Divorce (a repost)

This is a semi-repost. I've deleted some stuff that had nothing to do with the story (it was written for a specific person to read and I've just deleted the stuff that mentions that person).

Rhea over at Texas Word Tangle and a few others have requested my divorce story, so here it is.

I met my ex when I was 21 in a bar in New Orleans. He was a Marine. 'Nuff said.





Oh, you want more?

We met, fell in lust, made a baby, got married, got divorced.

That's the short story.





Oh, you still want more?

We met in a bar in downtown N'awlins and discovered we really, really dug each other. I actually had been hooking up with his roommate that night...well, I was really hooking up with both of them, but when it came time to give up the old phone number, I chose my ex. He kissed better.

We got to talking and dating and somehow fell into a relationship. I had never been in a serious relationship before and I thought I loved him but in retrospect, I didn't. Not really. I did have strong feelings for him.

We weren't the most careful when it came to sex and well, you can guess what happened next.

We met on Mother's Day and I discovered I was pregnant by July. It turns out, we probably made light of my life on my birthday. How cool is that? I felt something was wrong since I had missed my period at least once and I am like clockwork when it comes to stuff like that.

I went to the doctor (who stupidly asked me why I needed a pregnancy test...ummm...because I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant?) who confirmed via phone a few days later, that yes, indeed, I was pregnant.

After the initial "Oh, shit" moment, I called my ex and told him over the phone. We knew it was a possibility and he was pretty cool about the whole thing.

We had the big discussion on marriage vs. waiting. I knew I was going to keep the baby (abortion wasn't an option, not because I'm against it, but because I wanted to keep the baby) but I wasn't sure about keeping the ex.

My parents are divorced and I wasn't 100% on board with marriage as an institution. Due to the hormonal flow and criticism from outsiders, I "fell" for his line of taking a leap of faith and trusting that marriage and kids was what he really wanted.

We got married in the courthouse when I was 5 months pregnant. I remember the day of my wedding, I wanted to back out. It took 20 minutes of convincing before I gave in...again.

We got married and about 2 months later, he drove his car into a canal while drunk. His car was totaled and he was upside down on his loan. He was a total shit about the whole thing. The night of the accident, he was crying and blubbering that he was so sorry and he was so afraid of disappointing his PARENTS...not me, his very pregnant wife, but his PARENTS whom he hadn't lived with in years. So, now he was dependent on me to get him to work, stores, etc....About a month after that, I discovered he was e-mailing and "talking" to his ex from high school.

About 2 months after that (the month I was due), I was on the computer one day under his user name (this was before I knew much about computers and found it easier to just go in under the last user name instead of logging in under mine) and I/he got an IM from his local ex that was still in HIGH SCHOOL and she asked him out for lunch. I didn't pussyfoot around and flat out told her that this was his wife using the computer and she then said "Oh, well, you can come, too!". I told her it was inappropriate for her to ask my husband out to lunch and I then logged off. I confronted him about this and he just blew it off as them still being friends. This was yet another big sign of things to come. The first being the drunk driving incident.

After I gave birth to our beautiful baby, he decided to spend his 10 days of paternity leave FIXING A F**KING COMPUTER instead of helping me with a newborn. Eh, hmmm.....perchance this is yet ANOTHER sign of things to come?

About 5 weeks after I gave birth, we had a discussion about our marriage and he didn't want to work on it. At all. Period. Since you can't force a person to counseling, I decided to allow him to stay in the house until he could find a place to live. Maybe this would give us a chance to work on the marriage. Yeah, well, that weekend he decided to spend the WHOLE night out with his EX that was still in HIGH SCHOOL!

I pretty much kicked his ass out ASAP.

Anyway, we proceeded with the divorce. He kept fighting for custody and making me pay more and more money to my attorney to respond to his "requests" while he had a free attorney provided by the military. He couldn't even bother to show up for our divorce and custody hearing. He had gotten out of the Marines about a month before the hearing and his OWN attorney couldn't even find him. His attorney was asking MY attorney where HIS client was!

My daughter has never met her father. The last time he had any contact with her was when she was 6 months old. No card, presents, phone calls, visits, etc....since then.

Not even after Hurricane Katrina. Which we went through (a WHOLE other story that you guys already know about).

All that heartache and trouble and money could have been saved if I would only have lied and told him that I wasn't pregnant and broken up with him shortly after (which was my FIRST instinct that I should have listened to).

That's it in a nutshell.

Any questions?

Later,