I realize it’s been more than a year since my last entry. So much has happened.
A year ago today, I left my home and my husband to be, for a week long and nearly ended my relationship with him. We’d been together almost six years. Lived with his daughter, 18 at that time, for two years. Her second boyfriend moved in with us for eight months already. She was three months from graduation – I had fought hard to get her back into school to begin with, after we took her in in 2015 following her drop out from school and a harrowing drug addiction. But now, at eighteen years old, her mother and a school counsellor had convinced her that I no longer had authority over her since she’d become an adult. The fall out from this resulted in screaming fights, nearly no school attendance, and horrid mental abuse. I couldn’t take it anymore. My skin would crawl when she would enter the room. A long meeting with my now husband, and we decided it was time to tell her to get out, and let her crawl back when she would be ready to obey my rules in my home. Instead, my husband’s ex-wife convinced him it would almost certainly result in his daughter dropping out before achieving graduation, and it would make him look better as a dad if he defied our decision and chose to keep his daughter despite the damage she’d been doing and would continue to do. At least until graduation in June.
He understands now that this was a mistake. But he didn’t then – and to ask him to choose between myself and his daughter – that was exactly what his ex-wife wanted. So I left for one week, and went house hunting. I found a house I wanted, and listed everything I could for sale, to come up with the down payment. The week away helped. I needed to get away from him and from my stepdaughter in order to clear my head and decide if our relationship was really worth everything I’d gone through and continued to go through because of his ex-wife and kids. It was worth it, because I loved him dearly. So I returned, after a lengthy discussion regarding my new rules of complete disengagement from his children. Not my kids, not my problem. Not my mess, I’m not cleaning it up. I also chose to proceed with purchasing the house I’d chosen, as it would be an excellent investment opportunity for me as well as a safe place for me to move to, if ever things still couldn’t work out here. I’d only ever dreamt of buying a house. Especially of my own. I felt so proud.
So with one dream come true, I pressed on. We stayed living together, with his daughter and her boyfriend still in our home, until July. He knew I intended to leave him still if he did not proceed with evicting the two. Our wedding was coming up right away, on the first of September, so I resumed planning it despite the upset it caused a few of my then closer friends. I’d lost some support of my relationship due to the severe bouts of depression I’d gone through from all the drama with his family. Two of my closest friends were to be part of my wedding party, and both gave me constant static and occasionally mentioned not wanting to be involved in the wedding anymore – it ended up overloading me with anxiety leading up to the wedding.
The wedding – getting married to the man I loved, was another dream come true for me, so the thought of the wedding being ruined by losing my friends leading up to it, left me suffering extensively. This at the same time as the discovery during May long weekend, that I’d successfully become pregnant with my now husband’s child. Yet another dream come true, if we could make it to the wedding and then make it to the next stage of our life with a new child.
I had been getting bullied at work – I work as a business administrator and do some of the major accounting for a major equipment brand dealership. It’s a high end corporate environment, loaded with female coworkers, several of whom are depressed, middle-aged women post divorce and struggling to make their way through life after many shattered goals and dreams. Despite everything they’ve put me through, they are like my husband’s ex-wife and I somehow manage to feel a sympathy for them. The bullying escalated to a point of brutal slander – the two women who’d been targeting me had been spreading a lie that I’d been having several affairs which led to a pregnancy outside my relationship, and the wedding was a sham to cover up my adultery. They sabotaged my work as well whenever they could, and attempted more than once to get me in trouble with upper management for unknown errors. Though I successfully thwarted every one of their attempts, it didn’t make me feel better. I began to deal with symptoms the equivalent of post traumatic stress disorder – I had trouble sleeping, I became overwhelmed with hopelessness and mistrust, and on more than one occasion, I would get so anxious that I would sweat intensely very suddenly.
I didn’t trust anyone. I carried on, pregnant and invested in my own house as well as an upcoming wedding and the desperate hope that my husband would not deceive me and choose not to kick his daughter and her boyfriend out. I prayed that my friends would come through, but I grew depressed and angry as I continued to gravel to them more and more, trying to keep them all happy enough to make sure they would pull through for the wedding. I don’t know how many crying meltdowns I suffered in the middle of the night, nights in a row sometimes.
The first one to pull through was my dear husband, himself. I think he knew that my intent was to leave him if the kids were not told to move out in July by the first of June. And it was that very day, that he stepped up and confronted the kids. Of course they were not happy about it. But I was. I felt so much relief. So much less anxiety. Finally some trust, in SOMEONE in my life. I knew then, that I was still on the right track with my life.
My stepdaughter graduated with a certificate rather than a diploma – a handicap piece of paper saying “hey she made it this far, let’s just call it good enough.” To this day I’m not impressed and I know god damn well she could have gotten that diploma. But I gave her a “congrats” at least, and despite the tension was still invited to her graduation. The bullying coworker made sure that she booked that day off so that I would miss my stepdaughter’s ceremony. But at least I made it for the second half.
I began to feel a strong faith that things were going to be alright. I felt the beginnings of true happiness, and started to worry less about the things that could go wrong out of my control, and more about the things that I could make happen for myself.
But on September first of 2018, another dream did come true, my friends all pulled through, and I married the man I so dearly love. I was glowing.
We went on an extraordinary honeymoon to the Caribbean, staying at a breathtaking resort on the island of St. Lucia. Yet another dream come true. We took a forty thousand dollar vacation for less than a quarter of the cost – it was a vacation I’d dreamt of for several years. One of my novels is based in St. Lucia. I got to taste the famous St. Lucian Cocoa Tea, on the side of one of the spectacular Piton Mountains. I felt my first baby kicks while we lay together talking about our dreams and incredible journey together so far, on the soft king size bed in the loft of our suite as we listened to the birds and bugs of the night.
Several weeks following our return from our honeymoon, I finally published two novels – a romance based loosely on my own trials with my now husband, and a Christmas mini-novel with the same characters, based about twelve years later. I own a copy of each of my own novels. I can’t express the amount of pride and happiness that comes with holding a copy of a book I wrote, in my very hand.
Things just kept getting better and better while others got worse and worse. The bullying at my work escalated even further, and the anxiety with my friendships only increased despite many in depth conversations with each of my friends about my insecurities. None of my friendships are carefree and happy like they used to be. I hardly see my two closest friends or talk to them anymore and the anxiety every time I do interact with them is crippling to the point that I’ve wondered on several occasions if it’s even worth it anymore.
November came like a speed train. I was seven months pregnant and really feeling the excitement and anticipation of my first child. I had no idea that with everything else that had happened, that even more insanity was just around the corner.
My dad called me one afternoon, giddy like I’d never known before. He’d finally gotten in touch with my estranged sister. They’d lost touch for over a year, almost a year and a half. It’s a long story for another time, but for now the short version is that I was born unplanned when my sister was eight years old and I was brought up at a time that my parents had a little more money. My sister hated me for it, and never treated me with love or respect for as long as I can remember. She guilted my parents so much about me that my own parents grew to resent me and discarded me with ease. Her influence over my parents was so strong that they would snub my husband and I and ghost us if she ever got jealous or upset about us spending too much time with my parents. This caused huge strain and distrust between my parents and I – I inevitably ended up the family scapegoat. So understandably, when my sister finally disappeared, my relationship improved immensely with my parents, and I had never gotten along with them better.
It horrified me the moment my father told me he’d gotten in touch with my sister. And that her poor decisions had landed herself and her children in a distressing situation, needing help. Of course we will help her! Of course we will go get her and her six – what, seven!? kids and bring them here, now that we finally established a loving relationship with our youngest unwanted daughter! And it didn’t come as a surprise when they began to treat me poorly again the moment they brought her and her children home with them. Even though I knew it was going to happen – I wasn’t prepared for the heart break.
Christmas came, and my husband and I were blessed to have all of the kids home for Christmas, since the previous Christmas his oldest daughter chose not to come after making up a lie that I did not welcome her onto our property. This time it was happy, and calm, and not one bit of drama, even with my eight months pregnant belly sticking out as blaring evidence of the complete destruction of their first family unit. I was thankful, and glad. We exchanged courteous calls, cards and holiday wishes with friends and family as usual, and carried on into the new year, excited and nervous for how soon our baby was coming.
My stepdaughter got her first full time job at a local convenience store after New Years 2019. She and I hadn’t come to terms with one another until this new job. She comes out to the farm to tend to her horses at least twice a week. The difference now since she got her job, is that she will stay after she’s done with the horses, and visit with her new brother and my husband and I. I’m slowly beginning to warm up to her again, and I feel happy that we are getting along again, even if it’s in minimal doses. It would appear that perhaps her job made her realize that there are in fact people out there that are worse than her dad and her monstrous stepmother.
It was the 22nd of January when our beautiful son entered the world and turned me into a mother. I cannot express the powerful emotion that coursed through me. That still does every time I look at him. The happiness and the incredible sense of responsibility, having a true purpose. Yet another dream come true.
We spent three nights in the hospital before finally going home. We were exhausted – friends and family had been stopping in at the hospital frequently to see the new baby, and we were excited to finally be home and have it quiet. But of course it couldn’t last. We were bombarded with company within an hour of getting home. It was frankly frustrating and even more exhausting for me. After company finally left, close to midnight, my husband I settled down for the night with our newborn son, and planned the next day. It being a Friday, we decided it would be okay for my husband to return to work and that I could stay home alone with baby for the first time. I was excited to catch up on rest and spend time alone with my baby without interruptions. I suppose it should not have shocked me to be bombarded with company again anyway. And that company was my parents, my sister, and all seven of her kids. Loaded with criticisms, and finally my father yelling at me for not preparing our home as he’d instructed us to in the weeks leading up to my son being born. He told me that I had the house far too cold and would cause my son sickness or death, before storming out of my home and leaving me standing crying in my kitchen as my mother and sister rounded up my seven nieces and nephews and snuck out out after him. The upset from the confrontation led to a short period of postpartum depression as I grew sad and overly anxious all over again, feeling undeserving and inadequate to care for this beautiful little boy.
It didn’t take too long for me to realize, however, that I was doing just fine and didn’t need my parents’ approval of how I was choosing to care for my son.
My son is two months old now. My dad is still criticizing my parenting, and my sister is making remarks about how I parent my son behind my back, while pretending she and I are long lost friends. My parents bought my sister a brand new house in town, as well as enough brand new furniture to furnish the whole home. They’d be hard pressed to lend me ten dollars on my worst day. They insist it’s for the grandchildren. They insist she will pay every cent back. They must think I’m stupid. I make more money than all of them and I couldn’t pay all that back. They will be in debt until they pass away – all of them. It’s like my parents lost their sanity the moment my sister reappeared in our lives, and I’m stuck right in the middle.
While I’m losing friends and fighting with family, I’ve reached out to my psychologist for help coping with the depression and loneliness. I grew fairly desperate in the last three months – I attempted to reconnect with old friends, only to realize exactly why we didn’t remain friends in the first place, and then I connected with new friends – one who is only interested in gossiping and judging others, and leaves me loathing myself after every one of our visits, and another who is in fact a divorced mother, two decades my senior. You would think the divorced mother would be the last one I would connect with well, but ironically I feel a closeness building with her that I’ve been seeking for a while, unless I am simply fooling myself, as I have easily done in the past. But hey – here’s hoping she’s different and I’m not wrong for trusting her. I do like her very much.
My husband stands faithfully by my side throughout all of it. He holds me when I cry, he listens when I talk about the loneliness and anxiety, and he shares as much joy and love with me as he can, and helps me to care for our son any way he can. He even dropped everything to come with me on a foolish, drop-of-a-hat decision to load up our son and some overnight belongings and drive six hours to see my one close friend. We didn’t have the money to see her, nor the time, nor did he have the energy. My son had never been in a vehicle longer than an hour and a half. But he never once ridiculed me. He’d held me several times while I cried, that week already, so I suppose it’s not surprising that he was happy to go along with me on something that I’d hoped would make me feel better. The trip eased the pain temporarily – but our return home brought with it a hard slap in the face from reality. I am relying too much on everyone else to ease my sorrows.
I have a son to look after. I have a best friend right here with me – my husband. I might have another chance at a relationship with my stepdaughter. And most of all – I have myself, and it’s time for me to look after myself as well, and stop trying to please all these other people. If they give a single shit about me, it will show. Otherwise, I’m better off without them.
I’d say we’ve come a long way. I could never have guessed, that so much could change in one year.
Emereldess 