I am in hell. I have been in my own hell for over two years now. I find myself unable to break away from issues that should not be happening to me. I want to say that I have been doing the right and honorable thing by my family. I understood the situation when I got involved, but I figured that it would not go this far. I always figured that my love would handle the pain. I was wrong, again.
I have a terrible problem with confrontations with people that I love and respect. It becomes an issue that I never actually tell people how I feel. I do let my feelings be known, but if they are disregarded, as seems to be the case all the time, or laughed at, I never reveal them again.
I was always leery of moving on with my life. I have always chaffed at being told what to do by anyone. It is this reason that I did not stay in the military, I think. I always felt that I do not tell other people what to do or how to live their lives, so I should be afforded that same courtesy. Not so, especially if you are in a relationship.
I have felt more than a little uneasy with the significant differences in how things are done financially between me and my wife. She has a live for the moment attitude, and I try to look at the long view. I fell that I do not need anything that I make payments on anymore, especially after having to deal with bankruptcy. I do not want anything that I cannot pay for outright.
This leads me into my current state of mind. I do remember all of the planning about getting a rental property, but I do not remember the details. What I remember the most was the day I was called and told that the paperwork was ready and I needed to sign for it. I felt trepidation. But I remember how elated my wife was and she was happy that we were going to start this. I was not so optimistic. But I buried my feelings and went ahead and signed the paperwork. I could have said, “No.” But, I did not. The time has not been fun dealing with this house from the beginning. I felt – rather early on into renting – that it was too much for me to deal with having work and school and family. Yet I suppressed those feelings. I wished to make my lady happy.
Forward nearly one year. We are having trouble with the renter, now I am working as many hours as I can to pay the note, the enormous bills we have and still maintain sanity. I am caught unawares when I am asked what I thought about building a pool. I remember saying that I did not think this was a good idea. I thought that if money was to be borrowed, it would be better spent clearing the yard and fixing up the house so that we could move. However, this was the only time I was asked my opinion about this, and the money was borrowed for the pool. We did not know then that it would increase our monthly house payment by $600 per month. That was just for the loan. At the time we had an extra $1000 coming in for school – though that would stop in a few months – and my lady had a job that picked up some other expenses. However, our electricity and food bills were so high, it was depleting us quickly. Then to our horror, the contractor took all the money we had and left the work half done! We ended up pulling more of the money we had set aside to pay others to finish the work. Then after depleting all funds, it turned out that we still “needed” pool equipment. Most of this went on credit cards – several hundred dollar’s worth – because we no longer had any cash. All of this was happening while we were evicting the first tenant for the house. We had also started having issues with the apartment renter. For several months we flipped between not getting rent for the house and not getting rent for the apartment. We were no longer getting money for college each month. Christmas came and we went into debt for presents. I did my taxes for the following year and got a good return. I used much of it to pay the outstanding debts from Christmas and utilities, as well as making sure that all bills were caught up, that we had a ring for me and clothes and wedding money and travel. That ended up using about all of what I had gotten back from the government and we ended up owing her mother, who then started taking child support money. We were hurting again.
It felt like every time I had a plan to get things moving correctly and stable, it would get blown up. It was already after the house renter’s husband had left without paying two months rent. That was forgiven and for the next 18 months it bounced between pay and not pay. Then she was given the option to pay twice a month. The problem is, we constantly had negative balances in our bank account, never small amounts either 200 to 300 amounts, so when I get the rent payment, it got completely swallowed up by the overdrafts. I was already using almost everything I made just to pay the extra amount on the house and the bills which even in the best of months are terrible. Every time my wife wanted to do something, I would freeze, I did not want to spend money, I had already given her two budgets, that were exactly correct, but they were once again ignored. That was when I decided that I was not going to get any help anymore for this. I knew what needed to be done, but I was marginalized and basically, my thoughts were not good enough. What about Christmas? What about birthdays? What about this thing or that thing? I wanted to scream out every time. “I don’t give a damn about that! We need to get our shit together or we will have no future!” But I did not. I failed. I let it go on, and then did the best that I could to sweep up the debris that was left behind. All of the money that I brought into the house is gone, all of it. I have no idea where it went; I have nothing to show for all of my labor for the last 7 years! I let it go on. Getting chastised –CHASTISED – by my wife for doing something SHE did not approve of. How many times have I wanted to walk right then and there? But as those thoughts and feelings are suppressed, something else began to take over. My love is causing me pain, and often I found myself staring at the ceiling in the dark – I do not get much sleep anymore – wishing I would die, but knowing I was too weak to do anything about it. This only causes more depression. I am sick. I am depressed. She is everything to me that is why I do everything I possibly can do, even if I get trouble for it. I was always one step ahead, waiting until I get the next few hours of extra work, but when I got them they were never enough, and there was always something, something that was more pressing than what I needed. I am not altruistic, If I say I need nothing, I mean it. And now, it has backfired. Failed! I have failed again. Never in my life have I failed so often. Never! I do not know how to handle this. I have always lived the best that I can, and strive to do no harm to anyone, but all I seem to do is harm any more, mostly myself. I feel useless, and no amount of love makes me feel any better. I don’t know what I want, but this can’t be it. I have no one I can talk to. It doesn’t feel good talking to my wife, she does not hear me when I do talk it seems. I have no one else. No one... cares. No one…