May 1985 to Oct. 1990

Just a word of warning - this one is long.

The job I got was in a loan office. I was trained to do everything from taking applications over the phone, to processing the applications, to making the loan, to taking payments, to collection work when the payments weren't made. Within a month, I was making deposits of very large amounts of money, using the manager's car to take it to the bank. My husband didn't like me leaving to go to the bank, but I tried to tell him it was part of my job, and that it showed me I was trusted to do a good job.

I made $5/hour to start and it was my money. The people I worked for were very nice and took time to show me how to do what I needed to do. The baby was at a decent daycare. I would go home in the evenings, make dinner, clean the house, play with the baby, and I thought we were doing pretty good.

Then, little odd things began happening. No, I began to NOTICE them more, I think. He would come home an hour late and say he'd gotten stuck on a job. Or the phone would ring, and if I answered it, they'd hang up - and he would accuse me of having a boyfriend. I would call his work just to say hello and that I was thinking of him, and they'd say he was late again. If I asked him what took so long to get to work, he'd start a fight about me not being home to take care of the baby, and why in the hell was I checking up on him, etc.

Since he wouldn't really help with paying the bills, we still had no money and only one car (so I took the bus to work). No matter how much I made, when I would ask him for part of his check to help pay the bills, he "didn't have any leftover." When I would ask, "leftover from what," he would change the subject or start an argument over something he maintained was my fault; such as the laundry wasn't done or dinner wasn't ready early enough.

He eventually lost his job because he lost his temper one day and told off a customer. Then it seemed as though no job was good enough for him. It didn't matter to him that even flipping burgers would bring in $4.50 an hour and would help. Oh no, he wanted to be making the $7.00 an hour he was used to, or else he just wouldn't work. So we were living on my check.

Now, I've taken you through all this to get here: In February of 1987, my boss offered me a manager's position. The only catch was that we'd have to move from San Antonio to Killeen, 175 miles away. Since he wasn't working and we really had no family ties to where we lived, it didn't seem like a problem. I thought.

As part of my manager's training, I had to work in the military offices, since the new office was in a military town. I needed to get used to the ways of the military, the language, etc., so that I'd be better informed in the new office. Well, if he called the office and I wasn't there, he'd throw a FIT for them to track me down and call him. He even threatened one time to come to the office and "take care of the problem" himself, which to this day I'm not really sure what he meant, but he scared the dickens out of the poor girl that answered the phone.

Basically, what I'd have to do is call him, tell him "I'm going to such-and-such office, I'm leaving right now." Then I'd call him the minute I got there. If it took longer than he thought it should, then he'd want to know where I stopped, who did I see, why didn't I tell him I was stopping, etc. He never would believe that traffic was bad. He even accused me of having an affair with my boss to get the promotion.

We finally moved to the new office. I got enough of a pay raise to afford a really nice BIG house; lots of room, a big yard for our little girl to play in. Unfortunately, his male ego was hurt because he couldn't find a "good job" in the little military town. Everyone hired family or military wives, which is usually what happens. The one job he did get, he lost because of his temper again - only this time he told off the boss's wife, who doubled as the bookkeeper, when (as he said) she screwed him out of three-hours pay. I never did get the whole story on that one. At any rate, he never did get a steady job.

My job was great - for me. He hated it. As the manager, I felt it was my job to open every day at 9am and stay til close at 6pm. He felt like I should be able to come and go as I pleased (or rather, as HE pleased), because that's what "all the other managers do." I also was more comfortable taking the deposits to the bank myself, but he even questioned that, going back to when I worked for the other office. He couldn't understand why I couldn't give that job to someone else, since it had been given to me (as a clerk) previously. He assumed I was lying about going to the bank before, therefore I must be lying about going now.

Let me note something here: throughout our marriage, I was constantly being accused of lying about one thing or the other. First of all, I was not raised that way. Secondly, I had more respect for our marriage vows than that. And most of all, I had no reason to lie to him - I wasn't hiding a boyfriend or a secret bank account, contrary to his constant accusations. Toward the end of the marriage, I began to be very secretive, but I'll get to that.

After we got settled, his ego was really getting the better of him. At one point, he decided that if he couldn't find a job in that town, he would go look elsewhere. He packed a backpack with some really strange items like a little duck I had given him, some pictures of the baby and me, warm clothes (since he was headed north) and took his dog and a handgun for protection. He set off walking, with me pleading with him not to go. Looking back, I know now that it was just more manipulation and control on his part. I was playing exactly the role I was supposed to be playing, the pleading, begging, sobbing wife. I carried a lot of anger with me over that one for a long time.

Anyway, he got arrested for vagrancy about 45 miles up the road. Unfortunately, he had an outstanding ticket in another county about 100 miles farther away, so they extradited him.

He called me to come get the dog and the backpack. This was on a Friday, and he said he'd be let go Monday night. Well, Sunday afternoon I get a phone call. It's him, and he's at a friend's house in San Antonio. Turns out, he "just couldn't take it," so he called them to pay off the ticket and come bail him out. He wanted me to drive to San Antonio to get him. He was also mad as hell that I didn't come "visit him" in jail!

I couldn't believe it. Our car was barely making it, our little girl was sick, it was raining the whole weekend, and he was mad that I didn't come play the little bereaved wife to him while he was in jail for three days. Now we owe this friend about $200 that we don't have, plus I have to drive to San Antonio to pick him up, taking off work to do so. I very nearly filed for divorce right then. By that time, I was beginning to realize that I would be just fine on my own. However, once I got to San Antonio, he turned on that Irish charm again, cried and pleaded, and I took him back.

We got home, things were fine for a long time. I now know that we were in what's commonly called the "honeymoon phase." That's when there's a huge blowout, then you make up, and things are wonderful. I thought he had changed, but not so. With physical abuse, this is the time where he promises not to "ever do it again." With us, he vowed to get a job, no matter what.

He had been hanging out at this one bar, where he met this woman who he claimed needed a ride to work and to get groceries. He would tell me these stories about her, about how she was so wild that she would show off her tattoos to anyone who asked - and they were on her breasts. He would laugh about it, and when I'd say "when can I meet her," he'd say, "oh, you don't have anything in common with her, she's a biker." I believe I did have something in common with her - my husband! But he always denied anything going on. What an idiot I was, right? But denial is a big part of this syndrome. And boy was I ever in denial!

Then I got pregnant with my son. And while he was, for the most part, an accident (we hadn't really talked about having anymore, but we weren't trying NOT to), he was very welcome. I thought maybe this will keep my husband at home. And when the baby came, it did. For about two days.

I had maternity leave coming, so since I was at home, he didn't feel obligated to stay home to baby-sit. I started going in to work, saying my employees were having trouble with the computer, just so he'd have to stay home with the baby and our daughter (who was by now 5-yrs old). He'd bring them both up to me at work, and say he had a job interview. I could keep them there, since we had a little break room in the back. He'd bring crayons and a coloring book and the playpen for the baby, then show up that evening to pick us up to go home. Curiously, with all those job interviews, he never did find a job. Hmm.

All this time, he was still accusing me of one thing or the other. If he called and I was at the bank (we could walk from the office), he'd be right there within minutes to check up on me. If I called the house and he was gone, it was none of my business where he went.

We had a joint checking account, because I had this dream of "life the way it should be," where it's not "your money" or "my money," but "our money." I thought if he saw that I trusted him with it, he'd respect that. So he always had access to the money. If I tried to save some money to go visit back home, he'd end up with it. (We went back to my hometown about once a year, only when the income tax refund came in.) Even our regular expenses became next to impossible to keep up with.

Eventually, I got to where I would pay the bills with money orders and put whatever was left in the bank for groceries. Sometimes, he'd beat me to the money, and we would have to really wing it for groceries. If I questioned him, or told him to stay out of the money at least until I got groceries, he would use that as an excuse to throw a fit and stomp out and get drunk. Then he'd come home, all apologetic. More than once, he overdrew the account, using the ATM card and going by the balance on the receipt, instead of the balance in the checkbook. He would say it was the bank's fault since they didn't put the real balance on the receipt.

This went on-and-on. He'd work odd jobs for two or three days, then quit. He tried to start a lawn care business, but the extent of his advertising was to put a sign in OUR yard, which looked like hell, that he'd do yards. He figured people driving by would see the sign and call him. I bought him some nice business cards. All he had to do was walk around and leave them on front doors or windshields. I found them dumped in the trash about three weeks later. He said he had passed them all out. When I showed him the full box, he said "oh no, those are the wrong ones" and that was it. No further explanation.

During the winter of 1990, I became pregnant with our third child. Once again, I was accused of lying, on two counts. One, I was accused of "deliberately getting pregnant," and two, although I didn't even know I was pregnant until I was eight weeks, he decided "I knew all along." Wrong to both counts! She is the joy of my life, but at the time I knew that the VERY LAST thing I needed was another baby.

He gave me a really hard time for awhile, saying it probably wasn't even his etc. Then he decided to leave it alone. In August 1990, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait, and Fort Hood emptied out. All the soldiers went to the Persian Gulf, and I was let go in October, due to "cutbacks." I was given a very healthy severance check due to a profit sharing plan in the company, and we moved back to San Antonio. We had been away for three-and-a-half years. I was seven-months pregnant.

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