Holy Asphalt Pi

For many years I have been begging my husband to meet my friends so he could see that there was nothing funny going on, be more social, participate in extended family events, take vacations……..and always met with what I call 'EPIC FAILURE'.

Turns out, they were really answered prayers that I did not pray for. People, there is a GOD and he has a wicked sense of humor.

Having to leave for a business trip and yet again encountering the silent treatment, the obvious hatred for everything I am oozing from his stare, the mean mumbled comments that always get more vile the closer an imagined date of wrong looms, I had had enough.

I usually ignore, ignore, ignore. For the good of mankind. You should thank me really. If I poke the bear, he takes a bite out of anyone he sees. The entire world becomes 'Innocent Bystander'.

Well, that's not really true. Anyone within a one mile radius of his couch is at immediate risk. Outside that area, you are safe unless you sell weed or overpriced sporting goods that do little more than catch dust bunnies. He will leave his enclosure for his benefit. He'll drive 300 miles for a day hunting trip because if he catches/kills something, that can feed his family (this has never happened) but he will not drive 3 miles so that we can have something other than the 2 restaurants that are in the 'Asphalt Pi'.

Any-hoo….I blew up, right in front of the kid that I tell myself daily I talk all this shit for. I lost it. I said things I should have said YEARS ago. And I didn't stop either. I kept on til I was crying, the kid was crying and he was so speechless he ran out of blame to lay on me. I soothed the kid as much as I could but the kid is old enough now that most of what I said was just obvious-unspoken so it was only shocking that I spoke them. That situation as good as I could get it, I left for a week.

My parting shot was to clue him in on the fact that although I've always believed I could not support my lifestyle and keep the home I love by myself, that it had finally dawned on me that…..I HAVE BEEN DOING IT FINANCIALLY BY MYSELF FOREVER !!! Of course he used his argument that his money bought this this this or that but when I say I'd had enough of keeping the Peace, I meant it. I informed him that I had already checked into several factors and regardless of many factors, I could put him out on his ass and probably would when I got back but I needed someone to feed the kid and dogs.

As a side note: Yes, he has purchased most of our big ticket items. He waits for some sort of windfall like a dead family member or a nice profit on some illegal transaction and then bails us out of the jam that he put us in in the first place by not working and apparently I'm supposed to buy him a cape & some tights and be forever indebted while slaving daily to pay the boring old monthly bills.

We have almost this same argument quarterly. I know it word for word. I know how to start it, fire it up, put it out and end it. He always says he'll work on yada yada jealousy yada control issues yada yada social skills yada but we all know that doesn't happen because he's still 'Asphalt Pi' and I'm 'Short-Leash'. But this time even felt different although I couldn't say exactly why outside of my giving voice to my recently developed (but still under construction) testicular fortitude.

While I was gone, he was burning up my phone but I would only talk to him briefly once a day about home/child/pet subjects. If he began to stray to an off-limits topic, I hung up and put him on ignore til the next day. If he hijacked my kid's phone while we were talking….same thing. The kid would just call me when he wasn't around. Kid rocks by the way.

When I got back he wanted to "talk". Not yell, not argue and I didn't have to say a word. He had had an epiphany. (Insert ROFL here). He had sought out an old friend that is or used to be a marriage counselor and talked to him for hours about our problems. This alone is freaky since we are both such very private people.

He complained that he has asked (see: told) me for years to be his best friend but I refused to be his friend at all. Completely true. He laid it all out for this guy and the guy listened for a long time and at the end told him: You're an asshole. Why would she be your friend if you won't allow her to have friends outside the home? You're not a good friend to anyone. Even your friends hate you. I don't blame her for wanting you out. I'm surprised she has stayed this long.

Of course, those are my words but that's what I heard. Someone other than me finally told him what a jerk he was. Someone he trusted and respected called him out. It didn't matter that I had told him all this for years, I guess he needed to hear it from a strong male figure in his life.

That's all well and good but he seems to really have heard it this time because even when I told him that I don't know if I love him anymore and I don't know that I want to work things out he said that was fine but he was going to change. This in itself is a HUGE change.

Granted, it has only been 5 days but I keep waking up in Stepfordville and its scaring the hell out of me. I don't like it. I don't like that not only is he now willing to go anywhere/everywhere with me…..he WANTS to go. And now that I have girlfriend-in-town events to attend soon, he is begging me to allow him to go. This is a girl that he wrongly does not (did not?) approve of. He feels (felt?) she was giving me the tools to cheat (long story but not the case). I reminded him of this and he said he owes me and her an apology and he really wants to get to know her because he sees now how much I need her and want her in my life.

Pardon me while I return my breakfast the hard way.

I said NO! HELL FUCK NO! But he is determined to change my mind. He wants to go so that he can get to know my other friends. He won't bother me at all, he will take the kid home early so I can stay and get wasted. He wants to apologize to my friend for assuming the worst about her even when I told him how wrong he was.

I'm having family issues in my hometown. He has always sworn to never set foot in this town and has kept his word for close to two decades. When I informed him that I may have to go home for a few days, he started looking into hotels for US to stay at.

Omgomgomgomngomgomgomg. Make it stop. I can't handle this.

I have built a life for myself around his controlling ways. I have found the loopholes in his insanity and used them to my advantage. I have surrounded myself with people who enjoy my part-time friendship. I am the girl with the invisible husband. It's a running joke. Lots of people in my life don't even believe I really have a husband. We make up careers for him that keeps him away on business or joke his identity is a secret because he's deep in the CIA or some bullshit. I love my part-time life. I have made it work for me. I own it.

Now he wants in. Be careful what you ask for people. I am not sure how this will go but as of this moment, I am promising you that he will not be allowed to attend my friend's homecoming and if he goes with me for the family issue, he's not going to be allowed to touch the radio during the road trip portion.

I was going to put his picture on the back of milk cartons but I don't really want to find him. I'm not sure his kind shows up in photographs anyway since when I describe him to most they think I'm making up all the horror stories and he's just Urban Legend.

But the kid is enjoying the body snatcher that is currently inhabiting his human vessel shell so what do I do? Do I make it work for the kid knowing that I drive my own happiness vehicle and will be fine either way or do I work to discover the antidote to Ward Cleaver-ism then kick him out to jump start my desire to become one of those women that you can smell the single-mom desperation on?

Thoughts?