The rest of the story

May 15, 2006

Marital Relations…

In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, if you have “marital relations” it makes the divorce waiting period last longer. J*** is aware of this and he forced himself upon me last night. I kept telling him “NO” and I fought, not to a physical point of hurting him, but enough pushing and kicking, etc to let him know that I did not want this to continue. He did anyway. He did not hurt me physically, kept saying, “kiss me, kiss me.” I actually believe that the harder I fought, the more he enjoyed it.

What does this do to my divorce? You know he’s going to go and tell his mother and then use this in divorce court. I told the attorney last week that J**** is like a male dog after a female dog in heat. He won’t leave me alone. This is when the attorney said that he will start the proceedings for temporary custody, child support, and exclusive occupancy.

Up until the “forced marital relations” last night, the weekend was rather nice. J**** came home Friday night around 7:00 pm and admitted that he had consumed a beer or two that day.

Saturday he was grumpy and shaking very badly from withdrawals from the alcohol. On Sunday, he was completely sober and it was a day that made me remember why I love him. We didn’t do anything, just sat around and played on the computer and let the kids roll around on us and watch TV as it rained outside. But, that evening well – he sort of blew it.

His mother called and told me that she needed to know if I was going through with this divorce so she could get him an attorney. I told her that by the way he had been acting with his binge drinking, yes. Only he can change my mind by getting help.

J**** and I talked last night before going to bed and I told him, “One way or another, I am getting away from the alcohol, either by him staying sober or me getting a divorce.” One way or the other it has to be done.

A lot of this comes down to respect. If he respected himself, I believe it would be easier for him to stop drinking. If he respected me, he would not have forced himself upon me. Marital relations come down to more than the physical – we have a lot of work to do on the non-physical relations of respect and communication.
May 12, 2006

Happy Birthday to me…

J*** brought diapers to the house for D***** last night. He showed up around 8:45 pm while I was putting the children to bed. They were so excited to see him. He told them a story and sang to them and tickled them and yes, he was on the road to being drunk. I fell asleep putting them to sleep and he came upstairs and woke me up. We talked and he was belligerent and aggravating. He didn’t want to stay at the house and wanted to leave, but he still wanted to kiss me goodbye. He told me during the conversation that he’d drink alcohol if he wanted and wouldn’t stop. Not for me, not for the kids, not for anyone.

He left and went back to A*****’s house. I went to bed.

F**** woke up in the middle of the night and was angry because I wasn’t sleeping with her. She is starting to get an attitude; she is dealing with a lot of anger lately. I think she is very smart and she knows that things are bad. When J**** came in last night – shame on us, we yelled in front of the kids and they scolded us, mainly me.

When she woke up, we talked about Daddy having to leave because of the alcohol. She told me that Daddy lies to her about stopping and about his drinking. She sobbed and sobbed and sobbed when I told her that Daddy would be leaving us soon.

She is having anger issues right now and expressing them toward me. We’re going to have to go and have a mother/daughter day out.

Am I doing what is right? They love their Daddy so much. When he walked through their bedroom door (even though he was drunk) their little eyes lit up. They were so happy that he was home.

What am I putting them through? Is it worse to live with alcohol or to live without a father? What a mess.

I’m 39 today and this is not what I thought I’d be dealing with on this birthday. The lawyer just called and he is going to file the orders for temporary custody, child support, and exclusive occupancy of the home.

May 11, 2006

Keep going…

Well I filed for divorce and he was served the papers on May 9. The attorney messed up his name on the papers, which really made me angry. I originally went to the attorney on April 12 after my last entry in this journal. I came home and told him about what I did. He said he would work on his alcohol problem but that he couldn’t stop everything at once. I went back to the attorney and we drafted a separation agreement and I presented this to J****, he would not sign. From that time we have had good days and bad days – some days very good and amorous, other days very bad. Our agreement was that if he signed we would get marriage counseling and try to work it out. His mother told him not to sign a “damn” thing. So there will be no counseling. Thanks mom.

He has been drinking almost everyday, there may be a lull of 2-3 days and then a day or two of drinking. He came home on Wednesday the 3rd when I was putting the children to bed. He was drunk, he came in to kiss the children goodnight, and was disruptive, wanting to tickle, etc. He got in the bed with F**** and told her he was going to sleep with her tonight – she said, “no daddy I don’t want you to, you have been drinking.” Here is what transpired. F**** took those precious little hands and held her Daddy’s face between them and said “Daddy, breathe on me.” J**** blew and she said, “Daddy, you have been drinking beer’d. You can sleep with me tomorrow night if you promise not to drink any of that beer’d stuff.”

I went the next day and signed the petition for the divorce and told him that night. He was served on the 9^th and has been on a binge ever since. In my presence he has done nothing but smile since he has gotten the papers, this may be a front or it may be a subconscious way of him showing that he is relieved and glad that this if finally happening. He has told others (A*****) that he is not happy.

If I could have my way in the romantic novel scenario, this is what I want him to do, I want him to be my knight in shining armor and fight to keep his family, and say to me that nothing is more important to him than me and the children, that he will give up this life of drugs and alcohol and come home to us every night and help me, and be a good example to his children. But, he says he is not ready.

Yesterday was one hell of a day, and as the great Winston Churchill said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”

The day started as usual, I got up and got myself and the kids ready for school and Granny’s house. Before we left, J**** did help me with shoes and we all went our separate ways for the day.

J**** went to work – it was a rainy day. S**** (his mom) called me and wondered if J**** was working – the rest of the day was spent dealing with her, her quest to find him, and her remarks about the divorce. She will hire J**** an attorney, she will make sure he gets his fair share, this isn’t right, that isn’t right. She called A***** (my niece) and talked about how I am going to pay. But, on the phone with me she is sugary sweet. I did let her know this morning that A**** does not need this stress with all that she is going through on her home front. S****’s making me angry and making me want to fight this thing harder – she’s pushing me to be more determined about this divorce – again thanks mom.

J**** got home around 3:00 pm – and left again around 4:30 – he said that he had consumed 2 beers. Next thing I know is his coworker B***** is calling me saying that J**** has been pulled over on Rose Hill and the cops will not let him drive. R***** S****** AKA bulldog was driving J****’s vehicle. Local reputation of this man is he’s the biggest crack head in town.

Later B**** and L**** went and picked up J**** in the “projects” and drove him home. As soon as they pulled up in front of the house, J**** moved to the driver seat and drove away. B**** came back to the house and from his car told me that if J**** is dealing with the crack then he is going to have to fire him. I also found out from B**** that contrary to my belief that when J**** disappears each night multiple times he is not going to B****’s house to smoke a joint. B**** said that when J**** gets off work, he gets in his vehicle and leaves and B**** doesn’t see him until the next morning. So I am wondering where (here lately) J**** has been going for 1 to 2 hours each night. Usually returning before the kids go to bed and again after they go to sleep. Baffling – makes my head hurt.

J**** ended up at A*****’s house – he called from his cell phone – her and R***** went to find him and he was driving about 35 mph, very drunk and all over the road – they got him to pull over and they drove him home. He had an empty 18 pack of Budweiser in his vehicle and stopped to buy another. He stayed the night at their house. They said he was pitiful and crying.

Ironically, I had told him before he left, J**** – if you’ll just go upstairs, pack your bags and go to bed. Tomorrow, we can go and sign you up for rehabilitation and then I will stop this whole thing. He said, “I am not ready.”

He called me at 12:30 am saying he was going to walk out of there and come home. Kept saying – guess I’m bothering you, guess I’m bothering you. A***** woke up and yelled at him to get back to bed.

This morning I spoke with him and he was still at A*****’s house. A***** and J**** are eating at Chili’s restaurant with K*** for lunch. I am eating popcorn, I had to borrow $10 from my mom to pay for F****’s school lunch, I don’t have money to buy D***** diapers, I don’t have money to put gas in the van for work tomorrow, but he has beer and a nice lunch at a nice restaurant. This man has mixed up priorities.

I gave him a letter the other day explaining why I am divorcing him. I don’t even know if he has read that letter. He is not trying to reconcile this marriage, he is ready for it to be over (I believe) and if that is so he must move on and stop torturing his family. Home should be the place where you are the most comfortable and happy. Right now it is the place where we are all the most miserable and awkward.

Oh yeah – reminder to self, thank S**** when all of this is over and done.

April 11, 2006

I’m a nervous wreck.

I usually write on this at night after the children go to bed, but I can’t wait. I need to release. I’m at work right now finishing up my lunch hour.

J**** finally made it home last night around 2:30 a.m., he said that he went to see his Uncle C**** with L**** and then went to L****’s and got drunk. L**** cut J****’s hair and trimmed his beard. It looked nice.

J**** came in, came up the stairs and yelled, “Hey woman, come and smoke with me.” His eyes were wild. He seemed in full control of himself, yet you knew that he was drunk. I made my way down the stairs and outside with him to smoke. He then began to tell me how he wanted to end it all, how when I went back to bed, I would find him dead in the morning. He was crazy. Kept telling me he loved me and the kids and that he was no good. Eventually, his ranting woke the girls. With a look of mischievousness in his eyes he said, good, now I’ve got you where I want you. You have to go and put them to bed and I can do what I want to do.

I convinced him to help me get them back to sleep and he was gentle and sang to them. They finally went to sleep then there was that obligatory give me sex woman thing. F**** woke back up, so I got out of that one. There is nothing in this world that is worst than having sex with a smelly, limp drunk. I told him to stay right there and I’d be back. Thank God, he passed out.

I know he was manipulating me. F**** asked me “Why does every time daddy goes out he get drunk?” I told her that I don’t know. At one point during the night when she and G**** were up and her Daddy was talking to them, she sat between the bedstand and the bed on the floor, with her little arms around her knees and said, “No, Daddy, I want my Mommy.” J**** scolded the dog and F**** immediately told him “Daddy, No.” and called for the dog to come to her. Boy, she really is beginning to act like me.

Thank goodness that D***** slept through this whole ordeal.

G*****, kept it all to herself. She joked with her Daddy and as the middle child, ate up the attention that he was giving her.

All in all it was one horrible night and I had about 2 ½ hours of sleep.

When he went to sleep, I turned off the alarm clock and got my Blackberry device, and set the alarm on it. I slept with F**** and D*****. G***** slept in the same room in her sister’s twin bed. Something had told me the night before, to lay out all clothes for the next morning. This was a godsend, as the children woke, I did not have to rummage around and risk waking the sleeping giant. I shut the door to our bedroom so no one would disturb him. Got F**** and J****** (the neighbor child) on the bus and took G**** and D***** to Granny and Grandaddy.

He woke up a little before 8:00 a.m. and called me on the cell phone. He acted as though he had done nothing wrong. In his conversations with me this morning I have found out that he is now using his credit card to buy alcohol. That some of the checks he has written were to spend time at a strip bar in Lexington and the gist of it all is “he doesn’t think he can stop.” F****, G****, D***** and I can’t continue.

I want to scream curse words at the top of my lungs. I want to cry tears that would drown this pain. I really want to hit something hard. I want my daddy to hug me without telling me I told you so. I want my children to be ever, ever so happy. I never thought I would be contemplating the option of being a single mother of three.

How do I protect them if I divorce him? The “system” is crazy, will they be with their dad and him drunk. Everyone says that I don’t have to worry about that. But, I know him, and he would make every effort to see them. I can’t stand the thought of him having unsupervised visits. Sometimes it hurts to be a mother. Labor is the easy part. The pain comes later.

He is out again. I went home at lunch because he was not answering the phone. Knowing he hadn’t done anything to hurt himself, but God forbid I don’t check. He is gone again and has the dog with him. I just don’t understand he hates that dog. There are also three strange hats in the living room, so I am assuming that L**** is with him again. Guess I’m in for another night of misery. Guess I should get back to work. Wish I would stop guessing and just be strong.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

April 10, 2006

He’s gone again

That didn’t last long. He didn’t have the children today and when I came home, he was loud and obnoxious. Guess he decided to break my heart really quick. He’s not home yet and he left at 6:00 p.m., it is now 10:00 p.m. He had no reason to go anywhere, told me of nowhere that he was going. His excuse was he was in DT’s and that his anxiety was getting the most of him and he had to get away. I let him go. He was driving me to the point of an anxiety attack, the kids were screaming and Jessica the neighbor child was here. She is a haughty child and she too was making me nuts by arguing with J****. So, I let him go. Short honeymoon, false hopes and he let me down.

If he comes in drunk tonight, then I’m taking mama up on it and taking her money. D***** emailed me the other day and offered me the $500 she had saved up so I could divorce J****. The night before, mama said, you don’t have to borrow the money I’ll just give it to you. Both of them, D***** and Mama, have lived this same life. D*****’s children are messed up because of it and I believe we are too, because of Daddy.

I am almost 40 years old. I lived at home until I was 25. Of those years, Daddy drank for more than 20 of them. I met J**** when I was 32 and have lived with his alcoholism all but 2 ½ years. I’m ready for a normal life and our children deserve a normal life. I don’t want F**** or G**** to marry an alcoholic and I don’t want D***** to become an alcoholic. I don’t want his Daddy to give him his first drink at seven years old when he wins a bet over a football games. It may have been nine. But that is J****’s life.

I want, with all my heart, for J**** to get well. I love him (the sober him) deeply. He is the person that I can sit with for hours and not say a word, just being comfortable that he is here. To look over and smile, to watch him play on the computer or enjoy a ball game with him, to know he’s in the next room while I am working on a project makes me happy. I enjoy his company. There is nothing in this world that will make you fall in love with a man over and over like watching them play with their children. But I don’t enjoy him when he is drinking and the children don’t like to play with him when he is drinking.

When he is drinking and plays with them, he is rough. He tickles too hard, he plays too long, he scares them by playing dead, he has even bit them and if they ask him to stop, he becomes angry and yells at them, even saying vile words. I have come home before and found G**** hiding under the bed and F**** watching out the window looking for me. He will NOT watch them alone again.

Good news, F**** has her first loose tooth. Bottom right center is very wiggly. She had to call Granny S****, Granny M***** and Aunt D** to tell them the good news. My oldest baby is growing up.

Saturday morning I asked that he let me sleep in, D***** was still asleep. He put both girls in the bedroom with him until I got up at 10:00 a.m. with no breakfast, and no toys just the TV on. F**** kept telling him I’m hungry. He screamed at her and woke me up. “I’m tired of your god-damn fucking shit.” I don’t care how tired you are: I don’t care how much withdrawal you are experiencing: You do not talk to a five year old that way.

Tonight, he left a glass of tomato juice on the kitchen table. D**** tried to take a drink. Daniel is only 16 months old. D***** spilled all of the tomato juice on himself and the floor. There was no more tomato juice. I don’t remember exactly what he yelled, but he whacked D***** really hard on the bottom. D***** did not understand, he was just trying to take a drink.

Later during dinner, G***** was trying to get someone to listen to her, F**** and J****** were monopolizing the conversation and more or less egging J****’s belligerence on. G***** screamed and J**** smacked her in the stomach, not hard, but enough to startle the child and “break” her little heart.

And, yes he’s gone again, practically ran me over to get out the door. Nothing was stopping him. Please, let me have the same determination and let him be gone for good.

Going to bed now before he gets home. I really don’t want to deal with him. 10:23 p.m.

April 9, 2006

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Well, he’s been good as gold. I think this is called the “honeymoon” period. He knows that all I needed was the money and he would have been gone. He hasn’t been drinking. He has smoked pot. He’s helped clean, he’s mowed the yard, and he’s been accessible. He’s been Mr. Wonderful. He still yells and curses at the girls, which I really, can’t stand.

I’m stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have made him leave. I should have just been done with it. He’s going to fall off again, mark my words. Why do I fill myself with these false feelings of hope?

I spoke with A***** the other night and she told me that she had lost a little respect in me for putting up with J****. Mama told me that if she knew I needed the money, she would give me the money. Everyone wants me to be done with him. But, again, went to church today. I can’t rightly say, that I have the right to divorce him.

Oh, I’m so confused. I did a pro/con chart and it is so sad, I can’t think of anything for the pro column. So, why can’t I make him go? He really is a charmer.

April 5, 2006

Second Verse, Same as the First

Well he told me today. “I’m going to lay it all down.” The booze is what he is talking about. How many times have I heard that in the last two years? hmmmm, maybe once every two months. We have had a roller coaster since we moved to W County. He originally blamed it on my moving him 10 miles from his hometown in A County. Then he blamed it on his dad who was living with us at the time. His dad is an alcoholic also, and was sober with us for over six months, then fell off the wagon. J**** says that the disappointment in his father’s backslide caused his backslide. Poppycock.

But, as I dwell on this the alcohol is major but there are other things that I can’t handle. He will not work. He disdains helping me around the house. He yells at our children and fills them with false hopes.

He promised F**** a horse when he was drunk. We can’t afford a horse and we have nowhere to put a horse. How in the world does he expect to get her a horse? The poor child has constantly talked about getting a horse since his empty promise, and she is saving her dollars to help daddy buy her a horse. She thinks she is going to go Friday and look at a horse. His idea of taking her to see a horse is having her accompany him and his alcoholic father to Keeneland to see the ponies run. Like I would allow my five year old to go to the track with two alcoholics, that has got disaster written all over it.

S**** called me yesterday and I told her immediately that I love her and I began to cry. She knew by that statement that I am done with her son. Her immediate comment was “I love you, too. Don’t keep my grandbabies away from me.” She understood. I told her that I felt she was one of the few that could understand, because, she was married to D**** and J**** is heading down the same path as his father.

I have asked J****, “Do you want to be alone, like your father, when you are in your fifties?”

He is upstairs right now. He was on a drinking binge from Thursday until last night, Tuesday. He has come home in the wee hours of the morning, except for last night around 9:00 pm. He took the dog with him yesterday and the children and I had no idea. We spent 45 minutes or more searching the neighborhood thinking Scotty had gotten out of the yard. The girls were upset about their dog. When J**** came home with Scotty the girls were still awake. They did not yell and say “Hi Daddy” they yelled “Daddy, where is my Scotty?” “Did you bring Scotty home?”

During his drinking binge, he has written cold checks on his bank account. Currently, he says he is $165 overdrawn. I have told him, I will not cover those checks. If I do, that makes me an enabler. If I pay for his mistakes then he has no consequences for his actions. He will have to do something to take care of this problem.

I am the sole provider for this family. He stays at home. He was watching D***** and G***** while F**** was at school. But, I can’t trust him to do that anymore. I have come home on too many occasions and found that he has been drinking. My mother has started watching them again. Mama is 70 years old and has a few health issues. A***** has said that she will help her Granny take care of them if she can. J**** needs to get a job to help support this family or at least support himself, because I cannot support him and take care of our children’s needs and maintain a household anymore. As the “man” of the family, I would think that he would want to take care of us. His mother even wants to understand, why won’t he work? She says he wasn’t raised that way.

Since he stays at home, one would think that he would want to contribute on the home front. But, I come home from work and nothing has been done to keep the house clean. If I ask him to do chores, he tells me he doesn’t like it and sighs this really annoying sigh. It is like I am a single mother of four children. He says he is depressed. Well, I’m the one on prozac and I know about depression. He is not depressed he is lazy.

His other addiction is to marijuana. He claims that it relaxes him. But, I won’t give him the money to purchase pot. So, he says he is always in withdrawal and that makes him irritable. His so-called irritability shows in his way of dealing with the children. Constant yelling. G***** has become desensitized to yelling. It is almost impossible to get her attention.

Another vice that he has is, if someone offers him a pill (pain, sedative, or nerve) he will take it, Xanax, valium, loratab to name a few. Again he will act stupid on these pills.

When J**** is drunk he is not mean, he is stupid. He is loud. He is extremely annoying. Certain pills make him act this way too. The marijuana makes him a little slow. Being the prude that I am, none are appropriate. His answer to that is, “You knew I was this way when we met.” Yes, I did. At that time, I did not know that I could have children. I made the choice to be with him like that, the children have not had a choice.

To make a long story short, I have come to the conclusion. It is time to be the responsible parent. Yes, divorce in God’s eyes is wrong, but only He can judge me. He knows my heart and knows that I have struggled with this decision. I do it for the love of my children and as I have written before, God is a Father and knows the depth of one’s love of their children.

It might take a little while to get the particulars worked out. But, I am done. I need to dot my I’s and cross my t’s. Because, I want custody, he can visit, but until I know he is clean and sober – I will not want him unsupervised. I have told this to D****l and to S**** and A**** and they understand my wishes and agree that that is for the best.

I love him. I hate him. I hate myself for loving him. I hate myself for hating him. I hope my children won’t hate either of us for what I am about to do.

I know I have said that I am divorcing him before. But, this isn’t the second verse. “Third time’s a charm.”

April 2, 2006

Insignificant

I feel insignificant, J**** feels insignificant, and J**** thinks that drinking is insignificant. F**** feels insignificant, G**** feels insignificant. Or, are we all just a selfish bunch of folks.

F**** feels, as the oldest, that she has to do everything and that we don’t pay as much attention to her as the baby, D*****, and as G***** our wild child. She and I had to have a mother daughter talk the other night when their daddy was out until 4 in the morning. She told me that we don’t pay any attention to her. I bought them these books for children with alcoholic parents and one of them describes the different type of children. She is the “perfect” child. Tries to make everyone happy and do everything for everyone. My discussion with her showed me that she is feeling the strain of this “perfect child syndrome” and she let me know that she was tired of it.

G***** as the middle gets left out. In that book she is described as my loner child. She can just block everything out and not talk. F**** was sick with Strep throat last week and well D***** is a baby. F**** was clingy and had her head in my lap, D******l was also sitting in my lap. G***** appeared content to sit across the room alone. J**** was out giving a “friend” a ride to the pawn shop until 10:30 pm. I discussed the middle child thing with her tonight and asked her what is her favorite cookie? “Oreos” and what is the best part of the Oreos? “the white stuff”. I told her an Oreo isn’t an Oreo without the middle to hold it together and make it taste so good. That is what the middle child is, that special part in the middle that holds everything and makes it all so good. She smiled. We also talked about the ice cream sandwich too. She has told me that she doesn’t like D***** because he pulls her hair and takes her toys. She is a bit jealous of him.

J****, I believe, feels insignificant because (and I shouldn’t) I tell him that I don’t need him, and that I can take care of everything without him. I do however let him know that it would be a lot easier with his help. So, in this light I have made him feel insignificant, but he has also fueled the fire with a “feeling sorry for himself” attitude. He thinks I don’t pay enough attention to him, that we don’t have enough sex, and that I don’t always (most of the time) sleep in the same bed with him. It is hard being the mom of three with an immature husband. Yes, he is ten years younger than I am, but he is almost thirty. I work full time, he stays home with the kids (and yes, this is my journal so I’ll gripe) and does nothing else but sit with the kids. I come home and take care of the home and he retreats to the bedroom and I sit with the children, I feed and bathe and put them to sleep. What he does do I have to gripe to get him to do. I believe he has given up and says, heck – she doesn’t need me, then “by golly” I just quit.

J**** feels his drinking is insignificant. He doesn’t see a problem with the drinking. He thinks it is okay and that there is no harm in drinking. But, the problem is that he can’t do it in moderation. He drinks to get drunk, not to relax or quench a thirst. When he returned home Thursday and Friday night of this week in the wee hours of the morning, drunk, his comment is well – I made it didn’t I. It was like he did nothing wrong, because he did not get caught, no one was hurt, and there was no consequences for his actions. On Thursday night he ended up in L-burg at J****’s house and J**** called me at 1:30 in the morning to tell me that J**** was on the way home and very drunk. I did not see J**** until 4:30 that morning and he told me that he pulled in J2****’s drive and went to sleep. On Friday he did not come in until 2:00 in the morning and he told me, he had been driving around and drinking alone all night. These stories are very hard to believe.

I feel insignificant. I feel insignificant because he has returned to drinking. To me the alcohol is the worst mistress he could have. My father was an alcoholic and I hated it. Now, my children and I are in that situation. I feel insignificant because he will not try to help with the responsibilities of the family, I work, I clean, I take care of children when I get home, he drinks when children are at home or tries to get me to take them to my mother. I pay the bills, I manage the checkbook, I go to the store to buy his cigarettes. I am the enabler? Yes. I feel insignificant, I want to be taken care of and I want to be worth someone’s time to do things for me. I’m tired of alcohol and I’m tired of my entire life being the “perfect child”, the “enabler”, the “loner”, taking care of the “diseased” alcoholic.

Well, It is 11:11 pm and I need to finish the laundry. Good night.

March 30, 2006

Why can’t I trust him to stay sober?

A lot of my time, in my mind, I worry about J****’s sobriety. I left him home without the children and he stayed sober. I left both children with him today and he drank. We have this neighbor, L****, and every time that he comes to the house, J**** drinks. L**** is an alcoholic. J**** is an alcoholic. Today—I found out that Jason left my children alone with L**** to go and purchase alcohol. This does not make me happy.

Sometimes, we tend to forget those things that upset us and put them in the “back of our minds.” A***** reminded me of a time in December when J**** went to the courthouse to pay taxes and license the automobiles. He was in there quite a while. He left G**** and D***** in the van, alone. G**** thought that Daddy had taken too long, and she got out of the van and went to the courthouse steps, could not open the door and began crying. A man, whom I do not know, picked her up and took her in the courthouse to look for her daddy. This is very scary. This was during a time when social services was monitoring our family.

The situation that caused the monitoring was when the school season began and J**** was taking G**** to preschool. He picked her up and had been drinking. The girls at preschool smelled the alcohol on J**** and reported him. The social services worker came to our house that evening and J**** was “tore up.” He made recommendations and made several follow-up visits. He finally ruled it unfounded. But, I knew the truth.

Others have told me about him drinking and driving with my children in the vehicle. The girls had told me about daddy stopping to buy silver can’s of soda and leaving them (the children) in the van. One rumor was he didn’t have D***** in the carseat and that he was just crawling around on the van floor when J**** was looking to buy some pain pills.

I don’t know where he is tonight – it is 9:56 pm. I left and took the children with me to dance class and went to the store. He left the minute I was out of sight. I did see him driving down Main Street and he appeared to be “tore up.”

The stress of worrying about his sobriety has me sick. Both physically and mentally I feel drained. I love my children. I love my husband when he is sober, but I’m getting to the point that I don’t care about him anymore.

I talked with the girls the other night about their daddy and his drinking. I asked G**** how do you feel when your Daddy drinks, she said sick to my stomach. F**** has asked her Daddy to call me at work so she can talk to me and let me know that she is scared and she has cried needing me to come home. I drop everything and come home. F**** cannot handle the stress either. G****holds everything in like her mother.

I know I shouldn’t worry, because I should have Faith in God to protect and take care of us. But He understands, He is a Father and I am a mother.