by Band Back Together | Dec 16, 2010 | Jealousy, Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship |
Being broke sucks!
I know a whole lot of people who say they are broke and in their own way, I guess they are. But I get angry and bitter because they still have money to buy stuff. I guess I shouldn’t judge, they could be way overextended on credit cards or whatever, but I still get mad. When my aunt tells me she is so broke that she has to sign up for Toys for Tots and then goes and buys a new wardrobe for her daughter, it really pisses me off.
I am so broke. My phone is shut off. My car is about to get repossessed (I had to take out a title loan to pay the rent), the gas and lights will be turned off any day. Rent is due next week and there’s not enough to pay that either. Christmas just isn’t going to happen at this point. I did sign up for Toys for Tots and they are a God-send.
My child support stopped. My ex lost his job because he is stupid, but that is a whole other story. I don’t get any type of support for my 2 year old. He takes her on weekends and that does help a lot, but having to buy diapers and stuff is just too much by myself, especially because I don’t have a job. I have had jobs but because of bad things that have happened, when I work I have panic attacks thinking about my kids without me. I do work part-time at a friend’s daycare, but $25 a week doesn’t do a whole lot.
I don’t know what to do anymore. I am drowning. No money coming in and way too much going out. I am in the dark and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I want to cry and scream and yell and tell everyone how bad it is over here. I am so embarrassed. I am 30! I have NOTHING to show for what I do or what I have done. I don’t know how to fix it.
Being broke sucks! It is draining trying to decide what to pay – what is important and what isn’t.
Heat or food?
A roof or a car?
These are decisions no one should have to make…
by Band Back Together | Dec 11, 2010 | Infidelity, Jealousy, Stress, Trauma, Trust |
There is nothing worse than knowing that the man you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with has betrayed you.
I still have the wrath of a betrayed woman.
You see, I’ve been through more than one betrayal. I’ve experienced one too many affairs in my short marriage, but I have managed to rebuild that broken trust over and over again. I have forgotten the pain over and over until one day it’s all too late and everything finally shatters to pieces.
Now I can smile. I am thankful that after nearly 7 months of trying to find a job after leaving the corporate world, after moving halfway across the world to be with that man with whom I thought was going to grow old with, I can finally smile again.
But tucked inside me is that bitter feeling that still pops up once in awhile.
There are always those little things that kick me in the gut. Things hurt like seeing other mixed couples and the way I seethe with jealousy inside thinking, “Let’s see how long this guy will stay faithful to his wife,” to a simple song that used to be ‘ours’ or just going to the places we went as a family.
Memories have been shattered. Dreams that were never fulfilled. A son lost the family he know. Broken and bruised – that’s how I still feel underneath all my smiles and laughter.
The pain is so unbearable sometimes that even when I think that I’m used to it, it sneaks in on me and ambushes me when I least expect it.
When I look at those young girls clinging to their boyfriends, I wonder how many of these guys ditched their families the way mine did. It pains me to see how some women have no respect whatsoever for themselves or their children.
How could he walk out on my son and I? The two who have been there for him? Granted, I wasn’t eligible for Wife Of The Year, but I did try my hardest and bent over backwards to save what was left of the marriage. Yet when I think about how one-sided the ‘repair work’ was or how much he had mentally checked himself out, I was left with no more strength.
My heart breaks for my son who hasn’t seen his father in months. His father is too drunk from lust for this much-younger woman so he never even calls his son. In the past 8 months, he has only called his son once and that’s because I begged him to.
Being betrayed by my husband with a younger woman felt like a slap! It crushed my self-esteem.
If she was beautiful maybe that would be a different story, but she will always be ugly in my eyes, not only because of her looks but because of her behaviors. She knew he was married and still went after him. She’s milking him like there’s no tomorrow, from having him pay for her online school, to opening up an online travel business, down to paying to set up her business website. He did it all while he said he couldn’t spare any money to pay for my son’s preschool.
If she was smart, maybe that would be a different story but it felt like a yet another blow reading her poorly constructed, doesn’t-even-make-any-sense English. How on Earth are they communicating? Is he able to carry out the same kind of discussions he and I used to?
It wasn’t until one of my close friends told me that he’s not looking for someone beautiful or smart. He picked someone who is much less than me so he could feel superior. It feeds his ego. Is that true? I don’t know. All I know is she’s a much younger girl, almost young enough to be his daughter and she’s single. She’s also tiny and petite!
But knowing how he had repeatedly cheated on me and on his first wife (yes, I called the ex and we compared stories which were shockingly similar) then it’s only a matter of time before he gets the itch to cheat again. This time, I will not fall victim!
It may take years to really mend myself from within, but I’ll take that road rather than driving myself to the loony bin with all the lies and deceptions.
by Band Back Together | Nov 15, 2010 | Anger, Depression, Guilt, Jealousy, Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship, Stress |
My friends would say that I have a great sense of humor, and I like to think that I do. I’m one of those “ease the tension with a funny line” kind of people. But lately I’m just so jealous and angry and ugly inside – I feel like even my blood and organs have rotted to black.
I am deeply blessed to have a wonderful husband and healthy child. After long bouts of unemployment, my husband and I both have jobs. That should be all I ever want. But dammit if life isn’t harder than I can take sometimes! We have piles of debt, and I hold my breath and pray when I check our bank account balance online. Last week, we were $500 in the hole until payday on Friday. We are under-employed and under-paid, and every purchase, even necessities, requires deliberation.
Yet we’re surrounded by friends who can afford things like vacations, Christmas gifts, babysitters and second children – all things we would love to have, but we can’t. Our friends have successful careers and gym memberships and freaking disposable income – things that we thought we would have too, being smart, college-educated, hard working people.
So I’m jealous. Deep, ugly-cry, Wicked Witch of the West jealous. I find out about one person’s TV appearance or another’s forthcoming baby, and my first reaction is to wince and roll my eyes. I hate myself so much for that. Nobody wants to be around that person, not even me.
I hate that when I count my blessings, I feel like I got shafted. I think I’m pissing off God, setting myself up for something awful to happen because I’m ungrateful, even though logically I know better. I’m just so tired of economic struggles. People say that money doesn’t solve all your problems, but it damn sure solves the problem of not having any f-ing money!
I feel hopeless and furious and also guilty as hell. It’s an awful cycle that I can’t figure out how to end. Is praying for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow worse than any other idea?
by Band Back Together | Oct 20, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Family, Feelings, Guilt, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Jealousy, Loneliness, Sadness, Stress, Trauma |
“baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder what’s in a day
what’s in your cake this time”
Infertility has forever changed the fundamentals of my being. Almost two years have passed since I suffered through the last of my IVF cycles. Physically, my body seems to have recovered from that violation. Emotionally, I am damaged beyond repair. I mourn the loss of that whole, hopeful person I once was. Even though he’d never admit it, I’ve also crushed my husband’s dreams of normalcy. I can’t help but wonder how many maybe babies there were that we never knew, that never stood a chance. I’m heartbroken for my friends who are still fighting the uphill battle towards motherhood and those who are suffocating under the crushing weight of loss.
Maybe today I’ll file away some of my bitterness and anger. So much of it I carry around in secret. After all, I have my beautiful, perfect little girl here in my arms. What about my friends who don’t? Don’t they better deserve to wear their heartache like a badge of honor?
Aren’t I supposed to just get over it and just be happy? I want to, but I know I never will.
by Band Back Together | Sep 23, 2010 | Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Jealousy, Loss |
Several months ago I had to lay to rest -and mourn- the death of a dream that I didn’t even know I had. Or would ever have. Every now and then, however, it shimmers into my periphery, and I have to once more let it go.
I don’t know why it came into mind this morning. But it did, just for a moment, as My True Love and I were stumbling around in quasi-waking states getting ready for work. I turned and saw him brushing his teeth, and my gut clenched for a split second.
I will never have a biological child with My True Love.
We will never have a child that is born from us, together, fully ours.
My grief doesn’t even make logical sense, really.
I don’t want another pregnancy. I don’t want to deal with a newborn again. There are ways in which I fear it, because of the PPD that shadowed those three long years. I also don’t want a vertical c-section scar, as shallow a reason as this is, but that is what I would get: I was told that if I had another pregnancy, they wouldn’t want to use the same bikini-cut entry point because three abdominal surgeries have built up too much scar tissue there. And with my medical history, we can’t risk labor.
MTL had a vasectomy years ago. Combined with my (much-loved and effective) Mirena IUD, the chances of getting pregnant are so infinitesimal that if it happened, we’d know it was God saying Thou SHALT have a child. So there. And I imagine that it would cause some serious initial issues, since (1) getting pregnant with an IUD is generally a Bad Idea and (2) MTL would be seriously wondering about paternity.
All that aside: we don’t want more children. We have five, combined. We have enough.
Apparently there’s a part of me that doesn’t care. There’s a part of me that hates the fact that we will never have a child that is our love made flesh. There’s a part of me that, as much as I love my boys, as much as I am growing to love his children, yearns for that biological connection to him and is angry that we will never have it. There’s a part of me that resents that other people have that connection to him and to me instead.
My sister just had a child. Both MTL and I have been all aflutter about how adorable he is and getting mushy about babies in general. We both have a soft spot for them. We miss the smell and feel of our babies, all the things about them that go to that mushy center.
(We don’t miss the poop or the crying or the sleepless nights, though. We’re not that crazy.)
And that part of me, the part that doesn’t care about all that, the part that isn’t based on logic, is insanely jealous. Not only that she has a baby, but that she has a baby with the man she loves.
I don’t have that.
And I never will.
by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2010 | Anxiety, Baby Loss, Child Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Fear, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Jealousy, Loneliness, Loss |
I’m turning into a hermit. Not in the traditional sense, exactly. I leave my house almost every day. But I hate leaving. When I leave, I can’t wait to get back. I can’t wait to put on the same clothes I’ve worn for twelve weeks, even though they stink and have stains on them. I long to lay on my couch and stare blankly at the TV.
I’m not finding comfort in anything anymore. Flipping around on the internet, my surefire way to escape, now makes me tired. I have thousands of unopened emails, dozens of unread text messages. I want to look at them but I just don’t have the stamina.
The only things I seem to have energy for? Envy and crying.
When I was on bed rest with Madeline, the only time I was allowed to leave my house was to go to the doctor. I remember sitting in my OB’s office, seeing happy pregnant ladies with their growing bellies, and being overcome with jealousy. Or when Maddie was in the NICU, I would constantly see happy parents going home with their new babies, and my body would become hot with anger.
This is so much worse.
Everything sets me off now. Seeing a child walking down the street with a parent, or a man buying diapers, or a plastic toy in the grass turns me into an ugly, hateful shell of my former self. I say that I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but that’s not entirely true. If it meant I could have my little girl back? If a magical genie said, “OK, pick another family and they’ll lose their child instead,” there isn’t a single person in the world that would be safe. Even the people I know.
I felt guilty about this at first, but I realized that everyone who knows me or reads this would feel the same way. And everyone who knows me or reads this has already had a similar thought. “Man, that sucks, but better them than us.” Who WOULDN’T think that way? I know that, before Maddie passed, when I heard about a family that lost a child I would be so relieved it wasn’t MY baby that was gone. It wasn’t MY family whose worst nightmare came true.
So I’m slowly becoming a hermit, because I’m afraid soon I won’t be able to keep it in. So that the next person that says something well-intentioned won’t get me screaming in their face. So that the next person who rightfully complains online about their cranky child won’t get an expletive-filled email or comment. So that the innocent man buying diapers won’t have to see me glaring at him with my swollen blood-shot eyes.
Am I protecting others, or myself? I don’t really know.
