valzone5 - LMAO!! I do believe they are meant to place hand towels in. :) That lovely piece of "furniture" has since left our home...well actually it sits in my garage begging to be burned. walkin yesindeed - I will gladly send you a big section framed once i get it pulled down! :)

OMG! I just HAD to post to this one. You sound as if you are telling MY story! I posted my own question a couple weeks ago regarding the same type of man. I can tell you from first hand experience that this guy is not going to change. If anything things will only get worse from this point on. I know that's hard to hear and not what you want to hear. I've been there. I too was wishing for advice or some magic potion to make him 'see' what he was doing. I blamed myself, I hated the way he treated my kids. I let it go on for way to long. I kept hoping and wishing that one day I'd wake up and things would be different. I did finally wake up but looking back I know I should have gotten out a long time ago. Sweetie... for YOUR sake and YOUR KIDS, GET OUT of that situation. Start now preparing to move on with your life. I can tell you that it's only going to get worse. I'm speaking from experience here. I finally did something about my situation. I filed for divorce (yesterday) and he moved out. I can't even express the calm and the peace I feel with him out of the house. My children simply glowed this morning. It's only going to get better for us I just feel it. Granted it's going to be tough financially but hey.. it's worth it to have that man out of our house. Above all else, don't blame yourself. The best thing you can do for your children is show them that no human being has to settle for that type of behavior. It's simply unacceptable. I made up so many excuses over the years for my husbands behavior. Always telling the children just to stay quiet and out of his way when he was home. We were prisoners to his paycheck. So scared that we couldnt make it without him. But I reached the point to where I wasn't scared of that anymore. It scared me more to think about what he was doing to my children's mental well being. I tried everything to get my husband to see what he was doing. He was so deep in denial that he would never admit to being the problem or even having a problem. It was 'all the kids fault' and my fault because he had no interactions with the kids. I'm talking... This man wold walk right past us on his way out of the house or into the house and not even look in our direction. He didn't even acknowledge our existance!! I never understood how he could not even speak. I thought how rude! Well, it's his loss. I hope the silence in his new place is killing him. Meanwhile my house is filled with laughter. It feels like we've come out of a long winter. Even the sunshine is brighter today. If you'd like to email me you may do so at lacey2010@yahoo.com If I can do anything to help you, even if it's just listening please email me. I know first hand how difficult that type of situation can be. I know what it feels like to have your heart torn out day after day wishing,hoping and praying for even the slightest glimpse of hope that something is going to change. The sad truth is... men like these never change. I'll keep you in my prayers and hope that you'll email me.

Well, I have to give credit when due.... BM did pay me for the dentist tonight. DH thinks she's afraid of me. I'll feign innocence because I don't think I'm intimidating at all. She towers over me and I guess because I don't back down from her and she's told my DH that to do the job I do, you have to be tough, she figures I am not someone she wants to mess with? She's walked all over DH for years, so she knows he's taken it and she continues to walk on him. He's stood up to her mostly since we've been together so she blames me for it, but it's really him. I am supportive and back him but he is tired of her crap.. more than I am, he's put up with it for so long. Whatever it is, she walked SD out to the car tonight and I told her I need the money for the dentist bill. She paused and said, 'do you have change for a hundred?' and of course, I don't carry cash. I told her no, but I'll be happy to go down the road, break it & bring her the change. She went back in the house & came out with $46 in bills (mostly $1's) & $2 in quarters. I don't care, it's cash. She was a dollar short but I was shocked she didn't whine about not having any money. (of course I was thinking... hmmm, she has $48 to give me but what about the $100 she wanted me to break? She promised DH $100 last week) He didn't want to ask her in front of SD I guess. I didn't want to push the issue in front of SD and since DH didn't say anything, I let it go too. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have been dealing with her directly every time I pay for her doctor and I could collect from BM instead of having DH send her the bills/receipts and relying on her to pay him to get my money back. She knows I am the one paying for it... but this is the first time I've asked her to pay her half directly to me. I don't care why she paid, just glad she did and no complaints...

Don't feel bad. I can out-stupid that. My house has the wired smoke alarms with the battery backup, but I didn't know that. I have high ceilings and it's hard to reach the smoke detectors so I had dh check them for batteries. He couldn't find them and so we decided we didn't have any. One day, my smoke alarms started going off in some weird manner where they were going off periodically around the house. It wasn't a beep. We never got that. We got actual alarms. I gathered the pets and my one child who was home and called the non-911 number for the fire department. Except, this is a rather large area and I called a fire department that isn't mine. The gentleman I spoke to recommended I call 911 and have them send a truck over to check it out. I called and tried to make it clear I didn't have a fire, I got a ladder truck with lights and sirens. It turned left instead of right when it came into the neighborhood so it had to circle around this whole section of the neighborhood. So the neighbors were all alerted. The elementary school bus came by right after the truck got here so those kids and their parents all saw. My dd was on the bus and she was scared our house was on fire. The firefighters got in here. We found out that we did indeed have batteries and one had gone out. No beeping, but apparently the alarm is the second backup. The fire fighters left and I walked outside to several neighbors. I had to admit the fire truck was called because of a dead battery. On the bright side, these are all newer houses and now everyone knows we have battery backup and we know the fire station across the street isn't ours.