Husbands and Men in General

Boy Lydia, you ask for advice on the hard things. Kids are easy, Husbands are a horse of an entirely different color. After much discussion, crying and general bullshit about men. Dona and I came up with the only thing that truly covers all bases.

All Men are Assholes, Usually with the emotional maturity of the average 4 year old. Now Dona and I both love our husbands dearly and agree that as far as assholes go they are some of the best in the bunch but it doesn't change the fact that they are still assholes. Following this observation is of course that all men are pigs but that is an entirely different rant.

I give you an A for standing up to Kelly and telling him exactly what you thought of this job. Not something I was capable of doing until after 17 years of Marriage when I was so tired and pissed that I cried and ripped Les to shreds for two years hoping he would go away and take the kids with him. As you can tell he must really love me or he is really lazy because I was a mean evil bitch who said all sorts of mean nasty things designed to piss him off. Unless you truly want to end up hating Kelly you should keep this up because storing this stuff inside for the sake of peace eventually turns you into a raging volcano that burns everything in its path.

As I have said before you and Michelle are very much alike but there is one extreme difference. Mishy determined at a much earlier age what she wanted to be when she grew up. She was my hero during those early years, of course her husband Gary was my hero too for a while then he turned into just another asshole like all the rest. Mishy to me had the best of all worlds. She got to stay at home and work in the clay. cooked what she wanted, never had dinner on the table, at least nothing gary would eat and lived her own separate life from gary. I thought this was so cool. And Gary at the time let her which was something I could just not imagine in my marriage. Of course looking at it 20 years later I see that for the most part they lived their own lives and truly shared only the kids. Now that they are getting a divorce I suppose they are doing the same thing. So I guess this is not entirely the way to go either. My favorite stories from Mishys life that illustrate this.
Once they were arguing and this way back probably 15 years ago, anyway they were outside yelling at eachother so as not to expose the children. Gary was whining about the house not being clean Etc. Michelle at the top of her lungs told him this," You want your fucking house clean, hire a fucking maid" This made my heart soar and I can't truly remember a moment when I was prouder of a woman I knew. (Okay I was young and had bad examples growing up) To Gares credit he did hire the maid. However years later when Gare had his first stupid breakdown and turned into the real man he always was rather that the enlightened man he pretended to be he used the housework against her again. In one counseling session his complaint was that Michelle left ferret shit in HIS closet for 6 months without cleaning it up. Can we all say petty stupid man. Can you just imagine staring at something everyday in your closet going "see she didn't pick it up again."

As for me the best story I have is about our move to Corpus Christi. When I first had my mental collapse and wanted to move from where we were living at the time. Les picked Corpus, I knew this was not the place for us and I wanted to move to Florida. Not that my wants were truly ever taken into consideration. Anyway this brought on a new and rather intense crying jag in which for two weeks I would not tell him what was bothering me. Finally I broke down and he broke down and I told him I didn't ever want to move to Texas and I never wanted to live in another city. (Crying jag started when he moved me from my farm to town) He promised me with tears in his eyes and hugging me that we would never move to the city again and we would never move to Texas.

Imagine my surprise when a year later he announced one morning to me that he and April had decided we were moving to Corpus. By this time I was almost over the 2 year crying jag but was still pissy and hateful and I told him that I would move with him but I would not promise I would stay. Being Les, this pissed him off and we had a running argument that morning on our way to an auction an hour away about moving there. He went on and on about the jobs there and the housing and that he had done all the research and it was better than Florida and that unless I could prove otherwise I shouldn't argue it.

After the auction we went home and I did the research and Florida was still better in almost every way. I pulled up the demographics and showed him this and his response was "if you don't have something nice to say keep your fucking mouth shut." Damn they hate being wrong, don't they. So I did exactly that and never said another word knowing that our marriage was indeed on the brink, I followed him to Corpus more because of the overwhelming urge to be able to say I told you so than out of any love for him. And of course I was right. Housing costs were high, jobs were non existent and don't pay shit, even including the rent on the house I am living in now I am still making less per hour than I have made since I was 19 years old. Since the economy is so bad here we ended up in bankruptcy 40,000 in debt to credit cards just trying to survive. And I ended up working outside the house and doing ebay which as those who do ebay know is effectively working two jobs. He got to continue staying home and I got to do the bullshit. This did not make me a happy camper as I was having much more fun in Kansas just doing eBay and working at home on my own schedule and not being soley responsible for keeping food on the table and the bills paid. At one point I hatched a plan to drive to the beach leave the car and the clothes I was wearing on the beach and disappear. (taking other clothes with me of course, Figured Dona would drive down and pick me up and I could just disappear.)

When I told him about this and about his breaking his promise in another burst of tears and meanness, his response was why didn't you say something to which I reminded him of his "if you don't have something nice to say keep your fucking mouth shut". IN the last few years here he has improved and I care less about everything than I used to. I love him and my children but the reality is I am just biding my time. Unless he is willing to quit smoking chances are good he will die before me and eventually I will be able to live my own life without a mans influence, a prospect I am looking forward too. I don't envy Michelle her exact situation but I do envy her her freedom.

Well that's it from the peanut gallery or at least this peanut, don't know if any of this is helpful or enlightening, most of it just is.