Throughout all of the drama with my lady business I still couldn't manage to let go of DH. I would still talk to him on the phone almost every day, no more than ever two or three days. It was like fatal attraction. I still love you but I can't be with you. That sort of thing.
And for awhile there was Sarah. I have had a love-hate relationship with this name through the years and for me, the hate part started in the fall of 2000.
Right after I got diagnosed with the STD DH started dating Sarah. When I was younger Sarah was my favorite name. It was the name of my first cat, my special fortress and what I was certain I was going to name my first daughter. After this, it moved to the bottom of the list.
At some point I was at DH's house right before Thanksgiving and we slept together. I know, I can hear you now. You slept with the guy who gave you an STD? Look, I didn't say I was sane back then. So yes, I slept with him. And then I told him he had to pick between Sarah and me.
Just to make sure of it, while he was in the bathroom I got her number out of his phone. When he refused to break things off with her I did what any crazy woman would do, I called her. Explained to her who I was, that Jake had given me the STD and that she should be tested, and that oh yeah, by the way he just slept with me again.
She confronted him, he confronted me. And then his dad, in true enabler fashion found a way to make this all my fault. I remember the conversation clearly. I was sitting in the parking lot of the pet store. His dad was yelling at me about how I needed to mind my own business and I needed to let DH have a new life, etc.
I remember feeling crushed and thinking that I had lost him forever. Lost him to a girl named Sarah.
Saturday, November 25, 2000
Wednesday, November 1, 2000
STD
When a man gets an STD, usually there are some symptoms. Burning, itching, etc. When woman gets one, often times there is nothing. They can go on for months or years without knowing anything is wrong.
For me, it all started with a burning when I wiped and a funny smell to my urine. I went to the doctor thinking I had a UTI. They ran a couple of tests and just to be safe did some STD tests. At the time I just went along with it. Didn't think anything of it.
Then I got the call. The one that tells you that you have positive proof that the one you are with has been unfaithful. I remember my mind grasping to try to understand it. Questioning the doctor on how I could have gotten it. Poor woman probably was just shaking her head, wondering how I could be so naive as she explained to me that no, I couldn't have gotten it from a toilet seat. It came from sex with someone. Someone who was supposed to be sleeping only with me.
When I hung up the phone I cried. Then I called him. I remember it like it was yesterday screaming into the phone at him that he had given my chlamydia while I drove the 30 minutes from my place to his place to confront him in person.
After I got there some words were exchanged but really, at that point, what can you do. I remember going out to his driveway, sitting in my vehicle and just sobbing. Wishing for all the world I could make the hurting stop. At some point he called me, asked me what the heck I was still doing in his driveway. Basically told me to leave.
This man, the one I thought I loved, was essentially telling me that my pain meant nothing. That it was time for me to go now. So I left, went back to college with a heavy heart.
As it turns out, for him all the symptoms were there but he was just too afraid to tell me so he waited. Hoping it would just go away. For him it took a course of antibiotics. For me it took much much more.
I battled a raging infection that would not go away for over two months. I was on round after round of antibiotics. Once a day, twice a day, three times a day. Finally two days before Christmas the doctors tell me the only option left is IV antibiotics. I am admitted into the hospital on December 22nd and spend the next two days hooked up to really strong antibiotics in an effort to kick what had not turned into PID.
When it was all over, when the infection finally left my body I was left with one thing. The knowledge that if the infection had damaged my tubes I may never be able to have children. The one and only thing I KNEW I wanted from my future and now, I was uncertain if it would ever happen.
For me, it all started with a burning when I wiped and a funny smell to my urine. I went to the doctor thinking I had a UTI. They ran a couple of tests and just to be safe did some STD tests. At the time I just went along with it. Didn't think anything of it.
Then I got the call. The one that tells you that you have positive proof that the one you are with has been unfaithful. I remember my mind grasping to try to understand it. Questioning the doctor on how I could have gotten it. Poor woman probably was just shaking her head, wondering how I could be so naive as she explained to me that no, I couldn't have gotten it from a toilet seat. It came from sex with someone. Someone who was supposed to be sleeping only with me.
When I hung up the phone I cried. Then I called him. I remember it like it was yesterday screaming into the phone at him that he had given my chlamydia while I drove the 30 minutes from my place to his place to confront him in person.
After I got there some words were exchanged but really, at that point, what can you do. I remember going out to his driveway, sitting in my vehicle and just sobbing. Wishing for all the world I could make the hurting stop. At some point he called me, asked me what the heck I was still doing in his driveway. Basically told me to leave.
This man, the one I thought I loved, was essentially telling me that my pain meant nothing. That it was time for me to go now. So I left, went back to college with a heavy heart.
As it turns out, for him all the symptoms were there but he was just too afraid to tell me so he waited. Hoping it would just go away. For him it took a course of antibiotics. For me it took much much more.
I battled a raging infection that would not go away for over two months. I was on round after round of antibiotics. Once a day, twice a day, three times a day. Finally two days before Christmas the doctors tell me the only option left is IV antibiotics. I am admitted into the hospital on December 22nd and spend the next two days hooked up to really strong antibiotics in an effort to kick what had not turned into PID.
When it was all over, when the infection finally left my body I was left with one thing. The knowledge that if the infection had damaged my tubes I may never be able to have children. The one and only thing I KNEW I wanted from my future and now, I was uncertain if it would ever happen.
Saturday, September 16, 2000
Cell Phone
The first time I got DH a cell phone was in September of 2000. We were celebrating our 4 year anniversary and it was kind of my gift to him.
Since he had no credit it was sort of my gift to myself since it was in my name and I charged the setup cost and phone costs on my newest shinny piece of plastic I had acquired only days before.
The phone stayed with DH for all of a month and a half before it became the topic of heated debates.
Since he had no credit it was sort of my gift to myself since it was in my name and I charged the setup cost and phone costs on my newest shinny piece of plastic I had acquired only days before.
The phone stayed with DH for all of a month and a half before it became the topic of heated debates.
Monday, July 10, 2000
The Tattoo
DH had one tattoo. He got it over the summer. It was a tribal sun on his ankle that he showed up with one morning after a night of partying.
It was paid for by a girl he swears he didn't sleep with.
I remember it like it was yesterday. The anger, the sadness, the longing to believe that she was just a friend even when SIL told me that her friend had called asking if she was just a one night stand.
For the entire time we continued to date and were married the only thing that tattoo did for me was disgust me. Every time I saw it there was a rock in the pit of my stomach. And every time I asked DH to consider getting it removed he refused. I guess at that point I should have known where his respect for me was.
I lived for 8 1/2 years with a man who carried a mark of infidelity on his ankle. Something I never got over.
It was paid for by a girl he swears he didn't sleep with.
I remember it like it was yesterday. The anger, the sadness, the longing to believe that she was just a friend even when SIL told me that her friend had called asking if she was just a one night stand.
For the entire time we continued to date and were married the only thing that tattoo did for me was disgust me. Every time I saw it there was a rock in the pit of my stomach. And every time I asked DH to consider getting it removed he refused. I guess at that point I should have known where his respect for me was.
I lived for 8 1/2 years with a man who carried a mark of infidelity on his ankle. Something I never got over.
Tuesday, June 20, 2000
Oz Fest
Sometime in late June I got my first experience with DH's concert scene. Not first hand mind you but being left at home while he went to party. DH had a friend, RW and the two of them were known to get into trouble together.
Some how one of them came up with the brilliant idea to make a road trip to Apple River in WI to go to Oz Fest. I don't remember the exact conversation but I'm pretty sure there was yelling and crying and you can't go.
But in the end, he went. I knew it would be trouble. I already knew at this point I couldn't trust him although I don't think I realized to what extent. I had a hunch there would be drinking and drugs. I think the women part didn't really enter my mind until later.
Some how one of them came up with the brilliant idea to make a road trip to Apple River in WI to go to Oz Fest. I don't remember the exact conversation but I'm pretty sure there was yelling and crying and you can't go.
But in the end, he went. I knew it would be trouble. I already knew at this point I couldn't trust him although I don't think I realized to what extent. I had a hunch there would be drinking and drugs. I think the women part didn't really enter my mind until later.
Saturday, June 10, 2000
Money Matters
In June of 2000 DH and I were back to our usual fighting in all of it's glory. This particular day we were at his parents house. I had just gotten a new jeep, well new to me, the previous fall and at some point as we were arguing he got into it.
The details I don't remember the sound the door made as the jeep rolled backwards and it caught a tree I will never forget. The door was open and something had to give and it wasn't the tree.
I can still see it in my head, the wrinkle down the drivers side door. The horrible sound it made every time I tried to close it. I told my parents that the wind had caught it and sprung it. I didn't know how to tell them the truth.
Then I freaked out trying to figure out how to fix it. This was WAY more than wind damage and would actually require a new door. Something my parents would surely figure out if I turned it in to insurance.
So, one day, when a credit card offer came in the mail I applied. Then rather than charge the repairs on the card I took off cash. $900 to be exact to have someone fix the door. As I look back, I'm guessing perhaps this was friend of the DH's family who offered to do it for cheaper than paying a body shop. I don't know why else I would have paid with cash and not charge.
Either way, this moment in my life was the first, but certainly not the last, time that I began borrowing and charging to cover up the mistakes DH made. This moment when I chose to go in debt rather than tell the truth was a turning point down a long, steep, slippery slope.
The details I don't remember the sound the door made as the jeep rolled backwards and it caught a tree I will never forget. The door was open and something had to give and it wasn't the tree.
I can still see it in my head, the wrinkle down the drivers side door. The horrible sound it made every time I tried to close it. I told my parents that the wind had caught it and sprung it. I didn't know how to tell them the truth.
Then I freaked out trying to figure out how to fix it. This was WAY more than wind damage and would actually require a new door. Something my parents would surely figure out if I turned it in to insurance.
So, one day, when a credit card offer came in the mail I applied. Then rather than charge the repairs on the card I took off cash. $900 to be exact to have someone fix the door. As I look back, I'm guessing perhaps this was friend of the DH's family who offered to do it for cheaper than paying a body shop. I don't know why else I would have paid with cash and not charge.
Either way, this moment in my life was the first, but certainly not the last, time that I began borrowing and charging to cover up the mistakes DH made. This moment when I chose to go in debt rather than tell the truth was a turning point down a long, steep, slippery slope.
Sunday, June 4, 2000
Can't Stay Gone
As bad as I thought it was and as much as I figured we were over DH and I somehow found a way back to each other.
At this point MW had moved out, DH had moved out and so it was just me, alone in a two bedroom apartment. I put an add in the college paper and had a few people come look to sublet it. I finally settled on a nerdy graduate student named W.
After W moved in DH and I rekindled our relationship and by January we went on a trip to Disneyworld together. I don't remember a lot of the trip but I do have pictures and it appears that we were happy. That we had a good time.
Through out the winter and spring we took a couple more little trips like this. Just a few weekend excursions to try to make us feel like more of a real couple. One I remember specifically. It was May, we went up north to do a little shopping and a little fishing.
It was windy and much colder than it probably should have been. We didn't have a boat so we had to shore fish and DH was frustrated and pissed off. I remember just wanting to be done. Wanting to go home so I didn't have to deal with him anymore.
Then in June DH's grandfather passed away. All of his family had traveled the hour and a half to see him, be with him, except DH. He said that death bothered him, that he didn't want to go. So when his grandfather passed he was the only one that was not there. He did end up going up there for the funeral and I drove up on the day it was held.
His grandpa was cremated and I remember this was the first funeral I had ever been to where there wasn't a casket. There was a picture and a little box. I remember being really bothered by that little box, knowing that his grandpa was in it.
After the funeral I went outside to say my goodbyes before I headed home and I remember his dad pulling me aside and thanking me for coming. Thanking me for being there to support the family. I remember at the time and still even to this day finding that really strange. It was June of 2000. At this point I had been dating his son for almost four years. Why wouldn't I have been there?
At this point MW had moved out, DH had moved out and so it was just me, alone in a two bedroom apartment. I put an add in the college paper and had a few people come look to sublet it. I finally settled on a nerdy graduate student named W.
After W moved in DH and I rekindled our relationship and by January we went on a trip to Disneyworld together. I don't remember a lot of the trip but I do have pictures and it appears that we were happy. That we had a good time.
Through out the winter and spring we took a couple more little trips like this. Just a few weekend excursions to try to make us feel like more of a real couple. One I remember specifically. It was May, we went up north to do a little shopping and a little fishing.
It was windy and much colder than it probably should have been. We didn't have a boat so we had to shore fish and DH was frustrated and pissed off. I remember just wanting to be done. Wanting to go home so I didn't have to deal with him anymore.
Then in June DH's grandfather passed away. All of his family had traveled the hour and a half to see him, be with him, except DH. He said that death bothered him, that he didn't want to go. So when his grandfather passed he was the only one that was not there. He did end up going up there for the funeral and I drove up on the day it was held.
His grandpa was cremated and I remember this was the first funeral I had ever been to where there wasn't a casket. There was a picture and a little box. I remember being really bothered by that little box, knowing that his grandpa was in it.
After the funeral I went outside to say my goodbyes before I headed home and I remember his dad pulling me aside and thanking me for coming. Thanking me for being there to support the family. I remember at the time and still even to this day finding that really strange. It was June of 2000. At this point I had been dating his son for almost four years. Why wouldn't I have been there?
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