The Morning After the Night Before

Last night, I packed all my belongings and left my husband. It all started back before we got married... Dale has an addictive personality and would occasionally drink, however, when he drank, he would not stop until he was too exhausted to continue drinking. The drinking finally began to subside in the run up tot the wedding (May 07).
There had been times before the wedding when I had suspected that he had been smoking cannabis, I felt that he had, as every-so-often, I would smell marijuana in the flat, especially whenever he entered the flat from visiting the couple upstairs. Dale often acted suspiciously and strongly denied the allegations of drugs use and would say “It was all in [my] mind and you shouldn’t worry as he hadn’t smoked it for years and wasn’t likely to start then”. I later found out that this was a major league lie when giving one of the people from upstairs, Neil, a lift into town. I managed to get the courage to ask him when he last shared a spliff with Dale, “Only a couple of days ago” he replied, completely oblivious to why I was asking and the fact that I didn’t know. It all came pouring out of Neil, with how often Dale would visit to share a joint or two and often ended up hogging it from the others. It turned out that my husband was visiting them at least once a week and sharing a joint, sorry, smoking the majority of the Neil’s stash. I questioned Dale again that night about whether he had been smoking dope and received his usual response, “No, haven’t smoked it for years”.
It was only after the wedding (2/3 weeks later) that he admitted to having “a bit” of Neil’s joint one night when he was really stressed out. After his partial confession, he was happy to buy more dope and openly smoke it in front of myself and the kid. This recently went to the extreme when he took his son/ my young step son into the flat up stairs and openly smoke dope up there. There were at least four adults in that lounge and of course the kid. All of the adults were getting stoned including Dale. At about 11 pm he came downstairs to get something and I asked if he was going to bring Jonathon down soon to put him to bed. He responded “Nah, he’s still wide awake”. Every hour he came downstairs and I would ask him each time when was he going to put the kid to bed, and each time it was the same answer, “Not yet, he’s the most awake out of all of us”. I wasn’t the least bit surprised!

Mum went to work at quarter past seven. She knew that I did not feel safe in the house on my own, however she had to go in for the morning at least as the company secretary was going to be late in today. Mum was back home by half eight as she was worried about me being alone. I had not slept very well (pretty obvious why) I had probably only had 2 hours sleep and spent the rest of the night reading and doing Sudoku’s.
I wrote several different letters to my husband during the night explaining why I had left him. I still haven’t decided to send one of them or not. I phoned Dale in the morning and told him what was going on and he just said “ok, sure, whatever” and that was that!!! Glad to see I meant that much to him.
I had written a list of places which I needed to change my address with during the night. A couple of these I needed to do in town (work and one of the banks). Everyone in my Yeovil store was thrilled to see me and were completely gob smacked when I told them what I had done the night before. They all cheered me up with their silly antics and jokes. I changed my address and booked up my remaining holiday on the companies booking system, I booked this for the week before I was next due in hospital (eight working days) 26th September - 6th October.
Once my address changes were done, we went and sat down in one of the local coffee shops. I seem to get stomach aches when drinking coffee, so I just had an iced chocolate milkshake. I was reading the paper when Dale phoned me saying “Thanks for ruining my life, I’ve been kicked off my course and kicked out of the church”. He didn’t seem to realise that he had done this through his own doing. The only reason he was still on the course is because he had lied to Richard when questioned about drugs previously.
We were just driving up to the local Tesco store to get a couple of bits when Dale phoned again, this time to have a go at me for stealing the saucepans! And leaving him with “Nothing to cook with!” Which was yet again another lie. I left one large saucepan which was his in the first place, several casserole dishes, frying pans, woks and the jugs, not to mention that all of the food he buys is microwaveable! According to him, I took them all just to stop him from being able to cook any food for Jonathon! Which is absurd seeing as how I treated that kid as if he was my own son, and I hated the fact that I would have to leave him behind.
The only major things which we both used in the flat which I took and he apparantly has “no alternatives for” was the saucepan set (which mum gave me for my birthday/christmas), the chip-fryer (given to us by my dad), the blender and hot chocolate machine (both mine in the first place) and the play station (which was also mine when I moved in). I took these things for the above reasons and not only that, but he has a flat and all of the furniture, the only furniture I have is a bedside table, a canvas set of drawers and a falling apart laundry basket!
Later that night he tried to phone me again but I pressed reject call as I could not be bothered to have yet more abuse hurled at me. Ten minutes later he rings again. I got mum to answer it as I didn’t want to speak to him. He kept saying to her that I had stolen the saucepans to put in my new boyfriend’s flat, which was news to me! To which mum replied "Don’t be such a dick head!” He kept on talking rubbish and eventually said “I guess it’s over then?” Talk about stating the obvious! Mum told him not to bother contacting me for a few days at least because I had nothing to say to him, which was true.
Earlier in the day I arranged a solicitor. My ex step-mum works at a local law firm in the family law department, so she is sorting out all of the nitty gritty for me. I have a meeting with my solicitor next Monday.
Lou text me during the day to say that Dale had tried calling him but he was too busy to answer it, however if he does speak to him, he will say exactly what he thinks of him.
Much later on Jennie (Lou’s wife and one of my best friends) rang me to say that Dale had just tried to phone her, what should she do? Whilst on the phone to me, he tried calling her again, so I talked her through what to do. I told her to text him saying that her hearing aid isn’t working properly.
Dale - “Did you help Kel move? Why did she do it?”
Jennie - “No, she left you because of the drugs and the way you treated her and Jonathon.”
Dale - “Kelly never pulled her weight and expected me to pay for everything. I look after my son well. I am divorcing her now.”
And that was that. I will be very surprised if he was to divorce me though, firstly he has no grounds (nor evidence to support his stories), secondly I have the marriage certificate and thirdly I already have a meeting set up with my solicitor!