I am sorry to bore all of you. This journal is now helping me stay focused on how I expect to be treated. I am not a person to be bought with clothes. I remember the first time it happened. I thought it was a true apology. It was on Okinawa.

I was a stay at home mom, pregnant with our second child. B came home from work and was upset about something. He started going off on me and I didn't let him get away with it. DS was taking a nap and I was folding clothes. B was upset that everything wasn't all done before he came home and I was in that 'brown dress' again. I was 8months along and the dress was about the only thing that was really comfortable so I wore it alot. I told him to stop yelling at me, sorry he had a bad day. Laundry had to be folded and if he didn't like it, sorry. I could only do so much, and considering that we were on water restriction and I could only do laundry on certain days tough. He slammed out. Our next door neighbor knocked on the door-she could see me through our back windows and knew I was crying though I was still folding clothes. "trouble in Paradise?" was her quiery. I nodded. B and I had never fought before, at least not that I could remember. I calmed down, finished the clothes and DS woke from his nap. Shortly B came home with a romance novel, a small candy bar, a new maternity dress and a small bouquet of flowers that the local mamasans sold. And he apologized,saying it wasn't my fault-someone at work blah,blah blah.

Fast forward about 7mos and we are visiting my folks. B is getting ready to start military training at Ft. Devens and I am trying to get into some kind of routine living with mom&dad, squeezing in with my two kids. My sister still lives there, my son is sleeping on a cot (think army cot) and my dd is in a port a crib. (hes 2, shes 6mos) B goes off the deep end over something dumb. My father and sister hears him. My sis makes comment "if my husband ever spoke to me like that, I'd leave him." My father just looks at me. B has stormed out. I am taking care of my kids-once again folding clothes. The never ending laundry. My father is trying to talk to me. I look at him and say,"He's under a lot of stress. He will come back with a book and some time of clothes and will apologize. I am sorry for the arguement." Dumb me?!! I saw the pattern then, and I never did anything about it. And sure enough, B came home with a romance novel and a nice pegnoir set.(really nice I had it for years)

My father later told me that it 'got him right here' pointing to the middle of his forehead, when I said that. I couldn't see what was wrong at that time. In fact until a little while ago, I had blinders on.

At the time I was living in my folks home, I thought my father and sister were trying to break up my marriage. My mother was in the hospital. I guess they were, but they were right. B is a 'good person'. Not a healthy person, but not a deliberatly mean person-ie not an evil person. He just does not know how to love someone in a healthy way.

And after 33 years of trying to show him how, I can't do it anymore. I have been showing him how forever. Even my mother learned how to way before this!!!!! I even knew she loved me before she died.

So little tribulations will be here, sometimes growth, sometimes pouting.

But you know, the only day I have not come into work in the past 2 weeks was a preapproved day off. The only day I have felt sick was Sunday after dealing with B on Saturday.
No migraines, no upset stomachs. In fact, I was happy to come into work. Now, I don't mean I was happy to hear the alarm go off, but, I have been waking up before the alarm and stretching, seeing w