I Shouldn’t Be Upset

I honestly don’t know what’s going on with me lately.  It seems that every little thing Oz is doing sets me off.  It feels like there’s something wrong with me.  He’s really trying, and I know that, but it seems like what he’s really trying is my patience.  I can’t help but feel he’s always getting under my skin.  It’s driving me insane!

I try to hide all of this from the outside world.  I don’t need my friends knowing that all is not well in paradise.  I don’t want to seem like a lot of drama.  I’ve lost too many of my friends over pointless drama!  I can’t do it anymore.  I want to have friends, to be happy, and to feel like I finally belong somewhere!  That’s actually why I came back to OD.  Yes, I have my blogs.  I write in them regularly.  I’m trying my hand at a money making venture in blogging, though I know it will probably never be more than a way to share my kids homeschooling experiences with my friends and family, a way to keep motivated on my goals, and all of that.  I’ve actually made a little money through blogging, but it hasn’t been much.  I can’t imagine it will ever be much.  Even so, it’s not a private place to put my inner most thoughts.  Here I’m safe.  My friends aren’t likely to find me here.

So, here’s what’s really going on…

Oz is…well…unfaithful.  He’s broken my trust.  He’s cheated on me in the past, left me for another woman, has stolen money from me, and in so many ways has hurt me.  Without even going into the details, let’s just say he’s given me plenty of reason not to trust him.  I’m trying to give him a chance, but I’ll be honest, it’s really been hard to do, especially recently.  It seems like we fight more than anything else and a part of me is really ready to move on.  Unfortunately, I can’t do that right now.  I don’t have a way to support my family if I move on.  It’s really a sticky situation.

Most of our fights have been over stupid things.  I get upset that he doesn’t answer his cell when I call him.  He claims it’s on silent or he can’t hear it.  He’s always got an excuse.  I’ve called back to back for ten minutes just because I know he sometimes can’t hear the phone and if I call long enough, he’ll finally hear it.  Lately I leave off with a message telling him that there’s no point in him having a phone if he’s not going to answer it.  Typically within five to ten minutes, he returns my call with some excuse.  It’s always something reasonable, but it always makes me wonder.  If he didn’t hear me call, why would he suddenly notice that I’d called, and so soon after I finally gave up on calling.  It just seems suspicious.

The last time he called me back I was suspicious.  I told him that it almost made me wonder who he was talking to on the phone that he couldn’t take my call.  He blew up at this saying that I was now accusing him of talking to people on the phone when he wasn’t.  It’s one of those things where he reacted so strongly against it that he only made himself sound more guilty.  Honestly, I just mentioned it in passing.  I wasn’t even accusing him of anything.  He blew it all out of proportion.  If I had a way to find out, I’d be tempted to see just who he’s calling to find out if I’m hitting on the truth here.

This wouldn’t be the first time he’s liked to me about what he’s been doing.  When he left me for another woman just over a year ago he used to tell me he was at Magic tournaments.  He would tell me he’d forgotten his promo card and when I called or texted, he said he couldn’t talk because he was in the middle of a match.  He promised he’d call between matches, but he never did.  As it turns out, he was out with another woman and her sister, possibly some other friends, at the movies, which is why he didn’t want to take my calls or have me texting him.  Funny thing was I knew something was up between he and that girl, I just had no proof.

Well, my senses are tingling again.  I’m starting to get highly suspicious of him.  I’ll be honest, I don’t want to let him out of my sight.  I want him to respond to me immediately any time I call or text.  I want him to be able to provide proof of where he’s at and what he’s doing at all times.  I’m starting to get highly suspicious about just about everything.  I know he’s talked to women behind my back.  I know he’s done some other shady and suspicious things.  It’s getting to the point where I’m finding that in order to feel safe I have to be possessive and controlling.

What’s worse is that I don’t even remember what having a sex drive is like anymore!  He complains that our sex life is bad, which is why he wants to go looking for other women, but every time I start to get paranoid, our sex life goes to hell.  Thus far I have proof for almost every time I’ve gotten paranoid that he’s going behind my back on something.  To be honest, the only occasion I don’t have proof of is now.  I hate to say it, but I’ve had the worst suspicions about him.  I’d gotten into his e-mail after something suspicious came up on my Facebook message subject line, you know, the text’s attempt to auto-fill.  I found all the evidence I needed that he wasn’t ever trying to hold up to our agreement after I was so hurt by my last attempt at seeing someone else.  That’s it’s own stupid story.  I asked if he would be okay if it was just us for a while.  Well, his search for someone else never stopped.  What’s worse is several of the people he had been talking to seemed to be interested in a long term relationship, and didn’t seem open to the poly idea.  He had been blaming me for everything that didn’t get done around the house.  He was bad mouthing me to everyone, something he seems to do quite frequently from what I understand.  Unfortunately, I let him explain his way out of it because I didn’t have the heart to break up with him on the day he lost his job.

That paranoid feeling dulled for a while.  He was pretty much always around me, but things never got better.  Paranoia started to infest again.  It’s starting to get to the point where I don’t want him talking to anyone because I’m afraid of what he’s saying.  I don’t even want him calling to talk to his sister and his step-dad because he does it behind my back.  I’d rather sit in on the conversation because I know what he’s saying then.  I’m half convinced that the reason they hate me is because he completely agrees with everything they say about me, then tells me the exact opposite.  It’s getting to the point where I don’t want to leave him at home when I go to class because I don’t trust him to be here without me.  I don’t trust what he’ll do on the computer, so I don’t want him to have it.  I don’t trust what he’s doing with his phone, but I can’t

take that away from him.  I’m just starting to be eaten away by paranoia of what he could possibly be hiding from me now.  What’s worse is every other time I’ve worried that something was going on behind my back, I was right!  If I had been wrong, or had no proof in the past, I would probably be able to ignore it, but it’s driving me insane!

That being said, it’s probably no surprise that I’ve got no drive to have sex with him.  Why should I?  He can’t be honest and faithful with me, so why should I be with him?  I don’t want him to so much as touch me half the time.  I don’t want anything to do with him.  There are times when I don’t even want to see him because I’m so frustrated by his presence.  I don’t know if it’s his energy or what, but I could come home from class and be feeling great, but the moment he does something that irritates me after I get home, I’m pissed off and hating the world!  It’s like his very presence is shattering my good mood.  This happens just about every time I know he’s hiding something from me, but I have no proof!  He can swear to me he’s not, but I won’t be able to believe him!

It doesn’t help when he tells me one thing and means another.  He keeps swearing that he’s going to quit smoking, for example.  He claims he wants to quit, but he’s just not ready to.  Finally I pried it out of him.  He really doesn’t want to quit.  He likes the feeling he has when he’s smoking.  For him, the feel good is worth everything else.  Yeah, he wants to quit some day because he knows it’s not good for him, but he enjoys it way too much to quit.  I finally laid down the law with him.  He can smoke all he wants, but the moment he gets lung cancer or any of the other wonderful health problems from smoking, I’m done.  I’m gone.  I can’t just sit around and watch him die because he made choices that will eventually kill him.  Yeah, I’ve taken up smoking too.  I’ve been under a lot of stress and it helps keep me calm, but half the reason I can’t quit is the stress he’s causing me.  It’s better cigarettes than alcohol, so I’m making the better choice in my opinion.  Breaking a smoking habit is easier than a recovering alcoholic.

Today I kind of hit my breaking point.  I mentioned that I’d decided I was going to get back into writing again.  Instead of asking me if he can see my writing, he just goes and looks for it on his own.  He went onto my fetlife profile and pulled up my website information where I had my blogs.  I don’t know if he read my fiction one, but he read the one I wrote about a friend of mine and the feelings I have for him that I don’t completely understand.  He confronted me on it later and told me that if I was interested in the guy, I should just go for it.  This is after blowing up on the guy for telling me he got a car that’s big enough to fit the kids and me.  Oz got jealous and blew up, but now he’s suddenly okay with it?  Doesn’t that sound suspicious?  I’m starting to wonder if he really does have something going on behind my back.  That would explain why he’s so willing to let me wander even though we agreed neither of us would until our sex life was better.  Maybe he feels guilty about trying to hook up with someone else and this is his way of coping with it.  Hell, that’s what he’s done every other time I’ve shown interest in a guy and it turned out he was already looking behind my back.  This isn’t about me being happy.  This is about him removing his own guilt because it suddenly becomes fair if I’m doing it too.

Honestly, I could have cared less if he read my blog, but I would have at least thought it polite to ask first.  It feels a lot like he’s checking up on me.  He flipped out about a picture I put up on Fetlife not that long ago.  It was a kind of artsy picture, topless, though you can’t see anything inappropriate.  It honestly slipped my mind about telling him.  I just wanted to put it up there to support my friend’s photography business.  However, instead of asking me calmly what was going on, he flipped out and jumped to conclusions.  He became incredibly jealous and for no reason.  I’m getting sick of his jealousy and his reactions to my comments, even those that aren’t intended to be accusations in any way.  He’s starting to drive me a little crazy with it.  If he’s not guilty of something, why the hell is he acting some guilty all the time?

To top it off, this whole job thing is starting to drive me nuts.  He does nothing all day but play some stupid online game.  When he gets bored with that, he wants to watch movies and television shows on Netflix.  He’s constantly trying to get me interested in watching some new show or whatever.  He’s just showing me he’s a lazy jackass that expects to have everything just land in his lap the way he wants it.  It’s driving me nuts!  There’s one week left in the month.  We don’t have any way to pay rent aside from with child support.  If Caelan somehow gets out of paying child support, we’re screwed.  Oz won’t be able to start his new job with the dealership until after the beginning of February, so I won’t even be able to count on that paycheck pulling us out of it.  We’re pretty much in a bind right now.  I feel like we’re drowning and all he wants to do about it is sit on his ass!

The point at which I can truly no longer tolerate him is his ability to destroy the things I love in life, namely dance.  Dance is my life.  I love dance almost as much as I love my own kids.  I’ve worked so hard to build my business, but now I’m seeing it all fall apart around me.  I’m finding that I hate dance.  It’s not fair to kill something I love and have worked so hard on because he can’t grow up and keep a real job!  I’m seriously not amused by this one and it might just be the thing that causes our relationship to finally collapse.  I just can’t watch him destroy this too!

Out of my relationship with Caelan, the one thing I was able to salvage was my dance career.  Yes, I got to keep my kids safe and in my care, but they were seriously damaged, just like I was.  Not all wounds are physical, and theirs are probably worse than mine.  Everything in my life was shattered and distorted, but I had dance.  I loved dance, and my business continued on, helping me get through.  I was making so much progress.  When Caelan and I split up I was able to throw myself into my business and end up with the results I’ve got today.  I’m in a very good position right now, or would be if my every cent wasn’t going to the household and was going back into my business instead.

Now I’m finding my business is starting to implode.  I love dancing, but I’m depressed to the point of wanting to give up every time it comes to putting on a costume or planning for a show.  It hurts even more knowing th

at I’d have more than enough to buy myself a beautiful new costume or two depending on what style I went with, how complex, and how expensive, if I didn’t have to carry us financially.  Oz has never really supported the family on his paycheck, but I’m getting sick of it.  I’ve gotten the suggestion to take some time off, that perhaps if I could take six months off I could come back to it refreshed.  Unfortunately, six months off isn’t an option.  I have a monthly show kicking off, which means if I give it up this early, I’m losing it as a business venture.  If I take six months off I’ll have to rebuild my student base.  I can’t afford to do that, nor can I afford to take the time off right now unless I get a regular full-time job.  If I do that, I’m not going to be taking six months off because I won’t have the time to build up from all of the losses taking time off will bring on.  I’ll just quit at that point.  I don’t have the heart to wipe the slate clean with this business and start over.  Taking a couple weeks off, if I didn’t need the money so much that would be reasonable, but I need that income to support my family, so it’s not really an option right now.  I just need to make up my mind to do it and suffer through the depression, or quit and regret it later.  Whatever I decide to do, I’ve got to stick with it.  However, if I commit to struggling through this and I still end up out of business because I have to put all my money towards supporting my family, I’m not staying with him.  He can take a lot of things from me, but if he succeeds in taking dance from me, he’s done.  There has to be a line somewhere, right?

Funny…  One of the girls I dance with and I are doing a piece that’s kind of set to the tango in Moulin Rogue, both in story context and using the music.  We’re both looking at this as a way for us to both recognize this destructive pattern in our lives, of people who are so selfish they drag us down with them into madness.  We’re kind of playing it off as lesbian lovers, and I’m playing the part of the one who just doesn’t want to stop straying.  In the end I get killed, much like in the story portrayed in the movie.  For us, this symbolizes the ability to "kill" the relationships in our lives that drag us down.  It’s kind of releasing ourselves from the attachment.  I’m kind of afraid that this dance piece will be some kind of catalyst.  I’m honestly afraid that working with this kind of energy is going to push me to put an end to my relationship…and I can’t help but wonder if maybe that would be for the best…

Rave