Vintage

Let's start with the happy beginning~ late September, 1994....jaded high school senior, who barely dated anyone up to that point (me), meets handsome and charming fellow senior at a Renaissance Faire.

What a setting for a first meeting. About the only thing the day needed was some sun...it was cold and rainy. I had arrived in a less-than-content mood, due to both the weather and the fact that my "close" friend B was in her Stuck-Up Bitch mode again. So when she squeaked out "There's my friend K!!", I thought "Oh no....I may as well go find something to do on my own", because I just knew she was going to do her normal thing and flirt like crazy in front of me with this guy, even though she had two boyfriends. And her and I never had the same interests in guys...ever.

So I did not approach the guy that would be my future husband with the most accepting attitude. But I did think he was cute, and I was polite. He was very gentlemanly, and bought the both of us things when our money ran short. The three of us spent the whole day together enjoying the Faire. Oh, she did flirt with him, to be sure. As we were leaving, I stayed behind while she asked him about his ex and hinted about the two of them getting together. Little did I know at the time that one of his friends noticed this development, and warned him NOT to get involved with her, she was "bad news". How right that person was...if only he'd remembered that advice years later!

So it turned out that he was on the same bus as I was, and we sat together. History was made. He asked me out and gave me his number. A couple days later, I called. We were an official couple within the week. B was not happy however. She would make off-handed comments about us, and continue her flirting. It was brushed off because "that's how she is".

The two years after that were great~ he threw me a very special birthday party for my 20th...rented out a skating rink and invited all my close friends. Later I come to find out that on this day of the party, B had a moment with him alone and asked him what if they were to kiss !!! He said he did not...but I am so mad that she did that!

Things started on a downward spiral mid-way through college. He had a lot of stuff to deal with, and we didn't get to spend much time together on campus. This is the time that B started spending time with K, alone (aka when *I* wasn't around). I found out that they shared a few kisses during this time, again, even though she was now engaged to a guy. K and I took a "break", yet B and him would get together and "talk", and go out to movies together.

We ended up getting back together, and I got pregnant with our first daughter. Due to things going on at my parent's house, K invited me to live with his family. I gave birth, and not even a week later it was clear that there were going to be a lot of problems with his mother. It didn't help things that she had so many medical problems, and K was her main care-taker. It caused so many issues. In Nov. 1998 I had found out I was pregnant again, but had a very bad miscarriage within two weeks of knowing. His mother freaked out on us and forbid me to come back to the house. So I started looking at other options. I was "allowed" to come back for a month or so later, but the next time she kicked me out, we would be moving into our new house.

Almost no sooner had we moved in then B calls me, crying that she can't take living with her fiancee's mother anymore either. She had just had her daughter. We invited the three of them (B, her fiancee and their baby) to move in with us. The timing was horrible, and I regret doing it now. It put a major dent in an already shaky friendship. We fought terribly. They wouldn't do their part towards the bills or the housecleaning or anything. I also didn't know that she was getting even closer to K while I was at work...even though she and her daughter's father got married while they lived there. Anyway, it ended up with them getting their own apartment and vowing never to speak to us again. K and I found out I was expecting again, and we got married
in June 1999.

That same summer, she calls our house and tells my husband that her husband is gone...she witnessed him "abusing" their daughter, took her to the hospital for tests and filed a RO/PFA order against him. The reason I put abuse in quotes is because of her ex maintains that is not the case. I now know B's penchant for twisting reality, lying etc.~ and the hospital found nothing wrong. But the accusation was all she needed, then she was free to raise her daughter as she pleased. Aside from the phone call about that, my husband and I still didn't speak to her much. But silly me, being the softie I am, called her to have a heart-to...black heart. So we started calling each other to chat again. She would lament about not having a man around. I didn't know what to say, really.

When it was time for our 2nd daughter to be born, we needed our old bassinette back...B had it. So arrangements were made for it to be picked up, between her and my husband. BIG mistake. He left to get it, and came back over an hour later...hello, she was less than a 10 minute drive away. Yet despite my mistrust, questions and anger, H swore left and right that "nothing" happened. Begin the lying! They did indeed have sex when he got to her apartment, the day before I went into false labor. Our 2nd girl was born Feb. 24th, 2000. While I was in the hospital, she called him again to come over. 2 days later, while he told a friend to watch our daughter so that he could "get baby stuff" and go visit me and the baby...he went straight to the whore's apartment and they did it again. Then agreed that it would be an ongoing thing...bought condoms they would use~ ugh!

The affair went on and off until late April/May 2001. I really don't know why I stayed during that time, besides that I loved him so much that it hurt to think about leaving. He was really distant and cruel, not at all like the man I had wanted to marry. I knew he was lying, I just couldn't prove it, and he knew. Both of them did. If he smelled like her apartment that was "my imagination", plus my parent's house smelled like that. A stray earring piece he had "no idea" whose it was...probably my mother's. And the ever-popular "When would I have TIME to cheat?". Answer~ when he lied about working overtime and he "didn't know" where his paystub was, he "misplaced" it. No, he was actually getting rid of them.

One of the worst things is that B actually started acting MORE like a friend during this time~ going out with me and another girlfriend, hanging out at our house, even my husband went out with us a few times. She asked me to start babysitting her daughter, and I did. A couple times B sat for us. She would call herself "Aunt B" and also refer to me as her daughter's Aunt. She would call me up to talk about her foray back into the dating world. Oh, who am I kidding?....she decided to live it up after her ex husband's absence. She would meet one guy and start screwing him, and then tell me how that one introduced her to a friend who ALSO started having sex with her....at the time, I knew that 3 of her sex partners were all mutual friends! And she'd LAUGH about not protecting herself from pregnancy or disease~ "oh, maybe I should have used a condom but...oh well!" Let me explain something about these guys~ I don't even know if they were of legal drinking age, but they still drank and did drugs. The one was also married, with one kid and another on the way. She let two of the guys move in with her, and they proceeded to have parties, with underage girls around, no less! One time my husband said he arrived at her place (for what exactly, I still don't know) and he caught a glimpse of a girl who couldn't have been older than 16, with her top off and high on Ecstasy. I guess at one of these parties, someone almost got raped, so they called the cops. When the police saw that B was having a party w/ minors drinking and doing drugs, with her DAUGHTER in the apartment, they said they should have reported her. But they just let her off with a reprimand.

Anyway, that gives an idea into her state at the time. When she would call, I would gently lecture her about how destructive she was being. If I'd known exactly what she was doing with my husband, I would've just reamed her out! I was pregnant again, a 3rd daughter. I tried to confront him before, saying that with B's promiscuity, I deserved to know if he was doing anything with her, for my health at least. He STILL denied being with her. Not long after I told B of my latest pregnancy, she asked me "Wouldn't it be funny if I got pregnant with [the other married guy's] baby? Then [his wife] would find out and he'd have to take responsibilty". Twisted! Later, H said it was at this time that he "tried" to end the affair, and I guess she acknowledged that the other guy wasn't leaving his wife for her either. He says she said "I'm sick of just being the other woman!" Hello? That wouldn't be an issue if she was going out with a single man! And did he not realize the comparisons to Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction? Apparently not, because she invited him over again and he had protected sex with her for what he swore to her was the "last time". I guess this is when OC was conceived.

Meanwhile, I had 3rd daughter the night before 9/11...that morning, B came into my hospital room saying she'd had a car accident and had to get checked out. She was about 4/5 months pregnant, she'd told me when she found out. In one of the most blatant instances of lying I have ever witnessed, he kept interrogating me about what B said about her pregnancy news~" When did she say her last period was? Who did she say the father was? How far along is she?". I said "Why are you so interested? Did YOU have sex with her?". Then H got in a fight with me!~ saying I was "paranoid"!!! He still wouldn't confess. Later, he told me that he called her and went to talk to her. She told him there was nothing to discuss, the baby was NOT his, it was this other guy's. H accepted that!...and ended the affair for the time being.

In October 2001 she met her current husband. She worried about giving birth, and not having a father or someone she knew there. Her mother wouldn't do it, because she was disappointed in B. I stepped up as the labor coach. The child was born in January 2002. A week or so before his birth, she went into false labor. After they sent her home, we stopped at a restaurant with her boyfriend's brother. They like to be bawdy, so they were joking/talking about sex. She starts counting off the number of guys she had sex with. In the middle, she puts her finger out, pauses the roll-call, and whispers in the guy's ear. I ask "What's the big secret...you've told me all the guys you've slept with, more than I would've cared to know actually". She glares right at me and says "You don't know about this one". HELLO~ does she think I'm stupid....that that WOULDN'T tell me it was my husband? That all but cinched it for me.

Of course, when I went home and talked to him, he was STILL denying the truth. But I let him know that I was onto it, that I wasn't buying it...I just wasn't going to argue with him if he couldn't admit it. I became determined to get the truth, somehow, someway. I remembered that B used to take out this big black journal and write in it, while I was hanging out with her. She would write something, stare at me like she was sitting on a pot of gold and didn't want to share, and then turn away and write some more. Oh, that's normal behavior....riiiight. I didn't even have anywhere near the kind of money to hire a PI (oh, believe me...I wanted to), so I thought I'd do my own snooping. I arranged it so that I babysat at her apartment for the first time. The Big Black Book was sitting right there on a shelf in her living room. I riffled through it and it didn't take long to find "Feb. 21st, 2000~ K and I had sex last night". That was it...it was more than kissing and flirting, they WERE having sex. Oh, I was stunned...even though I had thought I knew about this, it still somehow seemed like a surreal nightmare come true. Then I read how long they had continued...how she wrote that he had slept all night in her bed and she "woke up in his arms" (he insists that's not true), how she didn't know if he was serious about moving her and her daughter in because he and I "seemed to make up" ??!!?? He says this also isn't true...he says he was never in love with her, and never said anything serious. I felt like I had vertigo. When I again confronted him, he at first started in with the same denials and excuses, and I just about flipped. I screamed~ "I SAW it, right there, why the hell would she "just write" that...it's HER journal....STOP LYING TO ME!!". He finally started confessing. D-day #1...May 4th, 2002

Wouldn't you know, I was already pregnant with our 4th daughter. As soon as I found out, one of the first thoughts that ate at me was "Is her son my H's kid after all, was I right to be suspicious that day?". This time, I'm the one who asks her and she affirms~ "No, and even IF, it is less than a 99% chance, but I can tell you he's not". He and her may have been naive, but I wasn't...not after all that. I brought up getting the child tested. She said it couldn't be a court ordered test because she already had a case running aganst the other guy (this was true, I went with her to Domestics when she filed), and she would "NOT" drop the case against him because she KNEW he was her son's father. She put alot of emphasis on the boy being HER son, and HER son only. And she didn't want to pay for a private test, and argued like hell against it. We couldn't afford it either, and she was making more money than we do...still does, a HELL of a lot more now.....

Directly after D-day, my husband and I were a mess. I get sick when I think of how we were acting. I felt like a monster of myself. He did not want to talk about the affair, to him it was "over" and "in the past", "not worth re-hashing". He'd say he couldn't remember or "didn't know", and get annoyed at my questions. When he'd get annoyed, I'd get upset and angry. When he saw that, he'd revert to Mr. Prick. And when he did THAT, I'd go postal. Then we'd both be at war with each other.

Yet he would still say that he didn 't want to divorce, and I didn't either. We would still have a good moment here and there. We took small steps towards recovery. But it wasn't enough at the time. He went back to B's apartment, while she was "split up" with her boyfriend. They talked for over 5 hours, had a drink together, all while sitting on the porch and listening to music from the bar next door. He had been fired from his latest job, and simply didn't tell me...he pretended like he worked for another week after. Instead he would go and see a movie or eat somewhere...and then talk to her another time. Then when "payday" came, he was obviously short on the income~ when he saw my reaction he only told me how he had went out. I knew better~ there was the feeling in the pit of my stomach and I just KNEW he was lying this time. I told him as much. I said "There's more...what is it? You were with her, weren't you? That's what it is " At first, silence. Then admittance. It was another bomb on my soul.

Another argument ensued. In the midst of it, he said he had to get a drink downstairs. I waited upstairs. 10 minutes passed, he didn't come back to the room. I went down to see what was going on...he wasn't around. I looked outside~ our new car was gone! We'd had tentative plans to go to the park with B's ex-husband (of all people). Because she wasn't getting enough attention from her boyfriend, she started taking up with both her ex AND my husband at that time. I called her ex and sure enough, my husband was with him~ but didn't want to talk to me. Stayed silent. I hung up in tears. This was two days before his 24th birthday, 3 days before our 3rd wedding anniversary. I never heard from him that night. The next night the phone rings...it's Bitch's number. I picked it up but it wasn't her...it was him. My heart sank. I asked him what was going on. He said we were done. He told me to pack some of his things for him and he'd get them the next day, but NOT to try to talk to him. I asked him if he loved me, he said "No"...even though he took that back the next day. I think I know why they call it heartbreak~ my chest literally hurt, bad. He hung up on me and I knew that he was going back to her, her presence. I didn't sleep that night. It's like I "saw" them having sex, in a psychic kind of vision...and indeed they were.

When he came by the next morning, his birthday, he wanted to come in and see our daughters...and see me. He hugged me. I stood there like a wall. I think I just realized how long this will turn out, if I keep up at this pace! So to cut back, we talked and he said he did want to stay together, and he was done with her. We spent our anniversary renewing our vows, after talking some about what happened....so I thought. He'd told me that even though he was with her and another friend of hers, even though they were flirting big-time, even though they played a "grown-up" version of Truth or Dare~ he said he did NOT have sex. I still didn't buy it, but I just wanted to try to start fresh. However, two or three days later, her ex-husband came over and said he "wanted to talk" to my husband, that he was "in a rage". They left, and when my husband came back he said "I don't want this to change our recent progress, but I want to be honest and come clean". Oh boy. D-day #2. He didn't have sex with the other girl. but he HAD slept with B again, TWICE! And with NO condom, and worse...no withdrawal! (He'd never been like that with her before). It was also less than 3 hours after her ex-husband had screwed her...I think that is disgusting to be with one guy after another in the same night! I said "What if she's pregnant AGAIN! If she doesn't have your kid already, now she really might!!". And she smugly said she'd "let us know if she was". Her ex was mad because he felt like my husband ruined his chances of getting back together with her.

She didn't get pregnant from that debacle. We got Relationship Rescue, and worked through it. She tried to get another PFA on her ex, but the judge ruled against it, and granted custody of their daughter to him, she was pissed about that. When I'm about 6 months pregnant though, she emails me "Results". My BP shot up....after all my arguments about how dismal her sexual knowledge was, how there WAS a chance that the boy was my husband's...I thought (hoped) she might bitch to me about how she was right all along, how she KNEW it wasn't my husbands kid. I would've gladly eaten crow...I would've. But instead it said that the guy she thought was confirmed to be NOT the father. And how she didn't want me to lecture her saying "I told you". We went to her apartment to actually see the results ourselves. A week or so later, we met up with her and her boyfriend, who was then her unofficial fiancee. She said she "didn't know" what direction she wanted to take, her boyfriend supported her and he might adopt him. "They" had plans to have their own family. We suggested things about getting a test, helping to contribute...she stayed silent and tried to avoid addressing those issues. It was a very awkward conversation.

Not long after that, she gets "raw" over something my husband says in his email. She takes it that he "hates" the child and says "don't bother trying to be involved, [boyfriend] and I are getting married soon, he has serious plans to adopt him after our honeymoon, we've already discussed it...and after that [daughter] and [boyfriend's kid] will have a brother, your kids won't have a brother, so I'd suggest not even telling them...[Boyfriend] and [StepDad] are all the father figures [the child] needs and WE will decide what to tell him about his conception". Then she stopped using emails, couldn't call her, and she moved. Ok, then...good riddance!, I thought. I didn't like not knowing who the child's father was, but if she didn't care to find out then we weren't going to force the issue. Yet....a few months later, she seemed almost nice again. She stopped referring to the affair/her son, and wanted to socialize with me again. Boy, was I a sucker. I figured if there were no waves then I was safe from drowning again. She was married in Feb. 2003, and all through the rest of that year, life with her was pretty tame again. My husband and I were also much improved...though we still have quite a ways to go right now.

But right before Christmas of 2003, she suddenly says she's been "talking to people" and "they" tell her that the *right* thing to do is go after my husband for support, otherwise it's "moral rape" !!??!!! She also "suddenly" remembers that she and my husband had sex in OUR bed once...He gets severely pissed off and says she is lying through her teeth. Anyway, true or not, she put another screeching halt to any feelings of civility towards her. She blew up and said after the New Year (2004), that she was heading straight to Domestics. She did. We were served papers for support. We paid a retainer for a lawyer, and they contested paternity. B still owed them for the testing done on the previous guy, so they said she needed to pay for the test. As all this was going on....enter baby girl #5. I'd been on the Pill and used condoms. All we kept praying and hoping was that the results would rule him out. Something else that added to this mess~ around the same time that her child was conceived, she went home once with my husband's brother. Chances are good that they had sex together too. To be honest, we still wonder if the results might be different if his brother was tested as a putative father. We got the results not even a week after his birthday...he was listed as the father.

Support was set...at more than half of our monthly income! We fought against this. I could not fathom half of our income to go for ONE kid, and the rest be expected to get split amongst 5. Couldn't afford to pay the lawyer anymore, so we paid petition fees, bided time in between hearings....only to get little change. One of the only "good" things was that they ruled that B couldn't get retroactive from birth....oh yes!~she did try to get it! She also tried to argue for the hospital bills to get tacked on to the amount. She saw dollar signs and wanted to cash in! But they tried to explain that it was her fault for going after the other guy first, therefore, things were her responsibility at the time. Oh, was she PISSED about that, to this day she still complains and thinks it's "wrong".

So she got the support order set, starts telling me how the amount is what they "quoted" her. Even more, that it's money that SHE'S entitled to...not me or my kids with my husband. Not even the child, she says it's "her" money. Yet, my husband and I try to talk to her about getting to see/spend time with the child, being he's my husband 's child. She didn't want to conceive of it. For many months, she avoided any contact by us about the child. Then she changed her mind somewhat, and would bring the child to visit while she hashed things out with us. But she would just argue everything for the most part. One of these "talks" happened when my husband was gone from the house. I knew we weren't friends, but I still thought she could be somewhat civil for the sake of everything. Instead, she took the opportunity to truly bitch and gloat to me. She said she KNEW the affair would hurt me, and she didn't care. She glared at me and said "I'll be perfectly honest with you. Since the money comes to me, I can spend it how I choose. If I take every dime and go to Atlantic City and gamble it away; unless you can prove that [the child] isn't being taken care of, then you can't do a damn thing about it". It took Herculean emotional strength not to smack the piss out of her!! I said "What about his other children...they need and deserve things too!". She said "I don't have to care about them...and no one else will care about them". This was said in front of our 4 year old!! I was enraged. I ended the conversation as calmly as I could, but next email I sent...you'd better believe that I spoke my mind!

After that, she then said if my we wanted to see the child, then my husband could go to her house. Ummm....how about NO. Oh, she put up quite a few arguments about that~ that "father and son" should spend their time together without being "distracted", and how I was "just paranoid" that she wanted to seduce my husband again. Supposedly, even her 2nd husband attacked me for this! When did I sign up for the friggin Jerry Springer show? She basically refused for the child to come here, and demanded that my husband see him on her terms. She would even come by to pick up gifts for his birthday and Christmas, but leave the child in the car....then she would tell my husband to walk across the street if he wanted to "see him so bad". He would say "No, I'm staying in my house with my family, and there's no reason you can't bring him in". She refused to give in though. So my husband and I talked, a LOT, and decided to fight for custody. B got pissed all over again (you get the point by now...that's normal for her), and talked alot of bullshit~ but the judge gave my us two days/overnights a week and rotating holidays, and shared legal custody.

B saw that that was far from a resolution though. She is in contempt of custody, in so many ways. She still raises the child with as little involvement with my husband as possible, and regarding her 2nd husband as the child's "Daddy", even though he still won't adopt him. Only the kids in HER household are his siblings...he "doesn't care" about his half-siblings here. I am treated as if I don't even exist anymore, and have "no business" in anything. If she needs to see or talk to my husband, it's "not supposed to be your business, you're not [the child's] parent". She will say that almost every chance she gets.

But she stands firm on wanting as much support as possible. And we can 't afford that much, not without cheating our kids. So he doesn't pay all he's supposed to. He still tries to petition for our family. But unfortunately, he's gotten in trouble. Right after custody was awarded, B talked to Domestics to apprehend him, even though he'd just started working again. He had to get a lower paying work-release job, and they were still taking the support out as if he were making $3 more on the hour....that adds up. But they didn't let him appeal against it.

As for our marriage? Over time, he changed to a different version of that guy I first met. Still handsome, still charming. But more committed. Tougher when he had to be, but tender to me. He says the affair made him realize how he was taking me for granted, so he actually treats me better now than he ever did. I know, that may seem kind of twisted...couldn't he have realized some OTHER way? And even *better* than that one, he's said that ever since he knew the child's paternity, he's seen how rotten another woman can be....the point was driven home that affairs are NOT worth it~ moral of the story? He will forever more be scared s**tless to have sex with another woman again! Again, not the deterent that I would have preferred...but...all this is what it is. We can't go back and erase it. The "house" of our marriage was demolished so he could build a new one with her. He demolished that one too, but our old house got wrecked, the damage was done. But we still have the lot. We have a blueprint. We have the construction materials, and we even have some of our old things left...so we will build again. And B will stay on the outside this time.....