time marches on

#1 and I fought...a lot. I wanted/needed more attention than he could give me. How much attention can an addict give another person. Really? He didn't like to be touched. If I snuggled up to him in bed he would tell me he didn't like his chest to be touched or he'd comment on what a "slut" his friends had told him I was. I learned not to initiate sex or touch too much. Eventually, my needs would lead to a fight. They would become demands and begging and threats to take the kid and leave. Deep down I knew that sex didn't equal love, but sex was the attention I had gotten from males my whole life, so to me it was the only attention I deserved and if this person who CLAIMED to love me didn't want me sexually, then my whole world came crashing down on me. And I would cry and beg and threaten.

We'd separated for a few months during my pregnancy. We'd gone to live with my parents. My father had disowned me when he found out I was pregnant. My mother told us we could move in. This was a BAAAAD idea from the get-go. We had dogs & my parents said, no dogs. We were unemployed & underemployed and starting a family, we could stay with them just to get on our feet. He started working for them. BAAAAD idea number two! Eventually it all got to be too much and he took off to get his dogs and move in with some guy he'd met somewhere. I was welcomed to do as I pleased, but the child I was carrying was his. After about a month he  moved out with the guy and went back to his father's home, 1000+ miles away from me. Asked me to move with him. Life with my parents was miserable, constantly hearing how I'd fucked up. My pregnancy was miserable, I had morning sickness all the time. I left and went to him.

Life at his father's house was nightmarish. His father was a drunk. Stumbling, muttering, sometimes scary drunk. #1 left me home alone a lot. He worked or went out with friends to get drunk or high or both. I was left in this cramped railroad apartment with his judgmental sister or drunken father. So I begged to go out with him. 7 months pregnant & hanging out in a smoke filled cocaine & beer inspired room with the father of my unborn child & his friends. Sometimes I would just take off and go into the city to stay with a friend of mine. No word to anyone about where I was going. He would find me and beg or threaten me to come back. I always did.

When our child was born, we moved out of his father's place and into our own cramped quarters. It was better, but not by much.

I'd like to add, as a side note, that I was in labor for over a day & although he wasn't allowed in the delivery room with me, he stayed at the hospital until our child was born and made all the phone calls to family & friends. He was so excited, the nurses thought he was adorable! Then he promptly went out with friends and did massive amounts of coke to celebrate the birth of his child.