It's been a rough day at work. But the good news, it's Friday! It's 4:30, I'm done in 1/2 an hour. All I need to do this whole weekend is get the ring April ordered from the mall. She's having it changed from yellow to white gold and she's been patiently waiting two weeks. Well as patient as April gets anyway.

My phone rings, it's April. WTF? I check my instant messanger, she sent me a message a whole 73 seconds ago and I didn't respond.

Her
Me
(4:30:13 PM) hey you there
(4:30:34 PM) where are you
<AUTO-REPLY> : I'm here, give me a moment to im you back.
(4:31:43 PM) I'm at work.

Sorry, that's a stupid question. She knows the answer. 

(4:32:03 PM) hello?
don't get fuckin smart you jerk

Whoa, wow, what did I do?

I'm not.
i just wanted to tell you that i am waiting to pick my ring up
why?
sorry for fuckin bothering
becasue the boys are still here
what's your problem?
you always repleying in a queer way
no shit your at work
you asked where I was.
no duh i m you and you did repley
not
I didn't see it, I was writing a report.
so i didn't know if you left early or what
not a report, a task.
how did your run go?

Trying to change the subject, hoping this will calm her down. 

same
what's mal doing?
outside with her dad
ok.
i think you do this to piss me off so i get mad at you and then we can havea shitty weekend

I do this? I intentionally missed your im message because I'm rediculously busy at work just so I can ruin your weekend? 

but you claim there is noone else and the way you treat me
come on
there is no one else.
How am I treating you?
You asked a question, I answered.
why treat me like shit all the time your at work
I am not treating you like shit.
you didn't im me i had to im you why am i putting all the effort in this
I didn't know you were home yet.
I didn't see you online.
you kow my schedule
please understand I am extremely busy right now, I don't have time to watch the buddy list to see when you come online.
ok so i am bothering you i will see you sometime
you're not bothering me.

Actually, yes you are, I'm trying to finish my work. I tell her this so that it doesn't start fights, but it's too late.

yeah right, you extermely busy right now
what do you think that tells me
yes I am.
that your boyfriend has a difficult job?
since when
since (my former boss) left
since (my former boss) left, since Dave got the promotion.
well see he shouldn't gotten it he doesn't know anything
that wasn't my decision.

 No, it was yours. Thank you so much you couldn't control yourself and you have to remind me how you cost me the promotion. Thanks.

plus you need to do Kristin job so therfore it all makes sense
i willl let you go

Here we go again. Get yourself all fired up. 

what the hell?
why do you always have to do that?
you have to do everyone job
thats why you are busy
and the fact that I have to split what used to be Dave's work wtih Chris has nothing to do with it?
well chris should do work
" split what used to be Dave's work wtih Chris"
talk to you later
ok, love you.

 You'd think it was over, didn't you? Ya Right!

fuck you
if youloved me you would have time for me
and the fact you start early
I always have time for you.
and the fact you can't even tewxt me i have to text you
can't you understand I'm busy?
i am the one putting all the effort in not you
no
you eat lunch at your desk
and I get no credit for chatting with you from 11:15 to 1:15?

That was an earlier conversation that went pretty normal, I'm not going to bore you with it. 

you go in early
there's two hours of time today.
doesn't mean anything to you
yeah well there was lots of breaks in there anf you went to market
for lunch
oh wow, a whole 20 minutes.
whatever
be a jerk
I'm not being a jerk, you are.

Why did I do this? It can not get better, and I just poured a gallon of gas on the kitchen fire. 

no i always have time for you but you never have time for me
you don't understand that you go in early
eat lunch at your esk but i bother you to much

I realize it, it has no effect on her what so ever. Ant it's not as "early" as she thinks it is. 

I was in at 8. I talked to you until 8:10
I got changed. I didn't get to my desk until 8:20
so what that adds up over 5 days
so that's only 10 minutes.
and I spent 2 hours IMing you today.
so I would think that means I have to work until 6:50 to make up for it.
and there was lots of breaks becasus ei had phone calls
I had laundry breaks
ok do what you want
i give up

No, it's not over, I wish it was. 

not to mention the half hour we've been chatting so I guess that's 7:20 I need to stay till.

She's finally hit the right combination, now it's on! (It's also been 20 minutes)

i am always wrong
all I need you to do is be reasonable.
byww]
i think i am
its fuckin friday
yes, so be happy, don't be a jerk to me.
but you have to be there and chat with everyone else and you don't get home until 610 usually
don't you remember there's construction on my way home?
whatever I am I am i gues s
you clearly dont love me
1 lane of 45 mph traffic where it's normally two lanes and 55, that makes a big difference.
you clearly don't love me.
cause if you did you wouldn't be giving me shit.
you know wanted to take Madison out for dinner and get my ring
yes, the mall is open till 9:00 what's the problem?
yeah if i didn't love you i wouldn't be here
that's what I say to yo uall the time, but it's not good enough.
do your work
I'm trying.
that comes first remember
fuck me
i am shit
i am nothing
(4:53:09 PM) what ever, I'm tired of fighting.
(4:53:10 PM) bye
(4:53:12 PM) just remeber that
(4:53:13 PM) you're being ignored.
(4:53:30 PM) April has signed off.

I've got seven minutes to cram what I didn't get done in.

My cell phone rings. I ignore it.

My boss comes up to me, we chat, various phones are ringing. I know they're all April

It's 5:00, I'm ready to walk out the dore.

The phones rung about 10 times now.

She left a message 4:57 p.m. "Ok, get ready for Kristin's phone to ring". (I didn't get this until Tuesday).

I pick up. It's April, big surprise.

She says "Did you hear the phone ring?"
I say "no, I didn't hear the phone ring, what are you talking about?"
She says "I called Kristin"
I hung up the phone. Put it on forward to voice mail.

Another voice mail: 5:01 " Pick up the fucking phone. I did not speak to her, now fucking call me back". I didn't actually get these until much later.

My cell's been ringing, I turned it off.

I spent the next half hour scrambling, trying to forward Kristin's phone to mine, but after mine rings three times, it goes to Kristin's voicemail.

Shit.

I set the support emails to go from distributed to all members of the department to go just to me. Or so I thought, I didn't test it.

I banned the home computer again for good measure, that bit me in the ass last time.

I unforwarded Kristin's phone since it wasn't working the way I needed it to.

I put my stuff in the trunk and went home for the big blowout.

I got home, great April's not there.

I looked in the trunk for my cell phone, not that I expect to use it, but I want it handy if she decides to get violent again.

I calmly hook up the trailer, lower it to put the bike on, go to the house to get the keys for the bike. I have  no idea how much time I have so I don't want to waste it pushing the motorcycle on to the trailer.

Shit, as I walk to the door, I see her pulling up. I unlock the door, get my motorcycle keys and the van keys.

She's crying. She bursts in the door. "Please, I didn't call her. I was just joking."

I say "That's not a funny joke."

She's bawling "please don't leave, I can't live without you."  And "Give me one more chance, I swear I'll be good."

I tell her "we can't do this any more."

She then tells me that she called her Ex who made arrangements with his brother and sister-in-law to watch Madison since the boys will be with their dad at the races. She was going to get a hotel because she thought we were through. 

I agree to give her one more chance. I hate myself. I hate this relationship. I don't like April. I love the kids more than anything and they're not mine. And most of all, I know what she told me a moment ago means that she's once again thinking about killing herself. I can't leave now. I hate my life.

As much as I tried to convince April that Madison should stay with us, she was insistant that Madison should go with Aunt and Uncle.

I had to take a shit anyway. I'm in the bathroom with my pants down and she keeps talking to me, she opens the door. Things are bound up tighter than a drum even though I really need to go. Finally, she leaves with Madison. 

While she took Madison there, I listened to my voice mail and read my text messages.

I was going to post some of the text messages, but she got in my phone and erased them before I could.. Damn it I hate it when she does that. She knows I'm going to "use them against her" during therapy to show Dr. D. how screwed up she is. I don't want to harm her, financially or emotionally, but I think it could help. Probably not.

Over the course of 20 minutes, she sent me 22 text messages and left me 11 voicemail messages until it filled my mailbox.

I'll post the text of those when I have a chance. 

When she gets back, I'm finished, both listening to the voicemail and taking a shit.

She says "You know, I don't think I want you anymore." Which is just fine with me as long as you're not going to do anything stupid, April.

We  talk for a while like reasonable civilized adults. Wow, I think the relationship can't be salvaged, but she's got her head on straight. She even told me that she doesn't need me financially, that she can get by on what she makes plus child support and keep the place we're living in. I commend her on this. I mean it, I said a couple of times how surprised I was that she got that all together. "All I need a man for is sex."

It's rude, it's crude, it's socially unaccptable, but I don't care. She's finally acting normal under the circumstances.

She tells me how I don't care about her because if I did, I wouldn't have turned the phone off. I said "I thought you just ruined my career, I didn't want to talk to you."
She said "no matter what if I loved my boyfriend I wouldn't have turned the phone off, what if there was an accident and I needed to get a hold of you."

Well darling, I've known you for five years, the only accident wouldn't have been accidental. But I didn't tell her that.

Then she gets back on Kristin, how I defend her. I don't defend shit. I state the truth. She does her job, I do mine. I tell her I don't like her, which is not true, but saying so will only make things worse. I say "I'm not attracted to her." which is 100% true. I say "She's not my type." She's finally convinced me that she's not a suicidal bitch. 

I say we have the following options:
"We can just forget that the  whole day happened and go on an be normal".
"You can go to a hotel to cool off" (while I move out, cause I can't take this shit much longer)
"We can just give up." (this is a variation of number 2)
"Or, we can take a few weeks apart, start completely over and start dating". (which is the only way I can see this relationship ever working anyway, but I don't think it could. I'd give it a shot only because of the children.)

She says the last one one work, cause she'll wonder who I'm fucking. Ok, clearly we are not dealing with a sane person anymore. I was mistaken.

She says "maybe I should go to a hotel." I watch her pack her stuff, she takes the big bottle of one of her medications, I take it out of the bag. I'm like why do you need the whole bottle, why not take enough for two days. I forget what her response was but this confirmed my suspicions that crazy bitch was back. I convince her to stay at home.

She unpacks, the whole three things she put in the suit case. She walks into Madison's room. She says come look at this. Madison, all of seven years old, put a note on her whiteboard to me, "Chuck You cant move"

And that right there is what has kept me in this toxic relationship for so long. 

April doesn't understand how her behavior affects me.

It does, it's really hard to keep my schedule and try to keep peace in my house and keep my career from derailing.

That's why it's 4:30 in the morning and I'm calling my part time job to tell them I'm going to be late. I over fucking slept again. One of these days I'm going to be in so much shit because of this. I hope today is not the day.

I called in sick to work.

She called me at 7:20 to ask if I was going to the doctor. I said "no" I don't like the doctor. I like him, but I don't like going. She says "Fine, go to work". If I'm so sick that she thinks I need to see a doctor why is she fighting with me over the phone?

It's a bad head cold, but there's not much the doctor can do.  I can't see spending $20 for a co-pay when he's just going to tell me to let it run it's course.

She comes home, I play video games. She crawls into bed, falls asleep.

I go out and smoke a cigarette. When I come back in, she says "You know..." and trails off. I get undressed, crawl in bed with her. She's complaining about me smelling like smoke. I fall alseep. I'm pretty sure she was going to say something like "You know, if you were so sick, you should be in bed". Which is true, but I can't spend all day in bed unless, well even when I had strep I didn't spend all day in bed, maybe 16 hours, but not all day.

We get up. She goes to work. I catalogue my voice mail from Friday. It probably makes me look like an ass, but I need to keep track of what she says because she changes her mind as to what I'm supposed to be all the time. I have to do it to prove to myself that I'm not insane.

She gets home, We go to the mall to exchange her bracelet, a stone fell out again. We stop at Wendy's, get dinner. Even when I'm really sick, I'm still hungry. I'm not normal in this respect. She reminds me that I need to pay the rent. I tell her it can wait, we used to have a written five day grace period, we were given written notice that we don't any more, but the landlord never enforced it yet. I tell her it can wait until tomorrow.

She does the dishes. She says "you can't even do the dishes". Thanks, I feel like shit, my chest hurts, my head hurts. When I'm sick she says guys complain too much about being sick. I asked her what I could do for her when she was at work, but she insisted on vacuuming before she left. Now she's giving me crap about not doing the dishes.

I should have gotten a doctor's excuse.

Before bed she wants to talk to me to find out what I bought that the rent can't be paid. Well that's not the case, I just have to move money from one account to another, because I paid the loan on the damn minivan out of the rent account since Wells Fargo can't seem to pull it out of a savings account. I tell her I'm going to drop the rent check off tomorrow. 

I'm going to work tomorrow even if it kills me. 

I talked to her this morning twice and told her during at least one of the conversations that I wanted to stop by the upholstery shop to ask them to look at my motorcycle seat. I rode almost all of last year with black duct tape on it, the skin is shot.

So I leave at 11:35 or so, drop off the seat, talk to the guy about it. On my way there, I sent April a text message, she was supposed to be sleeping and she's told me that she wanted to get one when she woke up, she thinks it's sweet. Ok, so I send a text message while I'm driving (I sent her the same one earlier, so I just resend it).

Sending you a rose
@-->>---
Love you

 I'm going to stop at the grocery store and kite a check, we're a couple bucks short on rent and I need to pay a co-worker for a sub for a fund raiser.

She sent me a text back:

where did you go love you

CB: 978 555-1212
12:04 p.m.

Well, last time she sent me a text and I wasn't at my desk, she got mad cause I could have called her and she likes to hear my voice.
So I call her. Everything seems honkey dory. I tell her I need to stop at the grocery store because I was hungry, which was true. I left out the check kiting, because that just causes fights. I tell her I'm going into the store, I'll call her back when I'm done. We say "love you, bye".

I get out, I call her it's 12:23 p.m. She says "took you long enough". Now she's in a bad mood, oh this sucks.

I try to talk to her. It's hard enough to find things to talk about when she's in a good mood.

I ask "what's on your mind?". Answered with silence.

I ask "how does your problem feel?", referring to her not sure if it's a yeast infection. No response.

She asks "who's with you?" I say no one, cause there's no one there.

I get her talking a bit, and she asks "needed to go out for a quick fuck?". I was shocked. No dumbass, I went to give some guy I don't know parts from my motorcycle so he can charge me $125 for putting a new skin on it.
She says "you aren't getting it from me." Well duh, you got crotch rot, or think you do,  don't ya think that might have something to do with it?

Oh well, this conversation has gone down the tubes, so I'm giving it the flush.

I pull in the parking garage, I tell her that I'm looking for a space and I'll IM her when I'm back at my desk. I say "love you, bye" she says "bye". Uh-oh, spaghettios.

I was leaving my part time job this morning and I got to thinking, "I was happier when I thought I was miserable". I'm still putting together the major events from the last five years, well, it will be five years exactly in a couple of days. This is really bumming me out, reliving all this again. Reading IM logs from four years ago with the exact same plot line as the IM from yesterday. I know it's not getting better. April is getting better, but our relationship is not. My emotional, financial and physical well being is not.

The last time I recall feeling this way, six or seven years ago, I was thinking back to when I thought I was miserable working at a restaurant when I was 17. I made less than $5 an hour, I worked nearly 40 hours a week doing some of the most menial jobs available to an American teenager. I got no respect. I was a grunt. But I had no bills, no responsibilities other than showing up to work and school on time.

When I was thinking, six or seven years ago,  how happy I was but thinking I was unhappy, I was making at least $30,000 a year, I owned my home, well mortgaged it, I had a measly $20,000 worth of debt, it was me and my dog. I had responsibilities, I was reasonably respected.

So what's really got me depressed is I thought I was miserable being financially stable, owning my house, and I'm sure I'm miserable now. So how much worse can it get? My dog is dead, one of my closest friends is dead and what I should have said was left unsaid, I own some tools and a decades old motorcycle. Somebody else has the titles to my my car and that stupid van has me 10K in the hole. Not to mention the 10K or so I have in other outstanding debt. I'm forbidden from choosing my own friends.

The few things that I enjoy that cost relatively little money, riding my motorcycle, working on my car, working out, watching TV are severely limited as to how much and how often I can do them.

And I try to figure out how I got this way.

Depending on which school of thought you follow, there's probably a lot of reasons. But almost all of them are rooted in childhood. I didn't have the best childhood. Well actually, I had the best childhood considering the circumstances.

My mom raised three kids in the 90s on $12,000 a year. How is beyond me. Right now I live in a $70,000 a year household with three kids and it's tight. But my mom did the best she could with the limited time and money she had available. I was so lucky to live when and where I did and be loved by her. And I never knew how lucky I was until later.

My father's father was killed in WWII. My father never knew him. As a result, Dad has a lot of flaws that I ignore and I do my best not to make the mistakes he made during my childhood. Like leaving for someplace 2000 miles away when he and mom couldn't get along. Or losing his temper around us kids. I try to emulate the things that I think he did that were positive, like a strong work ethic and to pass knowledge along to us.

So I think that has a big effect on why it's been so hard for me to end this misery. They're right when they say you can't stay together for the kids, but it's so damn difficult to listen. 

Madison doesn't have school today. So I was chatting with her online. Perfectly normal conversation as far as a seven year old is concerned. We're talking about the Easter Bunny, easter's this weekend. And about what we're going to have for dinner.  Then April hops on the computer and says to me under Maddy's username:

April
Me
(12:01:15 PM) no steak ums, curly fries

 I think it's still Maddy.

thats fdrom me
mom
steak ums and curly fries sounds good too.
damn straight you have no choiced

Now I know it's April, but to be funny I write: 

Madison!
don't say those words.
you did not go to giants yesterday the credit wasn't on receipt
what?
yes I did.
April duh
well back to Madison
ok, love you.
bye.
love you.
Maddy, tell mommy I love her, she didn't hear me, thanks.
(12:04:28 PM) Madison has signed off.

 What the hell? Just disconnect the session? Maybe it was  network error. I doubt it. I wish I kept the receipt from the grocery store. Oh well.