12:39 p.m.

[ My family dynamic ]

I had the most amazing dream last night. I can't be on much longer right now but I feel the need to write about something that was said in my entry and since that journal is for my dreams only, I'd rather do it here.

I didn't screw around on FF (Fuck Face). If I had, his sexually, verbally and emotionally abusive behavior certainly would have justified me doing so. Unfortunately the timing of my leaving him was bad. L (my husband), and I had become good friends and there were all kinds of wierd rumors flying around about us because we worked in the same place. One of the rumors was that I had been giving L oral sex at his workstation, which is laughable considering my dad also worked there. How gross would that be to get caught by my own dad doing...that? How freaking humiliating.

No one seemed to remember (except my mom), that I had mentioned leaving FF a year prior to actually doing it. He was making me miserable but I didn't let my family know a lot of what was going on, so they thought he was a great guy and my leaving him had to mean I was having a relationship with someone else. Not so.

It didn't help that L's marriage had gone down the potty hole too, even before mine did and so he was now also single. Because I left FF, a shitstorm erupted that went on for the better part of three years. My dad and brother completely turned on me, and since I had nowhere else to go but my parents' home, the two of them launched a full-on verbal abuse campaign designed to make me so miserable I had to go back to FF.

My brother attacked us one night as L was dropping me off from work because my vehicle had died again and I couldn't keep having it fixed because it had cost me over 2000 dollars in a two month period. I suspect this was due to FF messing with it. When we started to have problems he took out a life insurance policy on me and about two weeks later my brakes failed. The mechanic said it was because the brake line was cut.

But everyone thinks I'm being paranoid about that. Even though problems continued to appear in my previously problem-free vehicle.

FF, my dad and my brother also watched every move I made and frequently gave me shit about it. This was easy because the house next door, which was supposed to have been mine, was where FF and I lived before the breakup and where he continued to live after because my dad let him. It's a duplex so he was practically up my butt.

The pressure was unbearable, both on my mother and myself. We ran interference for one another as often as possible and I stayed away from the house as much as I could to keep the sharks (this is why I have so many shark nightmares, I'm sure of it), away from us.

It was during this time that L, who remained my friend and shoulder to cry on throughout all of this, and I became closer. It was a long time before we decided to get together though because I didn't want my mom to take a lot of shit over it. My dad and brother were harrassing her as hard as they were me. I discussed with her the fact that L and I wanted to have a relationship but were unsure of how to proceed because we were both concerned about her and she told me to not worry about it. She wanted me to be happy and she could take care of herself.

So we did. My dad and brother blew up when they found out and my brother didn't speak to me from January of 1999 to December of 2001. My dad came around in February of 2000 because he wanted to be involved with the baby I was expecting.

Things are much better now but I still have trust issues with them both. There's an improvement in that area too (trust), but progress is extremely slow.

One day I'm going to ask my brother, maybe very soon, what it was that changed his mind about me. The change was so sudden I have to wonder.

I can't believe my mom, L and I went through all of this shit because my dad and brother refused to believe the truth about my marriage to FF. FF didn't help things by making up lies and keeping my brother all stirred up. There aren't a lot of people I can honestly say I hate but FF I definitely do. He made me miserable when we were together and participated with my father and brother in nearly driving me to suicide once we weren't.