included taking care of D3 morning/noon/night, cooking meals for all of us, washing and ironing her clothes, cleaning the house, running her errands when she didnt get to, scheduling appointments for her, and anything else I forgot to mention.
Sorry...but I refuse to allow myself to be painted as lazy or a mooch...especially since my ex likes to throw that around so much.
Well since essentially all of us are paying for your bills, what did you do during the day for two years?
I mean if your GF came home and saw you playing video games or watching tv on the couch all day, I can see why she might think of you as a mooch.
As I said, aside from taking care of D3 and the house, I spend my time searching for jobs, making phone calls or emailing my resume to places locally.
I could have found a job within a month of being laid off if I could have looked outside the area...but I was told to get a job elsewhere would mean I would go on my own without my ex or D3. Nice how supportive she was, right?
And what was I supposed to do...keep checking the job boards every 5 minutes from the time I woke up til I went to bed to see if a new one was posted...or continue cleaning until after she got home at 1 or 2 in the morning?
And while I took care of D3 and the house, she slept almost half the day...literally. Over 11 hours of sleep....then got up and played with D3 for a few mins and went off to work.
The sad thing was, even when I worked I still did most of this. Back then she would sleep til 10 or 11 and let D3 (then D1) lay in her crib awake until my ex felt like getting out of bed. Then she'd take (D1) and go have lunch with her dad or run to the mall...and I'd come home, get cleaned up and start working on dinner. She'd leave to go to work and I'd do laundry etc.
So yeah...I was a huge mooch.
And I wouldnt say I'm living scot free...I dont have to worry about where my and D3's next meal comes from...but I'm not living a luxurious life. I manage my money well and plan for the future. My car is 11 years old, my computer is 9 years old, and I dont even have cable TV...or high speed internet (which is a crime nowadays apparently). I share a dial up service with my family (which they let me use).
Well, then it seems like a reasonable question to ask why you allowed this behavior from your EX for so long if it was so appalling to you. If her sleeping all day, not chipping in with the household duties, spending more than she made, not taking care of her child and so on was so unacceptable to you why didn't you do anything to change it?
It seems to me you were okay while it was happening but now that she is gone you want to use it against her. You chose not to take a better paying job out of the area. Fine. I get that you did not want to leave your family behind and you were trying to honor what your W wanted. If that was the case why didn't you request she begin to bring in more money?
See what I am saying? If ALL of these line items were so bad while they were happening and you saw no signs of improvement why didn't you do anything to try and change the living situation for the better? And if you did try and change it and nothing improved why did you continue to tolerate it when you clearly find it intolerable now?
To be realistic you can't even answer these questions to a bunch of strangers yet you are all hell bent on going to a trial where you will not have the option of skirting these types of questions.
Two years is a long time to be on unemployment and no matter how well you manage your money that most probably will be taken in consideration. If you cannot find a job in your field you should consider (A) going back to school (B) changing fields (C) or taking a lower paying job in your current field. Unemployment can't last forever, right?
You can dish it out but when we try and reply with reasonable questions as to why you become awfully defensive and use bizarre comparisons.
I get that you were looking for jobs online, but what were you doing the rest of the day? I mean did you do housework or, I don't know, I'm not a stay-at-home parent, so I wouldn't know. But I'm assuming that if you upkept the home that you pretty much didn't have anything else to do but hang around.
And let's face it, you said you did all this when you worked too...that was 2 years ago. I do all that stuff too with no problems and I run 2 businesses. It just sounds like after whatever housework/job looking you did, you just hung around.
Man to man, that sounds like someone who is just unambitious.
It almost sounds like you don't want to get a D because you had it going pretty easy and then when this came along, you were hit with uncertainty and of course that's all wrong!
I think you've got too much idle time at home and since this started, you've used your time to create these revenge fantasies. Too much time on your hands. Do something productive.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
If her sleeping all day, not chipping in with the household duties, spending more than she made, not taking care of her child and so on was so unacceptable to you why didn't you do anything to change it?
...
If that was the case why didn't you request she begin to bring in more money?
See what I am saying? If ALL of these line items were so bad while they were happening and you saw no signs of improvement why didn't you do anything to try and change the living situation for the better? And if you did try and change it and nothing improved why did you continue to tolerate it when you clearly find it intolerable now?
She worked, and still works, 6 of 7 days per week. So I dont think there was any way for her to make more money without picking up another job...and to even suggest such a thing when I was unemployed would send her into a rage.
As far as why I didnt do anything to try and imporve her behavior or put my food down and not tolerate it...I did. I tried many times but the response I always got from her was "maybe its time i find a new place for me and our daughter".
To this day such an attitude pisses me off. i mean how the hell was I supposed to respond to that? My choices were to let her do whatever she pleased...or face her leaving with our daughter...and this started back when D3 wasnt even D1 yet...back when I would try to get her to come home instead of going out after work to help take care of our D when she would wake up every few hours in the night.
The day in Nov when she told me we were over...it was because of a fight we had that morning where I wanted her to save her vacation to spend with family at thanksgiving and she wanted to go out to see the Rockettes.
When all this first went down...and I was still hung up on my ex...my mom reminded me of all the times when I would call her because my ex went out and I was home alone taking care of the baby and I would say to her "I dont know how much longer I can take this."
And when my unemployment does run out I do plan on getting a job anywhere. But to just take any job now that pays less than my unemployment does so that I can say I have a job is doing a disservice to myself and D3. instead of making ends meet without worry, it could turn into struggling to make ends meet.
And to MB I was hanging around a lot...thats one thing my ex took umbridge with. On top of it angering her that I brought in more on unemployment than she did working 6/7 days per week, it angered her that I was at home all the time. She couldnt run around town with D3 or without feeling guilty for not taking me along like she did when I worked and like she does now.
So basically you used your first ex as an emotional sounding and venting board while still being "hung up on her" and wondered why you were unable to change anything with your current ex?
Again, you like to blame your ex an awful lot but bits and pieces about what you were doing come out and things make more sense.
My point about the unemployment was if you can't find a job now what makes you think you will find one once your unemployment runs out? Again, a perfectly reasonable question that most probably will be brought up during the custody talks.
If your ex constantly threatened you with leaving then clearly she was unhappy for a very long time. What solutions did you present to her instead of just asking her NOT to do something?
It sounds to me as if you were fine living in such a R because you didn't want to be alone. Because adults don't fly into rages and the other partner continue to tolerate it when there are other options.
It sounds like you didn't want to do the work then and you don't want to do it now. If she didn't want to do the work then, well, her choice and you would have had some decisions to make.
To answer your question when your partner flies in to a rage and makes threats when you express the desire to better the life of the family you either (A) request counseling with the partner (B) work to change things on your own (C) end the R or (D) choose to live in a state of unhappiness. And if you were constantly turning to your exGF #1 then you were in fact very unhappy.
