My favorite age.

Isabelle is now reaching the point of her development where everything she does is just positively cute (even when she's getting into trouble!). She's been walking for awhile and now she's starting to talk (a little earlier than Natalie but she wasn't walking quite as early as Natalie either). She's kind of an odd one with the talking though as she's not saying words but phrases though they're not very clear. We've had a game for awhile where I would hide under the blankets and say, "Where's Mama?" She would peek under the blanket and I would respond, "Here I am!" Or I would hide her and say, "Where's Isabelle?" and when I found her, would then say, "There she is!" So now, when I do it, Isabelle says, every single time she finds me, something that sounds a lot like, "There it is!". She also says "upsy daisy", "hi" (while waving), what sounds like "bye-bye", and what John thinks sounds like "thank you". She also has this game where she'll bring you a doll to hug. I hug the doll and say, "aww" and now Isabelle does the same thing. It's absolutely cute. She'll also respond to my saying, "No, you can't!" with "Yes, I can!". I don't know where she got that one and I have a feeling that this may really come to a head when she's older! She says something (can't quite understand it) when I have something she wants and she can kind of say "banana". Yes, this little girl has quite a vocabulary at not quite 15 months old (though she still won't really say mama!)! I can only see that getting bigger as time goes on. Natalie just started talking at 15 months with her first word, "Hi" but her vocabulary just exploded after that so I'm definitely anticipating that with Isabelle as well.

She's getting more into playing with her toys (and with her sister's toys). She loves her legos though still hasn't quite figured out how to put them together. She plays with them instead, putting them into the cupboards and things in the play kitchen we have. She likes to play in the cupboards in the regular kitchen but we have to watch that because she's prone to getting into trouble. She dumped the rest of an open box of Minute Rice the other day.

She's cute though and I love this age. I really loved it when Natalie was this age and missed it when Natalie grew out of it at three. I'll need to take video this time so I can remember these days even when I'm old and erm grayer.

Feeling more lost and confused than ever.

I called over to the hospital the other day and talked to someone in the women's health department, specifically someone who is supposed to be part of the domestic violence part of this department. To be honest, I don't feel like I got a lot of good answers and if anything, I couldn't help but feel she was telling me that I'm pretty much stuck until I get a job and make enough money to move out (unless I have someone I can move in with) because my husband isn't beating me.

At the same time, I have nearly everyone else I've talked to telling me I need to get the f out NOW. Well, that would be great if I had somewhere to go! I can't go by myself, one because I don't want to abandon my children and two because I would be a failure of a mother if I abandoned my children. My one older sister tells me I can come live with her. Yeah, thing is is she's in another state and from what I'm hearing, I can't even go more than 150 miles with my kids (you know, I really have to wonder if there are economics because this stupid law and just who the f came up with such a STUPID law in the first place?!) for more than 90 days. I was told by a therapist that I could be ordered back to this state with the kids so first of all, that's going to mess them up, being in a place only to have to return here and second of all, that doesn't help me with my where the heck I'm going to go because I'll be right back where I started! And I'm sure my husband would get a HUGE kick out of that. Plus, if I have to be ordered back here, that could possibly jeopardize my getting custody. I have another older sister who suggest I just do whatever I want and not listen to what he says anymore and not do the things he wants me to do. This has everyone else concerned that he'll either try to kidnap at least our older daughter or retaliate violently.

Would someone please tell me what I can actually do?!

He called last night, starts mentioning that he probably has been in the wrong with how he's been treating me and how he probably did not plan his trip out very well (okay, who are you and what did you do with my husband?). Then it goes from there to he might be home early, doesn't really give me a full reason why just mentions something to the effects that there's been a difference of opinion and from what I got from the little he says, I think it's that he doesn't really approve of the church's teachings. This doesn't entirely surprise me, after all, the whole no shaving thing is not something the church he attends to follow. In fact, even his best friend who has left not only the church my husband has been going to but several other of the offshoots, STILL shaves so it seems to me like John may be leaving the whole Armstrong offshoots behind period. Hard to say but it's still a step in the wrong direction because he's keeping himself a prisoner of the law following these laws, he doesn't get at all that the laws no longer need to be followed but that's a discussion for another day, to be honest. So I really don't know when he will be home, could be any day now, just hoping that this whole thing doesn't totally screw up our finances because if it does, there's going to be some massive problems. Unfortunately, I think I'm just going to have to make some more phone calls, maybe even go and see someone in person because I really do not know what else to do. And I guess I'm just going to have to print off some of the stuff with the bank accounts and find out just what my options are and ask a lot of questions including what exactly can happen if I did decide to leave and go to my sister's.

At this point, I still really have no desire to stay with him. The religion is a huge problem and not one that's going to be fixed overnight, especially when he is SO disrespectful towards anyone who follows beliefs outside of his. Not to mention that our relationship has deteriorated so much, it's going to take a lot of work to get it back on track and it's not work I'm willing to do unless he makes some HUGE changes and they're changes he's not very likely willing to make (especially when he keeps saying that my asking for certain changes in order for me to stay is being manipulative). We continue to be at an impasse. And I don't see that changing ever.

I can't do it anymore.

I never went into a marriage planning to leave it. When I married my husband, it felt right. It added security to our relationship. We were friends and lovers and now partners for life. We married eight years ago today. The pictures of us at our wedding show a couple in love. I looked happy, my husband looked at me with love. We were the picture of a couple very much in love.

Eight years and two children later, I'm done. I'm miserable. I'm lonely. My husband hasn't look at me the way he looked at me in those pictures in years. I don't feel needed by him. He gets his emotional needs met through his church and through our five year old daughter. We have slept in the same bed maybe a few times in the last year. Otherwise, we sleep in separate beds, in separate rooms. Sex has gotten less and less and when it happens, it's because I not only initiate it but practically beg and harass him for it.

This, along with other issues, has finally led me to decide I can't do this anymore. As much as being alone would suck, I would at least have the ability to make choices for my life. I would be able to celebrate Christmas. I would be able to pursue my own religious beliefs. I can own Harry Potter and watch the movies. It's sad but I find more positives in being on my own (even if I didn't get custody of the girls) than I do in continuing to be married.

I'm sad though. I'm broken hearted and once again, I wonder what's wrong with me. It just seems like many of the people in my life either don't seem to really love me at all or stop loving me.

Just realized that OCTOBER is the blog writing month.

Dang it. I'm never good with these things. I should be writing more. I would love to do NaNoWriMo next month. I need SOMETHING to focus on when everything else is going crazy around me. My husband is still planning to attend the Feast of Tabernacles in the Dells even though he STILL has yet to ask anyone to drive him and our five year old down. Currently, it's the Day of Atonement. He's to fast today, all day from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. I have a hard time understanding these kinds of things but then, I have a hard time understand Christianity in general. Just seems like a lot of work for nothing, if you ask me.

Tuesday is my birthday. I turn 31. It's also my eighth wedding anniversary (don't ask me why I got married on my birthday; it seemed like a good idea at the time). My husband has Wednesday off in order to have time to get down to the Dells before sundown. He did not take Tuesday off and he's working three hours late on Monday. And in the meantime, he's somehow going to have to get everything ready to go before he leaves and he's not the most organized person in the world. He's also expecting to take our five year old with. I can't help but feel that I'm not even a priority for him. His religion is more important and I'm an afterthought, if even that. Just getting so tired of it all.

Need to make some very hard decisions.

When John and Natalie returned from South Korea last October, we had a bit of a crisis from the beginning. He had returned with a full beard and told me that because the Bible says one is not to shave, he is no longer going to shave. I about booted him out then and there. He did end up spending the night next door because we had such a loud argument over it, the police were called. I was furious. It was just one more stupid, inane, asinine rule I had to tolerate because of his religious beliefs. And worse, it wasn't even one of the things the church he had been going to practiced! He did shave it off for awhile, at least long enough to find a job, but grew it back (again, without even talking to me about it or taking my feelings into consideration at all). It has greatly affected our marriage since then and yeah, okay, it's just a beard, I know but it's the lack of consideration that's a problem. He does not take my feelings into consideration. He goes on and on about how he has "no choice" in the matter because it's what the Bible says. That is such garbage! There is ALWAYS a choice! You don't HAVE to choose to follow some stupid rule! That's the whole thing behind free will. It's not like God is play a game of The Sims and clicking on you and forcing you to do certain things. You have the ability to make your own choices. Yes, there are consequences for the choices you make but you still have a choice. And this is one of those things I don't get. He's so AFRAID of not doing what he's supposed to do. I mean seriously? He's going to go to hell/the lake of fire for SHAVING?! Are you freaking kidding me?!

Like I said, that was almost a year ago and I was furious then. Now, I'm just tired. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of trying to get him to do the things he needs to be doing (like filling out the paperwork that keeps the student loan people from garnishing his wages). I'm tired of asking him for his time, asking him for sex, asking him for anything really. We don't really talk and we don't plan. He's getting moodier and moodier all the time. He hates his job which usually means he will at some point lose it because once he starts hating his job, he doesn't put the effort into it and with the (what I think are) ADD issues he may have, it becomes very easy for him to end up losing his job. It's happened before, many many many times before. He wants to go to the Feast of Tabernacles. This requires him to miss a week of work. The last two times we've done this, he's lost his job within a few months. The first year we went was before I had our oldest daughter. He was working two jobs. He lost both of them less than three months later and that year was the WORST year we had financially and supposedly there is this idea that if you tithe and go to this stupid Feast, you'll be blessed financially. Yeah, hasn't happened yet. The next year that we went, he lost his job less than a month after we returned. Fortunately, we were able to get by on him subbing at the local school district so it wasn't quite as bad as it was in the past. BUT, we started having car issues and one of his sisters AND her son died shortly after we returned and because he missed so much work, we couldn't go to the funeral. Again, definitely NOT blessed going to this thing.

But he still wants to go. Only thing is is that we don't have a car. He doesn't have a way to get down to the site that's 90 miles away. He doesn't have a place to stay. He doesn't have a way of getting around the town that the site is in (no public transportation there really). Services are everyday during the week; some days there are two services. It's an eight day deal and he plans to take our five year old. I think she's going to be bored as can be and eventually get sick of the whole entire thing. I know I did the last time I went down and I was an adult! It's BORING! I have no intention of going. His way of punishing me for that is to not include me in any of the Feast gift giving (this IS supposed to be the replacement for Christmas). He is also supposed to be leaving the day after my birthday (which is also the same day as our wedding anniversary).

I can't do it anymore. I can't keep going like this where I'm expected to follow his beliefs, put up with whatever he comes up with that he's read out of the Bible, and yet not be able to follow any beliefs of my own. I'm supposed to put up with a lack of intimacy and friendship within my own relationship and be perfectly happy with it. I'm not happy with it and I refuse to bend over backwards and give up everything of myself just to get that from him. At some point, either in the near future (especially if he does go to the Feast) or somewhere down the road, I'm going to have to leave. He will never change and I will never be happy staying with him. It's just an absolutely terrifying thought for me. I think I would be better about it if I didn't have the kids but I do and I worry I can't do it all on my own, I really do. But I can't keep living this way either. *sigh*