I loved living in Tucson and felt our marriage was good. I loved him dearly, and I felt he love me too. Near the end of the first year, I got word that the contract I was working on was ending. It was the position that I had taken when laid off late in 2001. It had been a contract position. The same company employed me, but they leased out their workforce to other companies. The contract I was on was ending in a couple of months. We discussed what that would mean for us. We had rented out the house I had owned back in Oklahoma City, but had also just gotten notice that the tenant had moved out. Two of our adult children were living there but not paying us rent. That left us paying a mortgage and our rent in Tucson. We could pay all our bills, but had nearly nothing left over. We decided he would move back to Oklahoma City and live in the house and go back to work there. I would remain in Tucson to work out the remainder of the contract and job search long-distance. This was almost exactly one year after 9-11 and the economy had still not recovered. We moved me into a smaller, less expensive apartment, and he moved everything else back to Oklahoma. It was a decrease in expenses and he had found employment, so we were slightly better off. I missed him terribly. We talked on the phone very often, and it often ended with me crying because I missed him so badly. I was also perimenopausal, which I didn’t know at the time. Needless to say, my hormones were a huge contributing factor in my emotional struggle. I was also very insecure because when we met, my weight was low. I had worked on how I ate and my exercise. As I mentioned in the last writing, I ate compulsively when moving to Tucson because of the spiritual darkness I was struggling with. Through fasting and prayer that broke, but I was back on the carb addiction struggle bus. During our time in Tucson, I gradually gained weight. I tried and tried, but again, since I was perimenopausal, nothing seemed to help. I knew from the time we got married that his partner’s weight was an enormous factor with him. As I gained weight, he noticed and let me know he had noticed. I was not obese, just overweight. The more I stressed over it, the more I seemed to gain. Finally, my work contract had ended, and I drove home. He hadn’t been answering my phone calls. I was terrified that something was wrong. When I got home, he noticed I had lost some weight. Being on my own and only cooking for myself, I had become determined to once again get back on a good eating plan. I had not lost all the weight, but he saw my efforts and was pleased. There was something very wrong, though. He seemed distant, and his oldest daughter was still living there. I will admit I struggled with her. In my emotional state, I would often snap or say something hurtful. I had missed him so much and I just wanted some time with him, and she just seemed to be right there with us continually. Often in the evening he would make up an excuse that he was going to see his aging mother to help her with this or that. I loved his mother and would offer to go with him, but he was insistent that I not go with him. My stuff in the apartment in Tucson was still there, and we needed to go get it. That was right after Christmas 2002. I had had some pretty extensive dental work done right before Christmas, having caps or crowns put on. Something wasn’t right, and the pain wouldn’t go away. Right after Christmas my dentist had gone away skiing for the holiday and so he couldn’t see me to see what was wrong. My dentist prescribed painkillers. When that didn’t fully help, I was told to alternate with Tylenol. I was truly struggling with the pain, and the medication made me very sleepy. On our drive back to Tucson, I couldn’t stay awake. One thing we had always enjoyed as a couple was road trips. We had the advantage of taking several and we would talk non-stop the entire time. He truly was my best friend. When I couldn’t hold my eyes open, that left him virtually alone on the trip. I kept apologizing, but for some reason his compassion for me was gone. He didn’t understand and seemed to hold it against me. Now that we knew we were back for the last time, we went to dinner with some friends from a Christian biker group that we had become part of. All wonderful people with whom we enjoyed spending time with. At dinner, one of the other wives had lost a lot of weight, and he noticed and commented. He engaged in talking with her much of the evening, inquiring about her weight loss, right in front of me. Once done with our meal, we were mingling in the foyer, saying our goodbyes. One man pulled me aside and said that he needed to tell me something. He had battled with it, but felt it was only right. He said that David had planned on leaving me because I had gained weight. I was shocked. He said that he had responded that was not right and that something like that shouldn’t hurt a marriage between two people who loved each other. I was so heartbroken that I confronted David when we got back to the apartment. He admitted he had thought about it until he saw I had lost some weight when I had come back. It crushed me. My peri-menopausal emotions fueled the fire, and I went into the empty bedroom, shut the door and bawled for hours, finally falling asleep in the early morning hours. He had tried a couple of times to talk to me, but I just couldn’t. I was too crushed. The next day we headed out and instead of going back to Oklahoma, we headed north to Colorado where his two youngest children lived. I refused to eat for the entire day. I felt bad, but I was still so emotionally broken that I just couldn’t eat. Finally, for dinner, he went and brought some takeout back to our hotel. I barely nibbled. I was so crushed to think that the man I loved dearly had thoughts of leaving me for gaining weight. To keep this in perspective, I had probably only gained about fifteen to twenty pounds. I didn’t realize it, but there was more going on at the time. It was apparent that he was feeling bad because he was being very nice and attempting to accommodate me. However, we had always chatted and had great conversations. That is one thing I enjoyed about our relationship. He was very educated, intelligent, and experienced in the world. I loved hearing his insights, and he actually listened to me and my opinions, and it felt like a deep friendship on top of everything else. But on this ride to Colorado and then back home, we barely talked. I was emotionally crushed, and he had other things on his mind. When we got to Colorado, I stayed in the hotel while he went to visit his kids. I just wasn’t up to it. They came briefly to the hotel, and I was cordial. I really liked his kids and wished there hadn’t been such a distance so that I could have gotten to know them better. Once back home, he insisted we go meet with one counselor at our church. He had gone to his mother’s and was staying there pretty much full-time. I agreed to go to counseling. At our very large church, there was such a demand on the counselors that they set a limit to meet at one hour. It was a way to budget time and help everyone who needed it. When our meeting was over, it had lasted three hours. I sat most of the time just listening, and he kept complaining about things that I thought were trivial but very fixable. I felt like he had decide...
