Tuesday, August 30, 2005

New School Year

The kids are already back to school. Their school started the first week of August. Both are enjoying the new year... so far.

Erik likes his second grade teacher and usually gets his homework done before I pick him up from his mom's house in the evening. We are working on his reading some more, but so far there have been no reports of him being behind. I sent the teacher a note explaining what we had done last year with the tutoring and asked her to let us know if he needs extra reading to get up with the rest of the classes level.

Kevin is really taking this year seriously. He is taking Entomology as an extra class. He is enjoying collecting the bugs. He has continued playing the trumpet this year. I was afraid that he was going to drop it, but I convinced him to stick with it. I also told him that I would get my trombone fixed and buy the matching book and practice with him. After paying $50 to get my instrument repared we started practicing together last week. I really need to get my lips in shape. 45 minutes of practicing at the 7th grade level and my mouth was tired. I am somewhat motivated now. I am seriously thinking about joining a community concert band.

Although I have fought it, I finally agreed to let Kevin join the football team. He joined a little late, but is attending practices 5 days a week. He has his first game sometime this week. I wonder if he'll get some time on the field.

My ex-brother-in-law/roommate has been shipped off to join the war effort. His reserve unit has been called up. They left Sunday morning for the sand box. I wanted to get up and say goodbye before he left, but I was up all night due to the drama queen. Luckily he called from the base before taking of to ask me a favor. So at least I did get to say goodbye.

He will be going back and forth (there a couple months then back here for a couple, etc) for the next year or so. He'll be back in November in time to close on the house he's having built. I had asked him to find a place once Chantel and her kids moved in. At the time I was kind of annoyed that he decided on building, but now I am glad that he is getting exactly what he wants.

Monday, August 29, 2005

The Calm and The Storm

It took forever it seemed to get Chantel to stop with the frequent calls and text messages. She would fabricate a reason to call or message me in hopes of a return call. I had noticed that she had left all of her sexy underwear here. I asked her why she didn't take it. She told me it was no use to her since she wouldn't be wearing it for anybody else. I just rolled my eyes. When I saw the items again I stuffed them on the shelf in my closet. I finally had to tell her flat out that she could not call anymore. She sounded better in that she was not sad in her tone, and she wasn't doing any kind of pleading. It seemed to work. No calls or messages for a few days. I was hopeful.

I ran into my own problem in the following days in that I found a number of items in the house that belong to her. Nothing that couldn't be replaced so I bagged it up, but held off on doing anything. Unfortunately I received some mail for her that was important. Bills from when she was in the hospotal. I decided that a message was neccesary, so I typed a quick note into my PDA about the mail and the misc. stuff and sent it on its way. As they say, hind sight is 20/20. I should have just mailed them to her.

A message came back thanking me for letting her know. That she would come get everything soon. The bag sat next to my front door for days. I was kind of glad she didn't rush right over like I had anticipated. After a few days I started to wonder if she was ever going to get them. I hate throwing things away.

Over the weekend I was finishing up the painting that Chantel had started in the house. Eight gallons of paint later and I had a fresh coat of paint in the family room, living room, kitchen, stairway, hallways and 2 bathrooms. The color is what I call Chocolate Milk. I was almost finished when the phone rang. Chantel was calling to see if she could come get her things. I agreed that she could. I finished up with the main parts of the stairway leaving just the trimout and touch up to do.

She came by and we talked. Mostly just about my work and about our kids. She also talked about how she now has a profile on Match.com, and that she met a guy and had plans to meet another in the next day or 2. I don't know if she was telling me this to make me jealous or she was trying to reiterate how she was over me. I guess she could have been trying to make me jealous, but there was no way of that. She asked if I had started seeing someone yet.

She asked if she could take me out for a bite to eat. She didn't want to head back to her house just yet. I felt that she sounded better about things, so I agreed (moron). I needed a shower so she waited as I was taking a shower. When I got out of the shower she was sitting on my bed reading my latest Maxim issue. This irritated me, but I decided it wasn't worth getting upset about. I put on a pair of shorts and a shirt and off we went.

On the way to the restaurant she kept asking me again if I was seeing someone or at least talking to someone that I might be dating soon. I had been out to see The 40 Year Old Virgin with my friend Ann, but I don't count her as seeing someone since we are just friends. I don't want to date her (or anything else for that matter).

The drama started. She said things to fuck with my head. Trying to make me feel guilty. Telling me how her kids really loved me. I tried to be nice, but I had to tell her that I didn't want to have this conversation. I asked her if she really wanted to go into the restaurant or just lay on more guilt. We went into the restaurant. I should have just turned around. How many mistakes have I made so far... anyone out there keeping track?

Of course the bullshit didn't stop there. She brought up how well the kids all got along together. How she didn't mean to make me feel like nothing of mine was good enough. Blah, Blah, Blah! It wasn't too intense so I didn't bolt out of there. I am not one to make a scene.

We headed back to my house. She asked if I would look something up for her on the Internet. John, my roommate was getting his stuff together for going off to the war. He was headed for the Mid-East the next morning. I wanted to stay out of his way, so we headed up to my room to get on my laptop. I found the info she wanted while she was watching TV.

I told her that she really needed to go now. She asked who I needed to meet at this time of night... more drama continues. I told her that I am not seeing anyone. I could not figure out why she was persisting, other than maybe to piss me off.

Chantel wouldn't go home. She said she wanted to spend the night. She didn't want sex, she just didn't want to go home. I told her that this doesn't work for me. I asked her to please leave. She started talking about how happy we were. I argued with her about how she is continually manipulating me.

We were sitting on my bed this whole time. She lifted up her top exposing her breasts. I grabbed her hand and pulled it down. I said we're not going there. She then was asking me who "she" was. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about. Like the only reason I have for not being with her is that I am with someone else. That fact that she has gone psycho isn't a factor?

I had finally had it and started to drag her off of my bed. I didn't want to hurt her. She bruises very easy so I didn't want to leave any marks that could be held against me. He brother and all his friends already want to kick my ass.

She asked to see my PDA phone. I gave it to her... at this point I wasn't sure why, but I also didn't care. I thought in the back of my mind... is she smart enough to figure out how to get to my text messages?

She pulled up my text message history right away, and asked who Michelle and Dawn are. I told her that Dawn is a friend that I had just informed that we had broke up. I hadn't talked to her since right after Chantel and I started dating. She asked how it was going with us. The last message I had in the history that she read was very cold and said something about having 4 months of great sex. I told her I was sorry she saw that. It spawned another big argument about how I REALLY felt about her. The message was totally taken out of context.

She then said what about Michelle. I told her that Michelle and I have been friends for a couple years and that we started talking a lot after our breakup because she was helping me understand a lot of what you (Chantel) were doing with the talking suicide and such.

Michelle is a psychologist. Even though she is a professional there is this complicating factor that we have always been attracted to each other. Well, she and I have been e-mailing, IMing, text messaging, and calling each other every few days. Most of it was about Chantel. A week or so before we decided that we both need a break from our lives and we should meet in Vegas for a few days.

So Chantel told me that I lied about seeing someone. Technically since we have yet to meet I can't be lying. She then got all bent out of shape about me going to Vegas for a booty call instead of being with her.

The stupid thing was that I didn't tell her about Michelle because it was none of her business. She assumes that the plans for us getting together was going on before we broke up. There's no trying to change her opinion of that. She claimed I wouldn't have sex with her tonight because I was seeing Michelle.

She finally left sometime before midnight I think...WHEW! But I figured out that she looked through my PDA earlier while I was in the shower and went through the whole evening trying to either trip me up or manipulate me into "telling the truth".

I was so pissed off I was up until 5:30 that morning stewing about the whole scene. I got about 3 hours of sleep and spent Sunday in a really bad mood.

She will no longer be hearing from me. If she tries to pull anything I am at the point that I will get a restraining order.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Waiting for "normal"

My feelings for Chantel were very mixed, but I knew that ending the relationship was the only right choice. She was bringing me down to a place in my mind I did not want to be. I have had periods of depression before and seeing a major one on the horizon told me that we were not right for each other.

The amount of guilt that I feel is equalled by the relief that I feel as I think about the children not being enveloped in a relationship that was in a downward spiral. Ultimately the children needed to be the priority even though this action that I have taken has hurt them deeply. My children will heal. They have always been there for me when I was down. I do not like leaning on them because that is what I am there for. Kevin and Erik have been very clingy around me lately. They always are when they know I am hurting. Kevin more so than Erik just because he understands more of what is going on.

Linda and Evans were very pissed off at me for a few days. Linda came to help move Chantel and her boys out of the house. She could hardly look me in the eyes. I felt like I was not only losing someone I loved very deepply, but I was also losing some very close friends. My depression deepened.

I sent Evans an e-mail a couple days after Chantel moved out. It was basically an apology for hurting our friendship and to find out if we were still going to be friends after the dust settles. Evans' reply was short and to the point,

------
"Just curious ... what exactly were you thinking?

Do you have any idea of the far-ranging consequenses of your actions
and the number of people affected?"
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I gave a poor reply without giving any details. I wasn't sure if I should provide details of something this private, but these are my friends. Later Evans and I talked on the phone. We had a long discussion about all of the things that went wrong that was not obvious when looking from the outside. He realized that he judged me too quickly and apologized for that. He told Linda about what we talked about and reported back that she was glad to have both sides of the story. Our friendship, although damaged, was not over.

Guilt makes me do stupid things. Chantel's birthday was a couple weeks after I broke it off. No, I was not trying to avoid buying her a presant. While I was still talking to Chantel after the break up she had asked me if I would be ok with going to my brother's bar (15C) with her and our friends Linda and Evans. I had been wanting to take Evans to 15C for a couple years now because he loves a good classy bar that serves a good drink andhas good cigars. I agreed to do it but I felt like I was making a mistake. In talking to Evans about it, we both agreed that it was not going to be a normal night, but we would all try to be Chantel's friends and be there for her on her birthday.

I assumed that Chantel would stop at L & E's house on the way down since they all live north of Colorado Springs. Chantel being the one living the farthest away. I was incorrect. Chantel called and came down earlier. I felt as if I was having a bad dream. She came down loaded with a few outfits for the night because she could not decide what to wear. Linda wasn't sure what she was wearing since she is still trying to lose weight after having baby #2 (Jackson) a few months ago.

Seeing her try on these various outfits was frustrating in a couple of ways. She is one seriously sexy looking woman, and when she turns on the charm on top of looking so good it makes you really take notice. The problem with this is I knew she was intensionally fucking with my head. The queen of manipulation was in rare form this night.

We parked in the bank parking lot behind the bar and gave Evans directions so that he could do the same. We introduced L & E to my brother Mike and showed them around the bar. It was early so it wasn't very busy yet. We had dinner at a nice mexican place around the corner from the bar. All went well. Dinner was good and the conversation stayed very neutral and pleasant. The girls went to the restroom together so Evans and I discussed how it was going much better than anticipated so far, but we knew the night was far from over.

We walked back over to the bar. It was getting busy, but it was still fairly early. Chantel had left-overs from Dinner. She asked to put them in my car. I gave her my keys. I knew my brother would be covering a lot of our bar tab, but I knew the night was not going to be free like when I go alone or just with a date. We got the 2 couches in the corner of the bar. Our timing was perfect as some that was sitting there with his skanky date was getting up to leave. The alcohol started flowing. The ladies were ordering from the martini menu. Evans and Linda really liked my brother, and they were very impressed with the bar.

A few drinks into the night and no drama. I kept expecting the hammer to fall... well it did. Chantel gave me a look and pointed to her cell phone. I didn't understand what she was trying to say. I thought she was saying that she was going to make a call to check on her kids. Mind reading was a class I failed in college.

About 30 minutes later she told me to look at my phone. She had sent me a text message stating that she couldn't take it anymore. She knew my friendship with L&E was mended and that "her job was done" and that she was leaving. I got up and went over to her on the other couch and told her to stop being silly and lets continue to have a good night. She grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

Linda and Evans were not sure what was going on. I asked Linda to go after her. I told Evans about the text message and showed it to him. Then I realized that she had the keys to my car. I went out to the parking lot to get them back before she did something stupid like driving after a couple drinks (she's a major light weight).

When I got out to Linda and Chantel they were arguing. Chantel was in full dramatic form. When I approached I politley asked for my keys. She said that she was going to call a cab and not to worry, that she wasn't going to drive my car off a cliff. I asked her to please give me my keys. She refused and their argument continued. I walked back into the bar and informed Evans of the situation.

Evans has a very low tollerance for this bullshit. He went out to try to remedy the situation. Well I knew that wasn't going to do anything but throw gas on the fire. He returned minutes later, nothing resolved.

He and I had another drink and did some bitching and moaning about the whole situation. About 15 minutes later the girls came back in. Things seemed better, but then Chantel continued to drink. She went up to the bar and came back with a shot of some crap. I came to find out she had been drinking a number of shots.

Pretty soon she was falling down drunk...NOT GOOD! This meant that she was going to have to stay with me. Linda and Evans have 2 young kids. I was not going to put a drunk drama queen off on them for the night.

We got back to my place. My brother in law/roommate had his kids over for the weekend. Chantel made a B-line for the stairs. I was amazed she was able to walk (if that's what you call that). She made it upstairs and headed straight for my bathroom where she immediately started praying to the porcelane god. Not much came up, so I was sure there would be more.

I prepped for the worse. I cleaned out basin brought home from the hospital, something with bread to settle her stomache and a large glass of water. The next trick was going to be getting her in bed. She could no longer stand up. Part of this seemed like more drama for the night, but then again with that much alcohol in her system her sugars could be really high. I made sure she took her insulan. It took some time to get her into the bed. I had to help her off with her clothes. I put a t-shirt on her then went to get myself ready for bed. My plan was to sleep in one of my son's beds.

Then I heard her cry out. It was time for more hurling. She was too weak to even sit up. I had to hold her head, hair, and basin in place to make sure my bed didn't get spewed on. This went on few about 10 minutes until it settled down. I ended up sleeping in my own bed next to her in case Mount Chantel erupted again. Luckily it didn't, we both got a decent amount of sleep.

The next morning she felt better than someone in that previous condition should be allowed to feel. I was so glad I only had a couple drinks. Her mood was not great. She again talked about killing herself. I got annoyed with her and eventually sent her home.

A friend of mine, who is also a psychologist, and I have been talking a lot about this situation. She confirmed what I was also thinking, that my continued presents in Chantels life was only going to make her have hope and continue the drama. I needed to break off all ties.

Doing this is easier said than done. I do care about her, but I also want her to get past all of this and heal. I too have a lot of healing to do.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

What's been going on...

I was glad to figure out that I just needed to change my URL and not have to set up a new blog.

------------------------
What's been going on...

Chantel moved in with me a couple months ago. She is one of the sweetest people I have ever known, but she has a major problem that I couldn't see until she moved in.

First of all she didn't work. I knew this was going to be an issue because her husband wasn't paying enough child support as it was. What he paid hardly covered the grocery bill for them. Also, since she has no job, she was bored, so she would work on the house. New drapes in the family room, a canopy top for the deck, new paint throughout the house. Decor stuff coming out of my ass. She spent $2000 in just over a month. That wasn't including the $3400 I spent on new furniture (I was already planning on this before we were dating), $700 for new washer and dryer, then my TV went out... there's another $1500.

Then she started in with how we needed to move. I told her that I cannot afford to buy a new house. She didn't like the middle school her kids would have to go to. Our school district is way over crowded so you don't get to pick the school you go to. She was used to living in the richest school district in the state. The schools they were in had all kinds of extra curricular stuff for them to do. Mine doesn't offer extra stuff because most of the schools are about 50% over capacity.

She took all of our kids out looking at new houses one day while I was at work. I did not know about it ahead of time. When I got home from work I was ambushed by her kids saying how they found the perfect house for us, and that they had picked out rooms already. I had to be the bad guy and tell them we weren't buying a house. She said she likes to look at model homes to get decorative ideas, but another agenda was obviously there. I started noticing a pattern of her manipulating me using the kids to prop up her view of things.

Then she asked me if I would be willing to buy the Ford Excursion from her ex. I said no because it was already 5 years old with a ton of hail damage. Plus he still owed a shit load of money on it. She said we'll need a vehicle we can all fit in. I told her "eventually". .

I even took a test drive in a new minivan one night just to get out of the house for a bit. But I told her afterwards that it wasn't going to be something I could do for a long time. She brought up the Excursion again.

The money was not the only problem. She has diabetes, and she doesn't take care of it properly. She passed out on me one morning right after she moved in. I had to take her to the hospital. She was in ICU for 3 days, then on a regular floor for one. Her way of dealing with this was to just take more insulin when she wanted to have something with sugar. I was trying to get her to change that behavior, but I couldn't. She had been this way for years. You can't change someone's behavior like that over night, even if it is life or death. For those of you that know anything about diabetes this may come as a shock... Her sugars where normally between 300 and 500. I knew nothing about diabetes before then.

On top of all this, 2 or her 3 kids were fairly difficult. Her 3 year old would go into screaming fits whenever he didn't get his way. It was so bad that he would make himself sick. I couldn't even look at him in a disapproving way without him blowing a gasket.

Her 9 year old is hypoglycemic. If he didn't eat he would having crying fits. Not in a screaming way, in a quiet way. Then if any bug was in the house (a fly or a moth) he would freak out and lock himself in his room.

Her 13 year old son was fine. I got along with him great.

Then it all came crumbling down. I knew my feelings for her were damaged beyond repair. But I had already had them move in, and now I was faced with kicking all of them out. Not an easy thing to do when so many lives are affected. Everyday I was getting more and more depressed. One day I broke down crying when I made the decision to end it. I was home with my kids. I don't remember where she was with hers. I tried to hide the tears from my kids, but they saw right through it.

When she got home they told her that something was wrong with me. She came up and I told her. I explained all of the things that contributed to the decision. We talked and talked. She convinced me to give her another chance. I agreed to it, but I knew it wasn't going to work. A week later things had not changed, I told her to move out. The school year was about to start, I figured I better get them out before all the school stuff kicked in.

You would think this was the end... But NO!

My kids were not with me the week she moved out. She wanted to get the kids together so they could say their goodbyes. Our kids got along really well, and my kids really loved Chantel. About 4 days later I agreed to it. She drove the kids down and we went to a Chinese restaurant that we all liked (I wanted to eat out to avoid the drama that I predicted would happen). She laid on some guilt by inviting my brother to come along since he was at my house working on some computers. I secretly called him and told him that I didn't want him going, he understood.

At the Chinese place in the middle of the meal Chantel asked her kids if they had anything they wanted to say to me. Her oldest just said that this really sucks. Her 9 year old asked me, in front of my kids, "Why don't you love my mom anymore?" I felt like I was thrown under a bus. I told them that I think we need to hold these questions until we get back to the house. I was totally pissed off that she did this in front of my kids.

We went back to my house. Her kids each came in to talk to us. I explained things as delicately as I could without being a puss. Her 9 year old just kept asking really intense questions. I put an end to the whole conversation.

Chantel wanted to talk to me alone. She tried one last time to get me to change my mind. When I didn't she got very negative and started talking about killing herself. Normally I would have just sent someone on there way at this point, but I knew she had tried to do herself in years before. I got her to calm down so she could drive her kids home and eventually sent them on their way.

I told her that we could stay friends even though after the suicide talk I wanted to run away as fast as I could.

Over the next few nights she would call me in the middle of the night, multiple times, to tell me how miserable she was. I got her best friend that introduced us involved. About a week later she seemed a lot better. The calls we only about once a day, and she seemed like she was mentally getting better. I then had to tell her that as long as I am around she is going to cling to the idea that "we" are a possibility. I told her that I couldn't talk to her anymore for her own good (and mine too).

So that is over...

Whew... I feel like I am on a soap opera.

I have left out so much of what happened, but this was the majority of it. I have learned a lot from this experience. I just hope it doesn't make me cynical like my brother.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

At last more info...

Sorry for my long absense. So much has happened in the past 2 months. It's time to tell some of it.

The job was going great, but...

It was just announced that my project is going to move to our facility in Scotland. Our team is being asked if we can move to Northern Colorado. We're not sure when this all is going to happen yet. Some of it won't happen for a year, so I have some time. I can't move because of my kids. My boss who works in the Fort Collins facility asked me if I would stay with the company if I could telecommute. I am willing to give it a shot.

The kids are already in school. Our school district runs on a different schedule. They'll have 2 weeks off in the Fall, 2 weeks at Christmas, then 2 weeks in Spring. Both boys are excited about the new year.

My relationship just ended. Things moved way too fast and unfortunately everyone got hurt out of this. I am sad about it, and hopefully everyone will recover from this and move on.

I will hope to keep my blogs updated.