OK, maybe that’s dramatic. He didn’t LEAVE ME leave me, but he left just the same. At that time I had a 5 yr old, not yet in school, a 3 yr old, and a 4 mth old baby. We had just been through hell financially and needed something to break for us. He was offered a job working on the road “98% travel”. I really didn’t want him to go, but we were really backed into a corner. Something had to happen and this was that something. So, off he went to New Jersey.

He was working for a telecommunications company, primarily in charge of DC Power supplies to cell towers and central offices (contrary to the name and central office isn’t an office at all, but a room filled with circuits and wires and computers and such all in charge of directing your phone calls). The DC power supply keeps things running when the power goes out so that you can still use your home and cell phones.

At first it was out 2 weeks and home for a weekend, then back out for 2 weeks again. Slowly it turned into 3 weeks out, 4 weeks out….at one point he spent 2 solid months in Las Vegas while I was at home with very young children….alone. It was a hard life.

After 3yrs he was laid off from that job. After 2 mths of trying to find a local job, it because apparent that he was going to have to go back on the road. This time he found a company located 2 1/2 hours from home. Every 2 weeks he would get up at 4:30am and drive to the office and head out for 2 weeks. Then he would drive back home for the weekend, only to start all over again the next Monday. That lasted for another year and a half. He quit because he wasn’t going anywhere.

The opportunity came up for him to go back to the New Jersey job. We thought about it and he accepted. He worked there until this past April when they shut down his dept.

He moved to another company with a significant raise in pay and responsibility. Three weeks ago is when they came in, without explanation and told him it wasn’t working out. He’s now with yet another company doing the same things.

That’s what he does, but it doesn’t really get to what he has left. Me…and our 3 kids.

I’ve raised them, essentially alone for over 6 yrs. While that’s hard, it’s not what bothers me. What bother’s me is the new found information I’ve gotten about what my mother in law thinks of me. All reasons why I no longer speak to her.

She has said that I am “white trash”. That I come from nothing and will always be nothing. That if I hadn’t saddled him with kids, my husband could leave and find so much better. Her reason for saying these words…..sometimes the house isn’t 100% clean. Sometimes my kids look like they’ve been outside playing all day. Sometimes I get take out instead of cooking because I’m only ONE FUCKING PERSON and they all need to be a different places at the same time.  She always played lipservice to “being there” if I needed anything, but the truth was, she wasn’t. It didn’t take long for me to figure that out and I just stopped asking for a helping hand. That left me even more alone. OF COURSE sometimes things are going to be crazy. Sometimes I’m running out the door to go to karate or football or gymnastics or soccer and the kitchen hasn’t been cleaned up from dinner. You know what…it will be there when I get back and I’ll deal with it then. If you come to my house and want to inspect all the things I havent done, instead of looking at all that I HAVE, you will be able to find a bundle.

My job is to raise these children and run this house in my husband’s absence and I think I do a fine job of it. My kids are smart, happy, healthy and well adjusted. Even if there are dirty dishes in the sink