Shhh…. I have a secret

January 2012

Husband #1

Steven B. Husband number 1. Biologic father of 2 of my kids. Musician.

Idiot extraordinaire.

We married young, I was 20 and he was 19. We were married for almost exactly 13 years. Through good times, bad times and worse times. Five affairs, that I know of ending with the final one that ‘kept’ him.

Yes, I am still bitter. The difference that the divorce actually made to my life was a complete lack of money, and a change in living environment. He kept the house, I kept the kids. I miss the house, he couldn’t care less.

Now the kids are older, 23 and 20. Neither of them have had any contact with their father for 3 years, by his choice. Neither refer to him much, in fact it can be weeks in between anything said about him.

However, I think about him every day. Every damn day.

I’m not sure why exactly. I have a good life now and a husband that both adores me and loves my kids. And I love him. MUCHLY.

But still there is that little voice inside me that wonders what my life would be like it Steven hadn’t been such a cheater. That little voice also wonders where we’d be today if I would have left him the first time I threw him out, back before he went to Korea the first time and before we moved on Fort Lewis. The kids would have been 5 and almost 2. I was working as an assistant manager for a very busy pizza place, working many hours. I couldn’t get Labor Day weekend off to go camping, but he went anyway. Spent the entire weekend drinking. The kids spent the entire weekend at the sitters. This became a common theme in our marriage.

He came home hung over and found his bags on the front walk. I was done. I was tired of being somewhere on his list of importance below taking out the garbage and changing the oil in the car. I was tired of working to pay the sitter, while he went out drinking, and playing darts. I was working around 60-70 hours a week. Salaried, not hourly.

I wanted to have fun too, but when I wasn’t working, I was with the kids. It was hard for me to see him still having fun and out doing whatever he liked while I was working, knowing that I couldn’t do that. Someone had to be the responsible one, and if it wasn’t going to be him, it had to be me.

So his stuff was on the walkway when he got home. Somehow, between him and the kids, I gave in and let him come back. He promised me that things would be better, that he loved me and the kids. He had seen the error of his ways…

Shhhes. As if.