Alone after fifty-five

by Karen
(Maryland)

I went through menopause and found out I had a thyroid problem and my husband decided I had changed and he needed to find someone else. He said I had changed but I was just growing older, my children were grown with children of their own and I am now alone because my husband started using drugs ? Oxycodone - along with all the other prescribed drugs he takes and he works for the State of Maryland. And his friends sympathize with him that I am the problem, he is an abused individual. You know, if I wouldn't have carried him coffee in bed every day, laid out his clothes, packed his lunch and worried I was going to say the wrong thing to him I would not be where I am today. He had a nervous breakdown in 2001 after 9-11 and sat home drinking and smoking for six months. During that time my job did not pay the bills and we went bankrupt. I even had to work nights and weekends to make up for a mistake in taxes he made twice ? he didn't get overtime and my lowly position did! My husband ? soon to be ex ? bought a truck using credit in July 2010, in fact he could not have bought the $38,000 V-8 truck with his income. Funny when we separated he left me with a much higher car payment and he didn't look back. Then after getting the truck he signed up for singlesnet.com and skype. He planned the move to leave me. He left me the day before Thanksgiving, taking the truck and living his life to the fullest ? including sleeping with two prostitutes, drinking himself stupid and buying and using street drugs, admitting to smoking pot with the wife of the friend he was living with.
My soon to be ex is a self-defined victim ? this is the story his whole life. Poor guy, always someone pushing him around but he would not make a decision. When I made the decisions he says I am dominating him. His "friends" are helping him with his decisions now, dance puppet dance, he really is doing well, living in an RV with another male friend, that he and I bought when he came back to me in February when I had a car accident. Asked if I forgave him, we were going to marriage counseling ? then I found out when he moved home he is a drug addict ? I found the drugs ? and he had been corresponding with prostitutes on Craigslist and had gone to the block in Baltimore and paid $415 to sleep with a prostitute. We were not back together for three months before I found all the clues he left for me ? the receipt for the prostitute in the shredding bin, emails to the prostitute he slept with still on the gmail account that he left on the desktop of the home computer in the middle of the living room describing how he ravished her body and paid her $200 for basically sex ? yes, I am a fool. He was using me to leave the house ,he ran off to because his friends wife's sister wanted him to move into a home with her ? and pay all the bills, because he had been taking her out and spending a lot of money on her. He is still married remember, he doesn't care. Adultery is only a fine.
This is not the man I married. My real husband was sweet, loving, caring and I did not know there was a problem until the day he left. Now we are again headed for financial ruin. I cannot afford the house payment, even with a tenant, and a lawyer, because I am trying to maintain my regular bills and a home with my sister ? all of this set up by my soon to be ex but it turns out this is a blessing. I go to church regularly, but I am really lonely, I was so used to being with my real husband, this stranger that came back into my life was still partying in strip clubs, gambling and doing drugs ? so our jointly owned home is going for either short sale or foreclosure. He thinks now he is a "good" guy, states he doesn't know what I am talking about. He looks in the mirror and tells himself that he is a "good person" all the time. . .
I told him God knows and he threw that back in my face and laughed at me. I was a faithful loving wife, maybe preoccupied with the mid-life changes but not intentionally. I wish I would have known there was a problem I would have tried to do something to make this problem stop, Someone someday is going to see what he is and he will have to deal with his problems but for now he is riding on cloud nine. I will make it through this but after fourteen years of marriage and being with him seventeen years this is hard. I had to give up two of my rescue dogs last year and this month had to give up the last two. I am so sad. Please let me know how some of you made it through this.