During Ruby's pregnancy, Mike really poured himself into playing the attentive and devoted daddy- up to a point. I think the point was when the ink was dry on the adoption papers. He had a big heart, but he just wasn't into changing diapers and all that other stuff involved in baby care. I know he works hard, so I made due. But raising a large family isn't a piece of cake either, especially when you feel as if you're doing it on your own. The children were going a million directions at once, and I constantly felt as if I was playing catch up. I couldn't wait until the end of the school year to stop teaching. If I'd been honest with myself, I would've admitted that I was sick of children period. Oh, not my own- I loved them. But everything I did revolved around kids, and it wasn't hard to jettison the foster parenting either. But there were other ways I overextended myself- I was teaching in church, and I chaperoned Ryan's softball team. When you add our 7 children into the mix, the result is a serious case of burn-out. A couple of years passed. After his initial burst of speed, Mike was very little help around the house and tended to look at activity planning, chores and childcare as my job. With my background of bickering, alcoholic parents I hated fights, so I did my best to avoid pissing him off. But Mike's own upbringing was beginning to show up in very strange and unpleasant ways. The nicest thing I can say about him is that he is paranoid and a control freak. And I was beginning to see how his control played out in my life, and I hated it. I think that the wimpy way his step-dad, Cal, allowed Luanne to walk all over him taught Mike lessons both good and bad. On the positive side, he made the decision that his wife was not going to dominate the family, and I have never tried to. But Mike went overboard, he pushed and pushed me into the role of a meek doormat, and with the dysfunction I grew up with, I didn't know my marriage was not supposed to be that way. I didn't like how I was being treated- Mike always took the upper hand in arguments, voicing his opinions and making the decision that the fight was over the minute it was my turn to say how I felt. He turned whatever I said around to mean exactly the opposite of what I wanted to say, and said I was being hostile or aggressive, giving him ammunition to become ever more domineering. My husband had a lash out first, ask questions later attitude, and when he found out aftewards that he'd been too hasty in assigning blame, he seldom apologized to the perpetrator/victim. For some odd reason, he expected way too much out of Jason and Ashley. Maybe it was because they were the oldest boy and girl in the family, but it was impossible for them to live up to his expectations. In turn, they became resentful towards him for the way he treated them and angry at me for not protecting them. But when I tried to make Mike see reason, he accused me of coddling the kids. Mike played favorites, and the more ill or unfit the child, the more he sympathized and sided with them. He has a rescue complex in which he sees himself as the underdog who must save so and so from oppression. First it was little Andrew who was such a sick baby and needed constant cuddling and care. Mike did give me a lot of baby-holding help. But what I found was that when I requested my husband to assist me in other chores, he would tell me he was busy with Andrew. When Ryan had broken his arm and needed surgery, Mike focused so much on him that Ryan could do no wrong. At the time I had been working intensely with our son in being more truthful in how he conducted himself and taking better care of his belongings, but these teachings went right out the window with Mike telling us, basically, that it wasn't Ryan's fault that he lied and broke his things on purpose. He was in pain, and if only we'd try to understand... It seemed that as Mike became more distant, less responsible for his behavior and less involved in the family's lives, I found out that the only way to get along with him was to allow him to do whatever he wanted and try to clean up the messes afterwards. This put a huge strain on our relationship. If Mike did something that angered me, rather than confront him, I had to look the other way. Confrontation only provoked nasty fights, and there was no way I could win. If Mike got mad at Jason or Ashley, I moved in afterwards to mitigate the punishment and confort them. If he was disrespectful to me, I swallowed my pride and the harsh words of rebuke and concentrated on something else. My motto became peace at all costs. But as the years went by. I learned that peace at all costs usually didn’t work. I continued to get trampled by Mike’s treatment of me, and I finally learned to see it for what it really was- abuse. Mike thrived on being verbally and emotionally abusive towards me. He never hit me or physically hurt me, but the psychological wounds were just as deep, just as painful. My depression worsened, but if I asked Mike about therapy or anti-depressant medication, he laughed at me. Therapists were quacks, and counseling was for stupid people who thought useless talking could help them. And in looking back at my marriage, I could see a pattern of behavior that spelled what I was in for, if I'd taken the time to notice the warning signs. I loathed myself for putting up with Mike and his behavior. And I spent endless hours trying to figure out why my husband acted the way he did and trying to fix him. Around the time the twins were born, I finally decided I had to give up thinking about it. Mike's behavior was so unpredictable, there was no way I could plan for how he would react. I went from trying to figure out why he was so angry so I could fix it, to thinking, what the hell difference does it make? No matter what I did, I would be wrong. So I started sticking up for myself and fighting back a little. But I still didn't know I deserved to be happy. One of the ways I stood up to Mike was in the area of the kids' education. As I said, right after the twins' births, I gave up home-schooling because I didn't have the time or energy. Jason was high-school age, Ashley in jr. high, and Ryan had ADHD- just too much of a challenge. But when Nicole got old enough, Mike tried to coerce me into teaching her kindergarden. ****TTFN, Julie