Husband Number One -- Lazy

Probably best to start at the beginning; we met at 18, married at 20 and had our first child at 21. How’s that for rushing things?  He was in the military and we were broke, young and still acted like teenagers while we were trying to raise two young kids.  

I was isolated, living several states away from friends and family -- just like I am now.  I was home alone while he went out on deployment, sometimes for months at a time with no word from him possible.  I think the only reason we stayed married for three years was because we were apart so much. Because when we were together, it was usually a mess.

He would get very angry when we fought -- every six months or so, it would escalate to the point that he would slap or hit me.  On my 21st birthday, I remember the cheap champagne I had with dinner to celebrate hurt too much to drink because of my split lip. 

The verbal threats were constant.  I was a fat cow; he’d only married me because he felt sorry for me; I was good for nothing; if I ever left him I’d die alone because no one else would want me. You get the picture.  When I started to seriously consider divorce, then the threats became menacing.

I’ll cut you into a million pieces. They’ll never find your body. You’ll never see the kids again.  When I think back on it now, I wonder why I put up with it for as long as I did, but then I remember that I was isolated from family or friends and my support was more than a 16 hour drive away.

The end of his military career was the end of our marriage. We moved back home and with my support system back, I finally had the courage to get out of that situation. I made several last ditch efforts to save things, but he refused to work and told me he wanted to make as much money as possible doing as little as possible. This was his life’s philosophy.  My divorce lawyer called him a Lazy and I thought it was the perfect name for him.