I remember walking downstairs to wash laundry, I passed him on my left. I heard silence with the exception of the washing machine and dryer going. I noticed now he had on earphones. "are you kidding me?" I told him in an upset tone. I tugged on him to get his attention and he looked at me and aside , "Oh Hi," in a juvenile way, he said to me, "yeah I got these earphones so I can concentrate more and not be distracted." I said, "distracted by who, your girls, by me trying to talk with my husband, have a conversation. really!" I was enraged that this was getting worse. I returned to the family room and asked on what he was doing. Mind you, I already knew but i was trying to start a conversation with him. He told me he just finished talking to another gamer who has two children and her husband left her. He said, " Isn't that fucked up babe?" he basically told me her whole life story. I asked him then, "Hey, uhmmm...babe? I was reluctant to ask because I was afraid of the answer I was going to get. I paused then decided to go for it. "Do you know what I do for a living?" he responded "what do you mean?" "Your a social worker right?" He didn't even look at me. I had no words just a heavy heart that he had no clue on what I did. My heart was broken that he knew more about some chickie he never met in Chicago then me. I then told him about his daughter's chorus concert. He responded with "hold on babe, let me do this first, then tell me again later, or remind me later. Those two statements and a time that he couldn't make it to my best friend's Susie's wedding because he was planning his wedding within his video game with a woman from another state were the most we ever engaged in a conversation. I would go to bed alone and would sometimes wake up alone. We were living like strangers.
I finally gave myself a reality check and I knew that as much as I wanted to please Mayhem, I knew that whatever he was going through at that time, he had to be the one to fix it as I felt everything I did or would want to doo to help him it would only pissed him off more. By me deciding to return back to school to obtain my masters degree was going to enraged him but that was not my intent.. I felt like I was defying him when infact he was neglecting me as a person, a woman and as his wife. He spoke about his interest in going back to school so we constantly argued about his level of motivation and his loss of interest in living the real world. He had plenty of time but just didn't do anything about it. I always told him that talk was just talk. He could talk to me about the people (gamers) he was playing with on-line. He would tell me about their lives but didn't know what was happening in his own life. I encouraged him to take an on-line course to start somewhere if this was what he wanted. I was trying to be patient with him, I wanted him to excel in his life and do things he wanted to do, but I felt alone and scared that he was just going to become one of these men that would get up and leave his family because out of his own insecurities for himself he was afraid that he could no longer feel adequate in his own family. I was patient and we spoke about giving him a chance to take a class and for me to wait. I agreed but a year passed and then 2 years passed and he was still in the same place. One day I asked him about his plans for school and told him that I could be of help to him but at the time he was discouraged because he failed his job exam again. The damn game was taking over his life and he did not see that his own failures were manifesting in him drinking more, neglecting us more, and neglecting himself more and more each day from having and enjoying his beautiful family. On good days he would actually force himself to spend quality time with the family but those days were becoming less. At this point he failed his job exam more than three times. His own captain told me that he was concerned for him and felt he was too involved with his gaming.
At the time, I did not know what was going to happen if he left us but if he did, I had to find a way to support our daughters and help maintain their lifestyle as I felt my bachelor's degree was not going to suffice, So after waiting two years and weighing an almost 185 pounds from depression, I enrolled in a 2 year masters program for marriage and family therapy. I went home that evening and while he was playing his game, I told him. at first he took it as a joke. But when I showed him the paper work, he became livid to the point of stopping his video game and looking straight at me. he told me, "if you returned to school, I will divorce you!" I couldn't believe the face, his tone of voice and his look as if he despised me. Holding my tears back in fear that I was no longer talking to a man that loved me but to a man that was seeing me as a competitor, a man that was seeing me with hatred in his heart blew me away He reminded in someways of a man that used to physically abuse me, and only because of the same way he looked at me. it was almost as if they were looking at themselves in the mirror. they saw me and I reminded them of their failures I knew this look, and while stomach turned and my heart was breaking, I looked at him with tears coming down my face and in a strong sarcastic voice said to him, "Hey, I guess I can get your attention after all.
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