Frostflower

Thank you to those who responded to my first post. DjF, you asked for my story. Here it is.

One morning three months ago, I kissed my husband goodbye as he left for work. That afternoon on my way home from work, I got a text. As I was stopped at a red light, I looked at it. It was from my husband and said 'please call me asap'. Thinking something had happened to one of our kids, I pulled over and phoned him....and that's how I found out that he had left. Sitting on the side of the highway. I don't know how I got home.

I later found out that he had gone back home at some point during the day and packed. My daughter (18) was home. As he travels a fair bit with his job, she just figured he was going on a business trip. That was the last time she saw him.

This came out of the blue. Things had been stressful at home for a very long time, but I had no clue that this was coming. We have raised three beautiful children. The two boys were very challenging, but that's probably a post for a different forum. The younger one (22) is at home. Long story, but he has been using drugs. We have poured thousands into him trying to help him get his life on track, to no avail. The stress has been overwhelming. Then there are the major house renos mu husband started years ago. With a fulltime job that involves being away from home 25% of the time, well, you can imagine. Also, he hates his job...more stress. I love my job (special ed teacher). It is stressful but, unlike the stress at home, that stress I seem to thrive on. Both my husband and I are being treated for depression, me since the birth of our second, him the last few years. In his case the meds have caused ED which wasn't helped by Viagra. Although I pretended that it didn't matter, I'm sure it must have bothered him. In sum, its been hard. Neither he nor I have had any emotional energy left to work on our marriage. I really believed that, once things got better with our son, we could then work on us. What a huge mistake that was!

My husband doesn't talk. Not to me anyway.

After exchanging emails which we kept civil, I finally insisted that we meet to discuss a few things in person. I had gone to see a lawyer in order to find out what my rights are. Thank Heavens they give you a free half hour because I have no money. Anyway, the lawyer worked out what I should get for child support for our daughter. She gave me an additional figure for my son as drug abuse is considered a medical issue and she felt I had a case for support. I've chosen not to pursue that. Before this all happened, my husband (let's call him R, which is his initial and is politer that how I refer to him in my head) had said that we would help our son out one last time when he found a job. He's looking in a different province in order to get away from his druggie 'friends' here and will need money to move. I figured that if R helped out with that, then that would suffice. As far as spousal support, I am entitled, but once the child support comes off, there isn't enough left in his pay check according to the lawyer's formula, so its a moot point.

Goodness, this is getting long. Thank you if you're still with me!

So, R and I met and I gave him a copy of the child support calculation for our daughter. You should have seen his face! I don't think he had any idea as to what it would cost him. Although I didn't ask, he said that he would also 'help me out' over the summer as I don't get paid for those two months. We parted. i saw no child support and as it was still during the school year, no summer money. When I questioned him about the child support, he replied that he didn't see why it had to be so much. This went on for a couple of months, but, after I wrote an email responding to one of his where he outlined a budget for covering our daughter's expenses (i pointed out that the amount is mandated by law and that by the same law I do not have to account for how I use the money) he is finally paying it.

Now, backtracking to our face-to-face meeting, I asked him if there were someone else. He said no. He talked about staying friends. i asked what that meant and he said we could meet for coffee once in a while and maybe do things together. "Go for bike rides?" i asked (he's really into that). "Yes," he answered. So I went away hopeful that we would spend time together and maybe eventually work things out.

That night I got an email. He'd been meaning to tell me, he is with someone else. What was left of my heart shattered. Unfortunately, my daughter heard me crying, came, took the computer off my lap and read his email. I would not have wanted her to find out about her father like that, but I was too upset to stop her. She was great. She held me while I cried. I found out later from my oldest that she then went and texted her father saying that she never wants to see him again. This makes me sad as he is still her father.

He has made no attempt to work things out with our children. Our oldest emailed him and asked him if he thought it out, especially about all the people he has hurt. R replied that he had thought it out. He emailed our son again on his birthday, but that's been it. Our middle one (the one with the drug problem) seems to be hurting the most. I know he blames himself for his father's leaving. His defence mechanism is to have nothing good to say about the man.

Anyway, life does go on, doesn't it? Being at school helped me get through the first couple of months. My colleagues, when I finally told them, were so supportive. Now that school is out and I don't have that to keep my mind occupied, I am finding it hard. That, plus the fact that our 32nd anniversary would have been the 25th of this month...well, its really hard.

I don't know what the future holds. He has said that I can stay in the house as long as I want. I don't need this much room and this much work, but we can't sell it in the condition that its in. There are unfinished renos plus, years of stress and depression have resulted in a real mess. I am doing my best to purge and clean. Happy summer! He is supposed to be finishing the renos, but in three months he has been here three times. Twice to fix a leak under the kitchen sink (still leaking) and once (when I asked for some kind of work commitment) to actually do reno stuff.

I had said he could pretty much come anytime, but to let me know when he was thinking of coming and I would tell him if it was convenient He heard (or read as it was in an email), 'come anytime'. I started down stairs one morning in my cleaning grubbies, and there he was at the the bottom of the stairs. He was supposed to come a couple of days earlier. That day, I fixed my hair, put makeup on, dressed in nice clothes (pathetic, huh?)...and he never showed. So, there I was sloppily dressed, hair a mess. Crap!

After that I emailed him insisting that he ask when he could come and that he use the doorbell and wait for someone to open it. This may still be partly his house, but it is no longer his home.

I am piling up all his stuff in a corner and informed him that he needs to take it. What I didn't realize was how much it would hurt seeing him do that. He can only take so much at a time, so that's going to be a recurring hurt.

There is more, of course, but this is long enough for a first instalment. I need to get back to purging and cleaning. Thanks for letting me go on. It is definitely therapeutic.