April 18, 2013

Nabal was in rare form tonight. He must smell a rat, as he's into head games pretty strong. Desperation leads to mistakes, thankfully. 

Nabal was talking about 'cleaning' up the yard. He started talking about the old Galaxy. I try to tune him out as he just likes to talk plans that never get done. I they did we'd have an aqueduct in the back yard attached to a garage apartment. (none of which exist after 7 years) He was telling me he was going to give it away. Then asked what I thought he should do. Finally I told him do what he wants to do. He bristled and told me I was his wife so had to tell him what to do. That was it, I told him he didn't consult me when he bought it why now?  He went into a whole explanation that he indeed had discussed it with me and he didn't pay for it. We are one and I needed to tell him what to do with the car. Told me I had probably forgotten but he remembered telling me. So...who has been soaking their brain in alcohol for the last 5 years- me or him? 

Then he decided that he needs to touch me while he was talking. I was trying to fix dinner and just kept moving. He was annoyed I wouldn't stop what I was doing and engage him. Then he said quietly, but audibly: I hope you're not thinking to divorce me. Then much louder: because it's never gonna happen, never gonna happen. Then went on with what he was saying. 

Yes I know it's a head game, dropping that then moving on. I know it's to scare me. Recently 2 of his friends have been 'divorced' by their very complacent wives. 

Another head game: He kept asking me should he take a shower. Yes he worked today. Finally he took a bath after I told him that was his decision not mine. He comes downstairs and announces he's going to sleep and wants a kiss goodnight. When we were on good terms he NEVER did that. I told him goodnight. He tried to hug me and I ducked him. I was doing laundry and he informed me it was late. I needed to go to sleep. (seriously? I...don't need a parent) Then he says: It's ok he was ok, and thanked me for the goodnight hug and went upstairs. Goodnight hug? What goodnight hug? Wow Nabal...good gaslight! I'm onto your game, and the sky is indeed blue. 

That drunken ass ate all the vegetables knowing our boy still had to eat. Selfish ass! 

Nabal is still telling me about all the improvements he's going to make to the house when he struck it rich. I can hear it in his comments he so envies anyone with money. He works for people who don't pay or don't pay well. He complains about how they exploit Hispanics yet he continues working for them and paling around with them. He actually complains how one guy is a drunk and how he dislikes dealing with the man when drunk, all while he himself is snookered... Just amazing! This is the same man Nabal once held up to me as having a living family and he was a drunk, so what was my problem.

April 13, 2013

4/13

I start work part time in another town next week, weekends. Nabal was today wondering why. I didn't really need to work, after all once work picks up he'll catch up. I almost laughed. He has overdrawn his account just about every week lately. His bank curtailed his check writing at gas stations and food stores. He's lucky they didn't close his account. 

He at one point was almost $700 in the red. Last week I covered $274 of overdrafts, by the time he put a check in he was $134 in the hole. When I speak to him he defends it all by saying he has to get around somehow. Like the bank should really get with it. 

We are so far behind. No satellite TV, which I had been thinking needed to be scaled back months ago, but he had to have his Spanish channels. No Internet, but he's the only one bothered by that again. Only local calls, no long distance. His credit card is grossly in arrears. The truck payment of almost $500 a month is overdue. (he wouldn't go get a better loan. Wanted me to go do it for him) I got a good check a few weeks ago and was able to catch up on utilities. The mortgage is not quite late yet. Property taxes haven't been paid since December and more will be due come June. He has a traffic ticket he told me to pay last week, luckily I looked, that was when he was $275 in the hole. He never checks how much he has, just writes checks...

I feel overwhelmed, I live in fear of things being taken, confiscated. My life the past few years feels like a bath draining slowly. Very recently I can feel the tug of the whirlpool forming before the final whoosh of the remaining water. I stepped up work by 2 months as things here are not getting any better. I was hoping to wait until our girl graduated. We won't have 2 nickels if I wait. I felt so bad last year when our boy graduated and didn't have money to even go to a restaurant to celebrate. Nabal has no problem with it. His answer is to throw a party, invite all his single drinking buddies and get drunk. 

Since the Spanish TV went off Nabal mostly gets drunk somewhere else and one night none of us are sure he made it home. He came in a few nights ago and wanted me to fix his plate, because that's a wife's job. When he realized I'd shut the chickens in he started saying, "I knew you loved me. You took care of the chickens." It's stuff like that, just doing the right thing in general, and he tries to make it all about him. He just pretends I'm being temperamental and nothing really happened. This is why I write.

When I was going for my interview last week, Nabal had the audacity to ask me if they had some office work for me to do. This doesn't sound bad until you understand the interview was with a premiere resort where my skill set is needed and th pay is well above office personnel. my profession is a skilled craft and he was trying to slam me and my confidence. Funny thing is even my past profession wasn't office work. I've never been an office type, have nothing against them. Not saying what I do is better or worse, it's just right for me. My interview was over the top good and I was offered the job unofficially then and there! HR called and made it official. Funny, other people think me and my skills are pretty slamming! Funny thing is I'm still pretty POed about the office work crack because I saw what he was doing. It kinda helped me, I got so mad I completely got over my interview jitters! But it made me mad and sad seeing the manipulation. Instead of him bettering his behavior, he'd rather tear me down so I will have to stay. Then there's the nightly, "You going to sleep with me tonight?" I think he's just seeing the handwriting, maybe he honestly thought I would just forget and go back quietly to our old life. Then I'm sure he'd go back to his usual self if he ever caught a whiff of me caring again. I'm just not playing the game anymore. I'm off the abuse cycle merry go round. 

I know a split is going to be hell, that's when the real Nabal will come out. Looks like I'm in the road, but there is still fear.

He was just down here complaining about a drunk he has to deal with who he works for. Complaining that every time he needs to talk to the guy he's drunk. Then asked me why I thought the man was getting worse. He asked if I thought it was because the economy was getting better. 

He moved onto his nightly plea for me to come upstairs with him. Then apologized for not providing the life I envisioned. What? Oooooh, I see, now the reason I act the way I do is because he can't make enough money to make me happy. Nothing whatsoever to do with anything wrong he's done. So he gets to be misunderstood. The poor working stiff. Me? I get painted as a shrew. Anyone who knows me would laugh out loud at that. I've never been materialistic. Talk about surrealistic painting. He had rewritten history do make himself out to be the poor man who can't make enough money to please his wife. He's the one who sucked all the money up with nothing to show for. He's the one who refused to leave his money in a savings account because he wanted to show 'someone' that he had lots of money. He's the one who was begging me for ten thousand dollars at a time, which he promised to pay back once he got paid for a job, only to spend it all and be back begging for more until it was all gone. He is the one who wants to be the big spender, yet he's projecting it onto me. 

I'm pretty sure he's drinking right now. Pretty hard to tell these days, the only thing that tells him is he tries the sexy talk. 

He just came down, outraged that my good friend who was married to his ex-pastor, had left him. I already knew that, but didn't let on. He was so mad at the woman. I reminded him that most people predicted this almost at the wedding because of he was he was such a nasty controlling little man. Nabal said, "But he changed." I reminded him he did not live with them and just because he was different in public didn't mean he'd changed at home. Then Nabal said she was crazy, and he remembered the day she went crazy. He and some guys helped them move when Noel lost the house. (funny, his neighbors who went to the church refused to help him) Nabal said that day she went crazy, trying to tell her husband that she could do whatever she wanted. (hmmmm) Up to then, she had been quiet in accepting his abuse in public, ducking her head and complying. He spoke to her any way he felt. That day she stood up for herself- Nabal saw it as her going crazy. That's a telling thought don't you think? Until she stood up for herself they all pitied her, stuck up for her.  Nabal said he'd 'spoken' to Noel about his behavior, but the day she had the audacity to speak up and not take her husband's abuse- she went crazy. Thank God she has a lawyer this time. She also has her parents here as support, and a women's group specially for Spanish speaking women! Nabal's parting shot was: They fired her dad from his job. He was all about defending the abuser now, there was a time he defended that woman. What happened? I think he's that abuser Lundy Bancroft speaks of who is the woman's champion yet abuses in his own home. Mostly psychological abusers- yup. If they don't throw a punch; they are spotless. Well, Nabal may have given a clue as to how Noel plans to get their kids from her. I think she has a lawyer who is used to dealing with these folks. She'll get a heads up for sure. I wouldn't put it past Nabal to go be the church deacon witness for his abusive buddy. 

These guys really hang together and cover for one another.... 

March 12, 2013

Small Differences

Nabal,  4 years ago, over my protests lied about moving out so our boy could go to school in another district. Said boy is now a graduate. His sister did get a boon from this being able to go to a school that is good for her learning disability and she's graduating a year early. 

Nabal has run into trouble in that the folks he had his fake address with were moved to our district by the landlords while they remodel the other place. This is considered an upgrade by many.

Nabal comes in and says its too much trouble to find a new place, and since the girl has two more years (one can see how much interest he has in the family...) she'll do just fine in our schools. This is the school system I pulled her out of because they stuck her in slow remedial classes because that's what they do to any kid with a disability. 

It's all about the difference between boys and girls. The boy, who has no disability and super smart, wanted to move. Nabal moved heaven and earth to make it happen. Now that the girl child is in a place she needs to be, and is super smart also by the way, it's way to much trouble. 

Yes, with Nabal women are not anyway near as important. 

March 9, 2013

When your girl child text you that her father, your husband is drunk. Time to go. He's being the happy hands, flirty drunk tonight. "You're pretty, your hair is pretty. Why don't you sleep in your bed? Aren't you cold down in the basement? I want to have you in bed with me. I love you." This all translates to-!he hasn't struck gold anywhere else. I've already seen him when he thinks he has other choices. He's nastier than nasty. He tried to break me. He's hedging his bets. He sees the end. 

March 6, 2013

We no longer have Internet access... Job will start soon I've been writing offline its what follows:
Snow!

It's snowing like crazy, and I live it! Only Nabal could find a way to  douse my joy. He was all dressed up and came in drunk. First he fries up some pork chops he had in the fridge. They had gone bad and he didn't know until after he ate 3 tacos... I had soup made, menudo, but he was dying for tacos. So he comes downstairs where I had been working on my dearest friend's grandson's blanket. He starts complementing me on my knitting. Says he likes it, likes me, loves me. "Why don't you come upstairs and sleep with me during the storm? Don't you want to sleep in your bed?" Nope. "Don't you want to sleep next to poppy?" Nope. He slithered back upstairs and passed out. 

Tomorrow the back goes on the blanket. 

Just realized I'm stuck here with Nabal all day... Aaaaaaaah!

So he must have really put away whatever he had last night. He got up and made breakfast for himself then went back to sleep. Woke up after the power went out then went back to sleep until 4. Yup, power went out and no we never got any wood in. Actually haven't had any 'fire' wood for years. The lack of wood has correlated to his increasing alcohol  intake. He has burned construction wood in the past, this year...nothing. We are lucky to still have a bit of forest behind us and scrounged some pretty good sized pieces. We got some of those burn logs from the grocery store and they should do the trick in drying out the wet wood. We just got all that together as Nabal awoke and asks if I want to have a fire in the fireplace. Ya think? 

Snow cleared by our boy. He also helped the older neighbor ladies. Deer chili cooking, enough to share with all the electric stove owners who can't cook. Just as my girl and I had food ready to go to an elderly relative's house, the lights came on! While I was dropping off food Nabal was texting me worried why he couldn't get on the Internet. Poor man- no Spanish channels or Internet, and no way to get out and party and get home in one piece. 

Our kids built a snowman. They came in to get a sombrero. When I looked they had the snowman clutching an old large beer bottle they found I'm the yard and somehow made the face flushed red. No...respect left a long time ago. Sad that a father has taken so many liberties in his behavior that that is all his family sees. His church folk see only the lie and look at us like we are evil. He allows it. By covering who he really is, he throws us all under the bus. He hangs his head, the consummate victim.