A bit of history

in another lifetime, we lived in a nice house, in a leafy eastern suburb. We drove a great car and had another little one to get around town in. We had nice neighbors and good friends. We had a company that developed software for children with disabilities and together with the contracting work that ex was doing we seemed to be doing quite well. On the outside we looked happy and I guess I thought we were.

We'd been living our nice life for a few years when a few different factors meant that ex stopped his contracting work. The special education software was supposed to support us, but combined with my pretty bad marketing skills and that fact that the market was quite small meant that it didn't. We began to run out of money pretty soon after and by then we'd gotten married and had our first baby, our gorgeous girl. I still thought our life was OK, except for those bad times when we had to talk about me and how dysfunctional I was. I fought back, resisted, stated my case, cried about it and pretty much melted down a hundred times more than I do now, only I thought it was normal. I went to therapy (again) when I couldn't fix myself. I kept thinking, if only I could be like this, or this or fix that, we'd be OK. I had hope then.

When I found out I was pregnant I was ecstatic and miserable all in the same moment because the doctor had rung me with the news while we were in the middle of a fight! It was the moment I'd been waiting for all my life and I had to let it pass me by because we'd had a fight. Four months later, I was sitting at my desk and ex and I were talking when I felt the baby move. I was elated beyond belief. Finally, she was real. I looked at my stomach and told ex and he got annoyed because I'd interrupted what he was saying. I let it go, again, but very saddened that for even this news, he didn't appreciate being interrupted. I guess I'd done it too often.

When I look back now, I know I didn't feel very supported by him then. He didn't fawn over me, or tell me he loved my baby bump. When I was upset that I'd gotten stretch marks, he said "so?" We played golf when I was 5 months pregnant and I had to stop at 15 or 16 holes and I remember APOLOGISING to him later on, saying sorry, I should have known my limits - how could I have known my limits, it was my first baby. Even with our second baby I remember trying to impress/ please him by doing physical things that I probably shouldn't have done, like climbing the steps at the local walking track and pulling up the pram behind me.

I thought that when we had a baby, he would see what strong person I was, that he would be impressed by my mothering ability and the way I tried to take care of myself and he wouldn't need to criticise me anymore. It didn't work that way, all he did was find more things to criticise me about. I remember later on my sister telling me that in the delivery room, if ex could have gotten up on that bench and had the baby himself, he would have. She was there that day and I always remember the absolute moment that she walked in. She talked to me, said it was going to be fine, that I was nearly there - it was a messy affair. Her moment then outshone any support that ex gave me. I've always been grateful for that moment. I wish I could have been as aware then, as I am now, for I would have thanked her endlessly and told her what a difference she made to me that day.

Though ex and I weren't really connected then, he began his fathering life in fine style. He got up, changed nappies and did the things I couldn't do - I couldn't really walk around for the first week, traumatic as the delivery was. He loved his daughter and told us we were cute when we came home. I loved him and us and our new baby - a pretty mix of chinese and caucasian. So happy then, still blinded to the signs that the inevitable would happen.

She was almost two when we decided to sell up and pay off all the debts we'd accumulated. We moved to Portsea, to start afresh. I was pregnant again - with a boy this time. I worried about my morning/travel sickness and he was worried about my weight. The first time I'd put on 9 kgs and lost 13. The second time I put on 15 kgs and only lost nine or ten. I was officially fat and my stomach now sat on my lap whenever I sat down. Much to my dismay, it still does, even though I'm a few kilos lighter.

I loved living in Portsea. For the first year and a half, we lived off the money we made from selling the house. Ex was writing a technical program that had gone way over time and we were still developing and selling the special ed software. I'd made good friends, taken up Pilates and was very much into life there. The surroundings were beautiful, the food was spectacular and life was good. And of course, I still had hope, even though we still fought, I though we were normal and doing Ok personally.

However, eventually the money ran out and we survived on occasional royalties from the software that ex had finally finished writing and our numerous credit cards. That software was going to be our financial security, the one that would enable us to live out our dreams of owning a house on the Peninsula and freeing us up to travel. But even though the program was good, the royalties didn't come as frequently as promised. I became an expert at moving money around, from one card to another to minimise the interest payments. I became increasingly worried about how much debt we were getting into while we were still living in (upmarket) Portsea and driving a rather nice car. Ex didn't seem worried at all. By the end of three years, we were staring at $50,000 of credit card debt in the face.

And then the power of the universe stepped in. During the last year in Porstea, ex had been working on our own website, making it an affiliate site for a large online store. In the last 3 months of 05, the search algorithm in Google favoured our web site so that if you searched for anything that this store sold, we'd come up in the top ten listing. It was a virtual goldmine, sending us money right before our very eyes. Every night we'd log in to our account and see what things were sold and literally watch our account grow. At the peak of it, we were making an astounding US$1800 a day.

Things looked good. They were finally going our way. In 3 months, we earned a staggering US35,000, enough to pay off the debt and set us up for yet another 'fresh start'.

This time, we'd decided to move to Malaysia, to soak up the culture, to live cheaply and to get to know ex's family. I stupidly agreed, thinking it was what we needed to get our relationship back on track.

Can you guess what happened? I think so. But I will write about it in the next post, so stay tuned.

Night, it's 1am.