Anyone's red flags going up yet? Apparently not mine. It dawned on me that it was totally wrong of #1 to go out and do massive amounts of coke and get his drunk on in celebration of the birth of a child. But again, we were young, I was half through my 21st year and he, a year younger. Yeah yeah, back in "Little House on the Prairie" days people were grandparents at that age & had plenty of responsibility, but we're talking late '80s here and I was a spoiled, albeit neglected, rotten brat & he was raised by a drunk. I never refer to his father as an alcoholic but rather a drunk. It's mean, I guess, but tough shit. I'm still working on that whole "empathy" thing with addicts/alcoholics. For some I absolutely have it, but for others, whose disease has effected my life in such a negative way, well, like I said, I'm working on it.
So instead of being totally incensed about the celebration, I kinda shrugged it off. Yes, if memory serves me I did get kinda pissed, but I didn't give an ultimatum. I had no ultimatums to give. I had a child now and no job and no place to go. I had left my parents without telling them I was leaving. I left a note & had a friend drop me at the bus. Hey, I was an adult, my life was my choice. My father was back on the "you're disowned" bandwagon and my mother told me if she thought the child wasn't getting everything it needed, she would take me to court. So here I was, in my baby-daddy's drunken father's home alone with an infant while the baby-daddy was out doing his drunken/high thing. Yes, he worked, I would have to say that for him. He was a very functioning addict. So instead of putting my foot down & saying, "grow the fuck up", I nagged until we got our own place. Then I nagged and begged and threatened to get him to quit.
Our child was around two years old when we decided to get married & make it official. He was still using, just not as much. He worked too much to get drunk and switched from coke to smoking pot. Pot, that's not so bad.
As the years went on we coexisted. I said I loved him. He said he loved me. We fought a lot. We had the same issues in our 6th year together that we had in our first. So we had another child. He was pretty much sober, or as sober as he could/would be. And he wouldn't allow his father around the kids when he was drunk and wouldn't allow him around them alone. Things had happened when he was drunk & playing with our first child. He couldn't differentiate between her laughing or when she was screaming in pain because he was actually hurting her while playing. I would calmly point this out to #1 while it was happening. "You might want to tell your father to stop because the kid is screaming in pain, not laughing." After a bit, I think it really got on #1's nerves. Plus he loved that kid SO much, to see her in pain was out of the question.
So partially sober. Second child born. #1 in his glory. But things start to slip. It's too much for him. He's working some 80 hours/week, I'm home with the kids. He needs to burn off aggression so he starts hanging out with a hardcore band and is their UNofficial roadie. He is gone whenever he's not working. Overnights some times. Leaves me with two kids in a more desolate part of town with no means of transportation. He starts doing coke again, other things.
I decide we have to move. Back closer to my family. I have more or less mended fences. My father still doesn't quite like me but he does kinda love me, in his own way, but he absolutely loves the kids. If I get #1 away from these people, he'll be a good father & husband and love me like he really should.
Yeah RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!
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