The Truth!

OK, for the most part yesterday was a great day, all the way up until bedtime. Then, it kind of got ugly. I am going to blog about yesterday in two parts. I'll do the bad first so that I can get it all out but when I post the good stuff, the bad will fall below it. I think it's best to give the good top billing over the bad.

I really can't even talk about the bad from last night without some information from the past. So, here we go. When James and I started dating it just felt perfect, from the very beginning. In the first week I met him, I met his mother who seemed at the time to be a very sweet woman. I also happened to meet Kelly, his ex-girlfriend, who seemed nice enough but not very outgoing. And lastly but very importantly, I met Rachel, his ex-wife. Now, she seemed very outgoing but not so nice.

The first evening that James and I spent alone at his house, Rachel called. She asked casually what he was doing and he answered just as casually. "Oh, just sittin' here watching tv with Joy." She was NOT happy. The time spent between James and I that night was wonderful. We spent hours talking, we looked at his photo albums and comic books, we actually spent most of the evening sitting in the living room floor watching info-mercials and talking about our music and movie preferences. That was also the night of our first kiss. Well, about 20 minutes after Rachel called (about 10:30), she was pounding on the door. James went outside to talk to her. It was clear from the way she was beating on the door that she was very upset. While they were outside, I couldn't hear exactly what she was saying but I did hear that it was very loud. After a couple of minutes, the noise subsided and James came back into the house. He was very embarrassed about how she'd acted. I told him not to worry about it, I just wanted to finish enjoying our evening together. I left that night about 2 am. I'd had such a nice time with James that, even though we'd spent the whole evening together, we were right back on the phone with each other before I left his driveway. His house was/is right off of Portland on 12th St. By the time I got to the 10th street stop light, I realized that someone in the car behind me was being very aggressive, riding right up on my rear end. At first, I figured it was late on a weekend, someone probably had too much to drink, so I'd just change lanes. The car changed lanes right behind me. I really didn't know what was going on so I slowed down. The car pulled around me, got in front of me and slammed on the brakes. So, now I know this is happening on purpose. I asked James what Rachel drove. He told me but when I told him that she was trying to play bumper cars with me, it took him a minute to believe me. Too bad, my sense of humor isn't that creative. Rachel had sat parked down the street waiting and watching for me to leave so that she could follow me and cause drama. James was pretty upset, he told me he was putting on his shoes and asked exactly where we were. He was going to come deal with Rachel. I told him that there was no need for that, it would just make it a big deal and I didn't want to give her that much satisfaction. He told me to come back to his house. I started to head that way but was ever being hounded by Rachel right on my rear or stopping in front of me. At one point she tried to swerve into me from the side. Just when I was getting close to being back at James' house, she finally pulled around me and sped off. She beat me back to his house. I told him that she just pulled into his driveway and asked if I should stop and talk to her or go on home as planned. He told me that I should go on home and he'd call me as soon as he got her to leave. It couldn't have been more than five minutes later that he called and said that she was gone. Apparently, she had it in her head that when he broke up with Kelly, they would get back together. It's funny, her goal was to run me off and instead, it worked out that it gave us something to bond over. Seeing the concern that he had for me that night, allowed me to see just a small part of the truly amazing man that he is.

James and I met in March. For months, I had thought that everything was great with his parents. We had a cookout here and invited both of our parents and brothers so that everyone could get to know each other. At that point we had not decided to get married yet but we did know that if we were going to move forward at all we would like for our families to know each other. That was a good day. Buddy seemed to be my new bestfriend. He came to sit next to me to talk while we ate. There was a lot of small talk but we talked specifically about the fact that James and I had to call the police to make Rachel leave just the night before. He told me that he was glad we'd done it, that we have to draw the line with her. His mom and I talked for quite awhile in the living room after all of the brothers had gone on their way and at least I had a very nice time. She told me childhood stories about James and she told me about the gifts that she gives him every year at Christmas as a tradition, it was nice. Everything seemed good. I was so happy to be with a man who I loved and who's parents were wonderful.

Since then Rachel has pulled more than one trick out of her sleeve and I don't know if that will ever stop.

One evening, after several months had passed, James asked me if I could handle being called Mrs. Huber. Over time, there were lots of small questions like that and finally he said one night that he thought on his next day off we should go look for rings. I was perfectly happy with that idea. I wasn't looking for a husband when I met James. I have been single and happy about it for quite awhile. I was married once before and it was not a good thing. I'd rather be single and happy than married and miserable. When I got divorced, I thought I'd never get married again. I continued to think that through every relationship I've been in until James. James is different. I am incredibly lucky to be with such a great man who I love so much, my family loves him, my girls adore him and he has a wonderful little boy who adds a lot of spice to our lives and who I love very much. When he suggested looking for rings. It seemed like the perfect thing. We are so happy, why not make it forever. Well, we looked. At his request, I showed him sets that I liked ranging from $199 to $5000. I showed him specific things that I do not like. (Baggets..eew) I told him that I really didn't care what he decided on as long as he did NOT go into debt to get it, I would love whatever he picked out for me.

We had a 'get together' at his house during that time. In fact, he planned to go the following Wednesday and purchase my rings. We had Robert, Craig, Missy, Ginger and Brian over. We had a nice time, we played one of Brian and Ginger's games called "What the F*ck" It has a bad name but it is a fun game and you can learn a lot about the people your playing with. During lulls in the game, James and I got called down more than once to laying in the floor kissing. They made jokes about us and said that will change if you ever get married. We spent most of the evening attached to each other with the exception of towards the end of the evening, I went out back to sit on the swings and talk to Robert about a relationship he was in and trying to figure his way out of. A few minutes later, James came out to join us and give his two cents on this girl. I will say that considering we never met this girl, James and I sure did have a lot of opinions about her. Ha! We were out there for a good 20 or 30 mins before Brian came out to say they were leaving. We all mosied back in the house to say goodbye. Missy was leaving with them and invited Robert to go along to sit in the hot tub with them. Before Brian and Ginger left, we stopped in the kitchen and told them that James was going to buy my rings later that week. We were excited but beyond telling them we wanted to keep it a secret until there was an engagement ring to show and really until he actually asked the BIG question. As of then, he'd only asked me to go shopping. We also wanted to be able to tell both his and my parents in person when the time came. They wished us luck, we talked about the date that we were considering, it turned out that we wanted to get married on Spring Break but Brian said his parents would be in Vegas with them on spring break. We considered having the wedding one night during the week prior to spring break so that we could have our honeymoon because James is still in school. After a few minutes, they went on their way with Missy. Craig had been the first to leave, to get home to his wife, Robert stayed behind so that we could go online and show him the ring that James was planning to buy, he also helped me look at a few sites that I'd never heard of for James' ring.
The very next day, James got a call from Buddy. It seemed very random to us, he was calling to tell James that if he is thinking about marrying me, he shouldn't rush into it. "There are other fish in the sea" was actually said. He compared me to his ex-wife. He talked about how it wasn't fair to Christian to have women coming and going in his life and reminded James of Kelly and Chloe and how Christian missed them when they left. He even suggested that James try to work things out with Rachel. None of this made sense at the time. We had both thought that Buddy liked me, in fact, he had even said it at one point. With the comparison to Kelly, it made no sense, James never proposed to Kelley, it was never permanent. Being married is supposed to be forever. I would have thought that if he were worried about Christian getting attached and us leaving that the thought of our getting married would be good news, it should have shown that we had no intent of breaking up and therefore there is no need to worry about Christian getting hurt in a break up. We immediately thought that Brian and/or Ginger must've told them of our plans for the upcoming week. James called Brian to find out exactly what was said. Brian swore that he did not say a thing to either Buddy or Louise about us getting married. We had no reason not to believe him. And then we sort of dismissed all of this to maybe he'd had problems with the ex recently or maybe he and Louise were having problems and he was just off on marriage completely for the moment and he'd get past it.

Well, I've seen Buddy several times since then, however, he's never said another word to me. Good or Bad, Hi or Goodbye. I called Louise to find out the specifics of their plans for their trip to Vegas so that we could work around it. We still wanted to get married on spring break, it would have been exactly a year that we'd been together and there was the opportunity for a honeymoon with James being out of school. She was too busy to talk when I called but said she'd call back. She didn't. She called James. That was weird but not a clear red flag yet. Eventually, we decided on our own that with his parents out of town and us out of town that would put Christian with his mother for a solid week. James didn't feel safe leaving him alone for so long so we thought about moving the wedding to June. He would be out of school for a honeymoon but Christian wouldn't be stuck with his mother for a solid week without anyone being able to see or check on him. It did however lose the significance of being our anniversary. The date changed many times for many reasons. We finally settled on Dec 18th.

In the mean time, Rachel seems to have become Buddy and Louise' new best friend. Louise dies her hair, Buddy set up a savings account for Christian with Rachel, Rachel hangs out at their house even when Christian isn't there. Every move we make is reported to Rachel and she uses every opportunity to try to cause unnecessary drama, showing up when she shouldn't, threatening not to let James see Christian. At the beginning of the year James was taking Christian to school on mornings that we have him. Buddy pouted a lot using every excuse from setting a routine for Christian to it's their 'special time' and with all of the other strife James thought if he gives in on this one thing, it might make other things easier. It didn't. Buddy made yet another call to James, this time lying that he had seen me push Christian into the house while they were painting and complaining that I had no right to keep Christian away from him and threatening that "Things like that will cause you to lose Christian. I am going myself to file a report with DHS tomorrow." James was standing there and saw for himself that I told Christian to stay in the house and shut the door behind him, there was no pushing and a reasonable person would have known that I was trying to keep him out of the paint, not away from his PaPa. We'd already had paint tracked on the carpet once during this front porch project, we didn't need it twice. Well, after Buddy launched a verbal campaign against me based on lies and threatened to do things to cause James to lose his custody of Christian, Buddy was not on James' list of top 5 favorite people. It was clear that Buddy knew he had overstepped because the next morning, he brought Rachel with him to pick Christian up at 6:45 in the morning because with shared custody, it's much harder to tell Rachel she can't have Christian than it is to tell Buddy that he can't.

Louise picks Christian up from class every day, or at least she is supposed to. Even on days that James picks him up from school she insisted on picking him up at his class herself to that he has a routine and James is supposed to pick Christian up from her office. Well, where was that routine when no one was at his class to pick him up and he walked home alone. She was with Rachel talking in the office. The police were called and there was a search for over an hour. Also, the obligation she feels to make sure Rachel knows everything apparently doesn't apply to James because not only did Rachel not call like she should have. Louise and Buddy didn't either. We only found out about it a week later when Rachel let her mouth get ahead of her brain and spilled the beans.

Once James and I decided that we were going to get married and make one big family, we had to decide how we were going to handle the rules and discipline in our house. We agreed that since we love and trust each other and we each believe the other is a good parent that the best and really the only way to make this a family is if the kids have the same rules or as close to that as we can get based on age and maturity. We also agreed that we should treat each others children like they are our own. Otherwise, my kids won't respect him and his kids won't respect me. The very definition of step-child is Something that does not receive appropriate care, respect, or attention. No one wants to be treated like a step-child. We agreed to make an effort to love and discipline them all the same. Really, you can't love a child like your own and not discipline them when needed for safety or learning purposes and you can't discipline like they are your own if you don't love them because you may not always have their interest at heart when dissociable if you don't consider them yours to love, care for and teach. It all goes hand in hand. So, when the time came, James was not immediately available, he was in the bathroom and Christian jumped from the top of his bed onto Jessica's back while she lay on her stomach on the floor below. I don't know what this type of bed is called but it's as tall as a bunk bed with play space below instead of a lower bunk. There is a railing on the side of his bed, he had to make an effort to jump over the railing, it couldn't have been an accident no matter how you try to spin it and he could have broken her back. If it were Jessica who'd done this. I would have spanked her. So, I did the same with him. It never made sense to me that everyone got so upset over this. They seem to agree that he needed a spanking, just not from me? Because we aren't married yet? The day that James and I get married really will not change our relationship, we are already as in love and committed to each other as two people can get. It also won't change how I feel about Christian. I don't need a short ceremony to happen before I can love him so what is the difference if it is before or after we are married? Well, to avoid any further drama, James and I agreed that I won't discipline Christian anymore until after we are married. I can say that we did that to appease other people. It didn't work. It seems no matter what we try, no matter what I do, it's not good enough but it has successfully created a lot of chaos in the house. The girls don't understand why they have rules and Christian doesn't, they try to do as he does and I won't have it so they get mad and Christian pushes every boundary that he can.

That is just some of the big stuff. There is a lot more but I'd never get this finished if I went into everything that his parents have done or said lately. There is what happened at James' birthday. The fact that when Christian was here with them and they were working on the porch, he wasn't allowed to come in the house to play. He had no socks on, when I offered to grab him socks, Louise said. "No, it's ok, he has socks at home." Since when is her house, instead of James' house home? Also the letter which threatened that he'd no longer have a mother and that he wouldn't be a welcome part of the family if he married me, and so much more.

Now back to last night. Rachel called. James missed the call but called her back. She said that she wanted to take Christian to a play tonight, but she couldn't say where or what time. James told her fine, just bring him by afterward. Rachel then told him that he can't have Christian on Saturdays anymore. James told her that she doesn't get to decide that etc. But she said that she's already changed her work schedule so that she can keep him away. She then somehow changed the subject to me, telling him again that no one likes me etc. She asked him more than once. "So, what? You don't care that you can't see your son anymore?" and "So, your not upset that you can't see Christian?" She was trying to provoke him into a fight. I guess after trying to make him think that he has to chose between me and Christian and not getting her way. She went back to trashing me. Finally, she said something outrageous that turned out to answer so many questions. We never understood why his parents were so great one day and the next they hated me. I hadn't changed. Rachel said that Brian told her that I hit on him. The fact is, I have NEVER done anything like that. There have been lots of things that Rachel says Brian said. So, I suggested that he just call his brother to find out exactly what was said and I was sure we'd find that there was a misunderstanding about all of this stuff she claims he said. I couldn't imagine that there was much or any truth to anything told us he'd said.

James called Brian and after some direct questions, he finally admitted that he'd said it. He also maintained that it was true. It was supposed to have happened the night that we had our get together in early September when we told Brian and Ginger we were getting married. James and I were together for that entire evening, except when I was outside with Robert. James knows that this didn't happen. Specifically. Brian claimed that I put my hand in his shirt. Then why did no one see it? He also claims he left immediately, which I've already stated above that he left after I'd been outside for about a half hour. When James asked him why no one saw it, he said that Robert was gone, he wasn't, he was the last to leave. At first he claimed the story differed from the truth because he was drunk. Then when James suggested that he might have mistook something because he was drunk, he said that he wasn't even buzzed and there wasn't enough alcohol in the house that night. So, which is it? Drunk or Not? In addition, this seems to have been inconsequential to them since, as they have been out to eat with us as recently as last week.

The timing of this explains everything. It was the very next day that Buddy called and knew that we'd planned to get married. Why did we believe Brian when he said he didn't tell them about us getting married? We should have known but no one wants to think that your brother would sell you out like that. So, apparently, when he broke our special news early, he also added a very specific lie to his story. It explains the sudden attitude change and why they no longer wanted to give me a chance, no matter what I did. In their own twisted way, they were trying to protect him. If they'd just confronted us with what they thought, this could have been over so much sooner and before James was hurt so much by his family.