Swish. Swish.

Tucker and I talked about marriage all the time and when he would make love to me sometimes he would look into my eyes and call me his wife. When we made love and I actually wanted to, it was wonderful.  Even wonderful doesn’t cover it, I suppose.  It transported me. It made me feel like we belonged together.  When we were just making love and nothing else weird was involved then it was precious to me.  I would cry when I climaxed from the sheer joy.  It’s one of those things that made me think I shouldn't be without him, along with the money and the how the fuck am I going to make all this better?

When we were alone together especially in bed, I had that feeling that we did belong together.  All the other shit just didn’t seem to make a difference.  The kids, the money, the accounts, the no vehicle…none of it mattered.  It just felt like it wiped away all that stuff when we held each other.  Maybe he was just so good at holding things in the balance and maybe he loved me as much as he could love anyone.  I don’t really know but at the time I felt completely loved, at least at those moments and they seemed worth the tradeoffs.   I guess I thought all the thousands of dollars he had flowing in and flowing out would eventually stay in and that we’d all be happy and set.  He told me that’s what would happen often enough and I so much wanted to believe it.

He used it against me.  He knew when I was at the breaking point and then chose that time to wrap me up and tell me he loved me, to adore and worship me.  I craved that and he knew it. Shortly after I got “my” new truck, Tuckerette’s truck was starting to act up.  Tucker got the brilliant idea to take it down and trade it in for another for her.  I was picked up from work and promptly taken to a tote the note dealership where I found Tuckerette waiting with a new truck.  All they needed was for me to co-sign the note since I was the only one there with a real job.  There, in front of me, were many sets of eyes expectantly waiting for me to sign my life away yet again. 

I took Tucker to the side, “She needs to go to work and be responsible for making those payments before I’m signing anything. We can’t afford another payment not to mention the insurance.” She had been living with us and doing little to nothing else except asking for money up to that point and I wasn’t about to pay her insurance and truck note when I had nothing to drive. 

Tucker shushed me, I mean God forbid we hurt her feelings.  “It’s all handled; just sign the papers, Sugar.” He knew what it did to me when he called me Sugar. 

I knew better, I so knew better.

I signed those papers and not only was I a co-signer; I was a co-owner because that’s the only way they could work it out. 

I told them both as we left the lot, “I will not hesitate to take the damn truck and drive it for my own if you don’t get a job and start making payments.”  Of course they both looked at me like I was a complete bitch but I just didn’t care. 

The next day much to my surprise Tuckerette got a job; a good job at that.  I told her that her dad and I would be more than happy to give her spending money if she were taking care of her responsibilities. 

She was shiny and happy and enthusiastically agreed with me, “I’ll do it, I promise.  I know it’s hard enough around her without me doing my part.”

She made exactly one half of one insurance payment.

That’s it…and Pops had nothing to say about it. Of course he didn’t because the other thing that I come to realize was that he was steadily trying to buy his children’s love.  He had been separated from them during his unfortunate incarceration and if he showered them with whatever they wanted then they would stay by his side and love and adore him.

When I had mentally whipped myself into a frenzy one day, I cornered him yet again. “I’m sick of being afoot and it’s not fucking fair that I am the only one going to work every day and I don’t have a goddamn vehicle.  I’ve got TWO trucks with my name on the titles and I don’t drive either of them!”

To which Tucker replied with the next phase of my isolation. My friends and family were already holding me at a distance because they could not understand this twisted relationship I sought to keep in a death grip.   You see, a sociopath will understand your weakness and exploit it maximally.  He will seek to charm you, hold you, love you while he deceives you and then remove slowly everything that makes you independent from him. Making no sudden moves but subtly sweeping each little piece away. Swish. Swish.

He told me he was sick of me leaving him every day to go to work too.  He said that he wanted me to be with him instead of us being separated all the time.  He declared his undying love yet again and I started to think.  Why should I keep going to work when everyone else wasn’t? I could ride horses all day and even take some in to make money instead of having to do it PLUS the office. I’d have more time to work on school and be there when my kids got off the bus every day. When summer time showed up I could stay with the kids instead of worrying about daycare.  It would be awesome.  Yes indeed that sounded like a great idea! I know what you’re thinking. It’s too late to kick my ass now.  I did it. 

  I quit my job.   Swish. 

I Don't Know

I gave up on my personal life being my own anymore.  I tried desperately to figure out what would make any of this shit better.  I decided that I would try to improve my professional standing during all of this personal drama and applied for a position at work. I got an interview and my qualifications and work history recommended me for it so I thought I had a very good shot.  It seemed at the time that I managed to excel at my work because it was the only escape I had from the rest of my life.  After a nerve wracking interview and agonizing waiting, the job was given to someone that has a tenth of my experience and a twentieth of my professionalism but who was the proud owner of an Associate’s Degree.  A. Fucking. Associate’s. Degree.   I was beyond crestfallen. I felt so hopeless.  I had NEVER gone on an interview and not gotten the job.  I thought that this would be the springboard to freedom with a higher paying salary. I had already counted my money up from the raise.
 I’m trying to convey to you the desperation that led me to my next decision but it’s not working so I’ll just tell you, I decided to get my degree. 

Now my days went something like this. 

Get up at 5:30.

Get a shower

Get the kids up with some semblance of breakfast

Ensure that they made it on the bus

Wake whoever up that was going to take me to work that day

Or

Take the stinking ass truck to work and then it would be picked up later

Or

I would take my break or my lunch break to go and pick Tucker up so that he could drop me back off.

He wasn’t an early riser you see and his waking early was out of the question.

Work all day with numerous interruptions and phone calls to run to the bank, call the bank, look up directions and give them over the phone yadda yadda yadda.

Get off work at 5, wait for my ride

Change into barn clothes

Grab the kids

Go to barn, saddle horses, ride horses, unsaddle and groom, feed horses and calves after I’ve waited interminably for Tucker to get done roping with all the 1800 yahoos that he has out at the barn. 

Get everyone loaded and get home at roughly 9pm…cook supper…do dishes…do a load of laundry.

Get the kids bathed and in bed.

Go to bed and perform before I can go to sleep.

So tell me where the hell I thought I had time for college in all this?

I picked online college so that I could at least try and keep up. My newest incarnation of the brilliant plan included getting a degree so that I would not be passed over for any more promotions at work ….um just two long years later.  Wow.  I’m smart. In any case, it was part of my master plan.  I was never going to get ahead without a degree and it was time at 37 to figure out how to do it. 

I had one desktop computer in the living room I had to share with everyone but I still used it.  I started school. I did well. I mean of course I did.  Have you met me?  Even with the screaming kids and the TV blaring and having to cook supper and do dishes and laundry and feed horses and ride horses and haul feed and work full time and everything else.  I managed it.  I sort of blocked everything out except what I had to do and soldiered on day after day.  I was taking 2 classes every 5 ½ weeks.  It set a brutal pace with papers and tests and lectures and discussion groups and my resolve and doggedness began to slip. 

I started to just get sick all the time, my stomach hurt, I had colds, I was just ill.  I finally went to the doctor one day after I just couldn't function any longer.  My ears hurt, my stomach was heaving, I was congested and miserable.  I was weak and tired but couldn't sleep comfortably.  He told me I had an upper respiratory infection, two ear infections and very likely a stress induced ulcer.  He he sat me in comfy recliner in a darkened room after giving me a breathing treatment and had the nurse hook me up for a liter of IV fluids and some anti-nausea medicine. They tucked a warm blanket around me and said to call someone to come get me. I called Tucker and told him he’d have to wait awhile longer and then come in and get me when I was done.  He didn’t want to come inside.
You see Tucker could sell religion to the Pope or smooth talk you out of your panties, but he HATED groups of people or new situations. I should have let this be another warning.  He was a puss when it came to stuff like this and it showed his weakness.  Lots of people are shy or phobic but the fact that he refused to come into the doctor’s office to get me and get me to the truck alright showed how little he cared to overcome anything in order to see to my wellbeing. I have a fear of stepping anywhere outside my comfort zone but I slept in little better than a chair for most of a month by his side while he was in the hospital.  I talked to countless strangers and doctors and nurses and washed his ass when he couldn’t.  I went above and beyond to care for him and stepped way the fuck outside any comfort zone I had previously set for myself to do what he needed and demanded. I was a little pissed but the medicine they had given me was making me fuzzy and I had no comeback for him. I snapped my phone shut and just laid back.

The doctor came in and sat in a chair across from me.  Are you feeling a little better?” He looked genuinely concerned with his eyebrows all squinched together and I remember thinking I must really be sick because he looks anxious.

“I am, actually.” I pulled the blanket around me and said, “This is cozy and I feel relaxed and not puky anymore.”  He reached over and patted my hand and asked if anyone was out front that he could bring in to sit with me. I told him that my fiancée was in the parking lot and didn’t want to come in but that I’d go out to meet him when I was all done.

He asked why he was still in the parking lot and did he need to go out and get him. I sat up and said, “No. Just leave him be…he won’t come in here.”

He sat back in his chair as if literally taken aback and said, “Well then why is he your fiancée?”

All of everything in me that shouted and railed against everything I continued to let that man get away with cheered the good doctor at that moment. Why indeed?  Why was I letting my health, my mental health and my financial health be ruined by this excuse for a man? For the sake of money? For the sake of a clean getaway?

I looked at the good doctor then and blinked and blinked again and simply said, “I don’t know.”

Quitting

It’s so hard now to figure out when I started to give up completely.  I had surrendered control but I hadn’t begun the mad decline into depression, medication, overeating, sleeping and only doing what I had to do to get by.  I sort of rallied for a bit but I know it’s in the next two years that I turn into a lump...a breathing, existing lump.

I’m stranded.  I have no car. My house is overrun with these people.  My son’s emotional development would have been tough without the added drama and now it looks seriously in danger.   I’m wracking my brain continuously.  Crafting, shaping, and honing a plan that constantly changes and I can’t ever get a handle on where to start.  It’s my birthday around this time, Happy fucking Birthday to me and it’s also the 2 year anniversary of having met Tucker.  I met him on my birthday.  How’s that for a kick in the pants?

Stranded

Following our mini-meltdown, Tucker was solicitous, sweet, kind and thoughtful, loving even.  It seemed to rekindle the feelings and atmosphere we’d had at the beginning of our relationship; the kind words, the phone calls for no reason, the hot and sweet sex.  It was even better now because he was telling me he loved me and I was effectively ignoring my ever present tingly Spidey Sense.

In the beginning, I had longed for it and never heard it and now I was swimming in protestations of love.  He was asking my opinion and permission to use the accounts and the debit card.  He was making sure I was included. Of course, I was only included in what he wanted me to know. 

I really loved his children and it wasn’t their fault he spoiled them horribly.  They actually behaved and were sweet when he wasn’t around. Things seemed to be so much more like a life I wanted.  My bills were being paid my ME when I wanted them to be paid.  My son was happy less pissed and my daughter always went with the flow.  Harlow was my sweet little candy girl and the most trouble I had with her was a pseudo sibling rivalry with her Tucker’s younger Tuckerette.  

Tucker had taught me to rope calves and I had been practicing and learning on an old mare that wouldn’t even back into the box.  I had to run the calves out beside the box and chase them down the arena, but I was getting good.  One day I came to the barn and there was a beautiful gray gelding there.