Happily Separated! Part 2

In 2016, my interests changed and so did his but I noticed I was making the investments into improving self and us and he just wasn’t. I remember even signing him up for things he said he was interested in but he never did them.

For example, I found a new love for golf. So I went out several times from Top Golf to the actual green. He expressed interest and I was excited thinking we could play together. So I got him golf lessons for his birthday. He never went. He says he wanted to and even expressed interest but it never panned out to him actually taking action. Ok no big deal. I have coaches, mentors, therapist etc, that I regularly talk to on self improvement. I know that unless I arrange a counseling session for the both of us, it’s not happening. Now I was fine with that as long as he would show up which he always did. But I began to notice that showing up for the sessions was actually the action taking for him, not actually applying what was said in the sessions. I was applying on what fit best for me and what I thought would fit best for the union. He on the other hand would agree, talk, discuss and even applaud what was said but, not really apply all that he agreed with for him.

Ok still no big deal? Well…one of the biggest issues that had always been present in our marriage was financial instability. If you’ve been following me since around 2010-2014, you already knew about the “struggle posts of encouragement” I would write on social media. So you’re no stranger to those years. But what I didn’t realize was how much covering for him in this area I did.

Yes everything I wrote was true. He was/is a praying man. He would do whatever it took to provide for his family (stick a pin here). He would work all day and all night in order to do his best at making sure all bills would get paid including the ones we hadn’t even saw yet. He literally was a model employee. So what the hell was the problem? 

No matter the counsel, no matter the conversations, no matter the discussions or the agreements on finances, he would continue to do the same things over and over again. And what’s so telling in all of this was it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen this before. You see, for the last 6 months, I’ve been sharing my book 9 Things Women Should Ask a Man Before Giving Him Sex for several reasons . But one of the biggest reasons is the financial aspect of it all. It’s mentioned, highlighted, defined and spelled out because of how big it really is.

It’s one of the 5 Pillars of the Family and one of the 5 Ways We Attract/Connect Romantically which I often use the 5 Legged Stool to illustrate their importance in relationships. If the financial pillar or leg is weak, yes there are still 4 others, but please know the infrastructure which the marriage was to be built upon is now weakened. Yes the marriage can last as that’s how I stayed all of these years, but it also depends upon how big finances are in relationships and how the deterioration of one pillar can affect, taint and start the deterioration in the other pillars.

You see, I always use the illustration of the 5 Legged Stool when talking about the 5 Pillars of the Family and the 5 Ways We Attract because when you picture yourself and you family sitting on these stools, it tends to wake up the mind to the illustration of the fact that if any of the legs are broken, wobbly or missing, you can actually fall off the stool. Good illustration, right? But now think for a second what is a pillar.

A pillar is normally a tall vertical structure of stone, wood or metal used as a support for a building or as an ornament or monument. Pillars are reliable and supportive. If you google images of pillars, you’ll often see words to describe them like, “Construction, Strength and Stability”.

As you can see, if one of those pillars start to crumble, the others can still stand and support the building, but eventually, over time, that crumbling pillar will get worse and cause the other pillars to do more support than they were made to do. So then, each of the pillars began to be effected and start to crumble as well. Why? Because now the stool or structure of the building has become shaky and unstable. And this is what happened to my marriage. How? Let’s go back to a few months ago.

June 5th 2024, I woke up to my estranged husband being where he was not supposed to be. Not at work. I stepped outside the front door and looked at him with a look that had become normalized as well as the question that I would ask, “Antonio, why are you here”? Anybody that knows us knows I don’t say ‘Antonio’ unless I’m pissed or about to be distraught. He looked back at me and said those words I had become familiar with; “Yeah it’s what you think it is. I was fired today”. Course I’m instantly pissed at him losing at this point, another 6 figure job, but I just looked on at him with disappointment as he continued, “I will explain everything later” as some of our children were nearby.

I barely braced myself for this explanation because one thing I have learned after knowing the man over 20 years is that either he did something wrong or he was done wrong because of something he really did wrong. Reread it but I said what I said. So like clockwork, I go into solution mode in my head. I begin to add things up in my head, look at accounts, see when bills are due and the most infamous…calculate how long we can go without him working and what he can do in between time. But even tho this was familiar asf, there was also something very different about this time too. I was very familiar with job loss in this union but this time what I was not familiar with was where we were at this time of the job loss. All the other times we had at least been in and at a place of comfort in life when it happened. But this time, we were not. (stick another pin here).

Anyway, later came and he begin to explain. Now the way we would come to have our arguments, intense discussions or important conversations was often via text, which is why I got hella receipts to all of this. And the reason was because of course, children but also because many times we were often in two separate places as he did actually work a lot. He could call too but texting was easier as I would be working from home and recording my podcast, videos or zooming with clients so if he did call, it would interfere. So texting it was. Know that it took a lot to share the few text that I am as it’s something I’ve never done before unless it made him or even us look good. But anyway, here’s that first pin…

“So when we were needing money…” That part. It seems we were ALWAYS needing money, which is why he worked so much. When he started his side business, I was all for it. It was smart and something he could easily start as he already had the knowledge, skills and tools. He had built up his online presence in our area and he was killing it. But what I didn’t know was that he was also doing this. I should have known as I was home when most of the shipments would come and would let him know he got packages in, but I always thought they were for work as that’s how his company operated. Workers were to order what they needed and have it delivered to their own residence as the company did not have the storage space to keep larger supplies in stock. And that’s why background checks are done…to find trustworthy workers.

While it seemed he meant well and was just trying to provide for his family, he was being dishonest asf and doing things that effected everyone even his co-workers. My response at the time was what my response had always been…to find a quick solution to stop any impending doom. June 5th he was fired, June 20th he was hired elsewhere to start on June 27th and June 22nd he turned down that damn job. It took me a full 24 hours to process the fact that he turned down a job he accepted when he had no other job lined up (not the first time he’s done this btw), had gotten his last check and we were in the situation we were in. I was starting to wake up…

June 30th, I started a draft in my email and…I don’t really know why, but I sat down and wrote all the jobs this man has had over all the years. I stopped at 20. Yes 20 jobs in 20 years, not including before marriage and not including years 2014-2015 and half of 2016 because for the life of me, I just can’t seem to remember what he was doing during that time. I know we had our last child in October 2014 but I seriously drew a blank on what he was doing those years. It’s been almost 2 months now since I’ve tried to remember and I still haven’t been able to. And I know what you thinkin…why the hell didn’t YOU get up and go get a job or something? While that story is coming after this series, what I will say is I certainly had the opportunity and the offers but I didn’t take them largely because of our marital dynamic in him providing and me staying home with our children. We both agreed to that from the beginning but there was something else going on whenever I wanted to take over in certain areas of our finances and unfortunately, I submitted to him in that. (Coming soon).

But yes, he never had a job for longer than 2- 2 1/2 years in our entire 20 year marriage. He almost made it to 3 years for this last job he was fired from and the job he moved to Texas for in 2018 but was fired from that in Jan 2021…right when my Mom was starting to take a turn for the worse in her health. Know what he lost that 6 figure job for? Stealing time. That’s a longer story but all I’ll say on that is I would always get a feeling right before he would lose or leave a job. Oh I didn’t tell you that he was leaving some of these jobs too? Yep. Leaving them to sell his art work or to start a yard business or to start a AC and Heating business. None of them ever panned out, no matter how many stories he would hear from others who left their jobs and won. You know why? Because even tho I supported and covered for him with these decisions after I would cuss his ass out, he NEVER left with a workable plan. He NEVER had a plan if fired. He would just do stupid shit, get fired or leave and then our patent struggle bus would come right along and pick our asses up.

When I said he was a model employee, that just meant he would work his ass off and he was very good at what he did. He was. He was just promoted this year TWICE while doing the stupid thing. His skills are heavily in demand. Do you know that job he turned down on June 22nd actually reached back out to him a week later and asked him to give them another chance? I remember him emailing me a screenshot on that to show me how he was getting better (yes email as that is the only way I allow him to contact me about necessary things). He said it was God. I’m not gon say what I said but it’s one thing I know and it’s a pattern. He “may” have changed since he’s pretty much without the center of his world, me and our children, but his pattern says, this is just another job of many more to come. According to his 20+ year pattern, he won’t have this job long either. It’s just this time, I (nor our children) won’t be on the struggle bus with him if/when it happens.

So in my recent stories when I shared that all he had to do was keep his word, I was talking about the word he would always give in this time like, “I’m going to stay until my business is ready to go. I’m not quitting until God says so. I’m not getting fired. I’m listening to such and such on money management and I’m going to take their class” which he never would do. But we as humans don’t really keep our word, we keep our patterns as our patterns are our words as they are our actions no matter if what we say matches them or not. Another infamous Truly Faithful quote could go right here when it was said, “Words must match actions, if they don’t, go by their actions”.

And after all these years of this particular pattern, I should have known we would end up where we did in 2024. We ended up homeless. (There’s that second pin and that rug I was talking about in my current stories that was pulled from underneath us). exhales 

Yeah…ever since April 3rd, 2024, three years after losing my Mother, 2 ½ years after losing my Father, 8 months after losing our first home back in Louisiana to foreclosure, 3 years after he lost not only his car but my 2nd truck, (which was my stream of income to cover both of my trucks as I was renting it out) that I took off the rental market to let him use after he lost his car (and still called this man a king saying, “You still a king but be glad your wife made moves in obtaining another vehicle that you’re now able to use”), we had also lost the beautiful home in the affluent neighborhood we moved to in Arlington, Texas and were homeless.

I covered that man like the rescue cape I had become and just told our children we could stay wherever we wanted while we prepare to move into our new house (a house we chose as our next home back in September 2023). They were excited…at first. But the constant moving from air bnb to air bnb to hotel to hotel became exhausting in every way imaginable. So when he told me he lost his job, we wasn’t in a permanent place that I could work my magic from. My safety net had already been gone with no home nowhere, but now with not enough money coming in to cover this hotel life, things started sending me into a calm panic. Meaning, I didn’t panic out loud or even right away, I was calm but the panic was rising and it was rising fast.

See all those years before, it was me who was saving our house from foreclosure. Even after moving to Texas in the almost 5 years we had our house there, it was me who was saving it from eviction except that one case in 2021 when I was losing my parents, he actually stepped up. Now that I look back, I see that it took an extreme situation on my end for him to actually put out one of his own damn fires. Because I was truly in a fog for most of 2021 even tho I was also having some of the most fun since I had been married. My friends and support system had stepped up in a big way and I don't remember having to pay for hardly anything from March 2021 to the end of 2021. That helped so much as I could finally enjoy fun without worrying about the cost. I could take my children shopping without counting coins. I could uber anywhere I wanted to go knowing those uber credits were on unlimited as the apple pays and Zelles kept coming through from women and men. In the back of my mind, I did think about why I couldn't have this with him and outside of a chaotic situation too. I remember coaches and therapists telling me to be gentle with myself and I had no idea how to do that. But no matter how many times I was told this, it also included that I needed to be gentle with him too even tho he was probably the reason I wasn’t being “gentle”. Here’s me reaching out to one of my coaches during that time;

The day I got the news my father passed was the same day the constable came to our house with the eviction papers. The only reason I didn’t know this then was because I wasn’t home. Where I was that horrid day, I will share one day down the line but just know had I been home that day, I would probably had stop putting out his fires and start setting shit on fire as hurt, angry and destitute I was feeling. He hid it from me and he should have. 2021 had already been the most disrespectful (yet fun) year of my marriage at that point so I’m sure he didn’t want it to disrespect me even more. I had just driven home to Shreveport to see my Dad and told him I was coming back with my oldest who wanted to see him too. I spoon-fed him ice chips…something I never thought I would even want to do for this man.

I was an emotional wreck and had just finished talking to my Love Coach on what to do with my feelings that day. I was in the middle of an assignment of writing him a letter forgiving him for everything when I got the call.

Because my estranged husband was still unemployed at the time from that January firing of the job he was stealing time from, he was able to get the mail and start tryna handle the shit himself…for a change. It was actually the one fire I didn’t have to put out. But after about 6 months and both my parents had passed, I was back on “putting out his fires” duty.

I had to save our house again. I asked him a month in advance about the rent making sure he had it as this time I had everything else. He said yep. Guess who came to me with 4 days left in facing another eviction saying he thought he had it but he didn’t? The estranged. And guess what I did when he told me we needed $10,000 in 4 days? Duh duh duh duuuh!! Went into solution mode, be Super Woman, put on her cape, got the fire hydrant and put out that fire by coming up with that $10,000 in 4 days and had it dropped off at the rental office right as the locksmith was at our door to change the locks. exhale another fire extinguished

But I was beginning not to breathe regularly. That’s why on top of a therapist, a love coach, a life coach and a psychiatrist, I also had a breathing coach. Yeah. Know why? Because I had started having panic attacks. My security was being tampered with and my body was responding to it. Even when I would go get massages, which were therapist ordered might I add, I was often told that I was very tight in my upper back and neck area. It’s a well known fact that stress can cause constant tightness in the upper back and neck area because it makes muscles tense. And that was me. I even started doing acupuncture when massages on top of massages didn’t seem to be working. Hell, I had a panic attack right there on the acupuncture table but had to take it because the pins were already in me and any sudden movement would actually mess me up. I had begun to self sooth hard not knowing I had developed chronic anxiety that I now have prescriptions for.

But since I left (stick a pin there also), I wake up each day breathing and realizing I don’t have to put up with his pattern anymore. I don’t have fires to put out no more. What’s interesting is when you leave, you see where the tension was coming from because since I left, I haven’t had one fire to put out. Not one. I haven’t went without the main things. A dear friend took me and all my children in and she had just moved into her newly built place *tears

How many people do you know would take in a woman and her 5 children? How many? That’s 6 people she took in. SIX! My Mom’s would have been the first place I went to but she’s gone. Even my Dad would have let us stay for a minute as he had room but he’s also gone. When I asked the estranged about going to his parents while we were in hotels he said, “My parents don’t never liked no one popping up on them”. I asked, “So they would be ok with their grandchildren living like this”? I draw a blank in what he said to that but just know his parents are not the issue in any of this. That’s just what he said. I never asked them. But also know ya girl got a support system baby! One that I’ve been building up over a decade.

And as soon as I sent out the SOS text to my friends and my sister, this friend was the first to respond via FaceTime and say, “Listen I can’t send money but I got a place for you, your babies and the cats, all you gotta do is get here. If y’all can get here, I got rooms and bathrooms” and she showed me the rooms on facetime. You know I broke down right there on that FaceTime. She even offered to let me drive us around in her Escalade till I got on my feet. I said, “I don’t want to put you out anymore than staying there. I will drive my truck there”. The only thing I had left to my name aside from what my Dad left me, my sister and brother.

Took me two days to drive 5 states on pure flight (fight, flight or freeze), adrenaline and two 5 hour energies, but baby we made it. I could have stopped and got us a hotel but I was so triggered by that life that I couldn’t stand seeing any of the franchise hotels we stayed at.

And tho there’s lots of residue from 20 years of this, I am good to say that I am happily separated because I don’t have to wake up with his shit on my agenda anymore. I realized I had never really submitted to a man. I submitted to a man’s pattern. I was faithful to that pattern. Anything that pattern needed, I got for that pattern. In spite of how this story sounds, I was comfortable in that pattern too.

The pillars were crumbling and the financial pillar started to affect the spiritual, the emotional, the mental and the physical/sexual. I was no longer attracted to this man therefore I could not have sex with this man either. I had become repulsed…

Whew!! I know that was more than just a lot. I really outdid myself and wrote way more than I anticipated but if you know me you know when I write, stopping can be a challenge as I’m going with the flow.

Sex is next and because this was so much today and I got a busy week ahead, let’s meet back here Sunday as originally promised. I promise you don’t want to miss this next part as this is going to also answer many wives who struggle with having sex with their own husbands. So, let’s meet you back here same time next Sunday.

Unsub if you need to but stay for the ride if you want to get to the destination I promised. 

Always Much Love,

~ OEV

PS I am loving your responses even the ones that are telling me to go home. Well…now you know I can’t. Because as this same friend who took me in said, “You are the home. It was never a building anyway”. So no I’m not going back to anywhere. I am already there. Which is why the reset and bounce back of my life is gon be a beast. In fact, it already is. Talk soon.