Before I was so rudely interrupted by what remains of my life, I was telling a bit about me and my wife.

Things steamed right along for years after that.  We bought a house together, and started talking about where in the country we would like to move.  We knew that staying in Oklahoma was a bad choice.  The socio/political climate here is awful.  We wanted a place with less religion and more education. 

In the meantime, I continued with my job working 12 hour shifts at hard physical labor in a tire factory.  I had worked her way through college, and once our son was born she was able to start working as a Registered Nurse.  Theoretically it was my turn for school.  I switched to night shift so I could remain employed while becoming educated, but only managed a single summer semester before she asked that I drop out.  Having a newborn while her husband was on nights was just a bit too much.  She promised that I could go back to school when he was older.

Skip ahead a few years.  It is 2006, and I have found out that I am being laid off.  Partially due to overseas competition, and partially in retaliation for the 1994-95 strike, Bridgestone closed our tire factory and let everyone go.  I was one of the last employees to go, in late December of 2006.  I started school, and unemployment, right away the next January.

Already chronically depressed, and now feeling completely worthless, my self image dropped through the floor.  My sleep went to shit.  Hell, my everything went to shit.  I gained loads of weight, becoming a disgusting blob.  My self-hatred started impacting our love life.  I still wanted her, I just didn't like being me.  Once I mentally pictured myself at all, then I was done.  I tried to tell her that it wasn't her, it was me, but you can only say that so many times before it gets assumed to be bullshit.  Her feelings of rejection grew and grew.  My self-hate grew even faster.

In 2008,  I had to take some classes I did not want to take.  They were mandated by my degree program.  I managed to pass both of them with decent, but not great, grades.  However, in October of 2008, instead of going to class, I went to see Bill Mahr's movie, Religulous.  It was very entertaining.

When I got home, she asked me how class was.  I said it was as boring as ever.  The next day I went to my other classes.  While I was gone she found the movie ticket stub which had fallen out of my pants pocket.  Upon arrival home that afternoon she pulled me aside and demanded to know if I actually went to class the day before.  I admitted that I had not.  She told me to get out.

I left.

I spent the next two weeks living in my truck.  I showered in the gym locker room at school, and ate junk food.  I dropped one of my unnecessary classes, because I no longer had adequate access to a computer.  I only came back to watch the kids on days when she had to work.

After a couple of weeks, she asked me what it was I wanted.  I told her I wanted to come back, and that I wanted my wife and family back.  She said that it was hard to tell, because I was walking around so fucking miserable all the time.  All she could see was that I was unhappy, and she assumed she was the cause of it.  I told her that I was miserable, that I was unhappy with almost every aspect of my life, and that the kids and her were the only things keeping me together.  She said that if we were going to work it out, then I needed therapy at the least.

I went through our insurance to find a therapist.  The first appointment I could get into was over a month away, in December.  When I went and started explaining things to him, I ended up spending the majority of the time defending her views of my lying to her.  He felt that she was overreacting.  I felt that he wasn't understanding just how serious her views on trust and honesty were.  In the end, he recommended me to a different doctor.  Before I could even start going to that one, my wife's work changed insurance.

January, 2009, and I was back at square one.  I had to go through the authorization process and find a doctor again.  She stayed hideously mad at me the whole time.  Finally, in March of 2009 I found out that I could get free counseling through my school, and didn't have to deal with her insurance.  I also went back to my doctor and got back on antidepressants (I had been diagnosed with depression in 2005, but abandoned treatment in 2006 when it became clear that I would be losing my insurance).  But it was too little, too late, as far as she was concerned.  For those of you who are interested, that is pretty much where this entire series of blogs begins.  They're all still there.  You can read them if you wish.

Anyway, today is the anniversary of the happiest day of my life, and she doesn't care.  It means nothing to her.  It means less than nothing to her.  If I were to explain its significance, she would become upset and angry. 

So today has new significance.  It is the day I give up.  All I have wanted throughout this ordeal is to have my wife back.  I understand now that I don't actually have that option.  No matter what happens, she will never come back to me.  She will never love me again.  Even if I were to somehow be cured of all my mental and emotional problems, she would not care.  She would be glad for me, but it would not bring her back.  Further, I think that there was never any chance, all the way back to October 2008, when I lied to her again.  I think that all of her hints and suggestions were merely to get me moving.  But nothing was ever going to help.

Well, tomorrow is a whole new era.  Tomorrow I stop worrying about other people, and finally do things the way I want them to be done.  Tomorrow I finally become the most important person in my life.