The story of the ending

My relationship with him wasn’t easy.  Not by a long shot.  He was an alcoholic who had never actually had to be a grown up.

He said he wanted to change, so I tried to help him.  For a while, he did well.  But then he decided being a grown up wasn’t for him, and we were right back to square one again.

This went on for three years.

He was emotionally and verbally abusive, and oh so manipulative.  It didn’t matter what I did, it was never good enough.

What it boiled down to in the end was this.. He wanted me to worship him, he wanted my paycheck, and he wanted me to cut off all family outside of the household including my grandboys and adult children.

When I refused, the drinking started back up, and he added drugs to the mix as well.

See, the thing is, I had been paying all of the bills, except for the house payment, despite the fact that he made twice the money I did.

I would pay them, have 7 bucks left out of my paycheck, and need money for gas to get to work, and he would throw a fit.

He would berate me for not handling my money better… I mean really?? Somebody had to make sure we had electricity.

So after two years of this, I finally told him that he could pay all of the bills.  I would pay the bills in my name, but he was responsible for the majority.

I was tired of not having a dollar to my name, while he did whatever he wanted with his paycheck.

He had one child who’s worthless mother wasn’t in the picture.  He and I were very very close.  I was the main caretaker of the kids.. maybe the only caretaker now that I think about it.

He was 12 when I came into the picture, and is now 15 years old.  He’s a great kid, and I couldn’t love him more if I had given birth to him myself.

So anytime I wanted to leave his father, he would beg me to stay.. and so I did.

 

Until that last night.

It’s been about a month ago that I came home from work, having already recieved texts from the kids that he was home, drunk, and being ridiculous.

For three hours, we listened to him put us down, cry, tell us how he works his fingers to the bone for us, how we appreciated nothing, saying things like he didn’t want kids because he wanted to enjoy life now, not when he’s 70 ect ect ect

This went on and on and on for hours… and then it escalated when he attacked his child for not going to bed.  All his child said was that it didn’t make sense to go to his room, when he was sitting in the living room screaming.  How was he supposed to sleep?

He picked him up out of the chair and threw him across the room, and was then on top of him.  His child got up and went into the hallway and he followed him, wrapping his hands around his throat.  My daughter and I were on top of him trying to get him off of him, when he pushed my daughter into a wall.

Any time I tried to call the police, he would take my phone.  So I messaged my adult son to do so, and the cops finally showed up.

He wouldn’t let them talk to me alone, even though the officer kept telling him to go talk to the other officer on the property.

The other officer approached him, and he immediately started shoving him and telling him this was his house and his property blah blah blah.

I whispered to the officer standing by me ”please just take him”, and he didn’t hesitate to pull his cuffs out, restrain him, and put him in the car.

The officers took our statements, watched the video’s I had recorded of him attacking my children, yelling, screaming,  going on and on and on, and then finally they left.

The next morning, I filed for a restraining order for myself and on behalf of the kids, so I would have time to find a place and move away from the hell we’d been enduring.

The only problem was, I had no legal recourse when it came to his child, but I wanted him to stay with me, and that’s where he wanted to be.

The judge who gave us the restraining order suggested we talk to DHS.

His caseworker fully believed that he should be with me, but we had to go to some DHS judge and jury with the head supervisor, and that did not go so well.

That woman made me feel like a monster.  In the end, she commanded that they write an order right then to remove him from my care and put him in DHS custody.

His caseworker went to write the order and call a judge to sign off on it.  We cried.  Sobbed.  Oh God my heart was breaking.

They made us wait 45 minutes for this order to be approved, and we just bawled the entire time.

His caseworker came back and told us the judge had denied the order, and we were free to leave.

Come to find out, she had told the judge she believed the order was bogus, and that there was no safer place for him to be.

So long story shorter, we found a new place four hours away, I got custody of his son (pending his jail time and treatment afterwards), and we started our new life.

I had found his phone while we were packing, and found messages to our landlord.  He had claimed on several occasions that he couldn’t come by because he was sick, or that he hadn’t been able to work that week because of weather, and about 100 other reasons he couldn’t make the house payments… which was funny to me because he was always claiming he was broke because he’d just made the payment.

The landlord was a super sweet, super religious little elderly woman who let him get away with murder when it came to making payments, because she believed he was this poor soul with some bad luck.

I text her the entire story then, and apologized profusely because I had no idea he hadn’t been making the payments.  I told her I would be moving soon, but I was legally required to leave all of his stuff in the house.  She was as sweet as ever, and told me to just do what I needed to do, and to take my time.

The next day, there was an eviction noticed placed on the door with his name on it, and a notorized letter stating the kids and I could stay as long as we needed.  We were out of the house five days later, and she took him to court and got her house back.

Come to find out, he was EIGHT THOUSAND dollars delinquent.  She said he would come by with excuses, and maybe give her 100.00 here and there, but she hadn’t received a full payment in over a year.

 

A friend of mine sat in on the court hearing, where he said that ”he just wanted to make sure his family had a place to stay”, like he was ever concerned about us, and that ”If she had let him know he was behind, he would have taken care of it”, like how do you NOT know when you’re EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS behind?? Give me a break.

The judge ruled in her favor.

 

The last month has been overwhelming, and it’s hard starting over with nothing but the clothes on your back, but somehow we managed.

Things are finally looking up, and we breathe a little easier every day.

He’ll be in jail for some time, at least a year, because of the six charges against him, but even after that, he’ll have to go to treatment if he hopes to see his child again.

For his childs sake, I hope he does straighten up.