April 29, 2009

She thinks I don’t know that she was drinking tonight. It is sad that she doesn’t realize how much her personality changes when she drinks, that there is no way I wouldn’t know when she drinks. Of course, reeking of vodka doesn’t help much.  In any case, she was trying to hide it so we didn’t fight and she kept most of the meanness hidden. Just not as well as she would like to believe.

April 27, 2009

Another Monday night, another bottle of vodka.  She was totally psycho last night. It started with her getting all worked up over the kids taking showers. She just kept nagging them about it, even though they were doing exactly what she told them to. Then she insisted that I do her toenails. Usually kind of fun and a bit titillating, but not when she is tanked. Then she started in on the boy’s hair. It is to long. It isn’t neat enough. It needs to be shaped, just on and on. Then at our daughter and her hair. Then she sits with me and tells me that our daughter is fat. Our daughter heard us talking about her and my wife told her she was to big. She is, but drunk bitch isn’t really the best one to tell her so or to tell her in the right way. 

Then she starts getting nuts about where our daughter’s softball game is Tuesday. I show her where it is and she swears she can’t find it, even though she has driven very close to it hundreds of times. She refuses to listen to directions and swears she has no idea of what I am talking about. I try to tell her in more detail and she just keeps getting belligerent and stupid. I tell her I’ll print a map and explain it in the morning. She still is pissed and determined that she won’t be able to find it. Okay, I’m about done by now. I tell her I’ll just show her in the morning when she isn’t drunk.  That pissed her right off, like it was my fault she gets to stupid to remember a place she has driven by many times when she drinks. 

I try to settle in and watch Heros, it was the season finale. She pulls out this letter she has carried around in her purse for twelve years. In it, she describes how awful she felt when our daughter was born and how she slammed her down on the couch or futon a couple of times. I have seen this before, and I told her so. She snatched it out of my hands and crumbled it up and threw it in the trash. I fished it out and put it in my backpack. A minute later, she comes in and demands her letter back. I gave it to her and she demanded to know why I crumpled it up. I told her she did that and I rescued it from the garbage and she just went crazy. Yelling at me that she should have killed our kids when they were babies (with them right there, getting an earful of all this.) Yelling at me that I just didn’t get it. I told her, again, that obviously she was drunk and I wasn’t going to talk to her any more. More yelling on her part, which I did my best to ignore. She demanded that I read her letter again, so to quiet her down, I did. When I was done, I gave it back to her. The last place I saw it was on her table in her lounge. Then,  I put the kids to bed and she was passed out when I got downstairs.

Hoping that things were done, I got into bed and tried to read for a bit. SHe came to and demanded to know where her letter was. I told her it was on her table and she got up and found it on the floor. She swore that I put it there. I told her I didn’t. She refused to believe me. Then she insisted that she couldn’t write any more and that the letter wasn’t in her handwriting. It was. I asked her why she would carry such a thing in her purse for twelve years if she didn’t write it? She went nuts, again. She didn’t quite accuse me of forging it, but she wouldn’t admit that she wrote it either.  I tried to go to sleep.

After a half hour or so, she suddenly wakes up and demands to know why, if she is just laying there in bed with me, I am not fucking her. I am sick as a dog, snot running down my face, coughing every time I move, not to mention that several hours of drunken psychotic behavior on her part where she demanded that I leave, that I take the kids with me, that I couldn’t have the kids and on and on, somehow just didn’t put me in the mood. I told her I was sick and very tired and I just wanted to go to sleep. She spent the next two hours trying to get me to have sex with her and I just was not into it at all. Couldn’t have even if I wanted to, which, frankly, I did not. Touching her just felt wrong to me.  Finally, I was able to go to sleep and she left me the fuck alone.

April 24, 2009

A couple of days ago, I threatened to leave if she drank again. So apparently she thought if she just bought a small bottle it would be okay. It isn’t. She just does not get it. The problem with her drinking is not that she gets stupid drunk and staggers around spewing venom and being mean, although she often does. The problem is that as soon as she starts drinking, she becomes another person, one who just isn’t very nice. And the more she drinks, the more exaggerated that person becomes. It isn’t the woman I married and it isn’t anyone I want to be around.

My wife was never a very happy person, in fact, that was the first thing I said about her when a friend pointed her out. I said, “She isn’t a happy girl, is she.” I saw her coming in to our office, where she was the office manager. She had what looked like a permanent frown etched into her face. As I got to know her, and began to have feelings for her, I used to sit around just thinking of things to make her laugh. It was fun and I enjoyed brightening her day and listening to her laughter. I hope that I helped lift her spirits for a while, at least.

Sadly, now she is doing a lot more tearing me down to her level rather then me lifting her up and I just can not do this any more. I have a life to live and two children to bring up and if she wants to spend the rest of her life in a sucking hell of depression and anger, then I am afraid she will have to do it without us.  Seven years ago, I told her, while we were standing outside our house in St. Pete, that if she didn’t quit drinking, things were going to end badly. I am going to do the best I can to make this ending as painless as possible. (it seems that I am really the only one who will hurt, well, me and the kids. She will just get drunk and not give a shit.) She is my wife and I am not leaving because I don’t love her. I would far and away prefer that she turn this around and we stay together, but I no longer really think she is going to. And when she drinks, I don’t think she even wants to anymore, if she ever did.

April 22, 2009

I got back form work and I could see she had been drinking. Our children had made some videos with some friends, and to make room for more, our daughter had deleted some and in the process, deleted some she hadn’t meant to. My wife kept asking how she had done this, like it was a big deal. Like it personally offended her. That was when I knew it was going to be a bad night. 

Then she starts telling me how mad she is about her recurring cold sore. She tells me she wants to cut out the root of it, like it was a zit. I told her that really wasn’t possible. That the virus lived there and when she was stressed, it was able to overcome her defenses and grow and erupt as a cold sore. The only treatment I know of is Abrevia and it just makes them go away quicker and you have to catch them right when they start to form. She said she just got to busy at work to feel them starting. Okay, I guess. Way to keep in touch with what is going on in your own body. But then we moved on to what was really bothering her.

She is menstruating, and that is always a loony time for her. Sorry, but it is. She declared that she wanted a hysterectomy because she was sick of her heavy flow. I said, I didn’t know if they would just do one for that reason. She insisted that ‘all older women do that.’ I said I didn’t think that was true. I also said that I doubted the insurance companies were going to pay for an elective hysterectomy for non-medical reasons. She went ballistic. I told her to go ahead and look into it. It is her body and she can do as she pleased. She kept yelling at me that of course the doctors would do this and of course insurance would pay for it. I said I doubted it but go ahead and look into it if she wanted to. 

Then, suddenly, she just has to go out in the rain, driving drunk, to go to CVS and get some facial cream. Like I don’t know this sudden trip is about getting booze, not moisturizer. Now I was riled up enough to say so. She got mad but stopped getting ready to go. I went upstairs and started making dinner and as soon as I was out of sight, off she went. On her Monday night drunk, one of her rants was about some horrible story where two drunk guys drove around with six babies in their car and crashed, killing all the kids. Now here she goes, driving drunk int he rain as night is falling. Good move.

She is gone for over an hour. I went ahead and served the kids and myself dinner. She shows up, glares at me and disappears into the bathroom. She comes out, throws something on the table and turns and staggers into the telephone stand. Hard. Almost falls over. I see that what she has tossed onto the table is a tampon applicator and it is now lodged under our daughter’s dinner plate. I pick it up in a napkin and throw it away and she starts yelling at me if I get her point, if I knew what it was she threw on the table. I told her to eat something, hoping she would and maybe cut the booze a little. Plus I wanted seconds and I wanted her to serve herself so I could see what was left. She refused and started trying to drunkenly wash dishes and clean up. I told her to stop, that if she wasn’t going to eat dinner, then she shouldn’t clean up after it. To go eat something. She finally serves herself, but then keeps yelling at me. I told her to stop, that she was drunk and I wasn’t going to argue with her. She something about how it would be my fault if her parents heard that she was drinking and we were arguing. I just don’t remember forcing that vodka down her throat.   Then she said something about a divorce if I kept doing the dishes. I finished cleaning up.

The kids and I went for a walk and the kids went to bed before nine, rather then stay up and watch this. I went to read to them. My wife was there. I picked up the book and started to read and she asked me what I was reading. I told her, it was “The Lion’s Paw” by Robb White. It is a story of two orphans who run away and meet a boy with a sailboat and they sail across Florida to Sannibel and look for a sea shell called a lion’s paw. The boy’s father is missing from his Navy ship in the Pacific and is thought to be dead. This story was read to me in the fourth grade by our teacher and I always loved it. I bought it to read to my kids. I had to tell my wife twice what I was reading and then when I was reading it, she started yelling about how I should be reading them a fantasy story and stomped off downstairs to her lair. She was out cold when I got downstairs, just as well. I started working on the computer, hoping to get some writing done and she woke up enough to tell me, “you disgust me, you fat fuck. You make me sick.” She staggered into her cave for a cigarette and then passed out for the evening.

Another night on the couch for me. She woke me up around midnight, yelling and swearing about how cold she was. Tough. Get used to it, I guess.

April 20, 2009

She was drunk again tonight. Nasty to the kids, weird to me. She went to bed early so we wouldn’t get into a fight. I guess that is something. Not enough, but something.

She was short twelve dollars on her last paycheck and wanted me to explain why. I told her to print off her pay stub and then talk to human resources but she just didn’t get it. She wanted me to explain it to her, but I just don’t have the information. Later she started getting mad because she took this week off because the kids are on vacation. She said she was going to get really mad this summer when my job ends and she doesn’t have any time to take off to do something. Like she has so much fun with us any way. If it was so wonderful, then why doesn’t she choose to spend time with us now, when she can, instead of being a drunken ass all the time?

I knew she was going to be drunk tonight. I came back from grocery shopping and her parents were trying to fix a chair. Her mother was attempting to drill a hole in the wood frame with a screw driver bit and getting pissed because it wasn’t working. Her father was holding the pieces for her. I showed them what they were doing wrong, found the right size drill bit and did the first hole and then put in the first screw. I went out to get more groceries, and when I came in, they still couldn’t get it right so I did it for them. I was also doing laundry and for some reason my father in law came down and turned off the water to the washer in the middle of the cycle. I turned it back on and finished, but he came down and stopped my next load in the middle of the cycle. Lifted the top and left the washer sitting there half full of soapy water and clothes. I shut it up and finished it, too. The guy is losing his mind. Maybe he doesn’t think I should be doing laundry, I know he gets mad when I cook dinner. He thinks my wife should be doing it. Even though she can’t cook and she won’t even attempt it here, with them hanging around.  but why stop the laundry in the middle of the cycle? How does that help anything? Foolishly I called my wife at work and told her what was going on here, I needed to tell some body. But I should have known she would run from this and dive into the bottle to hide.

April 18, 2009

I thought things were going to be good today. She was sober when I got home from work and she was until just a little while ago (it is about eight, now.) All of a sudden, she has this look about her, and she is talking a little bit different. Then she starts on about how she doesn’t take a shower every day because her parents’ give us dirty looks for using their water. (They do, too.) So she shays she can’t remember when she took a shower last. (It was when she was trashed Thursday night.) So she decided to take one now and I checked her stash spot and lo and behold, a fresh empty! Shocking! Hopefully, she won’t go psycho and will just watch the movie she rented (“Yes Man”) and then pass out without any bullshit. I can only hope. I’ll let you all know later!

Nope, did not work out like that at all. Earlier in the day (while she was sober) we had talked about doing better about getting the kids to eat right and exercise more. Just keep them moving, especially instead of vegatating in front of the idiot box all the time. And that we were bad examples, and that we had to do better. Now that she was boozed up, she couldn’t sit still and watch the move (she rented) and she kept snarling at me that I was being a bad example. Never mind that it was now almost nine at night, and what else should we be doing. Then there was some question about what we were going to do Sunday. We had planned to go to Six Flags to celebrate my son’s tenth birthday, but our daughter had a pulled muscle in her neck and we weren’t sure if she was going to be able to go and ride the rides. If she couldn’t go, we would postpone it a week. My drunk wife decided that we were not going to go, that there was no chance our daughter’s neck would be better. So she took our son into her smoking lounge and started telling him how we weren’t going to be able to go. Then she shut the door so I couldn’t hear her and she really got going. I could hear her voice getting louder and meaner and when she started swearing at him, I decided enough was enough. I went out and rescued the boy. I pretended to be inviting them both to come watch the movie, so I wouldn’t have to argue with her about what she was saying to him. Of course, she knew what I was doing so I was again, a dick and an asshole. She never did watch the movie, she just laid in bed muttering and swearing at me. 

If she is going to start being mean and nasty to the kids like she is to me, I am going to have no choice but to take them away from this. She is often mean to them, but not nearly on the same level and as personally directed at them as she is to me. If that changes, I will have no choice to get them away from her.

April 16, 2009

Bad drunk night. After our daughter’s softball practice, I got back to the house at seven. From the minute I got in until she passed out around ten, every word out of her mouth was to either pick a fight with me or tell me what a dick or what an asshole I was. Another sleepless night on the couch for me. Just about done here.

April 15, 2009

Another drinking night. Nasty to me, but not to bad.

April 13, 2009

Another bad one. She shows up at our daughter’s softball practice and then leaves ‘to go get cupcakes’ for our son’s class for his birthday. By the time I get home, she has started drinking. I made Pad Thai for dinner, which she loves, and the kids liked it so I know it couldn’t have been to bad, and she just picked at it and wouldn’t eat. Then after dinner, I sit down to watch the idiot box and she glares at me and snaps, “You didn’t get me any frozen stuff for work when you went shopping today, did you.” Foolishly, I said, “No, you didn’t ask me to.” Wham. I was supposed to know that she wanted more. Never mind that there were three frozen dinners for her in the freezer. She just wanted to pick a fight. I ducked out of that one. 

Then she started yelling about my mother, who apparently is having a hard time with her own struggle with booze. The booze is winning. My wife was yelling at me about how it wasn’t her fault that my mother drinks (No shit, never said it was, my mother started drinking about ten years before I even knew my wife existed.) That it wasn’t her fault that my mother was found passed out drunk, naked on the floor. Again, not said or implied. That she didn’t want to hear about my mother any more. Okay. That I should think more about taking care of her or her parents. Of course, she was saying all this crap about my mother in front of my kids. Like they need to hear that their grandmother was passed out naked on the floor. About then I told her she was obviously drunk and I wasn’t talking to her any more. Then she started screaming about how she had taken money out at the ATM and where was all the money? I had paid bills and transferred money to savings, trying to get ahead a little so we (I ?) can get the fuck out of here. then she told me she wass going shopping this weekend to buy a new mattress. Not if I can help it. I am not buying a mattress I am not going to be able to sleep in. Then she started hitting the high shrill notes, so it was clearly time for me to take the kids up and put them to bed. No one needs to listen to that crap. Not me and especially not the kids.

While I was reading to the kids, she staggers upstairs and listens for a few seconds and then jumps in with, “Here, you want to hear a real story?” Then she starts telling the kids some story about some guy who attacked an old woman in Florida somewhere and she fought him off and the cops chased him into a retention pond where he drowned. Nice bedtime story, honey. Way to go. I left and went downstairs.

She came down and passed out, which was another night of her muttering nasty things at me or jumping up and swearing for nothing. It was to weird for me, so I slept on the couch.

April 11, 2009

My wife was drunk again. Tonight she started out manic, bossing the kids around, making them go outside, making me cut their nails, talking about making them exercise. This wouldn’t have been bad, except that it really undermines it when you are talking about being responsible and taking care of yourself when you reek of vodka and are being mean and spiteful. It isn’t like the kids don’t know that Mommy is drunk and being mean to them. 

Then she announced that she wanted to go to a local pub and listen to some music. That we needed some time away from the kids. I was fine with that, as far as it goes. I wasn’t keen on going to a bar with her, but what the hell, she was already drunk. So we got dressed and headed out. I had to hit an ATM machine and we got stuck behind some car full of guys who were doing their weekly banking before heading out to the bars. It took them about fifteen minutes and my wife was just about spitting bullets by the time they left and we were able to get up to the machine. I got some cash, and we headed over to the bar.

We get there, and it is drizzling. I park and we get out of the car. Then my wife says she doesn’t want to go in, it took to long to get there and she wasn’t in the mood any more. (I should have listened!) I said we were already there, so let’s go in and give it a try. We headed around to the front. On the way, a cat meowed at me and I started to call it over and give it a pet or two. My wife stomped and the ground and scared it away, for no good reason at all. I said what the hell and we headed towards the front door.

We get to the door and the bouncer asks for fourteen bucks. I pay and my wife goes in. It is only about nine thirty and the band is just setting up and doing their sound checks. My wife disappear to the bathroom and I get a couple of drinks. My wife ties up the single seater ladies’ room for about ten minutes and there are several women knocking on the door, wondering if someone is really in there. She finally comes out and heads over to our stools. She takes off her jacket but can’t get it to stay on the stool and winds up throwing her jacket over the dividing wall the stools are up against. I get her jacket and hang it on the hangers they have, right there on the divider.

Then the fun really starts. “Why did you pay fourteen dollars for nothing?” “Where is the band?” “Why aren’t they playing music?” “I want to dance and I didn’t pay to hear this.” (the sound checks). And somehow it was my fault that the band wasn’t playing at nine thirty or that she doesn’t know what it costs to get into a bar with live music up here these days. Somehow it was also my fault that she heard the amount for the cover and walked on in any way. Finally I told her that if she was just going to be a miserable bitch it didn’t really matter where we were or what we were doing. We could be in paradise and as long as she was determined to be miserable, she would be. That of course meant that I was an asshole. I told her if she couldn’t be nice to me, I was leaving. Then she got tired of listening to the sound checks and said she wanted her money back. I said we’d have to leave and she could talk to the bouncer about getting her cash back. She marched right up and said we were leaving, when was the band going to play, we weren’t paying for this and she wanted her money back. He gave it to her! I guess he just wanted the drunk out of his bar so there wouldn’t be an issue. I said, sorry man, and headed out. Unfortunately, my wife saw me apologize to the guy and got pissed at me and threw the money on the ground. I scooped it up and we headed out into the rain, which by now was a pretty steady down pour.

She turns the wrong way and goes down some driveway where there is a fence between her and the car. I got her to come back up and she wouldn’t go down the walk to our car. She has to go the long way around in the pouring rain, yelling at me that she knows how to get to the car. I follow and we go three sides of the rectangle to get to our car in the pouring rain. Thanks, honey. We finally get to the car and head out the drive and know she is insisting we go to another bar. I tell her that there is no way I am taking her to a bar and I am done having fun for the evening. She sulks the whole way back to the house and then won’t get out of the car when we get there. Okay, I leave her there.

She goes to pass out and I make up a bed on the couch, not wanting to sleep with her. She mutters at me for a while and really only wakes up enough to be intelligible once. She yells at me that she “wants a divorce.” Then she passes out for good. The next morning she claims that she said that if I kept talking to her that way, she wanted a divorce. Maybe she said that in her own mind, but what came out of her mouth was that she wanted a divorce. I pretty much chewed her out good the next morning. then it was off to work for me.  Another special night at the house of insanity and vodka.