Divorced Moms Marriage Hell Part 8 (series conclusion): He Confesses, "I'm an alcoholic"

From Divorced Moms.

Series Part 8 Marriage Hell: He Confesses, “I’m an alcoholic”
by Lizzy Smith                    

June 19, 2014

In March, just seven months after our marriage, I finally found out why Rob’s behavior was so volatile and explosive. It was one evening when Rob’s 14 year old daughter, Kelly, was staying with us. She and Rob got in a huge fight and Kelly went to her room and slammed her door. I could hear her sobbing so I went upstairs and knocked. I asked her if I could come in and she said yes. I sat on her bed as she cried. When she composed herself, she started talking to me.

“I hate it when he’s drinking and he drinks every single day!” she was almost gasping for air she was crying so hard.

“What?” I said. “No, he doesn’t drink every day.” I clarified.

She looked at me like I was insane. “Yes he does, Liz. You don’t see it?”

I was shocked. I shook my head. What the hell was she talking about.

“Liz, he is at the BrewCo [Rob’s favorite drinking bar in our neighborhood] every day after work. You don’t know that? You can’t see it in his eyes?”
She was looking at me and I shook my head again. His eyes? The glassy, wild eyes... yes, I see them, I've noticed but I didn't know why. So Rob was drinking every day after work? My head was working on overload. The room was spinning. I was trying to put the pieces together. No, this can’t be true. I had no idea.

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Divorced Moms Marriage Hell Part 7:

From Divorced Moms.

Series Part 7 Marriage Hell: How Can a Grown Man Scream Like That?
By Lizzy Smith                    

June 16, 2014

How the heck did I end up married to a man I didn’t love and then allow him to abuse me? Good question. I write my story in an effort to try to understand it myself. Welcome to the series, “Marriage Hell.”

Rob and I returned from our honeymoon in Russia. It had turned out to be a fantastic trip. I was filled with hope that maybe the marriage wasn't a huge mistake and it would all work out. But that feeling was short-lived when I confronted my new reality. Here I was, in a new neighborhood, in a house too big, with too much work and unpacking that needed to be done. And yet I was the only one doing any of it. I was getting zero help from Rob and right away, I started resenting it. I was spending night after night staying up far too late trying to paint, unpack, clean, pay bills, and ignore the screaming matches between Rob and his 16 year old daughter, Nicky. It wasn’t fun. By early November, just three months after our wedding, Mean Rob showed up for the first time. Prior to then, Rob had always been happy and upbeat. He had not once been mean or disrespectful and raised his voice to me. But this time was different.

The fight started out over nothing. I had begged Rob to help me clear out the garage for weeks but he had never gotten around to it. When Rob left the house on a Saturday for a few hours, I started organizing. When Rob pulled up to the house and saw what I was doing, he exploded. “I just want to have a quiet day! I didn’t want to work on this and you are making me feel guilty!”

I was trying to be upbeat and funny. “I thought you’d be happy. I wanted this to be a surprise. Look, I can walk from one end of the garage to the other – whoohoo!” I demonstrated it for him by walking from one end to the other and doing a little happy dance at the end.

Rob wasn’t impressed. He started screaming in this horrific pitch that I have never heard a grown man do—and in the front yard. I was horrified and embarrassed. “Rob, the neighbors,” I said. He responded by screaming louder in this booming, explosive voice: “I don’t care about the fucking neighbors!” I looked at him closely. His eyes were glassy, his hands fidgety, and his scream a high falsetto/mezzo soprano wail. If I only had recorded it because there is no way to adequately describe it. I literally stood transfixed his behavior. I didn't know if I should laugh, run, or cry. I went silent and stopped talking to him the rest of the day while he tried to apologize. I just wanted him to get away from me.

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Divorced Moms Marriage Hell Part 6: Honeymoon to Russia

From Divorced Moms.

Series Part 6 Marriage Hell: Honeymoon to Russia
by Lizzy Smith                    

June 12, 2014

How the heck did I end up married to a man I didn't love and then allow him to abuse me? Good question. I write my story in an effort to try to understand it myself. Welcome to the series, “Marriage Hell.”

Rob and I scheduled our honeymoon for three weeks after our wedding. We were flying to Moscow for a few days and then getting on another flight and heading east to Yekaterinburg, Russia. Seems kind of random, no? Well, there was a reason we were making that particular trip.

The summer before I met Rob, I started the process of adopting a daughter from Russia. By the time I met Rob, I had only completed the home study and received approval from the Office of Homeland Security to bring a child into the United States. When Rob and I decided to marry, we also decided that we would take a "wait & see" approach with the adoption. If we got a referral for a child, we'd review it together and decide if it made sense or not. And we both sort of forgot about it because it was taking so long anyway. About a month prior to our wedding, I got a phone call from my adoption agency. They had an almost two year old girl for me to look at! We received photos and a medical record. The tricky part with this adoption is that she was living in the toughest region in all of Russia to adopt from and it would take three trips to bring her home. Rob and I decided that we would take our honeymoon in Russia and go meet this little girl. We would know right away if she was "ours" or not. We started our adventure by exploring Moscow. We hired a tour guide and got the official version of the main attractions, and then spent a few days exploring on foot by ourselves. It was my third trip to Moscow and Rob’s first. We loved it and discovered one of the best Italian restaurants I’ve ever been too—Mama’s. We stayed in a boutique hotel in a swanky neighborhood and it was awesome. Moscow is an amazing city—beautiful, unique, fascinating and historically significant. I love Red Square and St Basil’s. The shopping is phenomenal if one is a multi-millionaire or better. And, dangit, we didn’t get to see the Bolshoi but, oh well, maybe someday.

But the next phase or our trip was most significant- Yekaterinburg. In Russia (or at least the parts that I’ve visited), the sun almost never sets. It’s trippy. We were flying at 2:30AM and watching the sun set and rise just a few minutes later. I’ll never forget that image. We landed at the airport ad were met by our driver/translator and immediately went to our hotel. Later that day, we were driven to the orphanage to meet "Vika."

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