I wonder how many people can recognize mental illness when they're living with it. I didn't. In retrospect, I should have. Joe changed completely. The man I fell in love with was strong and confident, almost to the point of arrogance...generous, kind, loving, intelligent and was happiest when he was taking care of someone else. The man I left in California was stubborn, hesitant, dishonest (constant lying to me had started before he left Detroit.) He was willing to let someone else take control of his life. He didn't want to work. He was looking to make an easy buck..wanted to be a wheeler-dealer like Kum. One of the reasons I fell in love with him was because he made me feel like I could lean on him...I didn't have to be the strong one. Suddenly, that was gone.
I have been critisized by Joe's family and some members of our church, as well as by the Kums, over leaving Joe in California...choosing my kids over my husband. And I admit I did. In fact, I told him and the Kums that was what I was doing. My kids were unhappy. The atmosphere there was unhealthy for them. The way I saw it, I only had two choices. Leave Joe, but get a job and a place for me and the kids there in California...or go to Mom and Dad's. Staying there didn't feel right...I had no support network there. I felt going to Mom and Dad's gave Joe a message. He knew I did not like Indiana and didn't want to live there. By not going back to Ypsi, I was telling him it was temporary. Either he straightened up and came home or else got a job and a home for us to live there in California. At any rate, I was determined to get my children away from that house!
I didn't realize Joe was mentally ill. I thought he was lazy. And, like I said, he wanted to be a wheeler-dealer and make the big bucks that Kum bragged about making (yet he was on the verge of bankruptcy because he had poured every penny he could beg, borrow or steal into a big desert project...that I admit, a few years later made him a very wealthy man.)
More about Joe's illness later.
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