Sometimes you have to Trade Up to be happy

The weekend was no different than any other weekend, except my insides were numb.  Chappy and I went about our life just as though it was another day in our fairyland.

Monday, he went to work and I reported to my new position in the custom drapery department at J C Penney's.  I wasn't on the clock for ten minutes when my new manager arrived at my desk to find me in a complete and total meltdown.  I don't  know what happened.  One minute I was numb and the next minute I feel apart. Perhaps just getting away from the facade of a perfect marriage and facing reality threw me overboard into a spiral that I wondered if I was strong enough to survive.

I told the manager that I could not do the job. I had to quit. I was in no frame of mind to learn a new job.  I was empty.  She took me into her office.  She  had known me from working in the salon.  This woman sitting before her was not the person she hired and she wanted to know what was wrong.  I was honest with her and thank God, she would not accept my resignation.  I really would have ended everything had I not had that to go to every day.

Sissy had called me on my birthday to wish me happy fortieth.  She wanted to  know if we were still going to Savannah and I told her no.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I said, "I think I have just witnessed the beginning of the end of my marriage."  

Had this been a surprise to her, her response may have been different than, "I know." It didn't hit me until I sat at that desk Monday morning replaying the events of the weekend.  She knew.  Just like she knew about Vicki when Chappy was torn between the two of  us.  Sissy knew every thing and I'm betting so did Min.

I was the one in the dark. I probably would have remained in the dark had I not asked that question, that simple question that opened the door for him to share with me what he had shared with so many others. Karma was here to bite me in the backside.  Is this not what I did to Killer?  Blindsided him with my departure. He had no idea that I was unhappy and one day, I dropped the bomb and shattered his world. 

Like Killer, I didn't beg for him to stay. I didn't beg for answers, I knew the answers and Chappy was not going to tell me the truth. As we sat there at the counter, staring into space, allowing the words that had been spoken to dissolve into thin air, Chappy said, "It's time for you to get a real job."

"A real job? What the hell is that? I have a job and I'm starting a new position on Monday."

"You need to find a job making more than $50,000." Oh, I didn't know that is what defined a real job.  I guess when I married him, he didn't have a real job.  I just sat there.  That sentence told me everything.  There was no working this out.  This was not a fleeting emotion that would resolve itself with a conversation or a compromise, this was, I'm leaving, so you best get your shit together statement.

I don't know how I survived those first few days, weeks, months, but some how I did, but not without the help of many people that I had only just met.  I stopped eating.  My jaw hurt so much that I made an appointment to see a doctor.  I had never seen him before. I had no reason to go to the doctor at that stage of my life.  He asked me what was wrong and I fell apart.

I told him what was going on and he said, "Is your husband having an affair?"

How did everyone know except for me?  I didn't think Jack would do that to me and so I said, "No."  Maybe I was just in denial, but I honestly thought he loved me and given our history, that he'd never break my heart like this. Yet, the signs had been there all along and I ignored them. He was no different than before we were married, although he had promised, he would never screw around on me, weeks before we were married when I confronted him about Vicki.  Why did I believe him then? Why did I believe him when the keys to an apartment surfaced in  his pocket?  Why didn't I follow my gut that day in Lansing when he told me we were moving to Indiana and my gut said, "It's nice knowing you" and my mind was thinking "you are crazy to follow this man." But I followed him, I gave up careers, I put up with his family and his  mother in particular and here I stood, eight years later, in a position that my mother had drilled in my head to never get in, dependent upon a  man.

The doctor suggested marital counselling.  I had had this discussion with Chappy long before we were married, "Would you consider counselling if we ever needed it to help our marriage?"  He replied, "Yes."

Killer refused to go to counselling.  Worm had to go to counselling as part of her juvenile issues and Killer was to attend. He refused to participate and he made it very clear to Worm that is she so much as breathed what actually went on under our roof, she'd not have a roof to live under.  So counselling for her was what her every day life was, lying about her living conditions.

I suggested to Chappy that night that the doctor recommended counselling.  Silly me!  I was the one with the problem, not him.  I asked him to go to the doctor with me.  I was traveling at light speed down a dark hole with no end in sight.  He surprised me and attended.  The doctor came right out and asked him if he was having an affair and Chappy was livid!

"What has she been telling you?  I am not having an affair!"

The doctor suggested counselling and Chappy got up from the chair, "Is this what this was all about?  I thought I was coming here to help you, I don't have a problem, you do!" and he walked out.

The whole appointment was not intended to point fingers at Chappy, it was to  figure out what I needed to do.  I had lost forty pounds. I didn't sleep.  I was sinking with no life preserver.  I turned to the doctor and asked him what that was about, this was not what this appointment was for!  He said, "I needed to get him in here to make the two of you realize you need counselling.  YOU  do not need counselling, the two of you need counselling."

I left the office and drove home.  Chappy didn't come home until after midnight. He was working. He expressed once more that he did not have the problem. I was the one with the problem and to leave him out of it.

I suggested rather meekly which was so unlike me, but I was at the end of my thread that was unraveling rather quickly, if he were unhappy, he might have a problem similar to what I experience in Indiana, "you know depression, we've had some major changes in our life and you can't tell me you are unaffected by them."

"You think I have a problem?  You think I am crazy like you?  YOU are crazy! There is nothing wrong with me, except I don't want to be married any more."

Kick me when I am down and just keep kicking.  I closed up in my little shell. I was not going to allow  him to batter me like this.  I was not crazy! 

Within weeks of my birthday, Min and three of her girlfriends came down to "see Chappy's new home." If he didn't go out of his way to turn the knife that had been jammed in my back from my birthday and make his point that he was a momma's boy first, I really don't know what message he was sending that weekend, because that is the message I got loud and clear.

We took all of them to CNN.  We went to Stone Mountain and we did several other things the week they were there.  Chappy played them like a fiddle.  They came down on a Friday night.  I did everything that I normally did when company was coming.  I mowed the lawn, I cleaned the house, I had everything perfect for when they arrived.

Friday evening Chappy came home on time.  He never came home that early, even when things were hunky dory between us.  He welcomed every one and changed from his suit to shorts and mowed the lawn! I asked him what he was going to do and he looked at me like I had three heads, "I'm going out to mow the lawn."

"I just mowed it two days ago. It doesn't need it."  Our guests sitting at the dining room table, watching the two of us perform this dance with smiles pasted on our face, yet our teeth gritted with anger as we spoke to one another.

"Well, you didn't mow it right, it needs it again."  He  headed out the door. I knew what he was doing and he played that card perfectly for Min to pick it up and serve it.

"That poor Chappy works like a dog all week long and look at him, he has to mow the lawn now, you sure are one lucky girl to have him."

"He doesn't need to mow the lawn. I mow it every week, apparently he doesn't want to sit here and visit with you and your lady friends, I'll go out and relieve him so he can come in and visit."  I walked out that door with a vengeance. He was in the back yard.  The whole back of the house was windows so we were  in clear sight of our guests.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?  I just mowed this fucking lawn two days ago! You want to play that pitiful card that you do everything around here and I do nothing? You want your mom to think that I am just this helpless girl that you cater to night and day?  I don't think so!  Stop this damn lawn mower and get inside because if you stay out here, so help me God I will ruin this bullshit story you are playing out right now." I was so pissed off that he was playing this pitiful game of "poor Chappy."

He finished the back yard, but he didn't go into the front yard, he came inside and took a shower.  The tension between us was as thick as fog.  I didn't want these people in my home, but Chappy insisted as "what will my Mom tell  them" if we cancel at the last minute?  I could think of plenty, "My son's a total jackass" was the first thing that came to my mind.

The whole weekend as we escorted them to all the sights, he stuck next to his Mom like a four year old on a field trip.  He'd just glare at me, knowing how pissed I was. He had this grin that let me know, he knew exactly what he was doing to me and what was I going to do about it? We had always been very "intimate," our whole marriage, holding hands, sitting next to each other, laying on the floor, touching, all the time, Min thought it was disgusting how we were always touching. I'm  sure she noticed we were not touching at all this week.

Even when I am down, I can still be pretty damn conniving. Chappy didn't buy me a birthday gift, his gift was to tell me that he was unhappy.  My gift, from him, I little bit of a  "trade up." 

I figured since Chappy was going to be "trading up," Cindy might as well trade up first.  A week after he dropped that news on me, I visited the jeweler. I turned in the earrings he bought me for my thirty fifth birthday.  I paid the jeweler what Chappy had originally paid for them and traded up to a larger pair, "Happy Birthday, Cindy Marie, love, Chappy."  He had no idea, but his mom's friend's noticed, "Cindy, those diamonds are just beautiful! They just sparkle so much!"  

Min had no idea that I had doubled the size of the earrings. "Yes, my Chappy bought her those a few years back, I have a pair just like them" as she displayed her not so shiny cubic zirconia.  This was my little secret, "Your Chappy didn't buy these, I traded up, something I should have done a long, long time ago." On the outside, my world was crumbling, on the inside, for a brief moment, I smelled victory.