Part One.
Part Two.
After the cake smashing incident, and after I did not ask my mom to sneak me out of the hotel so I could make a run for it, it was time for the honeymoon.
I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl, so I wanted him to plan the honeymoon.
I had also been a wee bit busy trying to find a place for us to live.
The plan was to spend the night at a hotel in town, and then head to the most exotic of locations.
Orlando.
Before you scoff and tell me how happy you would be to get to go to Orlando, allow me to remind you that I lived about an hour away from Orlando. One hour. As in, could go there pretty much whenever I wanted. And I'd lived that far from Orlando my. entire. life.
Oh, but that didn't matter to me at the time, of course. It was just about spending time with him.
But first, we spent the night in a local hotel. A nice one, with a special sink with scalding hot water for coffee. And trust me, if it says HOT WATER, it means HOT WATER. It doesn't take a while to heat up, it is hot immediately. Seriously. Take my word on it.
Anyway, that was where we spent our first night as a married couple.
I went into the bathroom to scald my hand change out of my gown and into something less more comfortable.
Then I heard voices.
I wrapped a towel around myself and stuck my head out of the bathroom door to see The Wolf with a maintenance man.
Apparently, The Wolf had tried to turn on the TV and it wasn't working. So he called the front desk to ask about getting it fixed. And after the maintenance guy checked it out and said that we needed another TV in there, The Wolf said okay, so they were changing out the TVs.
Let's review. We have one night in this hotel. It is our first night together as a married couple. While I am changing, The Wolf turns on the TV, and, upon seeing that the TV is inoperable, decides to remedy that situation. Right then. Right there. Because the TV is a priority when we are there for one night and are checking out first thing in the morning.
Yeah.
The next day, we got on the road for our trip to Orlando.
We had not even gotten beyond the city limits when God tried to stop me yet again we got into a car accident.
A car sideswiped us -- the woman was pulling on to the road and thought that we were turning one way or the other, out of her way.
Well. We weren't.
She pulled over and got out of her car, and The Wolf got out as well. The woman was apologizing profusely.
The Wolf was swearing profusely.
I'm not talking a couple of expletives to vent his frustration at the situation, I'm talking a string of words that would have made a sailor blush.
And then the woman's young son climbed out of the back seat.
I know The Wolf saw him.
That did not stop him from continuing to rip this poor lady a new one.
I was mortified.
Somehow, I got him to stop and get something to take down her information, and I handled the conversation from that point on.
All the while thinking, "They probably haven't mailed the certificate yet."
The honeymoon in Orlando was largely uneventful.
We got back and began our lives as newlyweds.
I got back and began my life as the wife of an alcoholic and porn addict.
With the help of some family friends (of mine), The Wolf got a job as a general runner-type. I got a job as a secretary in a law firm. When I became employed, I celebrated by ordering cable for us.
He celebrated by ordering 24 hours of The Playboy Channel.
While I was spending an afternoon with my grandmother, of course.
When I asked him about it, he apologized a lot, and didn't argue when I said I was going to make use of the parental controls.
Later, he didn't argue when I put a 900 block on our phone line.
I was confused and disgusted, but he seemed sincere when he apologized, and I thought that I was doing the best I could to "help" him.
It took me a little longer to realize he had a drinking problem.
Mostly because he didn't do it in front of me.
And mostly because I didn't realize it wasn't normal for a person to chug Nyquil every evening.
I thought he just had trouble sleeping.
Then, at my office Christmas party, he took full advantage of the open bar. FULL advantage. I watched in horror as he slurred his way through a conversation with one of the partners of the law firm. With his fly down. I believe I allowed myself more than two glasses of wine that evening, and once again, I didn't do anything to stop him from driving when we left.
We hopped a curb on our way home. I don't know if we went somewhere to make the phone call or if The Wolf's job had provided him with a cell phone, but somehow we were able to make a call for help. My mom or my dad or both of them came and drove us home.
Not long after that, we moved to a different apartment complex. You see, The Wolf had a few disagreements with one of our neighbors. She was probably 153-years-old. Yes, she was kind of rude and she let her yippy dog poop wherever it wanted to, but I just don't think there was anything she did to warrant him calling her "Hitler". I also don't think that her dog really pooped ON the stairs. I think that he put the poop there himself before he showed the managers. They suspected that as well, and they told me that when they asked to meet with me privately in their office. They also told me that we might want to look for another apartment.
So we I did.
On St. Patrick's Day, I got a call from one of The Wolf's co-workers. I might need to come get him. They had gone to Bennigan's after work and The Husband was celebrating his Irish ancestry (his last name was definitely Irish -- however, he was adopted), and his celebrating was getting a little out of hand.
I walked into Bennigan's to see most of the patrons with bemused expressions on their faces. It was maybe, maybe, 7:00 p.m. Maybe. And already one poor sap had had enough to drink that he was acting as if the restaurant was his personal stage. He was singing, he was dancing.
He was making a complete and total fool of himself.
He was my husband.
His co-workers explained that he'd earned himself some free shots right when they got there -- for having an Irish last name, for proving that he was, in fact, wearing green, even if it was on his boxers.
So after sitting for a while and having the distinct pleasure of running into at least three people I knew, I collected The Wolf and drove him home. Because I couldn't drive a stick, I had to ask one of my parents to drive me back to the restaurant later so they could drive his car back to our apartment.
When I returned, The Wolf was laying in the hallway. I imagine he had made a valiant effort to get to the toilet before he vomited, but he came up a wee bit short.
Within this first year of marital bliss (or a bodily fluid that rhymes with bliss), The Wolf had a little trouble holding on to a job. His first job as a runner ended, and he somehow found out about an opening for a security guard at a new resort that was opening about 30 minutes away from us. I remember when he told me about it, and I remember everything in me thinking it was a bad idea. I remember telling him that.
He took the job.
He lost that job a few months later when he was accused of stealing from guests' rooms.
I had often wondered where he was getting the extra cash to buy movies -- because he was always coming home with tons of movies. I mean, I knew he was a movie buff, but he was developing quite the collection. He'd told me that because the resort was so new, he was sometimes taking luggage up to rooms, and he would get tips.
I believed him.
I also believed him when he told me that he was going to stay away from the girl he met at his new job who seemed very interested in telling him her sob story about her horrible relationship with her boyfriend.
More on that in Part Four.
Which I will post tomorrow.
You could always enter my giveaway while you're waiting.
