Marriage, or Lack Thereof

My husband received news today that his ex girlfriend just finalized her divorce. She was the serious one right before me and when we first started dating he was still all hung up on her. She had painted him a picture of what was supposed to be their souls entwined for all eternity (if their souls resembled cave drawings) and I slept with that damn thing over my bed for a year before I could finally convince him to take it down and pack it away. She would call and he would answer no matter what we were doing and then completely ignore me for hours while they chatted. He, and his friends, had pictures of the two of them together in their homes on display until well after our wedding. That kind of 'all hung up on her'. She's always been a source of contention for us and it took a long time before hearing her name didn't make me sick to my stomach. (And for those of you thinking I have problems with all exes cause I'm a jealous twit- my bff is his ex, the one he lost his virginity to and, no, we didn't all grow up together or anything. I met her when we were engaged, so I do take this on a case by case basis. I judge people as people, not as titles.)

Anyway, at first when he told me this I bristled a little cause, really? I kinda thought we were past this now. But as it turns out I had no need to bristle. Apparently what had happened is that her hubby was diagnosed with a terminal illness and she decided she was too... young?, or selfish in my opinion, to handle it so she walked away. Now I'm not saying that taking care of someone who is dying is easy. I watch it in my own family and I see the tears and the hopelessness, and it's heartbreaking, but to leave your spouse in their darkest hour? Wow. I just can't fathom it. I can't understand how anyone can know that someone they promised to love is scared and hurting and NOT be moved to help.. not have an emotional connection, or response, or whatever you want to call it. When did marriage become a 'so long as it's convenient and I'm having fun' thing?

I don't live under a rock. I do understand that the divorce rate is astronomical as are the rates for a lot of other things that might cause a divorce. My own parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are divorced... I'm talking every single person for two generations. In our wedding card my grandma wrote, "Please show us how it's done." So what I'm getting at is this.. The divorce rate is high, but is that due to people mistreating each other more freely like I was taught, OR is it due to people just becoming more and more selfish and not wanting to actually do what they promised to do cause it's not fun anymore?

My marriage hasn't been peachy. We've been married for 3.5 years and we've experienced infidelity more than once, substance issues, irresponsible financial decisions without involving the other spouse, and most other transgressions that I believe are normal for most marriages and even some that I'm not ready to open up to the world about quite yet, but here we stand. Because we're somehow better? Absolutely not. Because at the end of the day we made a promise to each other and our word is important to us. So far we've never found anything we can't work through. Sometimes working through it took months and/or hundreds of dollars in counseling that we had to pull from thin air. Sometimes we had to force ourselves to work on it. Sometimes we had to talk ourselves out of leaving for good and sometimes we cried and never laughed. Sometimes we didn't speak for days. Sometimes when we did speak all we did was yell. Yet here we are.

When were we promised that marriage, or life in general for that matter, was always going to be easy and fun? When did marriage become some fleeting thing we did for a moment or two? And is it possible to get it back to the lifetime commitment it once was- at least for most of us? To be fair, I'm not talking about all divorces and I'm not against divorce all the time, I certainly think that there are justifiable reasons for it, but to leave because your spouse is dying and you don't want to deal with it? That's gotta be the most selfish, child-like thing I've ever heard. Nothing worthwhile comes to you without work. Ever.

On the upside, my husband, I think, is finally done with the past and has realized, or said he did anyway, how lucky he was that that wasn't him and that he's far better off here- not that I'm a saint, but at least he has no fear of being left on his death bed.

So what do you think? Can anything be done to save the sanctity of marriage? Should we bother trying at all?

In retrospect, I may have over-reacted. I'm admitting that here because I will never actually say it to them.

Tomorrow starts another half-year of homeschooling in this house. sigh. Part of me is really looking forward to having the teacher role again. I love coming up with all the fun activities, playing, and getting dirty with my kids. Less excited about giving up my afternoons alone.

Last Wednesday I got a call from my aunt at 12:45 pm. The school had called her looking for me cause my child had a fever over 101. Here are a few points I'd like to make about that.
    ~ School starts at 12:30. The bus comes at 12:05. They were not sick when they left. I am NOT a parent that sends sick kids to school. Sick kids do not leave this house. Period.
    ~ Both my husband and myself were home that day. Nobody called our house or either one of our cell phones, or even my in-laws who live in this city. Instead they call my aunt and my mother, who live in the next county over.
So, I'm fairly pissy before I even get there.

Now, the original message was that my youngest has a fever. When I get there however they inform me that I'll be taking my son home as well. No, nothing is wrong with him, but ya know, why have any kids in the classroom if you don't have to? Ugh.

While I was there I went to the office to ask why I didn't get a call. The office bitch jumps down my throat about how irresponsible it is of me to leave my kids there with no way for anyone to get ahold of me. She had called me repeatedly.. or at least as repeatedly as you can call someone within 15 minutes of school starting. What if there had been an emergency? Here again, I am NOT a parent that engages in this behavior. I demanded that she show me which number I gave her. She pulls out our file and what do I see? My house phone, cell phone, and my hubby's cell phone all written on the card- complete, legible, and labeled, just as I knew they would be. Grr.

I am getting very, very pissed off at this point, but I have a sick kid that needs my attention so I take my kids home. Once home I whip out the thermometers, four of them to be exact, and do you know what? Neither of my kids has a damn fever!! This is the second time, frickin second time!, that my children have been sent home with a mysterious, disappearing fever this year. I called the office for a few reasons- to ask if the kids had been given Tylenol or something that would help the fever (of course they hadn't been, I knew that) AND to report that once again those damn people sent my kids home for no apparent reason. While on the phone with the office bitch she puts me on hold and I overhear this- the office bitch saying to someone, "This bitch is pissed!" and then the questioning of the teacher. According to the teacher what had happened is my youngest didn't like what was being served for lunch and she wanted to lay on the bean bag chair instead. I know my youngest pretty well and I am certain that it didn't go that nicely, she probably was throwing a fit and stomping her feet and just generally acting like someone who just turned 3. I'm guessing that the teacher didn't want to handle her tantrum and sent her home instead. 

When the office bitch, which is what I called her out loud since she felt free to call me a bitch, got back on the phone I offered to bring my kids and all 4 of my thermometers to the school and test them against the one in the classroom, which had since been cleared so I could see no reading on it whatsoever from my child. The ob, office bitch get it?, told me that it would be unfair to take away from the rest of the kids and spend time on that. Then she said that they had decided at the school that my kids wouldn't be allowed back in school on Thursday either, I'd have to keep them home til Monday cause there is no school on Fridays. WTF!!? That is when I told her, "I'm all done talking to an illiterate office bitch. I want a superintendent or a director on this phone immediately." Come to find out my children's school apparently doesn't have anyone in either of those roles. How is that ok? Don't the teachers need someone to direct them, tell them what the new state guidelines are..someone to do whatever the hell directors and superintendents do??

Had that been the only problem I might have just bit my lip and let it slide, but there is more to the story than that. My son has come home from school twice this year with nasty rashes/welts and I have taken him to the med center. The most recent time was Monday, two days before all this happened. The very first time I had to bring him, in October, he was diagnosed with hives and given anti-histamines, and we went home. No big deal, and I didn't address it with anyone. Shit happens, right? The second time, on Monday, when I brought him he was diagnosed with bug bites. I was told to go home and search our beds looking for bug casings and to check the dog for fleas. I was kinda hoping for chicken pox to be honest. Bugs make me sick, but I went home and did as I was asked, complete with magnifying glass, and there are no bugs here. Not anywhere. He didn't have them when he left for school that day, but was covered in them when he returned. 

SOOO.. this school causes my children to break out in hives, is having some sort of bug infestation, and my children fall mysteriously ill and the only thing that fixes them is walking into my home?? I am not ok with that. I find that unacceptable and thus, starting tomorrow, I now homeschool. Ahh, life, what a joker.