Well, here I sit again, alone, in the middle of the night, staring at a computer screen and a glass of Jameson. This is becoming a little too regular, but not bad, I can easily go nights without a drink, and most of the time I either do not even think about one or just do not want one. In any case, it has been, what, a couple years since my last blog here? So what all has changed? Well...
Where do I really start?
My work life:
My last real blog post was from Afghanistan, I believe. So what happened with that? Well, I met some awesome people, and a couple cool bomb sniffing dogs, came home, moved to Connecticut, and life began again for me. I felt like this was some sort of rebirth for me, a chance for me to start a life finally past all of my old bullshit, past the alcoholism and trips to the VA. This was going to be my reset button, and I have to say I was correct.
I moved there, and the next day I had landed a job as a Volkswagen technician, doing a job I enjoy on cars that I like and know. I spent nine months doing this, while living in this decently cool standalone studio loft apartment. Very bachelor-paddy, hard wood floors, little kitchen, big entertainment center. There I was, working what turns out is a horrible career, with little pay and a lot of stupid crap, sometimes I could sit on my ass for hours on end. I was making shit money living in one of the most expensive areas in the country, and my troubles began again.
My credit became, once again, a fucking dis
aster. I feel incredibly moronic for letting it get back down there after all the work I did to fix it. However, I really couldn’t blame anything but myself, I made the choices to move here, to work there doing that job. My relationship was, at the time, doing pretty well. We had some laughs, a few drinks, and some wild sex, almost nightly for months. So life wasn’t all that bad.
I found myself maxing out my credit card, which eventually got dropped, trying to keep up with everything. I knew in order for my life to go somewhere, anywhere for that matter, I would need a change. A serious change. The answer had been sitting in front of my face the whole time, I was technically still in my military obligation period. Although I was out, I was technically in the ready reserves, and with a simple form could go into the actual reserves, and change my job. I found a unit on the other end of NYC, with a position open as an information technology specialist. I like computers, although mine was a POS, I figured that seems like something that could help me, so back to the military I went.
Within two months I was hanging out in South Carolina, taking a nine week crash course in military IT, learning operating systems, security practices, routing systems, protocols for days, and enough power point to choke a stegosaurus, but I made it through, second highest graduate somehow. When I returned home, I was ready to leave the mechanic world behind me, and move on to something I can actually do. I began dropping applications everywhere there was an opening, and after seven interviews with no follow up calls, I started to lose hope again. Then I got a call for a contractor position doing basic IT work at a local corporate office, crap pay, but steady, no benefits. I figured it can’t get much worse, and I was still expecting a no. I had already called my old manager at VW to arrange a meet to get my job back. At the interview, I was asked what sets me apart, to which I answered “I’m entertaining.” I was hired two hours later.
That was two years ago, I have been picked up from contracting and am a full employee, already awaiting my first year anniversary as an employee to get my promotion. I already have two people working under me, which is awesome. I make better money, and my career is going well. On top of that, in 8 weeks I will finish my Bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems, and a week later I will be starting my Master’s in Cyber Security. I found a job I am good at, one I love doing, and one that makes money. Credit is coming back up, money in the savings, and some invested. Plus, I am now a sergeant at a new unit closer to home.
Now for the home life…..
This is where it gets interesting. Two years ago, I started a new career, was having sex multiple times a week, and had a bright future. Today, well….
So here’s the issue. We have a child now, my son Devlin, who is the world to me. I could have the worst day ever, want to kill everyone I look at on my drive home, but the second I walk in the door and see his smile, I become the happiest man alive. Unfortunately, only he makes me happy.
To sum it up, I have had sex three times since the New Year. The 2014 New Year. 18 months.
So let’s see what is happening. We got into a fight a while ago, before she got pregnant. I was upset that she all but lived in my home, but didn’t lift a finger for anything. She also had some other issues with the State that I told her she needed to take care of. I was tired of hearing her parents complain about her inability to clean up after herself after her one hour a day at home. I also found out that she doesn’t pay any of her bills, her parents do. So every time she would pay for dinner to do something nice for us, or whenever she helped me with a bill, it was her parents doing it. I spoke up and said that I cannot be with someone who is so dependent, and also lazy. Her answer, if we move in, I can show you I can take care of myself. So we did.
Where are we at now? First of all, what I do. I wake up at 7 am, at work by around 8, leave at 5:30. If we need groceries, I go to the store. Cigarettes, coffee, you name it, I take care of it. I get home, and take the boy from her and head upstairs to change. I play with him for an hour or so before she decides she’s hungry and wants me to get food. At which point I either cook or call for takeout. Then I go get the takeout. I get home with food or serve my cooking, then take the boy from her so she can eat. When she finishes, she goes to the bathroom for a ten minute smoke, at which point I head upstairs and change Devlin’s diaper and onesie, and get him ready for bed. Around 9, she it upstairs, and putting him to sleep. They co-sleep, so she needs to be there. I head downstairs, eat a cold dinner I paid for, clean up everything, and pick up all of the boy’s stuff so I can let the ferrets run around. Around 10 or so, I get to start school work. Typically between midnight and one, I get to go to bed. Devlin always wakes up at about one, so when he does, I pick him up and spend the next twenty minutes getting him back to bed. Lay down, sleep repeat.
One weekend a month I have drill, I wake up Saturday at 4 am, go to work, and repeat for Sunday. When I do not have drill, she has work. Since she sleeps next to him, this is where it gets interesting. When I leave for work, they are both fast asleep. I take my clothes into the bathroom when I awake so I won’t wake him. So she wakes up at 6am, twenty minutes later, he wakes up, and my day starts. These are the best days I have, a whole day with my son. We go for walks, play with his blocks, and somewhere in the middle of it all, I clean the whole house. The only home chore I do not do regularly is laundry. She gets home at about 6, pumps, smokes, then takes the boy, at which point we start with the food and its normal from there. Bed after midnight, wake up at 620am, repeat. Then the work week.
What does she do? Wakes up daily around 9am with the boy, cleans nothing, including her own coffee cups, maybe does the laundry, then complains about how tired and exhausted she is to me. I understand the boy can be a handful, but do not tell me about your exhaustion when half of your day is spent on the couch. I would like to emphasize this, right not, 1135pm, her coffee cup from this morning is in the bathroom, sitting there next to the sink and her ash tray. This is daily. If I were test anything in the cleaning supply cabinet for prints, hers would be absent. I cannot stress this enough, she does not know how to use our vacuum, she does not do any cleaning.
In terms of adulthood… She lost insurance on the boy awhile back. We got charged 1200 in February for his shots and checkup in January. She lost the insurance due to failure to pay, officially dropped in December, and did not find out until February. Her excuse? I thought I set up automatic payments? How can you not notice a couple hundred dollar NOT missing from your account each month? When we moved in we agreed to split bills, I pay the 1800 rent, she pays the electric and cable. So since moving in we lost cable once and electric twice. I now pay those.
Now it gets fun. She is a back seat driver from hell, but I deal because I can let is all slide. However, where it gets weird is this: I will make a turn down a road, when I could go straight and turn down the next road. I then get to hear 5 minutes of “why did you urn here?” and a long explanation about why I should’ve turned further up, always followed up with “just saying.” At this point I am slightly annoyed, but not angry, just annoyed that someone could literally complain for five minutes about something completely inconsequential. She asks if I am annoyed to which I answer “a bit.” At this point, she gets pissy, gives me an attitude, and proceeds to respond to everything I say with “whatever.” This occurs with anything I do that she does differently, to include how I boil hot dogs. Same reaction, her giving me attitude, even though I am making dinner WHILE holding the boy so she can relax. I do not understand this.
She does not kiss me. She does not hug me. I have reached the point where instead of just giving a couple kisses (which are not reciprocated) and making sexual gestures, I flat out say “we are having sex tonight” and “put him to sleep and come downstairs naked.” She now calls me by my first name, no more babe or anything. The last time we did have sex, after I went down on her for five minutes, she gave me the most pathetic hand job with lube, like I was getting a happy ending after a massage. I feel like she only does any of this because she feels obligated.
To recap…. I get no sex, I work all week and some weekends, I do ALL of the cleaning in the house, pay ALL of the bills minus her cell phone, eat a cold dinner EVERY night, and somehow find time to work on educating myself to better my family’s future. When I bring up bills, she complains about her boss not giving her clients, or the time of the year being bad for business, and blames these things for her lack of finances, not the fact that she dropped out of high school and gave the GED her middle finger.
I understand the way I have treated past relationships, and I suppose karma has caught up, and multiplied. Anytime something new comes around to deal with, she just passes it onto me. She wants a new car, a family car, something in the range of 30K, and still won’t work more than 6 days a month, or get a real job. So clearly, I will have to pay for the car.
For mother’s day, I got a funny card, had Devlin smack it a few times with a pen so he “signed” it. I placed it next to her Keurig, with roses and stuffed animals, and set out her k-cup, her sugar and cup. Roses were also in the bathroom sink, lying next to a Pandora bracelet I spent two hours building. One section is for her, her birth stone, her lucky symbol, and a skull. Another section is me, and the biggest section is Devlin, and it cost me about 400 dollars. Two weeks later, I am lying in bed at night with Devlin fully asleep with me. She walks in, sees this, and then proceeds to tell me that I need to take care of the diaper genie. Remind you, the baby is asleep on my chest. I knew then that she expects me to do everything for her, and gets angry when I do not do things the way she does them. I cannot continue like this.
But I have a son who is 9 months old, and I am trying to move him closer to my family in PA, maybe just outside Philly. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Drink a drink, vent somewhere, pick up the fucking baton and carry the fuck on. Until I am in PA, and she lands a job, and he is old enough to be able to handle the separation, but young enough not to think it’s his fault. I am thinking 2? Feedback, anyone?
