Monday

Maybe the worst day yet. My boy is mad angry. Got 2 more holes in the wall ad everything but threatening his sister's life. She is so depressed I'm more than worried because I believe she's trying to self medicate. Daddy's little girl is treating depression as he does. I'm very worried because I've heard she's in with some heavy drug users, way past weed. My son on the other hand got caught in the posting remarks on FB which someone saw and showed to his girlfriend and told her it was directed at her. Girlfriend went to my girl  crying. Girl gave girlfriend a shoulder to cry on then broke up with my boy via text. (confused yet?) His side and reason to place blame is his sister- he thought she showed girlfriend the posts (in reality he found out some guy where they work showed her) So then he says my girl told girlfriend to break up with him. My girl denies this. I think she's an easy target. Told him she was trying to be a friend to the girl, sister is 16, girlfriend is 20. Maybe she did throw my girl under the bus to deflect anger. Told her today to never get between him and another girlfriend unless and until she's way older. Oh God...just 6 short months!

I have been asking people to pray for our family. Maybe everything has to break loose. Don't mind saying its all frightening. He is trying to blunt pain with bravado. Talking about wanting to kill the offending man. I told him to not use an ax to kill a fly. He's saying he won't mind doing time for the slight. He may end up there he is so angry simply a powder keg. Everything in this house is a powder keg. I just don't see any good end.

What is Nabal doing in all this? He is either clueless or pretending cluelessness. None of us would dream of telling him as he can turn a powder keg over and light the match then walk around justifying why whatever he did was reasonable. He can turn a bad situation horrible in a second.

Was talking to another parent today and she was telling me how nasty it would get once I made it clear I was done and the marriage was over. I know she's right. At present he is turning on the charm so by then...all my fault. I will see nasty I have never seen before. That's what makes me dread the freedom.

Called in a lot of prayer today. Started on some knitting I needed to start to dampen brain chatter.

Sunday

Too rich! Nabal was yet again complaining about his pastora. Evidently after a year here she is still blaming the previous administrator for their churches lack of growth. Then Nabal says, "I guess everywhere there are abusive people they never take the blame for anything they are doing. They find someone else to blame." Oh my! 

Funny how now he considers his past pastor abusive, yet disagreed when said pastor's wife used the same word to describe his personal behavior.  And now the new pastora is too? Just kinda funny how he calls it in others. Before I was locked in marriage I saw people like that and walked the other direction. He stays and wants to play their game. I guess he sees himself as benevolent ruler to be. He waits his turn. He's had it before but being out in the open with no one to blame isn't his style. I'm holding him back because I will not bite. He needs a handy scapegoat. He doesn't have the actual nerve to completely take over and stay there I the face of opposition from other narcissistic personalities. Or for that matter from conscious objectors who personally disapprove of his behavior on biblical grounds. Any criticism he focuses on and looses focus. Good! One less narcissist in a pulpit. 

Let me say here. I do have issues with alcoholism, but not having a few drinks with friends. I have a problem with abuse wherever it hides. I have issues with people bringing their dirt into the church and want to call it right for their own purposes. My scripture  tells me that anyone outside my religion (hate that word really) is God's to judge. (Yeah most Christians miss that) but the one who calls himself brother yet is breaking all the rules is to be dealt with by the church. If these don't shape up then they are to be put out so maybe they can see how far away they really are. Now you see why the church goes after the world, tending the home fire is way harder...

Saturday

I still find it hard to smile. My face feels like weights are pulling every inch or it down. I need help... I had the good fortune to speak with a friend who herself went thru 12 years of hell behind one such as Nabal. 12 years...gosh! If it takes that long I'll be so very old.

Saw a Lifetime movie today... Gosh it was about a woman who divorced and became homeless. Yes I could see that happening.

Nabal has been weirdly nice. Overly nice and asking me every little thing. Like he is one of my kids. I know he sees the handwriting on the wall.. Maybe my crash of the last few days have him worried. I just haven't said a lot since Wednesday. Of course this time it wasn't him pushing me over that edge. It was the 16 year old. It's normal, they live to push parents to sanity's edge. Usually with two parents there I a united front. Oh, but we know there is no front here. I have often thought that single parenting would be easier. At least there would be only one signal going out. Funny, now that my girl is trying to duck me Nabal has been Jonny on the spot with rides and asking me have I hspoken to the child. And this is called sneaking between the cracks. This is the one all along I have been worried about.

Nabal just came down and tried to pinch my cheek...earlier he wanted to hug me when I gave him his dinner. He was talking in a childish high voice. As if he were trying to calm or joke with a child. I, in the past would forget the tricks if given some praise an attention. Those days are 3 years long gone. I see the truth behind it all far too clearly.

Yes some days I come off as Lucy with a whole lot of unsolicited advice. Like anyone really cares. Other days I'm Charlie Brown, but an older wiser Charles who will not kick any more. Years ago I was more like Snoops, can't wait for those days to come around again.

Friday

Holidays... I hope anyone who reads this (still trying to figure out who would be interested in my ramblings, and why...) had a joy filled Thanksgiving!

I hate to admit it, I feel like I'm whining. This year did me in. I cooked the turkey I bought a small one this year. Nabal asked (night before while drunk) should he invite some of his friends. He honestly thinks that is what makes me happy. Now, I like to cook up a feast on Thanksgiving and I enjoy sharing with people who would otherwise have no family to celebrate with. The difference between us is that I don't do it to feel superior. I do it to help others feel included, to be joyful. This year my girl just floored me, and not in a good way. She has been using drugs and drinking. She is a senior, but only 16. Nabal the other night announced that he had been 'watching' her and her friends for a while. What father 'watches' as their 16 year old uses drugs? Oh, the one who himself is so drunk he can hardly walk straight. I am so tired of living amongst liars. I had to go out and find her at 5 in the morning while the drunk snored on the living room sofa. Hell, evenif he had been sober I couldn't ask him to help. Good thing I got a small turkey I got it in by 1. I had all the makings of as traditional Thanksgiving meal. Yeah about that.. Turkey, pecan rice and string beans got made. I just shut down. Never really ate and had a whopping headache. I slept most of the day, just didn't seem worth making any effort. I made that that I did so the kids would not have a completely bust holiday. My whole system was just upset. I felt horrible, but knew nothing was physically wrong. Everything is so hopeless right now. How do I save my daughter? I know I really can't... My God! She was fed beer as a small child, has seen her father smoke weed and drink himself into oblivion. Most of this I kick myself for being in a fog and not seeing any of it. I trusted my husband. I trusted him as a father because he was raised by a drunk mother and figured he would do better. Instead he pulled his daughter in, makes her feel like she's not enough whenever he can, and  so jealous of his son that he has a better upbringing that he had to make him feel hated. How was I so stupid, misplacing trust. How did I feel that I could shield my kids, when I didn't know the half of it.

 Yesterday Nabal looked as if he was out of a Norman Rockwell picture except he didn't have his pipe going. Glasses perched on his nose there he sat on the same sofa he got drunk on the night before, studying for his upcoming sermon. Of course he didn't offer to lift a finger. I served him his plate and he asked me to join him. What planet is he on?!?

I feel like Sisyphus, feel like I make some headway then blindsided again. Just holding on until our girl graduates in May. Then what? Get her the hell out of this town. I know movin isn't a cure all, but here she has no chance whatsoever. I still dread it all. I realize fear still rules my life. Tried to talk to my girl today. How to help and not drive her away or further into her drugs. She looked at my and with the sme amusement Nabal gets when he's about to lie, asked me, "What did I do?" family counseling is the only route I can see. I need money, money, money.

Nabal asked me an hour ago if I wanted to go shopping at the mall. I haven't been anywhere with him in years. Says I can buy shoes from my girl. Suddenly we must be a FAMILY! Earlier he said we needed to go out to dinner without the kids I told him he hadnt eaten with the kids in uears  Crap like this makes me nuts. Knowin the complete truth doubt creeps up on me. This is a problem. This is exactly why I write. If I didn't things would get hazy, confused and start to creep away to forgetfulness.

Friends? No none that I care to bother. People have their own woes, their own problems. They do not need mine. Shame stops me too. People don't have time to do their own thing, they surely don't have time for my problems. No one trusts me to finally leave all this behind. I've worn out my sympathy welcome. Disinterest. I have no friends and they all know it. Been too much water under the bridge for anyone to care. No one wants a pathetic old figure. I was thinking of moving near 'friends' now I'm leaning more towards somewhere I know no one. Leave it all behind live on the outskirts of society and do my thing. Paint, sew, read. Learn to be the best in my business. Enjoy life on front of a wood stove. Disconnect. Ah, best pastime of all- acting like I belong. Hell, I don't even friend people on FB, don't want to impose on people. Well, no more than 5 of the people I am 'friends' with. You know, when I do try to communicate with people I feel I'm intruding. I often look back and feel I've come off stupid and angry and unfeeling. I'm done. Lately I've wanted to talk, but realized something else...no one calls me. And that there is my answer right there in the silence. I have been written off. I'm old news.

The Black Hole of Home

Our in the street I plan all the amazing things I'm going to get accomplished. I know I have to have a plan when I go in, thought escapes me inside those walls. Sort clothes, organize, some days even pack some things to maybe move to storage. I enter and hopelessness sets in. Fatigue takes over eating seems a chore, much more the cooking any more. All plans...well laid plans...gone like any other ambition here.

It's not just me. We say anywhere else we are organized, energetic, and mindful. Enter here and the prevailing bought is sleep. Some find it easily. Some find it illusive. We all find reason to be anywhere but the house. It's no longer much of a home. It hasn't been for many years. The illusion has been kept as a hologram. The image, devoid of substance.

It is a stumbling block of sorts. To go I need all my 'baggage' together. I'm keeper of many family treasures including the house. The thought makes me I'll at times.  Worry is becoming my strong point. Not good. My children long to escape. I do too. Nabal longs to keep us all here. Set in place, the perfect family. A credit to his self denial. We are the problem. We create all our own problems.  His actions and lack there of have nothing to do with any of it. "Everything he has ever done has been for us." Therefore he gets drunk for us. He gets high for us. Stands in the streets fighting for us. He chases women for us. He lies...for us. We are in the wrong if we have lives that don't include him and revolve around the house. Oh...yet when we do have people over he hides. He leaves. He complains about the people. Mostly questioning their morals, their appearances, their  their not Spanish enough ever. Unless they are and he can find out some parental dirt.It's about control, it's an isolationists move. So well trained, we now self isolate.

Tonight hes stumbling drunk. Says he almost fought with Beto. Says Beto started it. He's not sure what the guy's problem is- maybe he's gay. (Where that came from I'll never know.) Nabal smells like straight alcohol. I got him to go away because the door alarm on the fridge was blaring. He claimed he hadn't touched the fridge so it wasn't his fault. Really? I'd just heard him put beer in it. Agh, the extent he will go to not be blamed for anything. He went upstairs and yelled at the fridge because it was complaining he'd put beer in it... He says he needs a 'lady' he's going to see a lawyer. I can't survive without him. I chose him so I have to keep Jim   I'm stupid because I married him. All rich people are lucky not smart because he's smarter than they are. He's never going to let me down  did I forget any of his random rambling?oh yeah, don't I want to come sleep with him. Oh yeah, just let me grab a lighter so I can light your breath! That's soooo enticing.

This house is ruined for me, and most likely the children. Home? I'm pretty sure it's wherever he is not. All I need is a sink, a stove and a wood stove. Indoor plumbing is not a necessity  I can go cheap if my kids are in school and on campus. My animals have fur. I can work, and maybe in a new place I can settle into a place for a while. Save some up for what I want to do, Lord willing. Here I exist, waiting to exit.

Haha! He knows I'm feigning sleep. Even as he feigns most everything.

I am so mad and just want to do something...juvenile even. I would love to write on his truch tailgate in Spanish 'big drunk.' Why? Because it would feel good!why don't I...? I guess I'm just not that into going there...yet. I came soooo close tonight tho.

P.S.
Sometimes you are not sure how drunk someone is until THEY start asking questions and give it away. Early this morning Nabal comes downstairs and wakes me to ask why our girl had called him last night. She was at a friend's helping them get ready for Thanksgiving. Concern in his voice. My exasperated reply: Because you called her. He is never happy unless everyone is sitting in the house so he called her, doing his evil elf laugh. She called right back but he'd gone on to the next drunken caper and forgotten all about his call. Little late 8 hours later. 

Pre-Thanksgiving

So interesting week already. Monday Nabal was soo drunk Monday night that Tuesday I found about $20 of weed just sitting on the dining room table amongst several empty beer bottles. He's so worried about his kids and drugs...great role model there dad. (sarcasm intended)

Today Nabal sees me coming down the stret almost home. Calls me whining about all he has to do and still needed to pick up chicken food. Back up to where I'd just come from and when I get back home he calls again.  He's looking for the name 'Craigslist' and he was so drunk already I could hear it right away by how high his voice was.

I just realized something important. I don't have anything against recreational smoking anymore than having a beer or so. Even drinking one too many when celebrating. What I have a problem with is that Nabal over does it all. He spent years doing it in front of the kids if I wasn't around. He has shown them a lifestyle of substance abuse, not responsible use. He spy's on the kids while he stumbles about drunk and high. Drunks can't sneek! So they all know, and they all despise him. Yet what remains to be seem is will they unwittingly follow him anyway because it appears and feels normal to them?

I still kick myself for not telling him to go 10 years ago when he threatened to leave constantly. Why did it make me so sad? Why was I so scared to go it alone. Why couldn't I see that even though I was left around as a child by a vain mother that my children would have felt loved and cared for even if they had a sitter. It wasn't the sitters, it was the feelings from home. I've turned one dis functional set up into another. I feel at wits end. I feel like everything is spiraling out of control. I feel as if let my kids down more than even I was. So...happy holidays.

I am thankful for my kids and the few and rare friends. (many of which are fur covered)

Sunday

So I dodged the whole fake family unit thing at Nabal's church last evening because I worked all day and fell asleep at 4 p. m. Found out he made our girl and a few Spanish kids go. She said the pastor woman and her daughter gave her weird looks and made them fill out information cards.  These cards had on them 'I need to be saved' the woman told all the kids they needed to mark that. Ok, weather it's true or not...you don't go telling people that way! I'm kinda guessing Nabal is telling them 'his' woes about the kids. Perfect way to get them off him, and they are that stupid to follow his reason knowing how he has acted around them.

I'm sitting in the basement he's drunk talking on the phone. First it was to someone in his church. Mind you he's drunk enough to hear it in his voice and he's arguing that they can't tell him drinking and drunkenness is a sin, that's their interpretation. Basically, 'Don't judge me!' it's an argument I hear him have all the time. A really messed up church because they have no way of holding him accountable, but with repeated pleading and reasoning from one of his 'brothers' he doesn't relent in the least.

Later I hear him speaking in English. He's talking to a smoking buddy of his. One he tries to convince to stay in church with wrong doctrine. Heck I remember when the guy hated churches. Hope Nabal doesn't mess another soul up... So I hear him tell this guy laughingly about some Spanish boys that he made go to his dinner. Then he loudly and drunkly tells the man that he (Nabal) preached. Then laughs and says, "Can you believe that?" Then laughs again. it's all a joke. I think even he is surprised he's getting away with being a known drunk all around yet being the go to preacher. I just don't understand any of it... It's why I won't set foot over there. I guess you'd have to understand my thoughts and understanding of a reasonably healthy and functional church to understand why I don't understand... Well, I do understand that I am done with this farce and I really do need counceling to get motivated and get over this lingering fear. I'm pretty sure everyone has given up on me. It's been really hard to figure if it has been better to be here for a short time more or to have broken loose when things got crazy. I still wonder if it wouldn't have been better to have lost everything , yet held onto sanity more closely. Thing is I know that I will be completely on my own.  I can do homeless, or shack in the sticks. Would it have been better compared to this for my girl? Coward I am, that I can see.

Friday

Nabal came in from church so very happy. We got Subway and sodas. He said he had something new and pulled out a beer bottle. My girl and I told him wasn't anything new about him and he's beer.  He insisted it was different. I suggested it was larger. He grinned and announced he was going to start to make his own beer, as it's cheaper... Oh boy. He got that bottle from one of his clients who had made his own. Told him I had a Pepsi for him and he told him he couldn't drink them anymore. When he drinks Coke or Pepsi he can't urinate. Wonder what the heck that is all about. Later he was Dan ing around because tomorrow is his church Thanksgiving dinner and he believes Agee are Ll going to make an appearance so he will look normal to all his church people. He doesn't care about anything further than his image. I keep telling him I'm not going and neither are the kids. He's just pretending we are, as if believing will make it so. Oh if that were true...I'd be miles away and free of one Nabal and getting help for the kids because I had sufficient income.

Holidays... Bah Humbug

Life sucks. Holidays are almost here, I used to love Thanksgiving and Christmas. When the kids were young thanksgiving was a big day. Dinner for at least 20 anyone who had no family here was invited. Good times. Christmas decorations, a tree and the house in lights. Driving around to see the pretty lights. Now...it's as if the town echoes me back, slowly fading away. Old folks die out, new folks who don't decorate or mark the time of year dominate. last year and the last few years I made dinner. That's it. No big meal. No Christmas tree. No lights, I got tired of putting them up as Nabal stopped years ago. The tree went from large to a small fake, prelit thing that sat in the bay window. Thanksgiving is about the same, but I do cook a turkey and all my grandma's good southern holiday food. Nabal likes to pretend I do all this for him, I do it so the melencholy won't overrun the kids.  I used to love this time of year, now I wish I could sleep thru until January 3rd when it's all over. The worst part is Nabal, trying to use all of us as his big happy family. Parading to his church so he looks good.

This year double sucks. Just saw my Father's side of the family just had a couples outing. Well, that puts me out right there. What gets me is that some woman showed up on their doorstep and claimed her mother told her she was my Father's child. Without question they (the old gullible  cousins) welcomed her with open arms. This when old fmily friends denied any liaison. A living uncle told me to be leary of her and not to trust her, and yet she is invited to every family gathering and treated as a cousin. Hell, I wouldn't mind treating her as a cousin. But sister? No. Another manipulative ex addict is not what i need in my life at any time. One pushy cousin insist on her being included. That after they have seen her manipulative behavior and meddling. Life sucks, and you keep on living. This is going to be such a bad year. Which anniversary of my realizing Nabal was nothing but a womanizing liar? This is why alone is a blessing for me. I can lie to myself. I can manipulate myself, but at least I know when it's being done. This is not going to be a very good year at all.

Monday

Nabal just puked all over my bathroom down here in the basement. He wiped most of it up, but it went all over the place... It was the end of a night of  mind f"#%ery. I've just been tired of repeating the same old crap over and over, so I haven't been writing. I give Nabal credit for staying sober most of last week. Credit in that I mention all he does wrong so I should mention what he got right, because if this ever comes to evidence it needs to be as balanced as I can be.  Damn! Not I have to disinfect the damn bathroom here this late at night... At least he went and passed the heck out.

Today he's been saying I love yous all day. We all figured out why he's being so mister good husband/father. He wants to parade all of us to his church for their 'Thanksgiving' dinner on the 17th. Tonight he repeatedly asked if I was going. I'm working kids are working. He actually asked me if I couldn't make some time for him. I just think when he says things like that about all the times he couldn't 'make time' for any of his kid's big days. My flip moment tonight was when he repeated that he wished he could make enough money to make me happy. Implying that all my actions: sleepin on a couch in the basement, seep rating myself from him all this he says is because he can't make enough money to keep my attention. I called him on it, and I wasn't nice about it. He said it so sweetly, and with a big smile. I told him I was not his mother, waiting around for money, nor does money abundance or lack, color my feelings about people in general. Let's see... What other tactics did he use tonight. Saying his will was stronger than mine and he would make me be his again, his way. I was his little lady and I couldn't change that. Telling me he has powers. (yes...)

When our son got home Nabal was telling him a story. The story followed a crack the boy made about Nabal being wasted and basically said he'd been on crack. Nabal proceeded to tell the 18 year old, his son, about buying crack on a job here in town. He was buying it for a friend since he could get good prices from the dealer who was another worker on the job site who used his own product. Then told how the guy he bought it for, a business owner Ronald, had hurt himself while high on it. Yes and Nabal is still telling everyone else they are practicing Christianity incorrectly. Yup, why neither of the kids has any thing to do with Christianity. He was lecturing me tonight about being filled with the Holy Spirit. Somehow he forgot the part that says being drunk interferes with that... The Thomas Jefferson Christian, all parts that he doesn't like, he conveniently decides are not for him.

What else did this fun night hold...? Oh! He wasn't a motorcycle... Wants me to ride with him. Heck, I won't ride in a car with him! There was something else also... Nabal told me he has never once been mean to me and I'm the mean one, always have been. Why? Because I won't put up with his crap. Oh! Now he claims never to have  chased any other women. Dared me to name one. So I bit, named Mary. He said she was never his lady. She must have turned him down when he asked her to be his girlfriend. Than said I must think he is some hot guy that all the women want. Nope, but I think he's a skirt chaser. Then he claims he had chances I had no knowledge of and I didn't know everything. I played along and told him he didn't know what I knew but just didn't talk about. The look on his face, priceless! Then he said: Women always think they know everything. Well enough of the looser, it all bores me these days. I don't even talk about it to people anymore. I'm just wishing it was all over.

Nabal said he drank a soda today and it made him sick. Said the soda was bad... Last week when he wasn't drinking I really think he was feeling bad. He looked like he was in pain after he drank so much one night last week. I think he knows he's killing himself. He will be sick tomorrow. He never ate his dinner, he forgot. Too busy drinking. Oh well. I hate to even realize it, but I'm past caring.