As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I was due to give birth on August 17th 2010, the day after my seven year wedding anniversary. Soon after Will's arrival from his road trip to Washington DC, he advised me that he would have to leave for Chicago to meet a rich business man that could help fund the company and to meet the a highly placed official of Zambia who was in town for a wedding.
He informed me that he would most likely be leaving on the 12th of August and returning on the 16th. I pleaded with him to reconsider. He was not moved by my concerns over leaving me alone with Alia so close to my due date. He had it all worked out. He explained that he had to take the flight from the 12th to the 16th as it was the cheaper package but had taken an open ticket so he could return at the first sign of me going into labor.
I could sense that he was stressed over being so tight on cash and having used the last of our credit card money to fly himself to Chicago leaving only a bit of financial flexibility on my line of credit to pay for rent of $1800 that was due in a little over two weeks not to mention the $650 monthly car payment, $600 mortgages on our out of province properties, $700 line of credit payments and everything else.
If he didn't get any more investment into the company then we would have only enough to survive for one to two more months. I figured that he put alot of his hopes for financial relief on meeting that millionaire investor in Chicago so I told myself that maybe his trip, although untimely, would bring some positive news for our family despite having prefered he just took any job to have something sure to count on.
I knew I could find a better flight and hotel deal if I was persistant and I did. I found a flight that would have allowed him to be gone only 3 days and 2 nights at nearly 40% cheaper than what he had found and would have allowed him to be back for our anniversary. He didn't seem to like me searching for alternative deals and told me he didn't want to talk about it anymore. I thought it was because all the alternatives were stressing him so when I found this great deal, I let him know anyways. He got very upset. He told me off for always wanting my way and breathed angrily for a while. I backed down despite feeling beat down by his treatment of me and lack of compassion for all that I was going through or effort to be reasonable.
When Will arrived in Chicago, he made an effort to call for the first two days and was surprisingly pleasant. Our conversations were between 5 and 10 minutes which was unusual but appreciated. He even said: "See, I am putting effort to communicate with you". I acknowledged his effort and thanked him happily.
I spent two nights alone with Alia after which my mother arrived from out of town to stay with me until the birth. I was on the phone while my mother was playing with Alia and I received a call on the other line from my husband. I hung up my first call and switched to receive my husband's call. As the line switched over, I said Hello only to hear a woman's voice returning the hello.
I thought for a moment that the lines didn't switch over and that I was still on the first call with a call center agent. We were both confused it seemed. She hung up. I looked at my phone and the number showing was in fact my husband's cell phone number. I called back and she answered again. I asked who this was. I understood her to say "Gina". I interrogated her to find out why she had my husband's cell. She didn't reply and hung up. I tried calling again but it went straight to voicemail so I knew the phone was turned off.
I immediately contacted Rogers to determine if there was any indication of multiple and unusual long distance calls, but there were none. The phone had not been used in 4 hours except the call that I had just been on. Either my husband was cheating on me (but how could he right?) or someone stole his phone. I asked Rogers to put block the phone number so no one would rack up our bill and waited for Will to call me to explain as he never told me which hotel he was staying at. I figured he would call me soon enough to tell me he lost his phone and to make sure I hadn't gone into labor.
Night came and left. He did not call. In fact, he did not call once that day nor the next two days. I only knew he was coming home on the 16th but did not know at what time. I remembered him mentioning American Airlines so I called their service line and was able to obtain his flight information after being bounced around a few times between them and Air Canada. I decided to wait for him at the airport with a wedding anniversary gift as I wanted to surprise him and I knew he would be extremely short on cash for a taxi to get home.
When he finally arrived, he was shocked to see me. He seemed happy. He had a smile and gave me a hug. He thanked me for the present and told me he didn't have time in Chicago to get me something but would later that day.
On our drive home, I asked about his trip. Told him what had happened with the phone. He told me that he had left his suit jacket on the chair at the wedding when he went dancing and someone must have taken it out of his pocket but they had left his passports. This was strange to me. It didn't make sense AND Will never dances especially never alone...something wasn't lining up.
In addition, when I asked about the millionnaire meeting he said that he wasn't able to contact him for the meeting as his number was on the phone he had lost. I asked him why he hadn't contacted his business associate via email to get the millionaire's number. He just replied that he didn't think of it. He said he spent most of his time with the Zambia official's family instead. He took this five day trip especially to meet this millionnaire..but doesn't! And if he had no meeting, why was he too busy to buy me a wedding anniversary present?
Here is my diary entry for the day of my wedding anniversary. It is a copy of an email I sent to my pastors.
Hi Edward and Kimmy,
Yesterday was my 7 year wedding anniversary. I had not heard from Will in three days and couldn't reach him as his phone was misplaced. I didn't know which hotel he was staying at and he didn't call me from the hotel. I contacted several airlines until I could figure out when his flight would come in.
I waited for him at the airport and he was quite surprised I was there for him. I greeted him with a hug and kiss, a happy anniversary and a gift. I had engraved his wedding ring with: Surely, I will love you always. He seemed awkward and told me he didn't have anything for me but would get something later.
When we got home, he emptied his luggage and waited for me to finish applying for EI and then went to the office until 6:00 pm. This made me sad because he came home without a gift and didn't mention anything about going out for supper since I had been having contractions for a few hours. I ended up
asking him to go get me some takeout.
Then he played the guitar for a while and didn't do much else. I asked him to go to home depot to get something for my mother and thought he might have used this opportunity to buy me flowers or something. He came home with nothing. I asked if he had gotten me anything. He said no. I said: "Ah well, there's always next year."
I went to bed but he didn't come for a while. When he came to bed, I was still having contractions and I gave him a massage. I asked him if I had done anything to offend him during the day. He said no and asked me why and I responded that he had been especially cold with me that day.
He apologized and spent the next hour telling me how the past 10 years have conditionned him against me, that his heart is hardenened, that he doesn't want to celebrate our anniversaries and that now he is very confused and frustrated because when he came back from Africa he was planning on leaving me and now he feels more trapped since I am doing everything right but that he still wants to leave and is having a hard time justifying it now.
He says he feels better about leaving me than his ex because of how good of a mother I will be to our children. He is still talking about needing to leave and be on his own. I can't get through to him. He is refusing to renew his mind, all he talks about is the past....and always implies that I treated him very badly..which I completely disagree with although I don't tell him this.
My mother is working really hard not to blow up when she sees his indifference to me.
If you have any advice for me that would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much!!!
xox
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