13. A Summary Of My Past

This post is a summary of my past to give you all a little insight into my background. It will also enforce in me the reasons why I am writing this.
As I have said in previous posts I am not an author I am just an ordinary Mum and therefore my writing maybe a little confusing for some. It is a roller coaster ride for me, as my life has been. I hope you will stay for the duration as it is my aim to keep my son’s spirit alive ….

At the age of 18 I left my parents home to start being independent, my parents and 4 sisters were not happy about this and all refused to talk to me for several months. For the next 3 years I became rebellious and a party animal, completely lost and really only ever wanting to settle down with Mr. Right and have unconditional love.
I then met my first husband who never met the approval of my parents , they saw what I couldn’t and so when we married all my family apart from one sister refused to attend. I went to bed that evening and cried myself to sleep knowing that I had made a huge mistake , but as I had been brought up to believe that marriage was for ever I knew I had to make a go of it.

I went through my first pregnancy with no contact from my family , until at 31 weeks I was rushed into hospital with pre-eclampsia. My parents then made contact and my daughter was induced at 36 weeks weighing just 3lbs and 5oz.
My husband by now had shown his true colours, I was married to a dirty, lazy , compulsive liar and hypochondriac.
In the first year of my daughters life we moved 3 times , the last being to a hostel for the homeless. Whilst there she stopped breathing and was rushed to hospital with what turned out to be whooping cough.

My marriage was unbearable but I was not strong enough to admit defeat and instead became pregnant with Tony thinking this would help the marriage. Again through this pregnancy I fell out with my parents over my husband, and once again I had no support from the family. They never saw Tony until he was 9 months old.

In 1983 I was just rebuilding my relationship with my parents when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer . At the same time, my husband decided to convince himself that he was dying and forced himself to be sick every evening , I was unable to get any help for him and was told by our doctor to go and see a priest !This was a real strain on our relationship as he was trying to 'compete' against my mother.

Just before my daughters 4th birthday she was rushed to hospital, as she woke one night unable to stand or walk due to pain in her legs. Following 3 weeks of tests and an exploratory operation it turned out that she had an infection in the bone, a week of antibiotics and she was fine.However during this time she was in traction and X-Rays showed a shadow which we obviously feared the worse.

After years of mental abuse my marriage eventually broke down, a very upsetting couple of years ensued with me having to obtain a court injunction to keep him away as he threatened to kill us all. He eventually stopped all contact with us when he failed to turn up for a court hearing where it was ordered that he could only see the children under supervision.

I then met and married a soldier but sadly as he was away for the majority of our time together we both led very separate lives and the marriage only lasted for 3 years.

I then met James father and shortly after meeting, my mother lost her battle against the cancer. During the years following my divorce from my first marriage my mother and I had become incredibly close and I took her death very bad.
She died in the July and only weeks later my father announced that he had met someone else who he planned to marry. This was devastating for me and I could not forgive him for what I felt was betrayal towards my Mum. He had not even interned her ashes and had moved in with another woman. I could not attend their wedding and went to the cemetery instead.
Feeling very vulnerable after Mums death and my fathers marriage I planned to have James who was born the following December ,and we married the following year to give the children some sense of security.

The following years were very unhappy, after James was born my husband divided the family in two by making it obvious that he loved James more than Laurrie and Tony. As they got older so it became more noticeable to the point that he virtually ignored them and only ever gave one word answers if they tried to speak to him. I had started a business during this time and he insisted on giving up his job to help me, even though I was against the idea.
His role in the venture was to do the accounts, but unbeknown to me he never had control of the situation and we ended up losing not only the business but our house as well as we were forced into bankruptcy.
We were moved into rented accommodation and I secured a really good job in sales as he said he was ‘not able’ to work. I therefore became the breadwinner and he became ‘house husband’ not through choice but necessity.
What transpired was that he was only looking after James and leaving the elder 2 to fend for themselves.
I eventually decided that my children HAD to come first and that this family divide was not healthy for any of them. We were at a point where he wasn’t speaking to me either and so I told him I wanted to end the marriage.

This was when the real nightmare began and where I begin my blog... In Memory Of Tony……………………….