Sunday

About to pop my corks. Suddenly after 4 or more years Nabal is asking about the holidays. And about our anniversary which happens to be sometime in November. It's been so long since I cared I've even forgotten the date. He laughed and said he's never done anything (in 20 years) because he never had time. WTF? Then says he's going to take me to dinner where we used to live. It's victim night, Nabal again asks if I think he's not good enough for me. Working my darn nerve. Whispering from across the room: Wanna make sex? Oh I see he's been all thru Match.com and got all hot. He tried to be so jovial. Laughing that: economy is bad, you're bad, something else was bad but, oh how he slipped that in. Blames me yet again for his drinking, he started because I don't love him. Told me his church was falling apart, but if I would just copoorate everything would work out. I was his wife and had to eventually give in to him so avid would be happy. He is reaching. Was talking about his pastor again. She'd left the country for a month now she's back and all the people hate her. He said while she was gone the people put him to preach and he was better. Then he lied and told me about his old friend who knows most of his dirt and that he'd been against him. Said the man must have been jealous. He then got on a campaign about an invoice he'd forgotten about until yesterday. He lied and said he'd told me inumerable times and I'd forgotten/ goes found and round over every detail, but in the end he was to drunk to do any business. Nor was he sober enough to read his bible and have an opinion...but he did. I had to stop him calling a customer at 11:30 at night. Said they'd be awake because they were old. He's really losing it. He's trying to pretend himself out of the reality of it all.

Friday

Yesterday Nabal graced our week with being sober. On his sober days tho he becomes super parent... Why is our girl downtown? Why is she never home? Ok, she's downtown because that's where all the highs school kids hang out. This town really doesn't have diversions for teens. To why she's not home more...reminder this is Nabal's first sober day this week... He fancies himself charming when he's drunk. Not. Also like our boy, whenever our girl brings friends over Nabal complains. He just wants everyone here in the house, alone. He seemingly wants everyone antisocial. I've noticed that the boy has friends like I do. They all have odvious flaws so that when Nabal criticizes its nothing we haven't already heard. Today I was handeling the well situation at our rental property. Nabal hadn't so much as looked at the papers. Lovely I get to sign them all sonic anything goes wrong it will be all my fault. He's played this crap before. Hopefully less than a year. Lord willing.

Wednesday

Nabal is in rare form tonight. Thankfully he was so drunk he forgot what he was up to and passed out. He's been argumentative for a few days now. Earlier he accused me of lying about picking up my girl from school because she was coming in with friends 3 hours after I brought her home. He came in about an hour after I got home from church. He'd driven the guy he was complaining so about home. The guy moved out of the neighborhood and some 20 minutes away. Nabal always had something bad to say about the fellow, yet when he moved away he lamented him going... So Nabal gets back so drunk he can hardly walk. The way down and back is through a pretty fast and twisty road. How he did it I'll never know. Once he got in I was accused of moving his bible that he'd looked for the day before. Then he lamented the predicament of the guy who came to work for him today. This after pretty much calling him lazy. I think he misses his drinking buddy. The kid who works for him now is a friend of my boy and doesn't drink with grown men. Then I was accused of bein unfeeling because I wouldn't Awwwww and cluck over this guys predicament. As I remember the guy doesn't have a car or license because he has too many DUIs. I busied myself until I could get away then came downstairs. He forgot all about me, thankfully and is passed out on the sofa. He tried begging a kiss. Then got all whiney aboutme just not wanting him to touch me. Generally yes, but especially when he's drunk, which is most of the time. He tries his luck and like a school kid will touch me as I walk by just to prove he can. He's back to planning to buy a house. We need to sell the rental property this yer so we can hang onto my house. I think we can pay off all the taxes. I need to get his name off my house so I won't lose it. I'll take all the debt. I was stupid for letting him put the last 50,000 on it when I knew better. I was so worried he would be mad if I put it off until he needed it and he couldn't get it. Trust me, you do not want to be the one who messes up Nabal's plans. You never get to live it down. And he is brutal when he catches you messing up. I really thought the money would be there and I'd just pay it back when he didn't use it. I never dreamed he'd use it all to fuel his addiction to spending and looking like a big shot. Well... I was wrong. How didn't I see that coming? He used to spend foolishly on a small scale. I guess he got used to the big spender mentality of the boom times. He was going to be the benevolent jefe of his crew and his brother and weather them thru the storm. Well, the storm is still raging and we are hanging on by a thread. His crew and brother deported. A few nights ago he was talking about bringing the protege over again. Luckily he doesn't have the money. I have seen letters around where the protege is begging for money. Calling him jefe... I wonder if he has sent money. I'd always get lectures about how I didn't know what it was to be poor. I don't, but take from us when we are living on the edge? The protege went back a drunk. A serious drunk worse than Nabal. His wife left him. Nabal if for sure going to fund his folly. Nabal started that boy down the road to destruction, and he's paying guilt money for that. He at first belittles and ridicules, than when his dirty laundry is there for everyone to see, he covers and laments and pays for it. Only to save and salve himself. He feels no remorse. He prods these guys to further debauchery then ridicules again. All along claiming to be trying to save their souls. I guess he feels better. Also by having guys way worse than he, he feels better about himself. He had some sort of rift with one guy who have quit all together and Nabal prodded him until the guy started to drink and be a drunk once again, all while giving the guy fried because he wouldn't attend Nabal's church regularly. Just odd and crazy. Well, that was my Wednesday. All day Nabal trying to find some fault with me. Poor man always calls when I'm working and assumes I just ignore him. Jus a victim complex is all. Nabal was so drunk he put his 2 roosters in his '64 Galaxy to sleep. I cautioned him that they would poop all over the interior. His reply was that it all had to be redone anyway... He hasn't worked on it in 2 years. It's just rusting out. I told him he should sell it while it's still worth something and he won't.

Tuesday

A life ruled by fear. Friends...wanting them yet pushing most everyone away by actions that from the inside are realized as just not normal. Loner status more comfortable in that no effort is required. Just telling one's self to shut up suffices. No lingering feelings of stupidity to mull over. No wishing you'd have spoken differently, wih more grace. Just easier. Why so harsh at times? Why always having to prove yourself thinking others think the worst of you. Believing that most people just won't like you. Crowds are frightening only if there is expectation of social interaction of some sort. Why for as long as I can remember have assumed people won't like me and am truly surprised when people do. I mean really taken aback. I have good friends and have been a good friend. A tiny voice always looks for an angle, a reason. Maybe they feel sorry. Are they just as messed up as I? Now days I look around and that is the fact. Nice people who are more messed up that I am. I'm harsh and sharp edged. I'm not happy. Nabal is just a thorn in the stake of my fears. It's clear. A clear pattern in me. I push people away to test. Done it all my life. I've been left so many times I know it's a deep down hurt. Knowing I'm not good enough to count as lovable. I know for sure that my mom left me in a good place when I was small, with people who loved me and were good to me, but I wasn't with my mom. Sometimes it was frightening because she would take her time there to punish. So when I knew she was. Oming into town it was delight wracked with fear. My little brain would try and try to remember if  I had gotten into trouble that would have a mad mom  greet me and yelling and spanking would follow. I guess fear started early for me. Then she still couldn't 'keep' me... I had a babysitter I lived with. I did learn a lot from the woman. She was kind, but an indifferent type of kind. There was a good friend who was there too. She was older and in a worse place in life so she got attention. I understood that. She was from a large family that couldn't afford her. On the other hand I was there for convenience. Every Wednesday was mommy and me time. I remember a lot of late work evenings and I would cry. I didn't find out until a few years ago that she had in fact been dating a gentleman and Wednesdays were their night for dinner. I was right. It was her convenience that counted. Finally I begged to come home, wouldn't cause trouble, get myself up on time. I could feed and dress myself. And I did. Still in my own house there it was, kind indifference. No arguing or a swift slap across the face was the answer. Finally in my senior year I struck back and retaliated. Told her never more. All my friends along the way were 'vetted' by pushing them away. Seeing how far and they would stay. I hated myself for doing it. I had a need to. I and one true friend I fought the impulse to do that. Circumstances stranger that fiction triggered my surity of abandonment. Then fate let me know months later that hadn't been the case at all. Mom helped, helped me to believe the whole thing, to not believe the word of someone I knew thought the world of me. She was a kinda vain lady. She just didn't like the place where they came from. Sight unseen... Realized way too late. Some days I feel like the guy on 'Lil Abner' that walked under a perpetual cloud. Well, I realize I'm doing it again. I push away because I'm now worse than I ever was when I was younger. I've changed past recognition and any old friend no one who knew me then would remotely like me now. Just trying to work all this out. I see a need, a need to reconnect with people who know me, liked me because of me. What if they reject me? They are all so doing their thing, so together.  I know not really. They are all so smart and sometimes I forget words mid sentence. I have more than I ever let on in common with my child who has learning disabilities. Yet I'm pretty smart. They'd see, I would be dull, boring, out of the loop. I'd not be worth their time. Don't know what I'm going to do. When I leave here I'm all alone. Not a bad thing I've been solitary all my life, not by choice, but because no one thought it was important for me to have friends. I grew up alone with toys, nature, our dog, and music. Spent all my time around adults where I was seen and not heard. Got older and my mom's crowd was quite gentile. Their kids were in all the best clubs. We couldn't afford them yet she expected me to be able to be 'in' with them. I fell short because I was out if the loop. Not their crowd. Younger and on the fringe and uncomfortable. Dads family was large, but he came to town once ahead or less. Again on the fringes and not in on the jokes and family stuff. I was a visitor as far as the kids went. They were a close family so if I was family, why wasn't I close? They take me in. That felt good. Along came a woman who says she's my half sister. Without nothing but her word the matriarch cousin took her in. She had more in common. I hunk she's a nut job that happened along. I hear a nnd follow her lies. No one else does. They like her and try to figure who she looks like. I look like my aunts... She's finally told one to many and has been distanced. She's a pushy ex druggie. Wow another one even when I don't go looking. Funny they say she's nuts yet I see it, she's their type. I'm more quiet. I don't fit in. So I'm assuming all the above crap leads me to where I am today. And why I seem crippled in any escape. So fearful to make it on my own again. Can I? Been told so long I can't. Can't ask anyone, can't. I'm grown. That's another thing. I've always been tall and somehow it seems that I have always been to big a girl be coddled. My grand did, my bestie did, and that was it. I was tall, thin. Yet I had to learn young to be strong, resilient, and never show emotion until I knew I was safe and my face buried in a feather pillow. I have always been a night owl. It was my thinking time, my crying time. No one there to take advantage of weak moments. I was a kid that by the time I was 10 wouldn't give an adult the satisfaction of seeing me cry. That all held until I was 19. Finally found a trusted soul and pushed it away. I, as is clear, never got over that either. For once some saw me and accepted me and I pushed them away. Well, it probably wouldn't have ended well anyway. My life isn't ment for that.

Self Serving Revisionist History

When someone tells you that everything you ever did for them that was  nice was all a lie and to serve yourself. IMO matter how much you know better, it makes you wonder. Makes you second guess yourself. How the hell did all the programming start? In the end it all is indeed self serving. Not the actions, but the one trying to tell you what you felt, what your motivations were. They are the ones serving self. They are putting you into the tired old position of proving you are not a mean, heartless, self serving person. Why don't they ever have to prove anything? Any time that rolls around they conveniently regal us with their childhood upbringing- the excuse for any meanness, any decker, any unfaithfulness. Is this supposed to be an automatic pass, get out of trouble free card? Excuses, excuses, excuses. I remember destinctly years ago when we first married. Maybe he'd accused me of drooling over some guy. (which I hadn't) When I opened my mouth to defend myself he cut me short: Women only have excuses. Always excuses. In other words we are guilty of whatever we are accused of, words of defense are all excuses to cover guilt. I came to the place: How do you defend yourself when you have done nothing. How do you prove you did nothing? My decision? Why even try. I do think that was the beginning of the end. I knew he was making stories up and baWting me , yet always said in other moods what a good person I was. Only 2 arenas did he try to knock me down. One was that I was not a nice person and two that I looked at men. I never believed it, but thought it was a weakness in him that I needed to be sense five to. Oh, being nice. 

Done ranting for today. These things get a hold of me and plague my thoughts all day long. Last night he was extra special drunk. Today he was asking if I wanted to travel with him. No. Last week I won a ttrip to a very nice resort with a cruise attached to it. I declined it because I am not sitting in a car with  Nabal for 2 hours. I'm not spending any time with him in a hotel. I have come to the conclusion that I plainly don't like him at all. Also I know if I were driving he would try to touch me since I couldn't get away. He wouldn't care we were going 70 miles an hour. He'd just laugh. Funny he never did that all the years I was 'in' this marriage. Then give me some damn speach about how I am still his wife...like I'm obliged to submit. Last night he tried to tell me that it makes God happy for families to stay together and get over things no matter what. He'll have a lot who agree. I'm not one!

Thursday

I am beginning to wonder if Nabal isne losing his mind, or is it a clever ploy to circumvent the truth? He told me he'd threatened another contractor. Then halfway through his tale of some misunderstanding they had over money he let's it slip that the other guy is a drunk too. Wow...two people who probably have mush for brains making a verbal agreement and having a misunderstanding. Who would have guessed that could have happened?

I had to listen to his version of the years he checked out on us all reconfigured around to being my fault because I was always mad at his friends for being there... They all knew nothing about his girlfriends! Cardinal rule, don't converse with drunks. Inbroke it... Yes I did... I've got to remember to let him play victim when he wants to.

Again with the: Where is all this Match stuff from? I laughed at him. He looks so pitiful. Maybe he is losing his mind if he really can't remember setting up the account. Nope! He knows where it is on his Facebook and goes through it stone cold sober. Wow...if I didn't already know the truth. I might actually be taken in. He even finished his account last week. He had damn nerve to ask me how to get out of Match.com...me! I told him I'd never been there and didn't know.

He is a nasty type drunk. Now he hiccups and burps all the time. Usually when he is close enough to smell it. These days that's a lot further than you might imagine. Our girl was out with school friends, boy he had a fit because a young man was with them. As she just broke up with her boyfriend I encourage her to be around her friends and not in her room crying. He says she should be at home. We ain't in Mexico Nabal! Girls don't stay in their houses and they have boys who are just friends. He's such a good role model- outside getting drunk and breathing in the faces of all her friends. He couldn't buy respect from any of the kids who come here.

He is such a fool. The well at our rental house ran dry. That was the problem when we tried to sell it. The wells are. Dissed without easements. It had to be done, and amazingly money is coming I and we can pay for it. Tonight he came in talking about some payment plan. We have enough we can barely keep up with! If any money is around and he can get to it, it'll be gone. Like its against his religion to save money... So we can sell the house and pay back taxes and debt. He starts talking about buying another house. Then talks about saving money for 'our' old age. Why does he pretend there is anything left? Oh, because I don't want to play nice. He says fresh start. Go for it! Somewhere else! Then he makes the statement we did it once and we can do it again. One, there is no we anymore. Two, my once debt free house  won't help him anymore. Then he started his whine: You never loved me from the beginning. There is nothing left in me that cares to prove him wrong. It worked years ago and I'd try so hard. Now? I don't give a flip.

Wednesday

This must be whopper Wednesday. So yesterday the checks hadn't. One in in the morning so to get Nabal's business insurance reinstated I took out cash and paid it. I had to return today to pay out car insurance which also canceled. The checks came in yesterday evening. Nabal calls me early and  omplained that I hadn't mentioned paying the insurance yesterday. True I didn't mention it, I can't remember the last time he went there to pay anything... I said good he had checks and could pay the personal car insurance. He started in on me about why I hadne paid that also yesterday. Told him I'd only taken out enough to pay his insurance. He ended with: Oh. So I had to call their offi e about sending out a cert. of insurance and the woman and I have almost the same husband. It came up about his complaint of me not paying yesterday. She told him I only had money to pay one.  He just wanted to complain...but he could find no toe hold.

This evening he tells me that my cousin Al called me on the house phone. His tone was suspicious. It is my cousin's son. He was so annoyed it wasn't some sereptiscious 'boyfriend' calling. He'd just love to level the playing field...so we could 'move past' his daliances.  Yeah, no!

As usual he's drunk as a skunk. Tuesday night he had 2 six packs sitting bedside the sofa.

Monday

Daaaarunk! I let him catch the call today that his bisiness insurance had been canceled. Money finally came in and it can be reinstated.

Nabal comes downstairs, why does my back hurt? There's a little ball here Iassage it at night it feels better. It's 1:30 in the morning, he hasn't taken a shower and he's drunk off his ass. No use telling him to go take a hot shower. He can hardly stand. I told him try stretching it. He very enthusiastically agreed. Then said: I need to but then I get drunk, and the drunk takes away the stretching. I want to(he runs up the steps giggling) but I won't stop drinking, no I won't.

PS
By 2 a.m. Nabal was passed out sitting bolt upright on the living room sofa, arms crossed over his chestand slightly slumped. Not the life I envisioned...

Wednesday

I'm home by 9:30, he's passed out by 10:30... Life's good!!

A little interesting annoyance that ended up kinda humorous: I noticed about a week ago that the upstairs bathroom which Nabal and my boy share, the house bathroom. Had no TP. I was going to take some up and it slipped my mind. I don't go in there often, neither does my girl. Few days after I went in with towels and remembered when I saw the empty roll again. Looked around, surely one of them had brought up a new roll and as usual not put it on. Nope! So I had to see how long it would take them. I buy TP by the case. Same location for 16 years. No secret stash doled out judiciously. So yesterday he's working up the street. He calls and tells me he's sending his laborer, who is an old school friend of our boy up to use the bathroom. Ok... Could I check and make sure there's TP. So I decided to play along: oh is the hall bathroom out of paper? His reply? No. There was paper I just want to make sure there still is. I was almost on the floor laughing! Really, lie about something like that? Our girl saw me put paper in the bathroom and. Ommented that there had been none for 2 weeks. Two weeks! He and my boy must see that as something beneath them. Something women should. E doing. Sad really... Such an example I never dreamed of. This week our boy is out of town training so he knew it was him or no one else. Now I understand his old roommates. He never stopped to do women's work... Even other men from his country did their cleaning when they were living amongst men. I do remember a Hispanic woman telling about an apartment where the shower was black. Why? They didn't do women's work...! How damn lazy is that? No one wanted to be. Considered another's bitch... If one cleaned they would rib him about being 'sweet' how sad for men like this. That is unless you're married to one.

Sunday Evening

No matter how drunk, no matter how clear everything is Nabal 'pretends' ignorance to try and impose control. So our son goes out of town until Thursday of this week for training for his new job. Yes he's still talking to me...miracle. Well I knew he was spending the night with a friend who lives close to the airport since he has a 6 a.m. flight. His father was to take him. That is up until he was ready to go. The boy kept dropping hints that I was taking him. I still don't feel up to speed, but..oh well. When I got upstairs I realized why Nabal was no longer taking him. He came running up, clutching a beer bottle like it was his security blanket. He was all smiles trying to hug me. Then the boy and I were off. When I got back home Nabal comes running from the back demanding to know where I had been. I calmly told him he knew where I had been, so why ask. He still acted like he didn't have a clue. I reminded him that I took our boy up to his friend's where he was spending the night. Nabal was really lost I think... He mentioned a young man's name, a young man who lives in walking distance. Then I had to explain to him it was a friend of the boy's that lived next to the airport. Nabal asked me how our boy was getting to the airport... huh? The guy lives next door! then it sunk in. He wandered back to wherever he'd come from. But when he came out he was speaking in a commanding, demanding tone of voice then crossed his hands across his chest. Intimidation that no longer works, but that doesn't mean I don't flinch.

Found out that his little niece in Nabal's country has cancer. Praying for the child. It's evidently advanced. She had been complaining of pain with walking for some time, but they assumed she was just acting as they say 'spoiled.' It's not, unfortunately, just Nabal. I also know they are going to be expecting money...we are going to lose our asses if he feels compelled to give money we don't have.

Sunday

Character is who you are when no one is watching.

That said, today I am feeling under the weather. May be the stomach thing going around. So for the last few weeks Nabal has been doing a lot of cleaning that mess he's got going out back. I think he has it in his mind that all he has to do is clean it all up and I won't be 'mad' anymore. He has been asking every day, not asking but trying to affirm that I will sleep with him. Noooooooooo, and no again. I'm working my way out. Oh, and he is now, by default, preaching at his church.  Default? Yes, there is no one else who speaks English and can communicate with the English church. So he spends a few days a week putting together whatever he's 'preaching.' Sometimes he's drunk. He's preaching to a church that believes any form of alcohol is a sin. Shouldn't he at least honor that while he's studying, not to mention that the bible warns against drunkenness and carrying on so you have to hide what you do from other believers. This morning while he was putting the finishing touches on the 'sermon' he came downstairs to get my computer. He was on FB, no crime. Looking through all Mary Sims Pictures for an hour and some other Hispanic young thing. The last I noticed was that he had been on Youtube looking up Mary Sims??? He left his FB page open so I checked out Mary's page. I had to laugh, the woman had simply liked Youtube on FB, and he was sure he was going to find something with her in it. His mind is really not grasping a lot these days. He forgets an awful lot. I think his drinking has gone pretty much underground even from me, and I stopped caring a long time ago.

My my boy is taking so after Nabal's family. He's jealous and always mad about something. He's listened to his dad's advice for years, and to his uncles berate women for failing to answer a phone each time they get a whim to call. He's listened to his lecherous uncle give dating advice. They set him up. It's like whatever I taught him had absolutely no effect. Why should he? They make it seem that anyone who disagrees with them is a weak fool, they ridicule in the most immature manner. They live off every woman from their mother on down in some way, shape or form. They get mad, throw a fit and everyone waits on the. Gee, for them it seems there is no downside. I do see why women in Nabal's country are such takers. They are trying to make up for all that is taken from them, but they just make prisons for their sons and daughters.

Wednesday, As Usual

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Just getting a little frustration out... Ok, first off has nothing to do with Nabal for a change. I ask people for help about once on a millinium and always get crickets. Really?! I always  seem to have time to help others and always have to answer for when I don't follow thru. I'm pretty self sufficient so it's not like I'm always hitting someone up for something. Well, no more. I'm in a screw everyone mood today.

Then there's Nabal. That line from Maetwan just keeps coming to me, "I wouldn't piss on you if your heart was on fire." He, lately has actually been doing some yard work and straightening up after what? Four years? He's preaching and has rationalized his drunkenness and somehow thinks  just going to be so thrilled I'll just fall back in his bed. I'm really seeing serious immaturity. He was trying a game of scolding me when I said no to his romantic advances. He chuckled and said: have you forgotten you are my little lady? I was so damn mad. I told him he was the one who forgot. He laughed. I don't forget nothing he says. Yeah, already knew he'd been cruising Match.com while I was at church. He's playing all his angles and thinks he's the only one who knows. I don't even bother to check every day anymore only when I get the feeling I should. I am never disappointed. Sunday while he was 'preparing' his 'sermon' he took an hour to look thru Mary Sims pictures and going thru good old Match.com. He so badly wants to have a squeaky clean outward appearance so he'll be revered and respected while he keeps all his filh secretes away. I am certain that he will be gone as soon as he finds an acceptable woman to fall for him. Lie. His native tongue.

My boy decide to speak to me again. I'm still not really trusting him. He really needs counseling. It's not just him being a teen. 

Getting my second website built in as many weeks. The first was looking good, but had problems with the host I couldn't deal wih. So for a few dollars a month I'm set now. This is a steep learning curve for me. At least I have an art background andy second favorite part of the discipline was graphic art. I write fairly well too so it's all just taking time. Went to the Chamber of Commerce today. I need to shine really soon. I really want to have some money by the new year. I have no choice but to succeed. 

Nabal was down here a bit ago... First he tries to orade me to sleep with him, then he goes right to begging. No choice at all but to succeed.