Guest Spot-Pride
With a short bob haircut and a choker necklace this 5’5” 125-pound woman was every man’s desire. Now I’ve seen beautiful women before but once I got in the door, I knew I had to have a lap dance with her. First it started out innocently, we had a drink when she got off stage, then she rubbed my thigh and asked if I wanted a lap dance? Of course, but I played it cool.
Now, what got me to this place? I’m a married man. I love my wife and her kids, who became mine. But why a strip club? And why was I allowing someone else to touch me? Then the answer came with a ring of the phone. It was Wifey. Choices…. do I answer it or continue with Cinnamon? I excused myself and went outside only to reengage in an argument about mopping. Yes, I left Cinnamon to debate wringing out a mop, or her using the Swiffer that I just bought and so we could throw away the pads.
Before I went home, I stopped at the gas station and bought store roses. They were real. Once home, I took my time, laid them about the room on the first floor of our condo and decided to make some noise. When she came down with an attitude, she saw her name spelled out in rose petals. Yes, I was that dude. No need to labor about what happened next, but afterwards, the gentle soul laying next to me did something different. We were in a deep sleep and my sleep was interrupted by a nudge. It appears that I had been snoring. Now I know that we all have pet peeves but does snoring deserve this?.......The next night, it wasn’t just a nudge, but a push. I almost fell off the bed. Then the following night I felt a punch. Yes, my sweetie punched me to get me to stop. The final straw was when she kicked me. Now, I was 6’1” 260 pounds and she was 5’8” 150. Laying down, I guess she thought we were the same size, but instead of reacting, I gathered my favorite comforter and headed downstairs. I slept on a hardwood floor instead of a soft bed, to get a restful night. Unfortunately this continued for 6 months. I became so accustomed to sleeping on the floor after the 2nd week that when we retired for bed, I took my comforter from the downstairs closet. To keep up appearances for the kids, a few nights she would join me to make it seem like we were camping out. The kids, 5 and 13 even joined us a few nights. But my mind was made up, I preferred the floor.
I was unemployed due to the economic recession. Obama was just placed in office, Jan 2009 and the economy tanked. Well, it tanked under Bush, thanks to the big banks and Bernie Madoff. So at that time I was living on unemployment and we kept getting extensions, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever (like now). A man without a job usually is a man without a purpose and I turned to the bottle pretty heavily. The drinking caused my snoring and a bunch of other health issues.
After promising to stop my heavy drinking, my sweetheart and I made up, and I rejoined her in the bedroom. Approximately three weeks into my trial of going sober, I fell back into old habits. First drinking, then visiting Cinnamon and of course snoring. Now a good woman will put up with just about anything, and mine did. She even entertained me and went to the strip club. We definitely found out that’s not her spot. She was repulsed by men asking her to dance. I took it as a compliment, but she was livid! I spent a week apologizing, but when the snoring came….so did the nudging and the kicking….
It's interesting how someone can be 100% wrong and blame it on the other person. That’s what I did. I got mad because she woke me up, forgetting that I had agreed to stop drinking. So, I returned to my patterned behavior and went downstairs. This lasted another 6 months. 6 months of watching a fine woman get dressed and leave. Then the dreaded silent treatment started. First it was just her, but then the kids got involved. I was a man on an island. It was three against one.
I started a hobby of screenwriting, and became good. I went to L.A. twice and really tried selling a script, but when that went south, my sweetie was actually there for me. But I took it as nagging and false comfort. If someone else told me my script was good, I was all over their compliments. That took me back to the hardwood floors and the silent treatment. So now I’m almost a year and a half into sleeping on the floor with a beautiful woman upstairs. I had my breaking point and said once I get a job, I’m out. In my head it was three against one.
August 2010 came and I got a call for a job. I took it and made plans to move out. March of 2011, I was ready. Or was I? She and I talked about the split before I did it, but there was no convincing me. She didn’t want me to say anything to the kids, she wanted to do that herself and there was no yelling in the house. Her famous quote was, “I want to keep our family”. In my mind, I’m thinking how could you want to keep this? We barely talk, we haven’t been intimate in about a year and family doesn’t make family sleep in another room (notice how I said “make”?) So mid March came and with shaking hands I packed my vehicle and laid down the keys to her place. That’s right, her place. Because I felt it was no longer ours.
I was on my own and single at last. Free to snore and drink and be uninterrupted. That was good for the first two weeks until I started missing my best friend. Even though at the end we didn’t talk, just seeing her and being in her presence kept us connected. I felt like someone ripped a piece of my heart out, and it definitely didn’t help when a friend came over and told me to go home to my family. I thought on it, and when I said, “yeah, I’m going home”, that’s when sweetheart had, had enough. She said, “No”. No? This person that I spent 7 years with, was now telling me no? It hit me like a ton of bricks and depression set in. You know the kind where you don’t want to shower, lift the shades or see anybody? And how did I know I was in depression? One day I was watching a happy commercial and I felt so overwhelmed, I started crying. Over a commercial? I was a mess. How could I go from being The Man to not having a clue?
People turn to religion at this point and I wish I had, but old habits die hard. So drinking it was. I also filled my void with strippers and one-night stands, but all I was really looking for was my best friend. The one that took me back many times before. Why can’t I come home?
Well, the answer was in front of me. You are home. Get it together and stop sulking. Man up! Shower up! And Look up! I actually decided to take the approach of accepting the blame. Everything. Lay it on me. I have big shoulders. I ended up losing some weight, working out to improve myself and that led me to train others. Interestingly, you think that your problems are the worst until you listen to others. As I trained others, I slowly crept out of my depression. Helping others, helped me. The only problem was that every time I spoke of my ex, people told me that I was not over her. I thought I was. I mean this is 10 years later, we were divorced. I moved to another state, I was a personal trainer, fit and fine. I don’t need her, but again, I was masking the truth. By my acceptance of the blame for everything, I hid all the bad things that she did and said to me, and I only remembered leaving. How could you leave a family? So, it was guilt. I felt guilty for walking out on a great thing and I had to live with my decision.
Now during the 10 years I decided that since I left, I wasn’t going to call her. I had caused enough damage but interestingly, she called me. At first it was twice a week. Then it went to once a week. About a year later, it was once a month. We always asked about each other’s family and our families always wanted us back together. But she wasn’t ready. She said she was afraid. Why? I never hit you, I said. She said, you did worse, you ripped my heart out, you walked out on us and I felt like dying.
Damn!
She asked if I ever slept with Cinnamon? Still to this day I don’t know how she got her name. My reply was no. I did give Cinnamon a ride home, she left her phone in my car but her name was not on the phone. But we know that wives can be great detectives. The thing she said that hit below the belt was, don’t you feel stupid that you let someone come between us and you didn’t even get none? She was right.
Then her mood changed. When she would call, she was happy. She had a man and I was happy for her. Then the calls became frequent. I mean to the point where for two weeks, she was calling me every morning on her way to work. That’s something we did when we were married. I asked her, what are we doing? Are we getting back together? She took offense and went into a full on rant. Was I wrong for asking my ex wife if we’re getting back together?
More questions flooded my brain? The one I struggled with the most was, “Should I hate my ex?” Even though it was 10 years, she brought out feelings in me and then shut me down in a split second. Would it be fair for me to carry that disgust and anger with her? And the answer is NO. She forgave me and was trying to be my friend and I mistook her friendship for something else. Maybe because I never really got over her, like others were telling me.
Then I had to come to terms with something that I hadn’t even thought about. The question posed to me, Why did you really break up with your ex? Initially as I began writing this story, I thought it was my snoring. It wasn’t infidelity because she had taken me back for that. So all of these years I was thinking that I halted a great thing, due to the shoves and the pushes.
But NO, I didn’t even scratch the surface. The answer hit me that I had failed myself and my marriage because of my PRIDE. I refused to admit the things that I had done wrong and I shifted the blame onto her. Every time I refused to talk to her during the silent treatment, was my own pride. And now, I am not proud of myself. It’s interesting how those words can be positive or negative depending on whether you are using the noun or the adjective. Well, being that I went fishing in my ocean of emotions and came up with a few whales, I have work to do. Not all men want to do bad, I feel we need a proper role model or a relationship class.
D
When I started Alimonia Life I was unsure of the direction, I just knew that I wanted to
create a safe space for anyone who found themselves on the road to divorce.
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