God Help Us All

I was having a conversation with my mom and she tells me she and a friend want to go “see” Cousinfucker in his new hometown.

“I just want him to see me!” she tells me.

She then goes on to tell me how she and this friend, who lives several states away, are trying to schedule their calendars so they can do this.  She remarks that it’s getting down to crunch time.  She can’t do next weekend because she’s got a garage sale going on, and then the following weekend is her birthday and she doesn’t want to track him down on her birthday.  After that is a graduation party, the weekend after that is another graduation party and not long after that she’ll be headed down south.

“I just don’t know when I’m going to have time.  My schedule is very busy.”

“Mom, you realize you’re checking your schedule for a good weekend to stalk your STBX son-in-law?”

Apparently she does and she’s ok with that.  She assured me she won’t let her friend bring her Mace, stun gun or new knife AND she won’t let her friend talk her into bringing her gun.  Whew!  Now I feel better.

She continues on, assuring me she has plenty of legal backup.  She’s been watching a lot of Law & Order so she’s up to date on the stalking laws.  Excellent!  I’ve been told if you’re not threatening the person you’re good to go.  Plus, it’s a big city.  Is she supposed to stay away from that city completely????

“Besides, I do have friends there.  Relatives, too.  So if he says something I’ll just say I was in town visiting my friends.”

I ask her what she’s going to do if he starts going off on her or making up stupid statements about me.

She reiterated what she told me when I first informed her of his affair.  “I’m old and I’m not afraid of going to jail.”

Here I am worried about my life being over at the tender age of 47 and my mother, who will be turning 70 in a few weeks, is out raising hell.  Turns out 70 is the new 30.

 

Cold-hearted Bitch

Years ago before I was married I had a boyfriend. Shocking, I know!  Here’s where I become a cold-hearted bitch.  There were times I kind of wished that boyfriend would die.  I would hear about someone his age who had died in a car crash, or a collision with a train, or anything really and I would think about how nice it would be if he just died.  It would make things so much easier.  For me.  Not anyone else.  I know; it’s selfish.  You might be asking, “Why didn’t you just break up with him?”  Good question. The answer: He was emotionally abusive and I wasn’t completely sure how to go about breaking up with him without him losing his shit so I stayed, silently wishing I would have the good luck of him dying.  I remember thinking that and telling myself, “Sam, you know a relationship is not good when you’re kinda wishing he dies.  That’s, like, a totally bad sign!”  I did finally leave him and I vowed to never be with another person I was hoping would die.  I know.  I have incredibly high standards for a relationship.  Don’t wish him dead.  It’s right up there with, “Must be breathing and walk erect.”

Guess what?  The last few years (save for the approximately 18 months after his first affair) I was kinda hoping Cousinfucker would die.  I’m not proud of it.  I knew I probably should get out.  And please understand I wasn’t looking to do the deed myself.  I didn’t even wish him dead.  I just sometimes thought, “Life would be so much easier.  Our marriage would be over and I wouldn’t look like a quitter.”  Divorce is difficult.

People feel sorry for you when your spouse dies.  You don’t have to contend with settlement offers.  You don’t lose out on time with your kids.  In my case, I wouldn’t have to worry about what I’m going to do if he had died on me, instead of cheating on me.  Then the biggie, of course, if he died he wouldn’t have *chosen* to leave me.  He *chose* to leave me when he cheated.  I had told him clearly that if he ever did it again I was done.  So he knew what would happen.  Yet he looked me in the eye and lied and lied and lied as long as was necessary to keep duping me.

I feel bad when people talk about how much they loved their cheating spouse, or how he/she was the love of her/his life.  Not sad as in, “That’s pathetic; poor thing,” but as in, “I wish I cared more and was more devastated by this.”  My relationship with Cousinfucker always felt comfortable.  It wasn’t the butterflies in the stomach and the Great Romance of the Century, but I thought that the real thing wasn’t supposed to be like that.  I thought it was supposed to be comfortable, like we’d been together forever.  Perhaps I’m too pragmatic.  He used to get upset when he realized I didn’t subscribe to that whole “soul mates” thing.  He firmly believed it was destiny that we met.  I believed I had placed an ad in the personals and he responded.  I believed I was looking for love and he showed up.  If it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else.  20,000 people out there, supposedly, who are right for you.  Honestly, I’m hoping it’s even higher than that!  20,000 isn’t even the population of a single state, and if there are only 20,000 people out there that you could find love with, well, he might not be living in my state.  The professor who made this claim didn’t specify if this was all over the world, only North America, or even just in the United States.  If it’s 20,000 people throughout the world then I’m screwed!

I had a person who gave me butterflies.  Someone that would leave a smile on my face from just thinking about him.  When people talk about the love of their life I think about him.  It was a very short romance.  His parents didn’t want him dating me because of our age difference.  The funny part is I wasn’t even that much older than him.  I was seventeen days shy of being a full year older; however, I was two years ahead of him in school. They thought I was going to go off to college and break his heart.  I wish I had had the chance.  Instead, a few months later he fell asleep at the wheel, drove off the road, crashed his car and was killed.  If the measure of how much you love someone is how much you cry over them then I loved him a lot.  Joke’s on his parents because this cold-hearted bitch that would have broken his heart cried for a good three or four years over him.  Like body wracking sobs crying.  Screaming out, “Why?  Why did you leave me?”  Crying until you’re exhausted.  That kind of crying.  Even today, 29 years after he died, I still think of him and remember our short time together.  29 years later and I still get sad and a bit weepy when I hear “The Glory of Love.”  I still cry when I listen to “I’ll Be There” (so I don’t listen to it often).

You know what’s even more heartbreaking?  It’s the thought that this short romance when I was not even eighteen was IT, the love of my life, my great love story.  Because if it was?  Let me tell you something.  That sucks!  Why do I only get a few months?  And then shit from there on out?  No, nope, no way.  I’m not buying it.  I refuse to believe you only get one shot at a great love story.  I may not have had it with Cousinfucker but I want to believe I can indeed have it again.

They, whoever they are, always want the duped spouse to examine their own part in the affair.  Thanks to Chump Lady I don’t play those games.  I do, however, realize I played a part.  I didn’t speak up.  I didn’t stand up for myself and tell him to knock his crap off.  I babied him.  I won’t say I walked on eggshells around him but I did refrain from any bursts of anger, or even giving him bad news because he “couldn’t handle” it.  I never made demands, not even after his emotional affair.  I lost myself and put up with many things I shouldn’t have.  That’s the part I played.  I gave in.  Hell, in the last year or so before his first affair I totally gave up.  I figured this was what a long term marriage looked like and hoped that when our kids were a little older that maybe we could do more things as a couple.

And it’s not like this happened all at once.  In the beginning I was opinionated and vivacious.  I liken it to a frog being put in a pot of water and then slowly turning up the flame.  Before you know it you’re being boiled alive.  That was me.  Gradually I learned to shut up, to never complain, to shoulder all the responsibility.  I think part of that came from a conversation I had with his mom before we were married.  I think I wrote about it once.  She told me he had said if he had a wife who would just have dinner ready for him when he came home from work he would give her anything she ever wanted.  I wanted to be that perfect wife, the one who would have dinner on the table, take care of everything, never give him any reason to complain. We saw how well that worked out.

Now I guess I have three requirements for a relationship.  1.  Must be breathing and walk erect.  2.  I must not want him to die to save me the trouble of ending the relationship.  3.  Speak up and don’t ever lose myself again.

Think About the Children!!!

I have written about my kids’ non-relationship with their father.  I’ve wrestled with that fact but I’m pretty sure I’m done.  Maybe if he had been more active in their lives when we were married I might feel differently but then again, if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hopped.

I think we’re programmed by well-meaning do-gooders to believe that it’s the end of the world if the children lose out on a relationship with the other parent.  I want to be clear I’m not talking about one parent sabotaging the other and/or actively playing keep away with the kids.  I’m talking about situations where the kids have decided, “No more!” I’m talking about situations like my own where the nub walks out the door like he’s going to work and instead he gets in a car and drives several states and seven hours away from his kids.

It’s sad how many situations there are like mine.  Or more precisely, my kids’.  I don’t give a damn if I ever see his face again.  Wife, over on Honey and the Homewrecker is dealing with pretty much the exact same situation only her kids were much younger and her ex moved much further away.  There are countless chumps over on Chump Lady who talk about their kids either spending very little time with the other parent or never seeing the other parent.  In a lot of those cases the ex moves on and never looks back.

Chump Lady is good at reminding those parents, all parents really, that kids only need one sane parent.  If they’re lucky enough to have two that’s fantastic, but one will do.  I think we sometimes get so stuck on this idea that the two parent intact home is the best one that we don’t see beyond that.

Hell yes I wanted my kids raised in an intact home.  I purposefully got married before having kids because it was important to me.  I forgave Cousinfucker his transgressions the first time around because I didn’t want to put my kids through that.  I wanted them to have their mom and dad 24/7.  I didn’t want them to have to deal with all the shit they are dealing with now.  But in the end they’re going to be fine.

Rock Star told her dad once that it makes her sad when she sees little girls with their dads because she doesn’t have one.  Here’s the important piece of that particular puzzle.  He never was much of a dad.  She began competing in second grade at age seven, almost eight.  She had six to seven meets in a season.  I can probably count on one hand the number of meets he’s been to.  I’m pretty sure the total stands at five.  He has never once seen her compete in high school.  He never attended a single meet when she competed in Excel once we moved.  I would drive 2-3 hours for a meet, by myself, watch her meet and text him her scores.  He attended a grand total of two parent-teacher conferences, and it’s possible I’m being generous with that second one.  I could go on and on.  The main point is that he wasn’t around for much.  He never took it upon himself to go see her in her room and ask her about her day.  If she came to him he would inquire.  But it was always on both kids to seek him out.

Recently I found out that Picasso often told his friends that he wished his dad would do some of the things that their dads did with them. Things like shooting hoops or tossing a ball. He told me the other day he has no interest in playing the Lego video games because that’s something he shared with his dad. It brings back memories he doesn’t want to remember.

The sad part is if you asked CF he would tell you he was a good dad. According to Harley he is a wonderful dad. A friend of mine recounted a story to me that I had long forgotten. She said we had all met for dinner shortly after Rock Star was born. CF didn’t talk much but what she remembered was the way he spent the entire evening playing with the baby, rocking her, talking to her. I apparently remarked that no matter what at least he would be a great dad.

The story CF tells is how he taught Picasso and our neighbor how to hit a baseball. He bragged about how he told the coach to back up and how both kids hit it so far. I’m sure those events happened, especially the one my friend remembers, but I don’t remember them. You would think I would.   What I remember is taking my son out to the baseball fields and pitching so he could practice his batting. My BFF wanted to know where his father was. “I am woman; here me roar!” Just because I had a vagina didn’t mean I couldn’t teach him to hit!

So this is my line of thinking… I’ve always been the one there for them.  The only thing that has changed is that Cousinfucker no longer lives in our house.  That, and we have less money.  I’m still the sane parent.  I’m still taking them around to the places they need to go.  I’m still making sure they have everything they need.  I’m still the one who signs homework sheets and permission slips and writes checks for lunch money.  How do you miss a person who ignored you?  How do you miss a person that didn’t contribute?  I don’t want to sound cold hearted or like I’m making light of whatever Rock Star and Picasso may be feeling but they can’t miss what they never had.  They can miss the idea and maybe that’s what Rock Star is mourning.

I am still trying to catch up on all the archived posts on Chump Lady so I’m not sure when I caught this gem from one of the commenters:  I went through a thing when I was younger when I really craved an awesome Dad; the kind that my best friend had. She was daddy’s little girl and I wanted that too. But my mom always would say you can’t regret what you don’t have, you just be grateful for what you DO have. You can’t make other people fit into a mold of how you want them to be. It’s a waste of your time.  That’s the way I feel about it.  I’m sorry I made a horrible choice in a father for them but I can’t change the past.  Better to focus on what they do have.

In fact, another commenter talked about how she and her daughter actually began a scrapbook that began with D-Day and they chronicle all the new things they are doing in their lives.  I thought that was awesome!  She goes on to say: Don’t listen to those idiots who say your children need their father no matter what a dickwad he is. Bullshit. Life is hard enough. Kids don’t need dog turds in their lives any more than you do.

She’s right.  There are all sorts of reasons that it may be better to have a parent out of your life.  Abuse and addiction spring to mind.  Safety issues would be another.  None of that is relevant with Cousinfucker, although he did take to drinking quite a bit.  In his case it actually made him more bearable.

As I said earlier I won’t campaign to get him out of their lives.  He’s already doing a bang up job of that.  But I’m giving up feeling like I have somehow failed them because of his actions.  I’m done with thinking that it’s sad he’s run off and abandoned them.  I no longer feel like every kid has to have two active parents.  I have a niece and nephew who lost their dad when they were young- 5 and not quite 2.  My stepsister never remarried.  They grew up without a dad and they’re both fine.  One graduates from college in aerospace (aeronautical?) engineering in less than a month.  The other will be finishing her first year of college.  Doesn’t sound like two kids who are barely hanging in there.  I’m sure there are countless stories such as that, where one parent has died or abandoned the kids, and the remaining parent steps up and takes care of business.

I no longer care what he does.  At one point I felt like if he had a relationship with them that would be good for them.  These days though I see what he does to Rock Star every time he texts her and it’s not good.  He makes her feel like shit.  He wants her to feel sorry for him and she ends up feeling bad.  Not bad for him, just bad like she’s a bad person.  She’s not.  She’s a kid who’s had her entire life turned upside down.  So I’m not sure what kind of good he would do them.  After all these years together I fear he’s simply too immature and entitled to ever contribute positively towards either child.  Instead of thinking that it’s sad I now shrug my shoulders and say, “Don’t worry, kids; I’ve got this.”  The reality is I was always the one who had it.  His absence is merely pointing that out.

He Still Mad, Bro!

The drama continues!  Oh, it wasn’t nearly as bad today but he was righteously indignant that my lawyer “sent him a letter”.  I got a very nice thank you text from him, thanking me for exactly that.  I didn’t reply.  He didn’t ask a question.  There was nothing to corroborate.  So I ignored him and quickly looked through my email to see if I had missed something.

Sure enough I had!  I must not have checked email at all yesterday and it went into junk mail anyway.  Why?  I have no freakin’ clue!  This is the third person from her office to contact me and all three have gone into my junk folder.  Anyway, I may not hear from my lawyer all that often but I have to give her mad props.  She is like a tenacious bulldog.  She asked for documentation for his bonus check so that I know I’m getting half.  Score! She revisited the topic of me already paying money towards the pool and being credited for it.  As she put it:  I realize your client doesn’t agree.  I’m willing to table that discussion until the final settlement.  If he doesn’t agree to that let me know so I can go ahead and schedule a date to get in front of the judge.  I love her!  And then she also let his lawyer know that he’s not paying in a timely manner and asked if it would be possible for him to get direct deposit.  Ha!

I have a question though.  Didn’t he work himself up into a fine snit the other day because I dared to contact him and let him know the check was late?  And now he’s in a tizzy because I handed it over to a lawyer.  What does he want?  He’s pissed if I contact him; he’s pissed if I let my lawyer handle it.  As my mom so succinctly puts it, “He wants you to shut up and let him pay you whenever he wants.  It’s all about control.”  Bitch, I’m the captain now!  Only I’m not the bad kind.  I’m like Tom Hanks retaking his ship!

I got another strange text from him later on in the day.  He let me know that I have full coverage and all my benefits have been verified.  Then he told me I was welcome!  Funny, I don’t recall saying thank you.  I thought that’s what set him off the other day!  Then I realized that perhaps I had left off something when I thanked him.  I do not believe I remembered to thank him for continuing to cover me and the kids.  To be fair it was not court ordered.  But to be honest we’re still married and if he doesn’t cover me and something happens to me medically he’s screwed!  I was told if something like that did happen he would undoubtedly be ordered to cover my medical expenses; therefore, no lawyer is going to encourage or condone the main breadwinner to drop the spouse and kids from their insurance.  It does not look good in court.  So, consider this my mea culpa.  I’m so sorry I forgot to thank you for the insurance you have provided.  You weren’t court ordered to do so and yet you knew you had to.  Why, you just go above and beyond in everything you do!  You’re a peach!  Again, I ignored the text.

Here’s what makes this strange: I already knew I had insurance coverage.  I had even let him know I had received the cards.  The problem, my friends, is that I still haven’t received my share of the bonus check and that’s the part he blithely skipped over.  There was NOTHING in that email about insurance.  Is this some sort of weird magician slight of hand bullshit he’s hoping to pull off?  I’ll talk about insurance and throw her off the scent of the bonus check money!  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

Also, to clarify, once again he’s lying.  My lawyer did not send him a letter like he claimed.  She sent an email to his lawyer, who I’m sure forwarded it onto him.  She might have contacted him herself!  He’s acting like I reigned down Hell upon him when it was a simple, professional email between two lawyers.  There were no threats of contempt charges, no promises to see him rot in jail.  Just a friendly heads up that CF is not doing as he agreed to do.

What are you going to do?  I’m destined to divorce a person who must constantly see himself as a victim.  He sees himself as a person who is performing these wonderful acts of service, who goes above and beyond what is required, when the reality is he isn’t doing anything that isn’t required of him by a court of law.  He thinks he’s doing me all sorts of favors; I think he’s loosely following a court order.

You Mad, Bro?

Remember how I wrote about not speaking to Cousinfucker because there was no point?  I said it basically fed his ego and nothing would ever get through to him.  I believe I also wrote about how sometimes this blog would write itself because of the crazy shit he said and did.  All aboard the crazy train!  There will be stops in Liarsville and Delusion Land and a layover at Tantrum Palace.

What has led to this, you may be asking?  Golly gee, I’m not quite sure.  I simply let Cousinfucker know that I hadn’t received the support check OR my half of the bonus check.  That was it.  Period.  I thought I was doing him a favor.  Afterall, it was only last month that the check he wrote Got. Lost. In. The. Mail!  I figured it was a public service announcement to let him know there was a possibility it got lost again.  Now, I will admit I sent the text on Saturday and we all know that weekends are reserved for Harley the Whore.  I’m sure he didn’t want to be reminded as he was fucking the whore that he had a wife and kids he had abandoned.  My tip?  Don’t check your messages while you’re having sex!  You’re welcome.

Monday rolls around and he finally deigns to answer me.  He tells me that the check is in the mail and that maybe I should consider getting a job.  Call me crazy but I don’t think it’s in my best interest to take legal and financial advice from the shit eating chimp that has cheated on and lied to me all summer.  Something tells me he does not have my best interests at heart.

Again, I kept it very civil.  I thanked him for his comments and let him know I would give them all the consideration they were due.  Then I let him know that I would prefer to not have to file contempt charges.  See that?  I would prefer NOT to have to file.  More help from me.

He let me know that if I filed contempt charges that he would go to jail!  Oh nos!  He even mentioned something about how I live off of him and putting him in jail would mean I would get no money and I would end up ruined!  I kindly let him know that was a chance I was willing to take (even added a smiley face) but thanked him for looking out for me.

Now this is where it gets tricky and we begin our visit to the Tantrum Palace.  He tells me that he is *completely* taking care of me and I SHOULD NOT FORGET THAT!  In fact, I have a great life thanks to him and I should be “a lot more fucking grateful” than I am.  I was told to, get this, appreciate that shit just a little bit.

I have a great life because of him?  Huh!  Yes, little girls, if you’re really really lucky you’ll marry a wonderful man who will cheat on you, lie to you, and leave you in financial ruin.  And when that happens you should appreciate it!  I guess all those tears I’ve shed not knowing what was going to happen to me or my kids were completely unnecessary because I’ve got a great life.  Thanks to him!  What’s a girl to do when she has this fantastic life thanks to her lying, cheating husband?  He’s feeling under appreciated.  Unappreciated, perhaps?  He is COMPLETELY SUPPORTING ME!  So, I did as he asked.  I thanked him.

I thanked him for letting me follow him all around the country for 20 years.  I thanked him for moving me and my kids 2000 miles across the country, for taking us away from our friends, for taking Rock Star away from gymnastics and crushing her dreams of a scholarship, and for taking Picasso away from hockey all so that he could take his dream job which he quit 18 months later and also so that he could fuck his cousin.  I thanked him for sharing naked pictures of me with her and for playing Daddy of the Year to her kids while he ignored his own.  I thanked him for abandoning his kids and leaving us in financial ruin.  I even thanked him for paying his court ordered support.

Do you think he *appreciated* the fact that I thanked him as he wanted me to do?  Absolutely not!  He responded by calling me a classless bitch who lives off of him and told me it was no wonder he left me.  Then he asked me how it felt to be living off of him with my college education that he paid for.

I am flummoxed!  He asked me to be grateful.  He wanted to be appreciated.  I thanked him!  Perhaps I left something out.  Maybe I should have thanked him for all the lies he told me.  Or for walking out the door without saying a word to his kids about moving.  I thought I covered that in the whole “abandoning your kids and leaving us in financial ruin” but maybe I needed to say more.

Oh, he does not sound happy, does he?  Let’s examine his insults, shall we?  First, I’m a bitch.  OK, I’ll give you that one.  But I did warn him.  I told him the first time around that I had been very nice for the last 18 years and he wouldn’t like me as an ex-wife.  I try not to lie.

Second, I have no class?  Dude, you’re fucking your cousin!  It was so tempting to attach one of Harley’s mugshots and reply, “I have no class?  Really?”  But I didn’t.  Furthermore, he doesn’t even know who his father is; his paternity has been treated like a family joke.  I’ve had more social interaction with ex-convicts having been married to him than I have in all my other interactions period.  Marrying me was the best thing that ever happened to that lying turd. I brought him UP in social standings.

Third, I’m living off of him.  Well, of course I am!  That’s what he wanted.  Has he forgotten already all those times he said, “You can get a job but it better not interfere with mine!  I’m not going to help out around here either!”?  I didn’t pursue a career so that I could follow him around.  Did he forget that part of the apology, too?  Thank you for letting me follow you around the country for 20 years.  It was right there in black and white!  My career was HIM!  It was following him around, supporting him, and taking care of the house and kids. I can’t help it that he decided to change the rules 20 years into it.  Does he honestly think I’m going to re-enter the workforce seventeen years later and begin making even close to what he makes?  More importantly, does he believe it’s going to significantly lower his support payments?  Whatever happened to, “We both know you’ll be well cared for for the rest of your life,” and “This can be civil,”?  Is it possible that he’s not so much pissed off that he still has to “support me” but more so that he can’t both support me and my kids plus support Harley and her four kids?  I think we’ve got a winner! It must suck when your well laid dreams with your whore don’t pan out like you were expecting.

Fourth, no wonder he left me?  Oh, you flaming turd shot straight from Satan’s ass, that’s not how it played out.  You didn’t leave me.  You cheated on me.  Then I filed for divorce and left you.  If you had actually left me that might possibly be admirable.  But you didn’t.  You snuck around like the maggot covered pile of cow shit you are and humped your whore of a cousin, all the while lying to me.  Don’t forget, according to your latest lies, I kicked you out of the house!

And finally,  he paid for my college education?  Oh dear, once again he goes off the rails.  We are smack-dab in the middle of Delusion Land!  I met this jackass more than two years after I graduated from college.  My mother paid for my college education! I had one small loan that I had taken out to pay for my final semester after I dropped out for a semester.  I paid the interest on that loan even while I was in college.  I paid the loan for over two years before I even met him.  When we decided to pay off bills the remainder of my college loan was one of those debts.  We were BOTH working.  So how on earth does that translate into him paying for my college education?  Next thing you know he will have paid for me to get my PhD and given me capital to start up several businesses.  Oh please let him bring that shit before a judge!

Did I point any of this out to him?  Of course not!  As we can see he is having himself quite the temper tantrum.  So I attempted to diffuse the situation.

<Sheepish grin>  Yeah, I really did ask him that.  Like I said, there was so much misinformation spewing forth from him that it would be pointless to try to counter it.

It certainly got an enthusiastic response!  He told me that he sure the hell was because I was lazy and living off of him  I needed to contribute to the family and use my education (you know, the one he fictitiously paid for).  He is tired of paying me money when he could be using that money to buy shit for the whore!  Naturally, he didn’t add that part.  That’s all me.

Contribute to the family?  Isn’t that what I’m already doing?  I’m raising his kids with absolutely no help from him.  He doesn’t even live in the same state, much less the same town.  How can you possibly be labeled lazy when you’re doing All. The. Damn. Work?  Who is up in the morning, making omelets and biscuits and gravy for breakfast before school?  Who is doing the laundry?  Who fixed the doorknob?  Who makes sure the kids are up and ready to go in the morning?  Who does the grocery shopping and packs the school lunches and makes them dinner?  Who takes them to school and practice and picks them up?  Who is around for field trips and meets and games?  Who is looking after the dogs and cats?  Who takes them to church?  Who is making sure the bills are paid?  Who is paying for his auto insurance? Who paid his last payment on his damn car?  Maybe a certain someone should be a little *grateful* to me!

Again, realizing that he is tantruming like a two year old and is once again stuck in victim mode where everything is being done to.him and he has done.nothing to bring any of it on himself, I simply thank him once again for his comments and let him know I will take them under advisement.

That is where this story ends.  Turns out the dumbass was smart enough at least in this instance to quit while he was ahead.  Or at least not too far behind.

I know some of you may be thinking, “But, Sam, he’s being so mean!  He’s such an ass!  Aren’t you furious at him for saying those things?  Doesn’t it hurt your feelings?”  Nah.  You have to respect someone in order for anything they say to hurt you.  I don’t respect him.  It would be like Hitler telling someone they aren’t a very nice person, or Ted Bundy giving dating tips.  Not really the people you turn to in your time of need.  He’s fucking his cousin, he cheated on his wife, he abandoned his kids, and he took off out of the state without saying a word to any of us.  There is absolutely nothing he can say to me that will hurt my feelings.

Damn You, Autocorrect!

Does autocorrect bug the ever living hell out of anybody besides me?  I swear, I do not understand its corrections sometimes.  I’m flummoxed on how every time I want to spell skank it wants to correct it to skunk, but if I type th it’s not smart enough to add the “e”.  It refuses to let me type out dumbass without trying to switch it to dumbs.  Is that even a word?  Sometimes it can figure out I’ve typed two words together but then other times it completely erases one of them. I type yers instead of years and it changes it to hers.  Really?  I transpose the letters in “as” and instead type “sa” and it doesn’t give me “as” or “say”, which I would think would be a pretty safe bet.  I type absue instead of abuse and it can’t figure it out.  And why doesn’t it recognize sonofabitch as a word?  At least it lets me type it out; it just tells me I’m spelling it wrong.  There are times I add an extra letter into a word.  It’s 50/50 whether or not it tells me I’m spelling it wrong or it will autocorrect.  I’m amused by how, on my phone, when I use Swype it wants to change divorce to suicide.  Hmmm…. is my phone trying to tell me something?  Is it the morality police letting me know that it is better to DIE than to divorce?  It also has a huge problem with the word always. It wants to go with ashtrays or anyway. Ashtrays? Really?  Fortunately, I have no problem with typing out whore or slut.  It has no problem with those two words.  Thank God because I use them a lot!

If You’re Looking For a Good Turkey Recipe

This is probably my favorite way to prepare turkey.  I’m not a big turkey eater.  Turkey is my least favorite part of Thanksgiving, if I’m honest.  But I truly love the flavor of it in this recipe.  It is another one by Jamie Cooks It Up.

Turkey Breast of Wonder

***NOTE: Make sure you buy a turkey breast small enough to fit in your crock pot.***

***ADDITIONAL NOTE: If you don’t have a large enough crock pot, or don’t own one you can place the turkey in a 9×13 pan, cover it with the remaining ingredients, cover tightly with foil and bake at 325 for 3 hours.***

Ingredients:

1 (5-6 pound) turkey breast

1/2 C orange juice (you could also substitute chicken broth)

1 (14 ounce) can whole cranberry sauce

1 (1 ounce) package Lipton Onion Soup Mix

salt and pepper

Directions:

1. She says to make sure your turkey is completely thawed. I let mine hang out in the fridge for a couple of days after I purchase it frozen. Her tip: Set it on a pan, so you don’t have juices running all over when you open up the bag. Cut a hole in the top of the bag and remove the packaging. Some turkey breasts come with a gravy pouch inside, be sure to remove it if yours happens to come with one.

2. Place the turkey in the crock pot.

3. Pour yourself 1/2 cup of orange juice.  Add one can whole berry Cranberry sauce

and one package Lipton Onion Soup mix.  Mix the ingredients together and pour them over the top of the bird.

4. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper over the top. Cover the crock pot and cook on low for 8-9 hours, or until a meat thermometer stuck into the center of the bird reads 180 degrees.  (I usually skip the salt and pepper part of this.)

5. Remove the turkey breast to a plate and cover it with tin foil. Let it rest for about 5 minutes. Then carve it (or shred it) up and enjoy.

GRAVY:
1. Pour the juices from the crock pot through a strainer and into a medium sized sauce pan.
2. Mix 4 T of cornstarch into 1/2 cup of water.
3. Bring the juices to a boil and add the cornstarch/water mixture a little bit at a time, stirring constantly until you reach the consistency you want. You may not need all of the cornstarch/water.
4. Add about half of a can of cream of mushroom soup. Stir it well and let the soup heat through.

Other notes:  I haven’t made the gravy.  I think the turkey tastes great without it.  Also, if you use the size of turkey she recommends above it says it will serve 12.  I usually buy one that’s around 3 pounds and I still use the same quantities of the other ingredients.

Hooray For Me

I swear, this house is falling down around me!  I get back home from shopping for a gift for one of Rock Star’s friends and the doorknob to the garage is hanging off on one side and completely off on the other side!  What the hell?  Do you think I’m not going to have a doorknob leading out to the garage?  Oh hell no!  I grab my trusty little screwdriver (okay, I had to look around for one) and go to work.

It took several attempts and I was getting extremely frustrated because it wasn’t as simple as screwing the screws back in.  Oh no!  You had to blindly line them up and then hope that you were actually hitting the hole and not just pushing them into empty space.  Because then they would fall out once again.  Finally I hit my mark.  Got those suckers screwed in properly and my doorknob is once again firmly attached and working like it should.

Screw you, Cousinfucker!  Your presence is not needed; I’ve got this!

Got Guilt?

I was reading a blog.  I read many blogs if I’m honest.  One theme I’ve noticed is people who feel guilty about the fact that their husbands have cheated. Or people who have not disclosed anything about the affair to people IRL.

Hey, it’s your life and I try very hard not to tell people what to do; however, I feel very bad for those people who have no support in real life.  I don’t know how you manage to get through this without leaning on somebody.  I didn’t tell anywhere close to the same amount of people the first time I caught Cousinfucker cheating.  I did tell three people- two of them lived approximately 1500 miles away.  Then again, I was trying to reconcile.

The thing with reconciliation that makes it so difficult is that you want to protect your spouse but you also need your own support.  Being the good little wife that I was I didn’t want to make things more difficult for Cousinfucker.  Oh, the shame!  The horror if people found out he was a lying cheater!  So, with very few exceptions I kept it to myself and tried to work through it on my own.

Here is a different way of looking at it though.  If a cheater wants to reconcile, part of showing remorse, IMO, is putting on your big boy/girl panties and being accountable to the people closest to you.  Yes, I fucked around on this person you love.  Face the awkwardness!  Cheaters cannot have it both ways- it’s not a big deal, get over it…. but I get to maintain my secrecy about the affair (which is a Minor Thing Really).  That is from Chump Lady.  I think it’s brilliant.  Either cheating is no big deal, or it is.

This is another tidbit that I chewed on (and this one is all mine):  He never cared or appreciated the fact that I walked a tightrope for him.  I think he figured he was owed confidentiality.  Oh, he cried right after I left to go to my stepdad’s funeral and told me he deserved to have everyone know what he had done, but I don’t think he meant it.  He was feeling sorry for himself and playing the victim like he always does.  I don’t necessarily think it would have led to a different outcome if I had been more upfront with everyone.  Perhaps I would have learned sooner that he was full of shit and wanted a reconciliation based simply on his one apology.  Maybe I would have figured out he wasn’t capable of doing anything difficult before I uprooted my kids.

Meanwhile, I’m walking the tightrope, trying to protect him so that no one thinks he’s a “bad” person and he’s busy badmouthing me to everyone he possibly can.

“She’s going to leave me!”

“She hates me!”

“She only stays for the money!”

“She’s left me up here to cry all day; she never checks on me.”

“I mean nothing to her.”

“We haven’t had sex in ten years.”

Yes, I’m trying to figure out how to explain that he thinks I’m going to leave him without going into detail about his previous affair and he’s telling people I hate him.  I’m trying to find someone to stay with him at the hospital should Jezebel come to visit because I don’t want her alone with him so that she can continue to urge him to leave me, and I can’t explain exactly “why” I don’t want her alone with him.  Or if I do say she urged him to leave me then again I can’t explain exactly “why” she would do such a thing.  But he had no problems telling Blockhead I stayed with him solely for the money and I left him upstairs to cry all by himself without ever checking on him.  I think my favorite part of that story was when I confronted him and told him he had thrown me under the bus and he countered with, “No!  You took it out of context.  I was actually trying to protect you!”  With protection like that I don’t think I need enemies!

Fast forward to D-Day #2.  Do you think I kept it to myself this time?  Oh hell no!  I told everyone.  I told my mom who told my brother and my sister-in-law.  I told my former neighbors.  I told my bffs. I told several of my cousins (remember, I don’t sleep with mine).  Hell, I told the lady down at the vet’s office when she complimented my purse!  I even got on Facebook several months later and sent private messages to pretty much everyone I considered a friend, and not just a FB friend.  Several of my kids’ teachers know (from back in our former state).  People I volunteered alongside in PTA know.  Other gym moms know.  I didn’t shut up.  And you know why?  Because I’m not ashamed.  If anyone should be ashamed or feel guilty it is him.  I didn’t fuck my cousin.  I didn’t move my spouse and kids 2000 miles across the country and blow up their lives to hook up with a white trash skank. I’m not a cheater.  Him cheating does not reflect poorly on me at all.  He owns his behavior.

I’ve bought into the whole, “Oh, if only I hadn’t had that Facebook page!” rhetoric.  Seriously, I’ve beaten myself up over it.  If only I hadn’t created the page.  If only I had stuck with the nondescript name or made it private or friends only.  If only I had slapped a happy smile on my face and pretended like everything was perfect.  You know what?  It doesn’t matter!  If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else.  Even if I take it all the way down to the end and say, “Sam, if you hadn’t had that FB page then he wouldn’t have had a downward spiral.  If he hadn’t had a downward spiral then he wouldn’t have been crying on his mom’s shoulder, his sister’s shoulder, his best friend’s shoulder.  If he hadn’t been crying on their shoulders then they never would have encouraged him to leave you and Tammy Faye never would have encouraged Harley to call him.  You could have gone on happily ever after!” I still don’t buy into the blame game.  If all it took for him to cheat was his mom encouraging that whore to call him then what have I lost?  If all it took was Jezebel urging him to leave me then what did I lose?  He’s a coward, a drama queen, a whining baby- all with bad character and poor morals.  If the only way we could remain happily married was for there to be absolutely no problems ever, and for me to always be in a good mood while cheering him on, then again, what have I lost?  I needed him and he bailed on me.

I hope that if you are reading this and you are one of those that *does* feel ashamed because of a cheating spouse that you’ll be able to slough that off like dead skin on your feet.  It’s not about you.  It’s about the cheater.  Those of us who have been cheated on, betrayed, duped, and taken advantage of have nothing to be ashamed of.  You didn’t do it.  You don’t need to own it.  It’s *their* bad, not yours!

As for me, I think there might be a few people I haven’t already told.  I need to get on that.  Later!

A Sweet New Recipe

This is really not a new recipe.  It is a very old recipe and one that I love.  My grandmother would make these for me.  I was going to say she made these for me when I was younger but honestly, I asked for them even as I got older.  My favorite dinner from her was beef and noodles over mashed potatoes and a side of green beans with Scotcheroos for dessert.  Now she’s gone and I’m struggling to make a good beef and noodles dish.  I’m getting pretty close.  My green beans are good most of the time.  As for the Scotcheroos I’ve got those in the bag!  I even make them for my nieces on holidays.  I hope you end up loving them as much as I do.

Scotcheroos

Ingredients:

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of white corn syrup

1 cup of peanut butter (smooth, not crunchy)

6 cups Rice Krispies

1 bag of chocolate chips

1 bag of butterscotch chips

Directions:

1.  Mis sugar and corn syrup together, heat over the stove, and bring to a boil.
2. Add the peanut butter and once that is smoothed in add the Rice Krispies.  Then spread into a buttered 9×13 pan.
3. Melt the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips.  My grandmother always did this on the stove but I put them in a microwave safe bowl and nuke them.  Try 1 minute initially, stir, and then set the timer for 30 seconds until they are completely melted.  Once they are melted stir to mix and then pour over the top of the Rice Krispies.
4. Smooth the chocolate/butterscotch mixture over the top and wait for it to cool. This will take 2-3 hours unless you speed up the process by putting the pan in the refrigerator.

Yum!  Don’t eat the entire pan in one sitting.  Oh what the hell?  They’re easy to make.  Eat up!