When You Give Up On Things

I have reached a point in my life now that I have just given up on certain things. I once had a fancy life with lots of fine things, but now I live pay check to pay check, and try to never splurge. Relationships are not a possibility for me anymore. I tried to have a relationship with a man after my husband and I had been separated for almost a year, but it ended horribly. By horribly I mean that I was owed a large sum of money, was degraded once again, but worst of all I had to explain to my children why another father figure was gone. The relationship had lasted a little over a year, but ended with me being told that I was to distant and not affectionate. The truth is that I no longer have the ability to let anyone that close to me again. I was madly in love with my husband, and I still think that he was my soul mate. That soul though faded away, almost as if he had died in front of my eyes. I want to love again, and to be loved. Well I have loved again, but it was not the same fire inside. I am broken and no person can love me. I keep myself at a distance from men, and it seems that no madder what I try, I cant get close to anyone. No amount of counseling  or time will be able to fix this, I am afraid. Lately it seems that I have been so isolated. In the past month I have had so much trouble sleeping, just like when my husband and I split up. The only decent nights sleep that I have had was the other night when Emerich had a nightmare and slept with me. I can not sleep more then a few hours at a time. I usually take a nap when the twins do, and it helps, but I miss having someone hold me while I sleep. I don't know how to explain this really. I hope that this will pass again to some degree. After a few months of being apart when we split up I was able to sleep most nights, but I have had a few spells of the insomnia since. They seem to go with times of stress of the heart. My boyfriend and I split up about a month ago, and I had to face my husband in court about a month ago. I still often refer to him as my husband just because I still love what he use to be, and the man I divorced is not the man that I married. Many people say things like that, but my case is a little different. A brain injury changes everything about a person. I need to end this post, because I am supposed to be up and getting my children ready for school in an hour.

The Rebuild

My husband had never allowed me to work. I had been with him since I was 17 years old. I had no experience, and no idea how to get a job. All I had known was how to be a house wife, and mother. I was lucky that I got a job as a server, even though the pay was not good at all, it was a job, and I could bring money into my home. The first year was so hard. I missed so many things with my children. There was the court battle to give me and the children a restraining order, and my husbands charges that the state had filled. There was a change in the district attorney at the last minute and let him plea bargain and walk away with only 15 months of probation. Once he plead they gave me my restraining order. I had to explain all of this to my employer. I was working so many hours and missing so many things, but not making ends meet. I finally got a little raise at work. I managed to get out of the trailer that I was living in, and into a house. I have had many bumps along the way. I do not have an easy life, or by most standards a good one, but I am working on that. I started school online, and have been trying to save every penny that I can. After two years my husband decided to grant me a divorce, but he now wants visitation with the children. Now there is another court battle underway. He has all the money in the world to pay lawyers to fight for him. I hope that no judge would subject my children to that man's temper, but you never know. I have done everything in my power to protect and heal them from that man. Now I have to face everyday with the fear of him back in our lives. At least two nights a week, my son wakes up screaming about his father. The twins are to young to remember him, because they were only a year old last time they saw him. My oldest son now has problems with his emotions, and when and how to show them. I feel horrible for staying as long as I did, with as many things as he did to me and to my children, but I have to look at it as "I got away and saved all of our lives". I still have the fear everyday, that he will show up and do what he said he would do. Once you have lived that life for as long as I had, you believe the things that they say they will do (well the bad ones).  I am strong, and a fighter, but he still scares me. I know that I will prove him wrong about me. He said that I would never be anything, be fat and unwanted, never do more then work in fast food, and that I could never get away from him or keep the kids from him.

The Life of an Abused Military Wife

To be in my shoes would drive many people crazy. I have survived way to much in my short life. I am only 24, but I am a divorced, single mother, of four children (I have a set of twins). If you were to look at my life from the outside five years ago you would think how great it looked, but this was only the image we showed the world. My husband was an American soldier, but he got wounded. His traumatic brain injury would change the course of all of our lives.  His brain injury made him start to be mean, and irrational. I watched the man that I fell in love with fade away before my eyes, and this evil thing take his place. He tried to kill me on several occasions, and put me in the hospital just as many. Our home was known by the police, and our neighbors thought I was crazy for staying. I held out with the hope that he would get better, and kept telling myself that I had to stay, that it was my duty as a military wife, and that deep down he still loved me. Later I found that none of these things were true, but as with most cases of domestic violence, it took a huge ordeal. The final straw was on December 23, 2011 after he was medically discharged from the military. He was intoxicated (prescription drugs, synthetic drugs, alcohol, and illegal drugs) as had become the normal day for him, and he began getting agitated with me because I could not do all of the things for him that he wanted. I had to have open back surgery the week before on the 15th to repair damage that he had done to my back, by slinging me around, and into things. My mother lived above us, and was watching all the children. He decided that he wanted to go up and "see" them, and I knew this was not normal, because he never wanted anything to do with our children. I mustered up the strength to ride up there. He lost his temper when he seen that the kids were going to bed. He snatched our middle son Emerich up out of bed, and took off walking down her driveway. I was terrified of what he was going to do, so I drove down after him (against doctors orders). Once I was back at home I followed him into the house, where my husband started screaming at me about how horrible of a mother I was for not taking care of them after my surgery, how fat I was (5'6" 155lbs honestly), and how much he hated me. I was trying to calm my son, because he was screaming. Then before I could blink he took off out the door with my son in his arms. He threw Emerich into the front seat of his car (the car had a busted window, Emerich was only three and a half, only had on pajamas, the car had no heat, and it was below freezing). I ran after them, and didn't feel the pain, because all I could think about was my son, and all I could hear was him screaming Mommy! I made it to the car as he started it, and his door was still open. I was standing in the door opening when my husband started to back up the car, and the door caught my body, and all I could do was hold on. He drove for two miles down the road with me on the door. My husband was screaming the whole time of how he was going to kill me and I would never see my son again, but the only thing I could focus on was the sound of my terrified son screaming for me. My husband went down the road and then came back to our house. The pain was so intense at this point, but he was not done. I was still on the door, because I could not move, but he decided to pull my limp body off the door and throw it down to the muddy half frozen ground. My mother heard me screaming and called the police. My husband then grabbed my son again and ran into the house. I could still hear him crying but could not move to get to him. After what seemed like an eternity the police and an ambulance arrived. One of the officers ran to me and covered me with a blanket, and kept telling me to try not to move. Another one of the officers ran to my son, and the others arrested my husband. The officer that went to my son, then wrapped him into a blanket, and brought him to see me. Emerich was crying uncontrollably, and screaming that "Daddy killed Mommy!". My poor son had wet himself (he had been accident free for over a year). The moment I seen my sons face, and how scared he was, I knew that I had to protect him at all costs. My mother came and got Emerich and the loaded me into the ambulance. That was the worst night of my life, but not because of my pain or anything, but because of what my baby had to go through. To this day he still has nightmares, and I blame myself, because I stayed as long as I did.

The Reason Behind This Blog

I need to tell my story, and get it out of my head. I have never had a blog before, but have heard that it is great to make you feel better. I often feel so alone, and I have no real friends, or anyone to talk to. I don't think that many people could understand my story, but the internet is full of all kinds of people.