I was working in a post office, an acquaintance came in, I knew I was going to marry him, and six months later, we were married. I wanted to have a home, and kids and pets. Some say we choose which parents we are born to. If that’s the case, my decision to marry him was the best one I ever made. However, now, twenty three years of Hell later, I have a hard time saying so. Aside from him helping me bring these three beautiful, intelligent, caring children into this world, he was good for nothing else but to pay the bills. That may sound harsh, but in this case, it was true.
Six months definitely was not enough time to get to know this person. But at twenty seven, I was anxious to get on with the family life I had always dreamed of. I believed that we shared the same values to raise kids by, I was wrong.
Very, very wrong. It was a constant battle between my belief system, and his lack of one. He was a merchant seaman, home two weeks and gone two weeks. It was great when he was gone, and I could raise my kid with honesty and respect, and responsibilities. When he came home, it was just the opposite. They gravitated to his leniency in what they should and shouldn’t do. He’d clean up and pick up after them, take them to the park, and encourage them to do dangerous stunts on their skateboards, knocking one of my son’s front permanent teeth out.
It was a very hard existence until my two eldest kids got old enough to start going over other people’s homes, and saw that it had been indeed, mom that was the sane one, the one trying to do all the right things, and dad the one who just wanted to have fun, and do as little as possible on his “time off.” By that time, I was stripped of all my goals, desires, hopes, dreams, and plans.
