It All Comes To An End

Since the last time I wrote, there have been several major changes in my life.

First, Jorge and I called it quits AGAIN sometime at the end of March 2021 (This was after the first time I found out he cheated with that little idiot, Sabrina, back in March of 2020). One of the conditions of getting back together back in November/December 2020 was him seeing a therapist for his mental health/anger issues and getting meds prescribed. And he did go—once. I could always tell when he had stopped taking them because he turned into a short-tempered jerk. Any little thing would set him off. It wasn’t long before he’d start calling the kids and I “worthless” because he wasn’t happy with something. And even though we were “working things out” he still lived at his house with his kids and I lived at my house with mine. He would sleep over every-so-often, or I would sleep over at his house. And then we would argue. He would take me out to eat and we’d still bond over playing Pokemon Go…until we would argue again. He’d storm off to his house and I’d fester in my anger at mine.

One day in late February 2021, we were up for a home inspection by my landlord. The house, which by this point I’ve lived at for 10 1/2 years, needed the doors and trim painted and I needed help organizing. Jorge said he would help me and of course the kids would help me. Even though I knew better, I made the mistake of waiting for him. But I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. That entire week, when I would try to paint after work, he’d want to go out to eat since we were “kid-less” and he would say, “What are you worried about, I’m going to help you on the weekend.” Something deep down inside kept bugging me about him saying that. I knew he wouldn’t.

Friday comes and he has to work late. *Insert facepalm here*. He doesn’t get here till 11pm and by then he just wants to go to bed because he’s tired. He says we’ll wake up early and go to Walmart (because I needed paint rollers). Our alarm goes off the next morning and I try waking him. He stirs and mumbles something about going to Stripes and getting breakfast tacos…and falls asleep again. Well, if he’s gonna sleep, I’ll sleep too. I set the alarm for another hour and go back to sleep. When he doesn’t wake up the 2nd and 3rd time I try waking him, I finally shake him awake because I’m panicking about the time; the day is going fast. His bi-polarism causes him to wake up in awful moods when he’s not medicated (pretty much how I was greeted every morning that we were together for 10 years). He storms around, bitching that the kids and I should have started early. I tell him, “But you told me all week you were going to help me. I waited for you like you told me to!” As we walk down the hallway to leave to Walmart, the dogs hear us and lose it because they want to go outside. He yells at Alaethia to wake up and take the dogs out and proceeds to talk about how lazy she is. I’m swallowing my anger by now. Then he’s complaining that he doesn’t have pants and he can’t believe he’s going in his sweatpants. I tell him we’ve gone to Walmart in pj’s plenty of times and that I don’t like how he spoke to Alaethia and he proceeds to call her lazy again, plus my other 2 kids. And I snap, “You are talking about ALL the children, including yours, right? Because yours are just as lazy!” And he says I need to get over it and that he doesn’t even LIVE HERE so why should he help me?? Then he says, “You know, you’re right— this shit really isn’t working.” And I said, “You leave this time and THAT’S IT! Don’t come begging back!” And he says, “Oh, I won’t, don’t worry!” He marches back in to get his things and drives off.

I’m so angry I stomp inside and start bawling from sheer frustration because how am I supposed to do this on my own?? But my gals came in clutch: Sally, Kary and Martha came over to help in the evening, thank God. Mario was coming to pick up the kids and starts helping, too. We order pizza and have wine and everyone is helping paint and organize. Somehow, we get everything painted and spic-n-span by the time the landlord shows up the following day. I was so grateful for everyone. Jorge called later that first night when his episode was over and asked if I needed help, way after the fact, mind you. But I was livid. I didn’t want his help at all.

A couple of weeks pass and he’s once again calling, asking to see me, or to have dinner, and so on. By this time, I’ve already replaced the TV and sofas that he took in October 2020, when he moved into the house he and Javi are renting. I had money saved and I felt like a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man! But he still calls. Still wants to work things out. Still takes us to the beach, twice. I told him he needed to be on his meds because I knew he wasn’t. I was extremely skeptical and still didn’t trust him after the whole cheating-with-Sabrina thing.

Then he gets this career opportunity right before my birthday to be the General Manager for either 1) a brand-new restaurant opening up in our city, or 2) the GM for 2 other already-established restaurants in our city. Let’s just say that I had no idea that choice #1 was the type of restaurant where the women are VERY scantily clad. He painted a pretty picture of it, saying that it was like a Hooters. Ok. I could handle Hooters, I guess. He kept saying he didn’t know if he should take the job because he would be away on training for a month and he didn’t know if his mental health would stay intact if he was so far away and alone, and he knew I wouldn’t like the idea of the new restaurant. I told him not to base his decision on what I would think, because obviously we weren’t doing very well and I wasn’t about to be blamed for him turning down a “good opportunity”. But deep down, I knew I wouldn’t be okay with that place. Especially after a quick Google search.

So we spend time together here and there. He’s trying his best. But I’m still keeping my guard up.

April 13th is Sally’s birthday. She was feeling down so I gathered up the girls, a cake and some flowers and we had a little get together for her at The Oak Bar.

My birthday is on April 14th. When the day comes around, we get as many of the kids together as we can. We’re not doing too good with money but I had some saved up and John had sent me $200 so I took myself and the family out :). Things still felt awkward to me, though; it just felt like everything was…forced? And he’s in a bad mood, like always, but he was making an effort to keep it at bay. And he brought me flowers.

We decide on Cheddar’s and have a pretty good evening with the kids.

It was a great evening. I was feeling pretty darn blessed by the end of the night.

We (Jorge and I) celebrated my birthday at Suerte Uptown with Martha and Rudy that Friday. It was Selena-themed! Love those events! Sally and Kary didn’t go because they didn’t want to have anything to do with Jorge, which I’d grown used to, but I was also a little butthurt, not gonna lie.

We had a great time, we even danced. Jorge was due to leave to training the day after and he wanted to go out one more time before he left.

The next day Jorge got ready to go and Martha and I took an impromptu trip to San Antonio because she wanted to go to IKEA. She was a couple months pregnant and had terrible morning sickness plus motion sickness and got sick several times on the way over. I felt so bad for her. But we eventually made it and she felt better on solid ground, heh.

For the rest of the month while Jorge was away in Dallas for training, he would call and send photos. One of the days towards the end of his stay in Dallas we have a serious talk about working on getting back together. He would take his meds. I would work on forgiving him. He would move back home.

But once he got back from training mid-May, he was working long hours setting the restaurant up, hiring servers and training staff for the grand opening on May 31st. We took the kids to the soft opening and I was appalled. John went with us. The chicks were basically wearing thongs. I knew I wasn’t going to like this at all. Not because I’m a prude, but because I knew my husband.

Jorge sleeps over at the house several nights out of the week, but he goes home to his house on some nights to check on the boys and Javi, and to make sure they haven’t destroyed the house. There was one time when he was sleeping over at my house that he left at 3am because there was some “emergency”. My womanly instincts didn’t buy that shit. He had even started taking calls outside when we were together so I wouldn’t hear whom he was talking to. Then, not too long after, he starts calling after work saying he’s working super late and he’s the only one available. Even though my house is way closer to the restaurant, he makes it seem like he’s being thoughtful and is just going to go home because he doesn’t want to wake me up since he’d get here so late. I start getting Wing Stop vibes—back when he still worked in San Antonio and he wasn’t coming home anymore because he had started cheating with that little bitch, Sabrina.

In mid-July, Briana is packing up the house in Austin and moving back to the Valley. We decide to make a weekend of it. My girls and I would help her move and we’d all hang out. I tell Jorge about it and he isn’t going at first, then says he’ll join us. On Friday afternoon, as we’re getting ready to go, he is BITCHING that we’re running late and he has to go to a storage unit to rent for his mom (because he waited on his ass all damn day instead of going—but it was my fault, don’t you see). We get to the storage place and he says we’re super late and he’s not going to get the unit for this lady and we’re going to arrive super late and that EVERYTHING IS MY FAULT. The girls and I were thinking, WTF is his problem?? If I didn’t know any better I would have said it was drug withdrawals, or maybe he’d had a fight with one of his hoes, but who knows.

The entire 6 hours over there is brutal. He’s just in a terrible mood and at one point during the evening he starts telling me off. The girls are in the back, scared, and Emily even starts recording—just in case. How awful is it that she’s a little kid and she’s scared enough of his rage that she feels the need to record?? He’s going off on me and I told him to shut the fuck up because he’s showing my daughters exactly how a man SHOULDN’T be speaking to his spouse and he needed to stop being an asshole.

We get to the house and he acts like absolutely everything is peachy in front of his mom and sister. She knows otherwise, of course. As they’re moving things the next day, he whines and complains about how they shouldn’t have asked him to come if Briana and Dinah didn’t like how he did things. Briana’s like, Um, nobody invited you LOL.

So it was a miserable time. The girls and I even left earlier than he did so we didn’t have to deal with him.

About a week goes by and every single time we talk, we argue. We can’t just be civil. Dinah and Briana and the kids are staying at Jorge and Javi’s while they find a suitable apartment. Briana and Jorge are fighting all the time and I tell her that she and the kids can stay with me and my kids at my house if she wants. Then, on a Wednesday morning, I get a text from Briana asking if she can stay with us after all because she doesn’t want to be there anymore and she has to tell me something.

Again—my spidey-womanly senses are a-tingling. It’s about Jorge. He did something, I know it. I’m on pins and needles until she finally calls. She sounds exasperated and angry and tells me that he took a tall, really young girl to the house and took her to his room. And that they’d been having pool parties with a girl named Daisy (who ends up becoming Justin’s fiancé later on). And that Jorge is just partying it up till all hours of the night acting like he’s a teenager himself. She said there’s beer bottles piled high in the bins. And he was waking everyone up making the chick breakfast (or dinner) at 5am.

I’m livid. I knew it the entire time. I looked through Facebook photos of the shitty “bar & grill” he worked at and I knew exactly who the little slut was. Some little bitch named “Steph”, who had JUST TURNED 19!! We have kids older than that! I was so disgusted by him. The girls were disgusted. And yet, he starts calling me a couple months later, after I broke my foot, asking if I need help, about my love life and telling me about his and that little whore. He come around acting as though we’re the best of friends. He ends up trying to weasel his way back in, but I’m pretty sure it’s because he was broke (oh, he ended up still owing me tons of money) and I was going to remove him and the boys from my health insurance in November and he wasn’t going to want to pay me if I kept them on. BUT. Needless to say, I stupidly gave it one more time—mostly because I needed the help. But he was still talking to her, I later found out. Still talking to several chicks and on Alaethia’s birthday, as we drove to pick up the Olive Garden order she requested, told me he didn’t want to be responsible for kids or me or anyone or anything. He just wanted to “do him”. Told me he regretted ever marrying me and that was it, the last straw. I stopped answering his calls when he called to say he “missed his best friend,” which is what he always said when he was feeling lonely and having regrets. I told him he couldn’t have it both ways. It took me a bit to get over it, especially because I couldn’t believe he did this to me AGAIN. But that was it. I was done. I wasn’t going to be stupid anymore. I’d wasted enough time.