Bring On the Tough

Hard Decisions

This was the time we started having marriage problems because I didn't want pot in my house or around our baby and I didn't want drinking around him or anything like that. I was brought up in a very healthy environment where these things never happened. I was in my little world of trying to be a new mom and being a stay at home mom at that, and my husband worked his job at the local mattress factory which meant he was gone for long hours 5 days a week, sometimes 6. 

I wasn't paying attention to his needs and he was in his own world of living the life we used to live but behind my back. I didn't find out about any of this and then we got an eviction notice from our landlord. He was in charge of our finances because he brought in all the money. I was just trying to get through life with little sleep and what felt like constantly feeding my baby. Benjamin was barely 1 1/2 months old when we had to find a new place to live and it was middle of December. Lawrence found us our new apartment because of all that was going on, I let him decide. He found us a really inexpensive place that I just hated, but I had no choice. I cried when we moved. It wasn't that bad of a place for the moment, but I would NEVER live anywhere like it again or EVER rent from that landlord again. 

I had no idea about the drugs or anything else Lawrence was doing until after the court date for the eviction. I thought he had paid the rent and our landlord that was evicting us & I thought they were being unfair (which they were in the wrong as well) because of the things in the house that they weren't taking care of, like the leaking roof and the broken basement windows and the mold in the bathroom. We actually got through the court session and just had to pay the back rent, which wasn't too much and we had it paid within 2 months. So honestly, this was all a part of God's big plan for us. We shouldn't have lived in such a dumpy house, but the town where I come from, it is very hard to find a good landlord who takes care of their properties. Nothing like where I now live! 

Then there was a time during all of this, that I took over the finances and started a budget and keeping track of everything. We got back on track with money and life, things seemed hunky dorey. Lawrence to me seemed crabby a lot but whatever. The guy worked hard right? Nothing to be suspicious over. Until I started examining his check stubs because it was getting hard to make ends meet with just his paycheck, which wasn't at all normal. I started seeing that there were pay advances taken out of each check for about $150-$200. So I confronted him about it. He told me the lady who did payroll at his work was messing up and he would talk to her. "Okay, good," I thought and dumbed down my intuition and suspicion because of course I didn't want to doubt my hard-working husband.

I didn't know anything until the day of our son's 1st birthday party. One of his friends called my phone saying Lawrence better pay him back that day or they were going to crash my kids party. Oh don't piss this mama off! I let the guy have it! I told him I didn't care if Lawrence did owe him money he was not crashing my kids party and I had no problem calling the cops on every one of them if they wanted to play dirty. I was SO angry at my husband that he was doing this behind my back and ripping people off. My husband had become scum like so many I knew before I changed my own life. Clearly he was not on the same page as I was in life and this is where the "fun" times began.