30 Days of Truth: Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
Originally, I was going to write this one on November 5th, the next day in my blogging list. This would have been significant to me because it was the day I got married to Matt.
I met Matt through my cousin and her husband. Her hubby was best friends with Matt and they introduced us at their annual Halloween party. I remember meeting him at parties past but not being too impressed with his excessive drunkenness. Red flag #1.
We ended up going back to my apartment after the party and had too much sex and then he decided he liked it enough to see me again. I hadn’t expected anything from him but, after a few weeks, he asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend and actually see each other exclusively. For some reason, I thought that would be a good idea. He moved in shortly thereafter and left his non-running car at his apartment complex. I drove him around a lot. Red Flag #2.
As I got to know him, I heard bits and pieces of why he was an absentee father to his then 7-year-old son. His excuse was that the mother wouldn’t let him see the child because of his partying ways. I told him that if he really loved his son enough, he needed to call the mom every single day and ask to talk to his son – to prove to her that while he may have an active social life, he’s actually stabilizing his life and wanted to be a good father. He halfheartedly tried. Red Flag #3.
For a very long time while I was going to college, we both partied a lot. I never went any further than drinking. Matt insisted on a Guy’s Night Out every Friday, where I was left home alone with nothing to do because most of my friends were married and had young children at home. He would say he would be home by 11 or so. At a quarter past 11, I’d call to see where he was. “I’m going to finish this pitcher and I’ll be on my way.” This went on every 30 minutes until I eventually just cried myself to sleep. He wouldn’t come home until hours after the bars had closed, sometimes he would refuse to answer his cell, and he never had an excuse or an apology. Red Flag #4.
I gave him an ultimatum: Quit drinking or move out of my house. He agreed and we did try a few times to attend AA which, of course, since he didn’t want to quit in the first place, didn’t really work. Red Flag #5. Our new attempts at sobriety worked out quite well for months, or so I thought.
Out of the blue, Matt got fired from work. He was a bill collector at a law firm. He said they were ‘downsizing,’ but I heard him on the phone telling someone he got fired after testing. I knew they had to be tested on federal debt collection law and wondered if perhaps he was fired for failing that test. But he never actually told me he was fired, so I thought maybe his pride was too hurt to be honest with me about it. Red Flag #6. He began working at his cousin’s insurance agency until something better came up.
There were many nights where I would wake up and he was on my computer and if I came out into the office, he’d close the browser. So, like any rational woman would do, I put a keylogger on my computer. Red Flag #7.
I began monitoring his computer usage. I noticed he was instant messaging with Trisha, his ex-fiancee. She had 5 kids with 3 different men, lived hours south of us and was supposedly engaged to another man. Matt had told me that he fell in love with her children while they were together and that he still missed them. The problem was that, after reviewing many of the IMs, he told her he loved her. I was not okay with that, but I couldn’t confront him yet because then he’d know I was spying on his computer usage. So I did what any rational woman would do; I snuck his cell, copied down her number, and sent her a text telling her to leave him alone, that it was totally inappropriate for them to be conversing in such a personal manner. She text me back agreeing. Red Flag #8.
Eventually, he got a job lead. Somewhere between the lengthy interview, hiring, and training process, he told me they changed their minds on hiring a new group. So, of course, I checked the keylogger files. I found many searches worded several different ways but, basically, they were all trying to find out information about cocaine and drug testing. Red Flag #9. He said he found a job working for a different mortgage company his other cousin was involved in, and he began working.
Since I went on high alert at that point, I began asking to take his truck to run errands rather than my old piece of shit truck. That was when I started rifling through his truck (he was messy and kept all his receipts shoved down in the door pockets) to see what I could find each day. I began finding receipts from bars he’d stopped at before he got home. Apparently he was getting off work over an hour earlier than he said and was stopping off at a bar before coming home. I never noticed the alcohol on his breath because I was attending college and working as a tutor, so I was gone most of the time anyway.
I also began looking at his keys, his center console, and the steering column. As a person who used to have a serious, serious coke problem, I know what to look for. I’d seen behavioral changes but, honestly, I think I was in denial. Now, with the physical evidence of the key’s grooves packed thickly with cocaine, there was no way to deny what was happening. Red Flag #9.
This doesn’t even begin to address the fact that we fought with each other all the time when he was drunk and high. I have the scars on my face to prove it. Truth be told, I wasn’t really a ‘victim.’ Yeah, he started it, but I fought back with such force and fury that I was never fully overtaken by him. I’d been in abusive relationships before where I just took it – I wasn’t going down without a serious fight and causing some permanent damage to the other guy. Klassy, no?
I started to pay more attention to what was going on. He’d take more “trips” to run errands. He’d have to “drop off mortgage paperwork” to another agent at late hours. He’d go pick up his brother from 3 blocks down and they’d be gone 4 hours. I finally demanded to go with him one night to “drop off paperwork” and, although he’d spoken to the “agent” 15 minutes prior, when we got there, the “agent” wasn’t home when I told him I wasn’t staying in the truck by myself because of the neighborhood. Come ON. I could hear the other half of the conversation because he was on his cell and I could HEAR IT. I began hacking his email and found the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars of payday loans he’d taken out – and wasn’t repaying. I found out that he had pawned his guitars (one of which I spent an ASSLOAD of money on for him), his amp, some jewelry, and his truck’s stereo (which he replaced with the stock one – his excuse was that it sounded better). RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE!
I knew we had some problems, so we went to a few relationship counselors. He hated all of them because he thought they were siding with me. Basically, he didn’t like being told he needed to walk the straight and narrow and try not to fight dirty (name calling, etc) and try to resolve instead of destroy.
For some reason, throughout all of this, I still thought I could help him through his problem. I thought it was insecurity due to his inability to be the breadwinner of the household – I was a full-time college student with a part-time job and I still made more money than he did – and it was my duty as his girlfriend to help lift him up and help him succeed. Because we were in love. For some reason, I thought marriage would be a good idea.
In retrospect, I’m trying not to dry heave.
We got engaged on a night when we were in his hometown, when he was shitfaced drunk; I had been sleeping due to a migraine partially induced by a fight he’d been having with his brother all night, but he woke me up, drove me out to some remote location on a bluff, proposed with no ring (which my grandmother had selflessly donated to the cause and he’d left it at home – that’s how much he cared), and I accepted. He didn’t even get down on one knee. And, like a fool who never believed she could do any better, I said yes.
The sobriety with alcohol came and went, but I’m pretty certain he was still using. He decided that, since I was stuck, he would go ahead and do whatever he wanted to. He had contributed not one cent to the wedding – I was using my own money for the occasion – and I’d already put down thousands in deposits I would not get back. I was so serious, however, that I gave him the ultimatum and flat-out told him I would boot his ass, have a huge party with great cake and 2 kegs, and carry on with my life Matt-less. He tested that, right up until a month before the wedding.
The last night he got drunk, he was out until all hours at a sports bar known for its cocaine trade. He kept saying he was going to run an errand, but never would leave. He finally left and just never came back. I kept calling his cell but he would either hang up on me or just send me to voice mail. I called a locksmith and had the locks changed. I was done and okay with that choice. The next morning, when I went to leave for school, there was a box on the porch with a note. The note said, “I just wanted to give you this in person, but you wouldn’t let me in. I knew you wanted it, so here’s your wedding present. Enjoy it while you’re alone.” (I’m 100% certain there were misspelled words, and he probably used the wrong form of ‘you’re,’ but that’s just cuz he was an idiot) Inside the box was a black glass vase I’d been eyeing while we were getting our wedding rings sized. I would have been thrilled to pieces to get it, except for the events that took place that night. Oh, and the jewelry store was across the street from that bar. He went to get my motherfucking wedding present and couldn’t even keep himself from going in that goddamned bar.
His present softened me enough to let him come home. And we had no problems for a very, very long time. We got married (I’m pretty sure he was high at the wedding, now that I think about it), I graduated college, began teaching high school, and things seemed to be good for a year or so. We seemed to live a fairly normal life of newlyweds. I was finally able to afford my first new car ever.
Then we decided to buy a house.
His cousin’s mortgage company would help us, he said. In an effort to “do my part,” since he was getting us the deal, I took on two additional jobs besides my full time teaching position to try to earn enough money for everything we needed while he worked overtime following leads in the mortgage industry so that he could begin generating a decent income. I had to pick up the slack for his job that just hadn’t taken off yet.
(oh my GOD – even I’m bored of talking about this now.)
He got me to sign blank mortgage papers because I was so unavailable to meet with people. He was my husband. I trusted him to get us a good deal. He did not. An interest-only ARM with no money down doesn’t sound good to me. But it was signed and done.
Then we had an issue with a box of checks being stolen and used and the bank not wanting to refund the money, and so on and so forth. It was taking forever to get reimbursed.
Then I found out he started taking out payday loans again. Against a paycheck he wasn’t getting. He was falsifying check stubs since he was “working” for his cousin.
So we tried counseling again as a married couple. Three counselors we went through because he hated all of them. I invited him to locate one through his insurance. He claimed his wouldn’t pay for dual counseling. I told him we could pay ours separately through our own insurance and just visit together but, oh no, that wouldn’t work for him. So there you go.
So I guess the stress of everything was getting to him and he started using (or at least picked up speed with it) again. He would come home later than he should have from “work,” go upstairs and “work out” for hours, get on his computer, and wouldn’t come down until who knows when. I didn’t know, because I was passed the eff out asleep from working so much.
Work sent me on a conference 3 hours away for 4 days for training. The night before our last day, Matt called me at midnight or so, freaked out. He said there was something in the attic. He went to open the door to look up in there, and something slammed it down on him as hard as it could and cut his face all up. He sent me a pic message of it. Now, I know full well my house is haunted (every one I’ve ever lived in has had some kind of entity in it), but I’d never had such violence occur before. Come to think of it, I never had bad spirits – angry and violent ones – until Matt came along. But I told him I needed him to take the dogs and go to my parents’ house across the neighborhood and we’d deal with it when I got home. He said okay, I called my parents to tell them he was coming over, but he never showed up.
When I called him back at home, his conversation with me was totally unintelligible. I had no idea what he was trying to say, and he couldn’t remember what he’d said not even two sentences prior. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him, and then phone went dead. He wouldn’t pick up, so I called my dad back and asked him to check on Matt. I knew he was all fucked up on something, but I wanted to make sure he hadn’t died on my couch.
Dad went back, woke him up, and had a very confusing conversation with him as well. He insisted Matt was not drunk, but he knew something was wrong with him.
The next morning, I called Matt. He tried to explain it all away as being drunk but, my non-drinking father didn’t smell anything on him and can smell it a mile away, I knew he was lying. Basically, I told him to be out of my house by the time I got home and to remove nothing but his clothes. I cried a little, I stopped a lot on the way home, and stayed on the phone a lot trying to explain to my friends and family what was going on. And, sure enough, he was gone and everything was still in the house – even most of his clothes.
I began investigating attorneys for a divorce.
Three days after arriving back home to my empty house, our mortgage company called and told me they were foreclosing and I needed to come up with 4 months’ worth of payments. Matt, who was “taking care of all the house-related bills,” had never made a single mortgage payment. And I also found out insurance wasn’t escrowed in, and neither were our taxes.
A barrage of financial crises befell me. My husband wanted to come home. My students were terrible, horrible, no good, very bad kids. My dogs were depressed because I was depressed. My life sucked. Plus, I needed money and Matt said he was earning an income again. So I told him he could come back – on one condition. He had to enter a drug counseling program. I had no intention of staying with him, but my lawyer said if I could convince him to do that and make copies of his enrollment paperwork, he would walk away from the divorce totally empty-handed. So that’s what I did. I let him come back home, too. Less than a week after his enrollment, his truck was repo’d and he had to “quit attending drug counseling” because he couldn’t get there and I refused to let him take my Jeep.
He began using again and became increasingly more violent. He would rifle through everything in the house, trying to prove I was cheating on him and on and on. He was super-paranoid about everything. He threatened to kill the cops who were going to show up when I had to call them on him one night. It was stupid. But I gave him one last chance and told him he could come back and we’d just start all over again fresh if he’d clean it all up. That worked for a few weeks and then I had to kick him out again because of his drunken nights, lying, and not paying his own way.
He was served with papers but refused to sign them – I told him it didn’t matter because it’s Texas: The No-Fault Divorce State. Eventually he came over and signed them, shoved the chair away from the table, and walked out the front door, leaving it wide open. And that was the last I ever saw of him.
But it’s not the last of his ghost. I have suffered financially in every way possible. Even now, I’m still facing foreclosure (over 3 years later), and my credit is shot. There are still people calling me looking for him. I still get mail with his name on it. Hell, I still have people calling me by my old married name, although it was legally changed back. I hate even seeing it. I had to dredge up all that bullshit when I applied for a passport! I’m so over having him affect my life, but it’s never going to end.
I ended up ditching my mother’s side of the family over this. Because of my cousin and her husband and their loose, lying lips. That whole side of the family has nothing better to do than gossip about lies. My cousin and her hubs (best friends with matt, remember) more or less decided keeping Matt as a friend was more important than sticking with family. I didn’t even ask them to pick – they just did it. I should have realized it; Nick was Matt’s coke buddy. All of them – all that side of the family – couldn’t shut the fuck up over any of it. I’m the first to get divorced in the family so, apparently, it’s great after-dinner conversation fodder.
I skipped out on Thanksgiving and spent it in the Caribbean with Troy and his family. I am not attending any Christmas functions with that side of my family at all. I haven’t responded to any of my aunt’s emails. I’m just done. It’s hard, though, because one of my cousins lives 2 blocks from me, and one of my aunts lives 4 blocks from me. But whatever. The awkward passing of vehicles on the streets is a small price to pay.
They claimed to care but, when they found out I threw Matt out, do you think anybody called? Do you think anybody checked on me throughout the separation or divorce process? When my paternal grandmother died, do you think anybody called me? (no, but matt did send me a text telling me he was sorry, that he loved her too. Bullshit. And, how did he find out?!) When I had to put down my elderly dog I’d had for 11 years, do you think anybody called? And my mother had informed them of all of it. Fuck them. That’s not family.
My mother saw her sisters a few weeks ago and they were telling her all about Matt, and how he was about to get married and that his girlfriend was about to have their baby any day and my mom asked why they felt she needed to know about it. Their reply: “Well, he IS Angie’s ex-husband.” My mother said, “Yeah, but that’s just the point: EX. There’s no reason for her to care about any of it.”
But my mom told me anyway, and it pissed me off. I got really, really, really angry. I knew he wanted more kids deep, deep down inside, although he said it was okay if we didn’t. I knew he was with a woman he’d known since high school. I DON’T CARE. I’M STILL CLEANING UP HIS MOTHERFUCKING MESS, AND HE DOESN’T DESERVE TO BE HAPPY YET!
I’ve managed to write almost 3500 words about this asshole. I’ve spent so much time trying to fix everything he fucked up, and things I had to neglect while barely managing to hold on. The roundabout thing here is that I know I need to forgive him for it but I can’t. He has caused me so much misery and ruin. I had a hard time in relationships for a very long time and, hell, even now I have trust issues and second-guess everything Troy tells me and analyzes whether or not he’s telling me the truth and calculating timetables in my head and, sometimes – but not often – I catch myself counting odometer miles and matching them up with his accounts of his day. It’s sad, sad, sad. So yeah, Matt’s bullshit has had far-reaching consequences on me, at least.
I need to forgive, but I can’t. A really big, big part of me still hopes he dies an untimely, painful death for all the trouble he’s caused me and my family.
The End! (finally)
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