Wow! Who’d of thought my life could change with such UMPH???

After 8 yrs of supporting my husband after his stroke, he started yelling “divorce” and he physically attacked our son. Even though G’s 27 now, he stays with us and supports us because there is a modicum of need within a family who has experienced STROKE. G fought back and it was ugly. I told Steve I wanted him out. I found him a place he could afford and moved him into it.

A friend was going to move in with us, she was in need of a caregiver who would let her die at home. I said I would do it and plans went into motion. She started realizing she wouldn’t be able to re-establish the specialty care she needed. Steve was insisting I sell the house. My friend asked if I would come there instead. Honestly, since DIVORCE was the ultimate goal, and Steve was the one motivated to sell the house, I told C yes. I would come. Let Steve stay in the house and sell it since he hates the town so much.

So Steve moved back into the house, and my friend came to get ME with a U-Haul trailer, and G and I moved with 2 dogs and 2 cats, across country, to Texas. I left our oldest 2 dogs with Steve. Then, just as we passed through Atlanta, I got a call saying my oldest (20) granddaughter had died. I didn’t know what to do. I was driving my car with my son in it and 2 dogs. All my things were in the trailer along with my 2 cats in front of me. I called C to tell her and she refused to talk to me. I don’t know how I finished the drive to TX. It’s really a total blur.

I got there and had to turn around and fly out for the funeral. I was gone for 4 days total. When I got back, things seemed ok. (I should have taken the clue when C told me I had to make sure my family knew they could only call me after business hours. I told her I wouldn’t do that. My daughter needed her mother because her daughter had just died, I’d also left Steve without setting up his online shopping ability) I had to hustle to do things exactly as C needed/wanted them done. I insisted I had to stop working at 1 am and she got upset with me. I went to bed anyway. I had hit a wall. She was actually working G in the yard. She had him moving timbers, putting down pavers, and rearranging 12, 70lb grates. Then she had him loading bricks and lining the fence bottom with them. It’s not like he couldn’t do it, but landscaping had not been mentioned as part of ‘my/our duties. Inside, I was shifting my things from totes to closets, unpacking as best I could. C’s stove wasn’t working so we had my Instant Pot for cooking. She bought a second freezer. We shopped for a stove which was a nightmare due to back ordering of 3 separate ones and delivery problems. As the month progressed, we were not getting on as she’d expected. G was not working. The animals were bothering her. I was ok, G was ok, and C was rearranging our ‘order of things. We had a scheduled work day and lists of to-do’s that constantly changed and grew. G and I dealt with what we had to deal with.

I could put all the steps she went through as she thought out how to do everything, but since nothing worked like she wanted, by the middle of June, she decided we had to go. I was blindsided because I honestly didn’t see it coming. Her decision was based on my A.D.D., disabilities, my paying for G’s Fiber Internet, his not having a job, and my uncontrollability. I guess I didn’t realize how weak she was feeling. She hid it well. Then she said GET OUT. I had no money, no WAY to move us out. I also refused to move without my son, pets, and ‘stuff. Any thought I added to a conversation was called bickering and arguing. I try to look back and evaluate my participation in the situation, and it all comes down to how I should have known better than to leave a paid-off house and move states away from everybody and leave everything behind, to help someone I’d known for 6 months.

The situation got so weird over the next month. I asked my oldest daughter if she could help me financially. What she gave me, while generous, wasn’t enough. I told C I needed her help as well since she was pushing so hard for us to get out. I found an apartment, got Boomer registered as a service animal, paid pet deposits, and signed a lease. My credit and G’s credit took big hits because we’d changed our accounts to be on hers (at her insistence). She put me on accounts with her, then closed the accounts. She literally began acting like I was trying to hurt her. She threw a fit over ME opening a jar of pickles. Then she took every pickle and quartered them, putting them back into the jar. She moved a mini fridge into her bedroom saying it was so she could have water close to her at night, then she stayed up all that night moving almost all of the food from the pantry into her bedroom. She was not who she had presented herself to be. I really think she was suffering from oxygen deprivation. Her lung capacity was at 25/20%. How could that not be an issue?

Anyway. My kids all thought I should go back to NC but to do that, I’d have to move back in with Steve. He wanted (still wants) me back as his wife. That wasn’t even an option. After 30 yrs, I want a divorce.

So… here we are, stepping out, and building over, in Texas. A place I always said, “Only God could get me to Texas.” Today, I know I was wrong. My stupidity could get me to Texas. And so we ‘walk forward…

Our apartment is tiny. I tell myself I’ve always wanted a tiny house. It is on the second floor. Pray for my knees, please. G found a ‘work-from-home’ job. He needed that. His pay is less than he wants, but the company has wonderful benefits. It’s not one that will provide him overtime pay, and that’s a hit, but he’s happy doing it. Boomer is such a good boy. He’s not really an apartment dog. He was supposed to have a yard. My new doctor did write me a letter prescribing him for me as my service dog. She also wrote a note for me saying G is MY primary caregiver. We are second on the list for low-income housing. I’m hoping Steve sells the NC house and THEN G and I will decide where we want to be. In the meantime, this will do. We are a little worse for wear, but nothing we can’t recover from.

I met another neighbor today – he lives on the other side of me, on the bottom. I just gave him the baby gates we had in storage. He’s rescued a gray merle, border collie-aussie mix and she’s still house training. Good use for them 🙂

And that’s that. Probably 2 yrs’ worth of blogging lol I am almost at filing time for my divorce. Steve and I will probably always be friendlyish – just not married. I also kinda expect G and I to move north-er before all is said and done. One more move for me and I’m done.