Starting Over

It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, it’s that I’ve been preoccupied with life and have not yet figured out how to manage my time well.  Life is, as ever, changing on a daily basis.  Just when I think I’ve gotten things figured out, the rules change again.  I find myself in a strange place in life.  It’s difficult to describe exactly how I feel.  Some days are better than others.

Anyone who has known me for very long knows that I love my husband.  They also know that I don’t give that love easily.  You can ask any of my ex-boyfriends to tell you how giving I am when it comes to emotions and feelings and they’d all describe me as approachable as a hornets nest.  I’ve got my barriers… my walls… my protective outer shell that keeps me from letting people in.  My husband, however, got himself behind that wall.  It hasn’t always been good.  He’s used it to his advantage a time or two, to push my buttons, induce panic and further my self-loathing.  I honest to blog don’t think he’s always done it on purpose… but when you’re with someone and you’re used to them, it’s pretty easy to push those buttons.  Why not, after all?  They know how to push yours, so why not pound on one repeatedly now and then?

The bad days have been really bad.  I’ve found myself slipping into a depression that I don’t quite know how to get myself out of.  There are days when I don’t leave the house.  When I don’t eat or drink.  When I can barely make myself get out of bed.  It’s those days that I pick fights with Paul.  When I hide the sharp objects and put all the knives in the dishwasher.  Or  on other days, shower a dozen times, scrubbing my skin until its nearly raw.  I’ve used the “D” word more times than I care to mention in the last few months.  It seems like such an easier route.  When the fighting is overwhelming and he’s screaming at me that he’s emptying the bank accounts and leaving, it just seems easier to say, “FINE!  Take it and leave!  I want a divorce!”  But that isn’t what I want.

Sometimes I wonder if I really know what I want.  I mean, I know I want to be happy and I want my marriage to be less bumpy and I want to be financially prosperous and I want to have kids and all that… but getting there… that is where I start to lose my way a little.  I took a scary step today and picked up my Bible.  Haven’t done that in a while.  It seems I’ve tried everything else… I’ve looked in every other possible direction… and all paths lead back to Him.  Why He’s patient with me, I honestly don’t know.  I don’t deserve it.  Why He doesn’t throw His hands up at me and walk away, leaves me perplexed, but striving to find out why and how He can still love me.

When my life, my marriage, my entire world feels like it’s crashing in around me, I still hear Him.  Sometimes I try everything to drown Him out because I don’t want to deal with the truth… because I don’t want to admit that I am lost and need someone other than me to make it right again.

It’s so easy to get stressed out.  To worry all the time.  Except… I don’t want to worry all the time.  If I were being completely honest with myself, I have nothing to worry about.  There’s always an answer to every hard question.  When I start to freak about money, I remind myself that we both have jobs for now and I can still pay the bills.  When I worry that we’ll never have a baby, I step back and remind myself that until I’m healthy, it wouldn’t be wise to have a baby anyway.  When I think that my marriage has an expiration date, I will myself to hold on one more day.  And one more day.  And one more day.

The path ahead of me is daunting.  It’s positively dizzying to think about all the changes… but somewhere, way down deep, I know it’s going to work out.  And even if it doesn’t, I have the strength to pick myself up, dust myself off and find another way.

So, even in this darkness, there’s still a little light.  It’s just a tiny flicker, but I see it and I’m praying it turns into a mighty brush fire and that it overtakes me and leads me to where I know I’m supposed to be.  If you’re there in the darkness, too, know that I’m praying for your, no matter what that means, and we’ll find our way out… no matter what you think you believe (or don’t believe), of this much I’m sure.

Love,

Mrs. Vaughn

So, I recently had a birthday.  April 25th, to be exact.  On Friday, the 24th, Paul had me pack our things and he grabbed some towels and a roll of toilet paper (which scared the holy Moses out of me) and we hit the road.  We ended up in Nashville, Indiana turning down scary lanes and finally driving STRAIGHT UP A MOUNTAIN to stay at Lost Man’s Cabin.  There were two flights of stone steps to get to the cabin.  At nearly midnight, it was quite scary to try to traverse those steps in the dark.

I love cabins, but this one was rustic to the core.  I took a shower and got ready for bed.  There were wasps in every nook and cranny of the cabin, it seemed.  After a long night of woo-hoo lovin’, we went to sleep.  Waking up to skylight and windows all around you is awesome.  Especially when you don’t have any neighbors and can strip and get dressed without worrying about the curtains being shut.  (Sorry you missed that part, honey, but we never would have made it out of the cabin otherwise.)

We walked around Nashville for a few hours, taking a tour on a trolly of all shops.  Nashville is famous for its shopping.  We hit most of the stores and bought a bunch of candles and some leather chaps for Paul’s biker brother.  I begged him to try them on, but he wouldn’t.  Spoilsport!

We checked out some other things and got back to the cabin quite late.  I had fallen asleep on the way back, so when we got back to the cabin, the stairs were once again trying to murder me.  I went into the bathroom to put on my pj’s and stumbled to the bedroom.  I’d no sooner kissed Paul goodnight when a horrible, sharp, stinging sensation hit my back.  I screamed and Paul jumped up and turned on the light and then HE screamed.  We both got stung by a solitary wasp.  Mine swelled up like mad and he took care of me.  I cried my face off.  It was quite pathetic, but it hurt like a mother.  Paul stayed awake to make sure I was allergic.  Aww.

The next morning, we headed out.  The trip was fairly uneventful until we stopped in Edinburgh, home of the giant outlet mall.  I usually love going to Edinburgh… they have a Lane Bryant store I really like.  Walking in, I was only going to purchase flip-flops.  Paul saw a dress and made me try it on.  Looking at some of the clothes and trying them on, I hated how I looked.  I HATED HATED HATED how I looked.  I was completely disgusted with everything about how I looked.  Paul started passing things over the door to me to try on and I started having a panic attack.  I quickly got dressed, grabbed a pair of flip-flops and told Paul I wanted to leave.  He didn’t know what was wrong and I couldn’t tell him.

When I started driving, I wasn’t as active.  All the weight I’d lost started to creep back on.  I’m not where I was before I lost some weight, but the fact that my pants were too tight and I couldn’t buy the clothes I wanted to really freaked me out.  Paul says crap every now and then that is totally innocent, but I take it the wrong way.  Our 2 year anniversary is coming up in a few weeks and I’ve never let him see me naked.  Ever.  If he gets in the shower with me, I make him turn the lights off.  This is no way to live my life.

So, I’m keeping a food diary.  I bought a scale.  I want to be down 2 dress sizes by the wedding.  That’s reasonable.  Ideally, I’d like to be hot enough for my husband to be passionate about me again.

Blah, blah, blah.  I’m leaving in a few weeks to see Jennifer in Pennsylvania.  I’ll most likely leave on the 19th, ’cause the 18th is Paul & I’s anniversary.  I’m pretty excited.  About both, actually.  Anyway, I need to clean up the living room and vacuum.  Got a late start today and I’m still in my pajama’s.  Bad, Shannon!

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.  I have been busy and isolated and incredibly high off of paint fumes.  Moniquic’s 10th birthday was on the 1st and I redid her bedroom.  Painted the walls, got new bedding and cute accessories.  She loved it, so I’m happy.  Zoey, being five and being a clone of her mother, felt this was unfair and voiced her feelings repeatedly over the weekend.  I was glad when the weekend was over.  SIGH.

We had a pretty good weekend in Chicago last weekend.  Paul bowled really well.  I don’t know if it was because we weren’t with a million people I knew or if it was because they bowled the first shift, but it wasn’t as nerving as it usually is.  I get really antsy and panicky in large crowds.  Wal-Mart, especially, tends to turn me into a barking lunitic who foams at the mouth.  Heh.

We walked SO MANY MILES and my body is no longer used to it, so I spent two days recuperating.  After bowling on Saturday, we went to the Museum of Science & Industry.  It wasn’t as fabulous as it was when I was a kid.  I really wanted to see the aquarium, but everything closed at 5:30 and we didn’t get up there until about 2:00.  I tried to convince Paul to go to the Sears Tower with me, but he wasn’t buying it.  We ended up at   Navy Pier.  Neither of us had ever been.  It was pretty, but crowded and cold.  I’d like to go when its warmer.  Sometime in the future, I think we’re going to spend a long weekend in Chicago and take taxi’s everywhere and just enjoy the city.  We’ll take a $96 dollar per person dinner cruise and catch a Shakespeare play and pretend we’re civilized.  Heh.

After Navy Pier, we went to the Horseshoe casino where I turned two $20 bills into $300 and $275.  But then I was grabbed by some scary man who called me a tramp.  Paul wasn’t with me at the time, so I freaked out.  I was scared to tell Paul because I knew he’d go looking for the guy and would beat his face in.  Paul is pretty protective of me.  When I got back to Paul, he could tell something had happened.  When I finally told him, the first thing he wanted to do was find the dude and punch his lights out.  Heh.  It scared me pretty bad, so we left.  We met up with his parents for a bit and then went back to the hotel.

Sunday, I was tired and exhausted and sore.  Paul bowled amazingly!  We saw this old dude bowl 299 TWICE!  I can’t wait to see Paul bowl that well.  I know he can do it.  He think I hate that he bowls and the truth is, that I totally don’t.  I love watching him bowl and I love that he has a hobby… the only issues I’ve ever had with bowling is when it came before everything else and when it became another form of gambling.  Priorities are something that Paul really struggles with.  He gets caught up in the things he thinks he needs to do and misses out on a lot of things because he’s not getting his priorities in the right order.  There was a time when I was the only one working and he’d just QUIT his job and he was bowling two leagues and spending $30 a week on bowling and we were close to filing bankruptcy.  In his mind, he had to bowl to keep his average and stay eligible to bowl the state tournament.  In my mind, we were about to lose our freedom and he was worried about bowling.  This is something we’re still working on.

Since starting the business, we’ve been doing really well.  Paul’s been busting his butt to get jobs lined up.  Right now, they almost have more work than they can handle.  They’re building a house and have a handful of side jobs.  We’re doing well enough that I’m able to keep all of our bills paid and pay off a few things.  This week I plan on starting payroll with taxes taken out for the new employees and adding to our emergency fund and starting a serious budget.  I am SO READY to be debt free!  It’s going to take a lot of hard work, but I know we can do it!

We’re still in the market for a marriage counselor.  There are just so many things we need to work out.  Sometimes it seems like we’re not only on different pages… we’re in separate books.  Paul doesn’t understand what’s going on in my head and I don’t understand why he does the things he does and it turns into a needless fight.  I love Paul withall my heart and soul and want to be with him for the rest of my life, but there are days when I find myself really struggling to figure out why we’re still together.  In many ways we’re totally incompatible.  And then… I’ll look at him and know exactly what he’s thinking and he’ll know what I’m thinking, too and we’ll have our inside jokes and secrets… and he’ll hold me tight and make me feel so safe and secure… and he’ll kiss me so tenderly and we’ll spend an hour talking about nothing… those days are few and far between now, but it keeps me hanging on to the hope that those days are not gone completely.

I’m desperate for school to be out.  I am desperate to clean every room of my house and keep it clean.  Lately I’ve been so busy with this or that that I feel like my house is trashed.  I HATE that.  I hate that there is laundry piled up, waiting to be washed or put away.  I hate that the dishwasher is full.  I hate that I haven’t made dinner in ages.  I hate that the living room has stuff piled on the coffee table and the kids stuff all over the place.  I hate that my bed isn’t made and Paul has pants on the floor.  I hate that I can’t remember the last time I scrubbed the shower.  But it’s going to get done.  Two more weeks of school and I’m done for the summer.  I’ll miss the income, but I think once I take over all the business stuff and start actually logging my hours and the hours of the rest of the workers, we’ll be doing okay.

Oh, how I long for peace and rest and relaxation.  I’m so tense.  I want to spend an entire day with my husband with no cell phones.  I want to spend some of it in bed, some of it at a movie, some of it lazily walking around a nature trail and some of it just talking… I want to laugh from my soul… I want to sing to Paul and watch his eyes get all sparkly… I want to kill the stress and worry.

We went back to my dad’s church this morning.  Walking in the doors, I knew it was the last time I’d probably be there.  It doesn’t feel like home anymore.  I walked in and I found myself looking at the clock, wishing it was closer to noon so I could leave.  I love my dad and I love the church family, but I don’t belong there anymore.  I don’t know where I belong.  Sometimes God seems like a distant memory.  Like some Great Being from my childhood who doesn’t exist anymore now that I’m a grown up.  I know with all of my being that God exists and that He desperately wants me back… but I’ve wandered so far for so long… I don’t know if I know my way back.  I know I can’t carry on as I have and I can’t keep going in this direction, but I don’t know how to turn around.  I’m so scared I’ve gone too far this time.  And more than that, I’m scared that if I take that step, my marriage will fall apart.  I want us to do this together, but I can’t and won’t force Paul.  I know he’s convicted, too… but something stops him.  Something stronger than what stops me.  I don’t know how to fight it.

Anyway… I’ve talked so much already and I find myself fighting to stay awake at 8:00 at night.  I covet your prayers.  Goodnight.

Excuse the title, it’s on the front of one of Paul’s t-shirts.  (I totally just had to retype the word “shirt”, as I forgot the “r”.  Whoops!)  We’re in Merrillville.  This weekend is the yearly men’s state bowling tournament.  Paul went with one of his friends to practice at the lane they’ll bowl at on Sunday.  Tomorrow starts at 10:00 a.m. and then 5-6 hours later, we’ll see what kind of fun we can find around here.  Chicago isn’t too far away, but all the things we want to see will be closed before we can get there due to the bowling.

Sunday, he bowls at 9, so we may make it up to Chicago.  I’m not really crossing my fingers, but you never know.  I was really tempted to stay home.  As per usual, we’ve been fighting quite a bit.  I dunno.  Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to get any better.  I didn’t want to come because I didn’t want to ruin Paul’s weekend with fighting.  These bowling weekends can be kind of boring.  Sitting for hours at a bowling alley gets old.  I was really hoping to go to Chicago, but we almost won’t have time to do anything, so it’s probably not going to happen.

We’re supposed to go away again for my birthday, but I don’t think that’s going to happen either.

Oh, man, I am so tired.  I can barely keep my eyes open.  I hope Paul comes back soon…

Crisis abounds at the Vaughn compound.

» Read the rest of this entry …

Weekends are rough, especially Sunday’s.  For whatever reason, Paul and I melt on weekends and turn into strangers.  Yesterday, being Saturday, was one of those days.  We started out okay, but got worse as the day went on.  I don’t know if I pick fights or if he can’t help but say the first thing that pops into his head, even if it’s inappropriate, hurtful or wrong.  Either way, in the midst of our silly, ridiculous, pointless argument, I commented on someones website and have been bombarded with comments from very kind, very sweet people.  I am extremely grateful for the kindness of strangers. 

If you’ve been visiting very long, you’ll notice that several posts are gone, including all the password protected ones that discuss all the serious issues.  I’m sad to have lost them in the transfer of servers, but maybe it was a way for me to purge the hurt… I don’t know.  I also lost all the page updates, which sucks.  I had updated all the little extra pages and made them less lame.  Oh, well.

My Spring Cleaning goals have been lofty and thus far, not very attainable.  Paul hung the border in the kitchen yesterday.  I painted it this past week, but still have a few miscellaneous projects before cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom.  I am doing an Americana theme and have some really cute artsy things to hang on the walls and stars and such.  The walls are antique white (kinda yellow-y) and the border has apples and baskets and a flag.  I want to put a tile back splash behind the stove and put beadboard on the wall with the kitchen table.  The chair rail will help the wall to not get scuffed when Zoey slams her chair against the wall.

Speaking of Zoey… God bless her poor, pickled heart… I took the girls a few weeks ago to get haircuts.  Their mom knew we were doing this.  The girls even took pictures home of what the cut was going to look like.  Mo’s was about shoulder length with layers.  Zoey’s was to her chin in a cute bob.  They fixed the awful job her mom had done and actually made it even and fixed her bangs.  The last weekend we had them, Paul picked them up and Zoey’s hair had been CHOPPED OFF an inch and a half from her scalp.  It looked like a baby doll whose 4-year-old owner had taken scissors to.  It was so sad.  Zoey’s 5, she’s barely capable of dressing herself, picking out a hairstyle is not something she grasps.  She thinks once it’s cut off, it can be put back on.  C’mon, now.  Ugh.

Anyway, I’m getting off track.  I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind words.  You’ll never know just how much I appreciate it.  :)  You reached out to a stressed out, semi-loopy, overwhelmed and sleep-deprived woman and put a smile on her face.  X’s and O’s.

I didn’t leave the other day.  I wanted to, but I couldn’t.  There’s something about Paul… about the memory of who he used to be… that keeps me holding on for dear life.  I am so in love with that man that the thought of ever being without him is too great a pain to bear.  I can’t walk away from it.  I think if ever we were to end, it would be because he walked away.

Last night we watched Fireproof.  I cried through most of the movie.  The way Paul put it: it hit us right where we are.  I wish with all my heart that we weren’t struggling to make our marriage work, but we are.  We’ve had some very rough days, but somehow, watching this, I almost feel like maybe there’s a glimmer of hope.  I can’t make Paul choose me or fight for me or our marriage, but I can fight for him and our marriage and I can show him the love of Christ through my love for him.

The struggle to find some sort of answers about where I am with God is ever present and each weekend we have the kids reminds me that I’m not past the doubts and fears of where my heart really is.  I struggle with being a step-mother to children that I don’t always want around.  The difference between our house and their mom’s house is so huge.  The transition from one house to another is always difficult and by the time they’re acclimated to the rules of our house, it’s time for them to come home.

My whole life, I knew I wanted to be a mother… but not like this.  The simple truth is that if I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t marry a divorced man with children.  The thoughts that go through my head when I have to see his ex-wife and the completely torn feeling I get when dealing with the children… conflicted is probably the best word to describe it.  I love my husband.  I love him with all my heart, but the baggage he comes with… sometimes is completely overwhelming.

Marriage wasn’t meant to end.  Divorce, though sometimes necessary because of infidelity, abuse, etc. is traumatic.  In the movie, it talked about how divorce can leave a scar on the heart of the person who goes through it.  I know Paul did not intend to marry his first wife and did so for a few reasons, all involving his oldest daughter, but after they divorced, he had another child with her.  Sometimes my mind can’t wrap around that.  If you don’t love someone and you’re staying with them for the sake of the child you already have, why on earth would you have another?

Fireproof says, “Never leave your partner behind”.  I believe with all my heart that I want to spend the rest of my life with Paul and that these days are not forever.  These days of doubt and fear and hurt and fighting and depression and being conflicted and tired and OVERWHELMED will pass.  If I stop trying to micromanage and compartmentalize every single thing in my life and ask for help from my husband and from my Father, the stress will dissipate.  I’ll be able to handle a weekend when the kids are in bad moods and I won’t freak out when my husband gets a text message from someone I don’t know.

I wish there were easy answers.  I wish I knew how to let go quickly.  I wish that I didn’t always feel so alone in all of this.  Just about everything we do together, has been a first for me and second for him.  I can’t get past the hurt that the vision I had for my life… of walking down the aisle to my new husband and seeing his eyes light up… finding out we were pregnant and his joy in realizing he was going to be a father… bringing our baby home and figuring out how to be parents together… growing and learning together… why does it hurt so much that he’s already done all this?  Why do I feel so robbed?  Why can’t I just figure it out already?

The kids have had a lot of trouble this weekend.  I grounded Zoey from television 2 weeks ago and this weekend she thinks we’re evil for not letting her watch tv and she’d rather be at her mom’s because her mom will let her watch tv.  They’ve been fighting and Moniquic told Zoey repeatedly that she hated her, not knowing I could hear her.  So, what did we do?  We took them to an IMAX movie and to buy scrapbook supplies where Paul grounded Moniquic for not listening.  They were supposed to go to my brother’s house to hang out with Molly, but with Paul grounding Mo, the visit was off.  At dinner, Paul changed his mind and I worried that the lack of follow through would tell the girls that there are no consequences.

I’m just trying to work this crap out in my mind.  I know it’s not as bad as it seems and I’m complaining and focusing on the negative too much.  I just gotta get this stuff out or it will consume me.

I need some air, I think I’m gonna go out for a while.  Paul’s got the girls at his friends’ house.  The friends who don’t like me, that is.  Yeah, I gotta go for a while.

Last night my tire started making weird noises an hour from home.  They weren’t flat, so I was confused.  Paul was supposed to check them out last night, but had work issues and didn’t get a chance to, which was good, ’cause he’d have driven it and this may have happened to him.

I left for work this morning.  Got a few blocks from home and was literally thrown to the right, when my entire front passenger-side tire went flying off the van.  I freaked, of course.  Thank God I was only driving about ten miles per hour.  I sat there for a moment and called Paul.  He was there in minutes and had me call 911.  The first thing the guy asked when I explained what happened was, “did you flip your vehicle?”  I must have sounded confused when I said no because he said, “When a tire flies off, sometimes vehicles flip”.  OMG.  Thank GOD I was only going ten and not SIXTY!

Front of the van is smashed up.  Studs broke off the wheel base and the tire is off.  We had it towed home.  I didn’t get to go to work today, but our awesome cousin went to one of my client’s’ houses and told them what happened.  Life would be easier if Amish believed in telephones.

In other news, I’m having a miscarriage.  I wasn’t sure that was what was happening, but it is.  There’s literally nothing I can do.  Not one single thing.  Take pain killers for the horrible cramping that makes me double over in pain and hope the bleeding stops soon.  After everything that’s happened the last few weeks… and after the tire drama this morning… this stops me dead in my tracks.  I was scared.  I didn’t want to believe that I was losing it.  I didn’t want to believe it ever existed.  Right now, I kind of wish I didn’t exist either.  Paul’s being great about it… he’s been great about everything today.  He does well in crisis’.  I don’t.

I’m going back to bed.  Sleeping the day away.  Looking for answers where there are no answers does nothing but make me angry and upset.  Sleep will be my escape.  Sleep will protect me from thinking.  I miss Paul.  I wish he were here to hold me.  He has to work.  I didn’t get to work today.  I won’t get paid ’til Monday.  Today was an important day.  I let everybody down.  I just want Paul.  I don’t want to be here alone.  Maybe I’ll call my momma.

Somebody smack me and snap me out of it.  Please?

So, I have no idea what happened between Paul and my dad today and neither of them are saying much about it.  It’s my turn tomorrow, apparently.  The tramp that Paul was talking to messaged him today on Yahoo! and he wasn’t here to get the message.  I was, however.  She is now blocked and Paul is banned from speaking with her.

Pretty much since that moment, I’ve been ticked off.  I get angrier and angrier at Paul and it’s almost at the point, I just want him to leave for a while so I can stop wanting to claw his eyes out.  It’s hard to love someone you don’t trust.  It’s even harder to love someone you don’t like.  I sincerely hope marriage counseling helps.

I hate that I’m being hateful and rude to Paul, but part of me thinks he deserves it.  He has been a complete and total jerk to me for months… and I have ONE off day where I’m rude, short tempered and all around unpleasant and he’s all, “Why are you being so hateful?  I didn’t do anything today.”  Ugh.

Will I ever be okay again?

So, you can probably tell I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions lately.  Not surprisingly, panic attacks have been overwhelming me almost on a daily basis.  One minute I’m okay and the next minute… my breath catches in my throat and I’m a puddle of tears all over again.  I can’t count how many times I’ve found myself on the verge of hyperventilating from the sobs that wrack my body.  Paul has struggled, too.  Sometimes I think he wants me to just get over it and move on and forget that it happened… but I can’t do that.

I need an industrial sized bandaid for my broken heart.

My dad is going to have a “man to man” chat with Paul tomorrow.  I’m nervous, but also relieved that someone other than me is going to talk to Paul about the situation.  When your spouse betrays you, no matter how small, it hurts… and when they don’t understand your hurt, it makes it all the more difficult to overcome.  My dad knows me in ways that my husband doesn’t and maybe he’ll be able to talk to Paul and make him understand.

We had a conversation the other day that I think maybe made Paul have a “light bulb moment”… I asked him how he’d feel if in ten years, Moniquic came home and said, “Hey, dad, this is _____, we’re getting married and I love him!” and the guy treated her like Paul treats me.  Paul’s knee-jerk reaction is that he’d kill him.  His face looked pained and then he glanced at my tear-streamed cheeks and said, “I’m a pile of (crap), aren’t I?”

It’s so hard to be so in love with a man who hurts you so much.  I wanted so much to make him see how badly he had made me feel… how much he had broken my heart… it’s just… the thought of hurting him as much as he’s hurt me…?  I can’t do it.  I love him too much to treat him as badly as he’s treated me and even though I know I didn’t and don’t deserve to be treated badly, I put up with it because I love him.

I told Paul that if there was a next time, his stuff would be waiting for him on the porch and I wouldn’t look back.  The very thought… kills me.  I love him so much, but I can’t let him treat me like this.  I begged him to never do this again… begged him from my very heart.  I can only hope that he loves me enough to get his act together.  That he loves me enough to be the man I deserve.

Anyway, the stress has been making me sick and I think it’s time to give up and call it a night.  Thanks for listening.