Tag: seperated

Free Yet Bound…..

But you said you loved me. That must have been a lie…..

Paulie

My court day came and left. I officially accepted the program offer and all that came with it. That included going to a parenting class, going to a domestic violence class, and paying fees. I also had to check in once a week with the pretrial release program and report my progress. That too came with a fee. I was paying all these fees because I was arrested for defending myself against a bully who was making it nearly impossible to be with my children. I remember there was a day when one of my daughters wanted to come with me but because it was a church night he would not allow her to come even though she was in tears because she wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t really about her going to church opposed to him wanting that control in saying what she was allowed to do and what she was not allowed to do. I did what any mother would do. My sisters and myself went to the church and picked my daughter up and took her to where I was living at. This did upset him because it made him look bad in front of his peers. I did not go to the church to start a fight. I respected the leaders of the ministry. I went there to pick my daughter up and that is exactly what I did.

There was also an injunction put in place where I could have no contact with my ex directly or indirectly or go within 500 feet of his property. That small piece of paper was all he needed to keep me in compliance and he would use that as another form of ammunition against myself and my children. The injunction also stated that I could not be around any weapons, therefore, I was put on light duty at my job and I was assigned to work in the mail room. I was of course grateful to still have my job, but because my regular shift was twelve hour shifts, I was losing time because working in the mail room was an eight hour position. I asked around and I learned that I could ask the judge to modify the injunction so that I could go back to working my regular shift. Once my court date came around I did as I was told and even though the prosecutors tried to fight it, the judge granted my request and I was able to work my regular shift. That was a small victory for me.

As I got back on shift I was happy to be working with my co-workers again but I was still in a dark place because the parenting class took place on nights that I worked, I needed to be adjusted so that I was able to keep my same hours and I wouldn’t have it count against me. I am grateful to say the my supervisor at the time was very understanding and he granted my those days as long as I had the proper paperwork. The work aspect of my life was in order but my home life was about to take a turn for the worse.

Moving out…..

The time finally came and after some very deep thought I decided that it was time for me to move out. Not because I wanted to end my marriage but because I needed time to think. I told my husband that I was going to move in with my mom and my sisters. Truthfully, I would have prefered if he would have moved out of the home, however, when I asked him to leave he told me that it was “HIS” house and he wasn’t going anywhere and since I was the one who had the problem that I should move. I do believe that he told me that because he really didn’t believe that I would move with my family, especially since he knew that my relationship with my family had be strained for many years. He made sure that it was this way and I constantly felt that I had to chose between him and my family for many years. After speaking with my mom and my sisters about me moving in with them, they all agreed that it was ok for me to do so.

The next hardest thing that I had to do was to leave my four children behind. Before anyone jumps to a conclusion. My children were older at the time therefore they were not babies. The decision that I made to move out without my children was the hardest thing I could have done but I did it because I felt that it was the best decision to make for them. Like I stated before, my intentions for moving out was not to get divorced but it was to get a clear mind and to get away from an environment that was becoming too difficult for me to live in. I never wanted to leave my children behind, but we had a house that we purchased together and I didn’t want to uproot them from their home because I needed time to gather myself. I thought that it would be unfair to them to pull them away from the home that we all knew and move them in my my mother and my sisters. One of my sisters has five children of her own so I didn’t feel like it was a real necessity to move them in with my mom as well. Later, that decision would prove to be a mistake as he used it for leverage. I will share that in a future post. Before I could move out he had gotten a new job which required him to have to be gone for about a week, we talked about it and I decided to postpone moving until he came back from his training. In that time, I had thought long and hard about what I was going to do and I felt that moving would not be the best option because I didn’t want to leave my children behind, I never wanted to move out. I was still in contact with the guy in England and I shared my plans with him. I didn’t mention it to my husband at the time because he was in training. I didn’t even tell my children that I considered moving out.

Sometimes some of the most important decisions to make are never the easy ones to decide on

Unknown

I had spoken to my husband a few days before he was due to come back in town. I asked him when would he be back and he told me that it was none of my business. It didn’t make any sense to me that he wouldn’t tell me his return date but I didn’t press the issue any, I knew we were having some problems and I didn’t want to start an argument with him so I left it alone. The next day came and I was sitting on my bed watching television when out of no where I heard screaming my name and then I heard banging on mt room window. He was back. The way he came screaming and banging on the window made me feel as though he was trying to catch me doing something in the home. That wasn’t the first time that I was accused of doing something. Him popping up on me expecting to find me doing something made me realize that I had to get out of the home. That is exactly what I did. I gathered my things and moved out of our home and moved in with my mom and sisters.

At first it seemed surreal. It felt like I didn’t belong there and I’m sure I felt that way because I knew that my family and I didn’t really get along but I knew that they wanted to be there for me when I needed them. Needless to say, the space was really crowded however, I was happy to be away for the madness that I was experiencing in my home. The worst part of everything was the fact that I couldn’t bring my children with me. I explained to them the best way that I could and each of them understood based on the level that they were at. Nonetheless, it was still very hard. I felt like I failed as a mother and the events that happened after I moved out would prove to be life altering and I was never the same……