Sunday

It seems Nabal won... Our boy is cold, uncaring and angry in his speech. I listen to him speak with his friends, and it chills me. He's not dangerous it's that he has cut off his feelings. He looks at a Vietnam war movie and talks about the joys of torture and suggests no mercy. His friend is an ignorant Hispanic boy raised in a home where the children are allowed to mistreat animals as their mother mistreats said animals harshly. Nabal, when drunk has been known to threaten to kill one of our pets. His idiot brother loved to sneak up on a sleeping animal and pluck it hard on the nose. All for the fun of seeing the animal recoil startled in pain. I found out about this practice after the brother went back to Mexico. This year Nabal wanted to bring the fool back. Their mother was known to bump off animals they would bring home and then tell them what she did. My sweet compassionate boy is burdened down and his good qualities seem out numbered by what Nabal and his family have demonstrated. Our boy decided he hates his sister and they have not spoken in months. Nabal hasn't even noticed. They both know he doesn't have a clue, or is he pretending because that was his plan. He has successfully driven a wedge between everyone. Our boy has drawn to him other boys who are harsh and uncaring. Their conversations harsh each trying to prove he has less feeling than the next. Nabal the fool has won this round. He said the other day that he is going to set a trap for the boy. Because his mind is messed up... And in the military he will be out of Nabal's reach. All he is worried about is control. He wants the boy to run his company for him and make it big. Yet another person he will try to put in the position of being responsible for him. Another person he can blame his short comings on. He walking around like the wide eyed innocent. Using his drunkeness as an excuse.

He got mad when I didn't want to for the hundreth time listen to him talk about putting a kitchen in the basement.

Thursday

A difficult day. This is the third sick animal I've had to put down this year. And here is how the game is played. Found out later Nabal already knew from our girl that I had to put Gorgeous down. He was a street cat that had feline leukemia and kitty AIDS. It was time. Nabal kept telling me to take him to the vet, but that takes money. Nabal asks, "So, where's the cat?" Me: I took him to the vets. Nabal: So where is he? Me: I had him put to sleep. Nabal: Why you do that? (Now realize this cat hadn't eaten or drank in about 2 days. It's very difficult for me to put an animal down. Plus I have no support. Can you see the game unfold?) Me: It would have been over $500 to get him back to health, maybe. Our other pets need their shots and trust me it was time. Nabal: Well, you need to take care of the animals and keep them healthy. (That was it!) Me: You don't think I kept them healthy? That cat was slated for put down 2-3 years ago with what he had. I've kept him healthy all this time. Tiger (a cat that found us) I kept healthy with diabetis for years until a insulinoma made it impossible todo anything else. I did keep them healthy and you aren't gonna tell me different! Nabal: Oh, I wasn't saying that you didn't. You just need to keep the ones we have healthy now. Don't let them get sick. (mealy mouth bastard...)

So if you couldn't tell he was drinking and trying to make me feel bad. I had already realized earlier in the day that I really get no support. Our girl went with me, but I had her leave before he was put to sleep. He's such a back handed accuser. Then comes and tries to kiss me like we are now after a more than a year going to be romantic. I think he tries to catch me at down or up moments hoping my guard is down... I really need some self confidence so I can dig out of this hole faster.

Tuesday

Nabal really made me wonder tonight. He had been drinking. He came in and told me I had to come inside because the tree was talking. We have a talking tree! And it talked to him. Maybe it was just that he was lonely, or was figuring some way to get me to come outside. I went, he smoked his weed and offered me some... I have been cleaning up/reclaiming my backyard. It's been 2 years and the weeds and poison ivy have taken over. Only the bare minimum has been done and that's just cutting the grass. Done by drunks who couldn't care less. He was babbling about the trees and wanting to carve a face in it. About a quincenera for our girl. I guess he realized that everyone would wonder if he didn't do one for her. He had said he wasn't going to do one because she wasn't Mexican enough. The child isn't interested, because of just that. He told me he got a speeding ticket 2 weeks ago and I had to call and pay it. Oh and he hadn't paid his car insurance. When I asked why he said he didn't have time. He was and is trying very hard to be nice. To play the innocent. But I sense an undercurrent of frustration and anger just under the surface.

Thursday

Just picking back up little pieces that have gotten away. Doing yard work. Been doing it for years. In the early days the handle was too high for him to work comfortably. I musthave been really gullablw. And cutting grass always put him in a foul mood. When son got old enoug to take all of it on. Nabal broke the nice new mower I bought. He took over the yard. Haven't been able to do my favorite summer thing in 2 years- cooking out.

Monday

I just had a thought. Some women have their worst nightmare that their husband will go out for milk, ciggs, beer or whatever and never return. When my husband walks out the door I hope he gets diverted a few years... Yes it has got to end. I just am not sure how he will turn when once I really say it all in a coherent sentence aloud. He was so blase when it was him telling me he'd wished all his life for a beautiful woman and was leaving because he was bored. I was so over him after he has spent the last 4 years + turning our family into a nightmare landscape. His ability to hurt me ended somewhere during his binge time. The sneering, criticism seared any nerve endings I had left. Funny, when we first married. I was open once. Hours or days he threw it back at me just to sneer and hurt me. That was a lesson I didn't need to learn twice. He never found another morsel that could really hurt me. Well, except the fear of abandonment. So that was his only weapon. He got sloppy and overused that weapon. He also forgot that I lived well, single and alone for 10 years. He used to try to pull me down by telling me that American women are immoral because we don't live at home until we are married... (How many are laughin to tears on that one?) I think I did when he first said it. He was regaling me with the pure morality of Mexican women. Then I met his mother. Woman lived with boyfriends up the wazoo was a viscious drunk. All while she was still married to her first husband. Even has one son with a boyfriend stuck in between her husband's sons. Then his brother is running through live in girlfriends, calling them his wife and having kids with 2 of them. He can't keep a job because he has an injury that hospitalizes him every few years. It would be ok if their mother would let him fully recuporate before she guilted him about needing money. Yes... all so pure, and virginal. So, because he knows a lotta sluts he's gotta try to make me part of their club. He did try to get me to hang out with the sluts in the neighborhood we lived in. Guess he wanted me to really live up to his expectations. Then during his binge he really tipped his hand. Trying time and again to hurt me by laying a lot of trips that would have hurt many women. They were my confident spots tho... So I saw through his game almost immedietly. Blessings come in all shapes and sizes. But how will he retaliate when he finds out he's been beaten by his own game? I have been odvious and never wavering so as not to mislead him, and he still tries to pretend that everything is normal and I'm imagining there is a problem. So when I have to speak the words... he is not going to like it. He's not going to be in control, and that's what he craves. Our boy got away. I have put the D in distant and our girl is polite.

Last night or the night before he tried to order me to do something. I never even looked up. Had the intimidating voice. Backed down pretty quick when I looked at him like he was nuts.

Found out also that yet another pastor was not working out at his church. They are returning to the midwest from wence they came. Odd thing is that the pastor's wife is returning first. Their children paid for their mom, but will not pay for dad... Ouch! Found out the guy he has been planning on being his pastor is moving out of state and to a different denomination. Even now he's sneaking over to attend another church. He's an abuser and I'm hoping his wife is making sure she has friends wherever they move. They are a horrible lot. Leaders supposidly of God, who are abusers of their wives. Now I see why people would rather staybaway from the church. None of the hallmarks of Christ. Humility, gentelness and love. Just pride, control and self serving. How many of the young in Christ do they chase away, how many do they make carbon copies of their hypocritical piety.

Saturday

The house is going to hell in a handbasket... The main bathroom sink ahd been running slow. I noticed that Nabal had taken the stopper assembly aloose. I knew it would never be put back together until I got to it. I went under the sink looking for something and low and behold there was my big soup pan, full of water. Turned on the sink and water just ran. Somehow he put a hole in the pipe somewhere and has been quietly emptying the water eash day. Never said a word. He will fix that when he reverses the hot and cold water, which has been that way for a year. Maybe that day he'll regrour the shower too... That would all be accomplished on a cold day in hell...

Friday

Nabal got stumbling drunk again last night. He seldom does that, though he is drunk most nights. He was working up at the other house we are selling, and if it was anything like las Saturday he just drinks all day long. You see him walking around with a beer then all of a sudden he has a new one. When I first got there there was a 40oz where they were working. A while later it was kicked into the woods. It's bad enough up there, the tenants left a hell of a mess, but there are beer bottles and cans all over the place. I'm beginning to see that half the problem with our house is that he never picks up a thing. Plates, cups, silverware all sit where he finishes with them. I have left them sit where he watches TV. For days I leave them just to see if he will move them. I saw him drop a nut shell on the floor the other day. He stopped to look to see where it went. When I got back home it was still there. So, back to last night. He was stumbling drunk then he left in his truck. I didn't realize he was gone for a while. (He never says he is going out even when he's sober.) (He's a man, blah, blah) I was asleep when he came in. Jumps on the bed like any 5 year old... Grinning and blowing beer breath. Bleck!! He wakes me up wanting to talk. (Remember I don't talk to drunks) "Why won't you talk to Poppy no more? You don't want Poppy no more." Back to this victim crap...again. He the one who fights dirtier than anyone. He, anytime he wants to win a fight brings up all his imaginings from 20 years ago. Crap that isn't even true, but can I prove it he asks... I have been telling him that I don't trust him, He met a woman, everyone knew he had girlfriends (his friends told my son), I have texts between him and women and pictures, some with bare minimum clothing. He said any and everything he was big enough to say to me. Spent more than 2 years being a pure ass in front of his children and friends. And he says I just bring up the past 2 years just to hurt him. Talking about ducking responsibility... So alcoholism and abuse... I know that if I were to loose my mind and give in we would be right back at hi threatening to leave, undermining any way I found to make money, being an ass to the kids and telling me I'm too sensitive over them. This is why I always felt there was a problem even when he was bone dry. I hope for him that his 'use' of alcohol to act as he pleases while having a built in excuse hasn't actually got him. I do think though that now it uses him. And it will use him up. They do just live in their own entitled world. The scariest thing is that if I did forgive and forget this time, he would be so much worse after. He would know I'm a fool... We are way past all that. It's just time to move on and for him to get a new victim.

Monday

This weekend my one of my best friends from high school died suddenly. Nabal delivered the message... over dinner as an afterthought. "Hey, somebody left a message to say someone named Daphne, Daffy or something like that passed." I went through maybe one of her parents died and she'd called, but a sinking feeling overtook and I lost my appetite. He went on oblivious to what he said... Even our daughter said it wasn't the way to deliver that kind of news. She's 14. Her parents had called me. Later that night as I was talking on the phone he tried to offer condolences of some sort. When he remembered who the woman was. Cut me to have her die. Thankfully I had just spoken to her at the beginning of the week. Nabal is not stupid either. THough he may have been drunk. He just really doesn't care.

I had some career practice yesterday. Nabal thought he was going to rope me into his church computer duty, but no. Then our son. Everyone had plans. So he came home after and got plowed...

Nabal comes in way to friendly and familiar. Why? He says, "i got in a little bitty trouble." I didn't bite.so he asks do I want to know. Sure. The people who left the church with previous pastor #3 came back and think I'm pastor. (weird grin appears. I think he was shooting for innocent but doesn't know how that feels.) So I just said you don't have to do what anyone tells you. He stands up, "But I want to be the pastor." and there it was. "If I do this will you help me?" god! And I mean that. How in the world am I supposed to help him. I would consider it lying and misrepresentation to go act like a pastor's wife for him. Yet again, he needs window dressing. I just want to scream. He's such a wolf in sheeps clothing. He wants to seal the deal with a little sex... It's been a year or more. He's nuts! When I told him I really wasn't interested in 'doing' church he got a little ruffled. Then came with the sweety pie crap again. He is such a manipulator. And that equals abuse. He wants the power that comes with weilding a spanish church. He wants me to pretty much tell him about the bible and give him right opinions to write about. He wants me to somehow be there at church fauning over him and myself feeling that power I see glinting in the eyes of some pastor's wives when other ladies humbly call them pastora. He thinks I have the same weakness for power that he does. I don't. I hope he goes looking for new curtains.