For eight years I have been living in fantasy land.  I honestly thought I had the dream life, 3 kids, a nice car and a husband.  I say just "husband" because he was never loving, supportive or caring of my best interests.  In reality, he was emotionally and verbally abusive to not just me but our children.  Regardless of the offenses I kept begging him to stay.  I was a stay-at-home mom of 3 little ones born in just 4 years.  I had hardly ever worked a day in my life and felt that I did not have any options. I was content as long as our relationship was stable.  I would naively believe that things were going very well when he would suddenly disappear after a business dinner.  I would stay up many nights crying to myself while wondering, worrying, feeling completely devastating that my own husband, who called himself my best friend did not so much as respect me enough to let me know he was OK.  He would stumble into old friends who always had some dire crisis.  It is amazing looking back at all of the stories I have been given to try and excuse his lack of responsibility.  Due to the fact that I did not see who he was with nor would he ever furnish his phone records,  he always swore he did nothing wrong when he would stay out overnights.  He would fight me so hard that whatever gut feelings or signs of adultery or drugs I found he would convince me to question myself!  Every few months we would repeat this troubling cycle.  I enjoyed living blindly, but eventually even the strongest woman buckles.
During the summer of 2012 my husband asked me to take a trip to Vegas in order to "work on our relationship".  It sounded like just what we needed after years of ups and downs full of his lies.  I had contacted a divorce attorney during his last nightly rampage of drug binging to see what my options were since I had no income.  This trip was my last stand I told my husband. Things had to change or I would leave.  I wish I had the courage at this point to escape.  I still had my sanity and even though our kids were little I could have had family help me with the kids while I worked.  I was just so scared.  I went to Vegas with him completely oblivious to his plans to meet his high school friends.  Instead of the romantic getaway weekend I was promised this trip was actually a grandiose extravaganza.  By 11 pm the first evening my husband was so drunk that he was hanging all over other women.  One of our own employees was in attendance and began throwing up into one of my shopping bags.  At this point I suggested it was time to go.  I was the only one who took my own advice.  At 4 in the morning I woke up to some random man standing over me in my hotel room.  He introduced himself and said he was a friend of my husband's. I heard my husband shuffling around in the other room of our suite.  Shortly they both left as I lay there dumbfounded that my "best friend" not only insulted me by groping other women and becoming completely intoxicated, he was thrilled to still be riding the party bus.  Not surprisingly he would not return my phone calls or texts.  He even missed our morning couples massage.  Walking back to our hotel room, I catch a glimpse of him On HIS PHONE talking and sitting with the same man that was in my room staring at me the night before.
I grumbled something about his phone must not be working only when his wife calls and went to the room.  This time he actually followed only to pass out once he sat down to "talk".  A card for a VIP host at a fancy strip club fell out of his pocket.  I spent the rest of our "romantic" weekend alone and saddened that this person could treat me like this.  Once I got home, I filed for divorce.