I returned the expensive ring today.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to keep paying on this damn thing if she's just going to throw it out. I feel a little bad telling her that I didn't find it, but she clearly does not feel the way she claims to about me. She knows we're having a hard time financially. She won't look for a new job. She insisted on having a ring, then throws it away.

Last week, April wrote a check that would overdraw her account. She does this fairly frequently and I always bail her out. It's more often now.

I didn't have the money to cover it. I thought I would, but I didn't get enough hours at the loading docks to do that and the bills that I had to pay. I'm way too familiar with check kiting, I explained how to do it to April. So that's what she agreed to do. I didnt' have any checks so I couldn't do it.
Monday she did it.
Tuesday, she was mad about something. It could have been her boss, it could have been the kids, it could have been the weather, I don't know. So she didn't do the "flim-flam" as I call it. She didn't do it
on Weds. either. As a result, it's "my fault" that her account bounced yesterday, according to her.
I'm screwed too, because in trying to pay for the one car that I can't afford, her cell Bill, the utilities, the rent, the groceries she didn't buy so she could make her car payment and whatever I need to
buy to keep her happy so I'm not miserable, I'm way behind on everything non-essential.
My mom told me after several calls to her house from my creditors, that she'd pay my discover Bill of $544. (a loan actually. I owe her around $4,000 now) I set up the payment, and the guy assured me that it wouldn't come out until after this paycheck. So mom hasn't yet deposited the money in my account. What do you know, it came out last night, and I now have four overdraft fees, which amounts to just slightly less than my paycheck from the loading dock job.
I just feel like no matter how nice I try to be, I get shafted in the end.
I can't win.

I need a time machine. Go back in time, kidnap myself and say "Hey look this is the kind of mess you'll be in if you don't get out like you know you should."
If you go back in time and kidnap yourself, would that be a crime?

I need to pack my stuff and get out. I was planning to do that Sat. but we had plans with my mom, so I guess we'll do that and get my mind off this for a while.
Monday, I think I'll talk to a recruiter for the Marines. I'll move out, find some really cheap place to crash, get my debt reasonably under control and sometime next year go to boot camp. I'm also going to simultaniously take my vacation from LNP so I get paid twice for the first few weeks while I'm there and when I get out after six months or so, I should be down to a reasonable debt level where I can have it all paid off in a year.

I'll admit it, sometimes what I say comes out wrong. Most of the time it's innocent, sometimes it's agrivated, rarely is it intenional, unless it's a joke.

I come come, nobody's there. Turn on the TV, wait, because sometimes April runs out to the grocery store or something and gets back a few minutes after I do. Half an hour later, I'm still the only one home. So I go downstairs and fire up Eyezmaze.com cube (this little bugger is addicting). After a round or two, I hear the door open so I go upstairs. Just April, the kids are at a football game. She's mad
because not one check bounced, but four. $105 of fees. I put $105 in her account to cover it earlier in the day. BTW, I'm not sure why, but I was automatically refunded two of my three overdraft fees. I'm not going to ask why, I'm just going to accept the money back. So we go at it for a while. I don't remember everything that was said, but I was trying really hard to bite my toungue.

Finally, she says that I need to declare bankrupcy. At that point, I snapped back that she needs to get a real job. She claims she can't because of housework and kids and making sure she's home for homework and stuff.
I say she's got time to take a nap from 9 or 10 in the morning until 1:00, so she's got plenty of time for a 40 hour a week job. She says she won't make enough money or no one will hire her. I say she's got
skills that are in demand (both a CDL and nursing/medical office experience). She says driving would be a 60 hour week. I say that's no different than what she does now if she didn't come home for six hours
in between her morning and afternoon runs. The she says everything was fine until I started carpooling with two coworkers. I say it saves money and that they are very gracious in letting me ride with them. She
says that my part time job costs money, not makes money. I say it does cost money, but I've made $5,000 in the eight months i've been there. Then it goes back to the bankrupcy speil, how she's been there and it's no big deal and you can get a loan after a month and a bunch of other
stuff.
Before I could get a word in she then turns to how I don't do anything to make her happy and that I have vacation time I haven't used and could take a day off everynow and again to spend time with her when the kids are at school.
After the way Friday morning went, I lost my temper and said the only way she'd be happy is if I'm unemployed, broke and miserable. I say fine, I'm going to pack up and leave tomorrow (Sat).
She says I need to call my mom and tell her we're not going tomorrow.
I say I will.
So I go out side and smoke a cigarette.
I come back in, and what do you know, there's the steak knife. I pour a glass of soda and ignore the fact that she's got a steak knife, but keep an eye on her while keeping my distance. I should also mention, that at no point in time during any of the episodes did I actually fear my own safety. The only concern would be a slip or fall or her pulling away and cutting me, not that she'd actually be able to directly harm me. I'm faster and stronger than she is, so it may be arrogance or stupidity, but I'm not afraid of anything happening to me. Some of my treasured possessions, such as an antique clock that's
been in the family since WWII on the otherhand is a different story.
Then she goes into the 'I have nothing', which I reply, she's got her kids, and she's got her family. She says she doesn't have her family and it's not how it used to be. I say pick up the phone and call your sister.
Way too much stuff was said for me to remember, but it didn't take long before the steak knife was back in the dish drainer again.
So I go back outside, because I'd just rather walk away and let the situation diffuse.
So I hear her calling someone and she starts crying. And she says how I'm leaving and how I'm wrong. I'm thinking ok, this is good, she's found someone to talk to and everything will be fine. Then I go back
downstairs and start writing Malcolm a letter on the computer. Just stuff like, please take care of your mom, help her out be very gentle with your brother and sister.
Then she comes downstairs and says "do you want to talk to your mom?".
I couldn't beleive it, she called my mother! So that put one hell of a wrench in the works.
Needless to say, I wasn't about to tell my mom exactly what I was thinking and why I was going to do  what I was going to do. Especially with April spying on me from the top of the stairs.
I really should have just told her everything that was going on. Flat out, lay it on the table and be done with it. I will in the near future. Now I know she'll be the first one I call after I put everything in the  storage shed. Thankfully, that's one thing I can count on. It's about a mile or so from the house. And it's going to really suck pushing the motorcycle the whole way there (battery is dead and one of the gas lines leak, so I can't ride it, in addition to the fact that the plates expired two years ago and so did the inspection.)
But anyway, back to the subject at hand.
She didn't get any reaction from me with the knife or the I have nothing to live for speech. So now she knows that she can get disgruntled compliance by telling on me.
It has to be obvious to her. Neither one of us is happy.
I could really use some words of wisdom from someone who deals with this, like Dr. Phil.

The way I see it, I have two options. 1) pack up and leave when she's going to be away for a few hours.
2) somehow set her up with someone else, so she tells me it's over and if for even a fleeting moment, everyone is happy. Plus, that will have put the ball in her court and she'll have someone new to drive crazy.
But hopefully, she'll act more sane this time.

Then I found out that my mom suggested to April that there may be "another woman". Well hell, thanks mom! As if she didn't have enough unfounded insecurities, now you just gave her one with a foundation. Baseless, but that doesn't matter.

Tomorrow, My Mom, April, Madison and myself are supposed to go to a festival, this will be interesting. Maybe it'll blow over by morning. 

I try not to borrow money from family members, but I had an idea. One that could help me out and pay mom interest at a higher rate than any CD would, also paying off a car loan that would save me money, not having to pay collision and comprehensive insurance premiums.

Since my grandmother died, she had money stashed in CDs, bonds and stocks. I have an 11 thousand dollar loan that I'm making payments on. We combine the two and everybody wins, right?

April got served a summons that she needs to pay $1,900 or go to court over some debt from four years ago. I don't have the money, so I posted this looking for help. But I didn't get much.

So I posted this with further explaination of the situation. Getting more advice, I realized that I'm screwed probably and will have to pay this damn thing. I don't have that kind of money. I don't have any money actually.

Well, fortunately I do, I agree to help her out, I'll have to put the car payoff back a little, but it's only two grand. I don't tell her where I'm getting the money from. 

I don't know why I agree to bail her out on this stuff.

She found out I was trying to pay off the car loan and how I got the money. 

She wanted to be involved on what gets paid and what doesn't. So here's the list she came up with:

 837.35 Discover.
 244.43 Citifinancial
 500.00 HSBC - one of her credit cards.
1691.77 unknown
 202.00 Water Bill
  29.97 My magazine subscription.
 155.36 Gas Bill
 632.00 My car insurance
 327.94 My student loans
1293.25 ALL THAT'S BEING PAID OF THE LOAN OUT OF $11,000
  250.00 - my lawyer to handle my getting arrested, driving while suspended issue.
  46.00 - her car registration
  45.00 - discount club membership
 676.74 - CreditOne (possibly one of the payments)
  36.00 - Another registration, probably driver's license renewal.
  585.38 Orchard Bank
 400.00 cash to her, I do not know why.
_______
7953.19 total

So now instead of paying off, or almost paying off a $11,000 loan, I have to pay all the above crap, which only 1/10th is paying the loan off, plus I'm now $350/mo more that I'm supposed to pay out.

This is just great. All the other stuff would get paid, probably behind, but paid. I had a solution, now I have none.

April called a car dealer yesterday because they sent her junk mail and she was "curious" if she'd be approved for a new car. They said yes, come on down (to a different state). I told her this is a bad idea, cause she'll have to pay taxes twice.

She doesn't believe me. I explain that she can't afford a new car. She won't accept the answer. She says she'll trade the minivan and take responsibilty for the negative equity. Yeah, right. I say no. Even though I want it off my credit, it's not right.

Finally, after several hours of bugging, she demands to know why. I say "there's three things that are in the way, and if any of them didn't happen, it wouldn't be a problem. First, if she didn't make me buy that damn van. Second, if she had a job where she made at least $20,000 a year instead of 9,000." Well that was too much for her to handle. She went in the house and started screaming. I'm not going in to that mess. I stay outside and smoke a cigarette. Then, I hear a dish break. Then another, and another and another. By the time I get in the house, ever single glass and ceramic mug is on the floor. There's a few that didn't break. She picks one up and slams it on the floor, damaging the vinyl, still doesn't break.

That made her even more angry. I grab her and hold her till she calms down. There are a million pieces of glass and ceramic all over the house. She's yelling how I don't respect her, I don't love her.

Finally she calms down, we clean up the mess, leave get dinner and buy plastic glassware to replace all the ones she broke. 

Against my advice April bought a truck for her Ex. He's lousy with money. I fear it will bite her in the ass.

He had a perfectly fine truck, it needed $300 for work to pass inspection. I even offered to do most of the work to save him money so that he would have more to spend on his kids. Instead of fixing it, he bought another from a buy-here pay-here place for $400 a month. Sure enough, he stopped making payments and it got repo-ed.

Now he's living in his company Over the Road truck in the grocery store's parking lot. So he asked April to buy him another truck since he can't get in on the Buy-here Pay-here network. Why would she do this? I mean, I have no problem with them exchanging favors for the benefit of the children, but a truck? So he's supposed to pay her the $60/wk and she'll write a check and mail it. As well as pay the extra for car insurance, since she technically owns it.

She also told me that she asked the salesman about what I said about the out-of-state dealer, that she would end up paying more because of buying it out of state than buying it locally. I feel slightly better about it, but that was only a small part of the reason that was a bad idea.