Everything at this point seemed to be going downhill and fast. There was so much tension it was effecting everyone. My kids were on high alert and his kids seemed nervous and uncomfortable and he seemed in another place and me? Well, I was trying my best to handle everything and everyone like a machine. That’s I think what happens to me. I get so focused on getting things done that I lose myself. I become hard and cold and more like a robot while inside I feel like I am dying wanting to scream out to anyone who will listen that I’m scared, I feel alone and although I look pretty tough on the outside, I’m a mess inside. Anyone who really knows me, knows that I can handle just about anything on my own. I can deal with pretty much all that life throws at me by myself, but I don’t want to. That’s the point. I want a partner, someone I can lean on, someone who is willing to go the extra mile with me and for me. Someone who would be willing to just throw their arms around me and tell me that everything is going to be alright. Things at this period in time didn’t feel like they were going to be alright. I was barely holding us all together, trying my best to act as if we were a normal functioning family. There were so many issues mounting around us that is almost seemed impossible for us to take on one more thing. Jolly Guy and I were at odds all the time, the house seemed divided and everyone was picking a side. Sometimes it was mine, sometimes it was his, but none of us were all on the same side at any time and that felt like failure. I always described myself as an everything bagel. Why? Because I have all this stuff on the outside of me, hard, crusty, but on the inside, I was warm and mushy and I needed someone to know that other than my mother and my best girlfriends. I needed someone to want me to stay, not give me the option to leave. Most of our arguments during this time always ended with “If you don’t want to be here then leave.” which cut me to the bone. I didn’t want to leave and if I did I wanted to get in my car like Thelma and Louise and drive off a cliff because it would be better than living in this mess every day. I was drowning and there was no one willing to throw me a life raft, because everyone was busy saving themselves. I guess that’s what happens when relationships begin to go bad. Everyone starts taking stock in what’s theirs and what they put into it and what they will leave with. My thought was always not to make a list and divide, but to make a list and combine. We were supposed to be a team. Being a team meant that every person was integral to the end game. Every position was important and a team cannot win if one person decides to take the ball and make up their own plays. And that’s what was happening. Jolly guy seemed distracted all the time. He constantly asked me if he looked like he was losing weight because he felt rotten. I begged him to see a doctor. I knew in my heart he was sick, but I couldn’t get him to admit he needed a medical professional to tell him this. I can remember one morning sitting on the edge of the bed just before I left to take the kids to school and crying to him “Please go to the doctor, if something happened to you I don’t know what I would do.” Again he told me he was fine and that he just needed to stop smoking or stop drinking of which I knew neither would ever happen. That’s the thing with illness, once you decide you want to do something about it sometimes it’s too late, just like in failing relationships. Every day for the next two weeks was like an episode of the WWE at the house. The kids were pushing and punching and yelling and screaming at each other all the time. I was like the ref constantly telling them to go back to their corners. And then they turned their fighting words on Jolly Guy…and the result was shocking.