This is a very long story and I will try to make it as short as possible. Please note, this will be longer than 1000 characters allowed, so please be patient as I keep adding details below.
I was a widow at 35. I was married to a man with severe bipolar and he was also an alcoholic, his name was Jamie. Jamie had a huge heart and would do anything for anyone when he was mentally healthy and not drinking. The problem was the mental illness was present a majority of the time and so were the alcohol issues. We were married for 5 year’s and had one son who is my late husbands namesake but we call my son James, he’s is now 7, was 4 when his dad died. So now let me get to the story, just had to give a little info so this could be followed easily.
I met Jamie at a bar. He was on the dance floor being goofy with some coworkers. I was sitting with my friend Mary Jo watching Jamie dance because it was funny.
He noticed me watching him and we talked & exchanged phone numbers. A relationship developed quite quickly.
I found out I was pregnant and was very upset considering we were using protection. I knew I could not have a baby with this man because he drank too much. Well he was very excited that I was pregnant and promised to quit drinking. So we were married and were keeping the baby. well as time went by, I realized his drinking would not stop and that he had bigger issues with it than I thought. he agreed to get help and thats when he was diagnosed with bipolar. he was put on many different types of medications, most did not work for him and his scripts would be changed. Finally he was put on the right combination of prescriptions and all was okay, until he mixed the alcohol which he did a lot. This all took place over a few year’s time.
I finally realized I could not live like this for the rest of my life, allowing my 4 son’s (3 from a previous marriage) to be exposed to the nonsense involved with the alcohol & the mental illness. I gave Jamie a warning to change his ways concerning the alcohol or I would divorce him, I gave him more than a reasonable amount of time to do this, he did nothing but continue to drink and lie about it. So just before our 5th. anniversary, I asked him to move out and he did. I had planned to file for a divorce the following year after we filed our income taxes so we would have some cash available for the kid’s & I to move and I would let him keep the place we lived in together, which by the way I bought because he had no income because he could not keep a job because he’d go to work drunk. I did realize though that he was self medicating for so many years prior to me that him stopping drinking would be difficult and this was why I put up with it for so long.
So anyway, I did allow Jamie to come back home at his request & promises to get his poop in a group a few weeks later and it all started all over again, so he left once again at my request and I knew I’d never let him come back, and so did he.
Well 3 days later, he committed suicide by prescription drug overdose, he was living at his brothers home when he did this.
Well it’s been going on 3 year’s now since his death. I have made contact with the oldest brother in an attempt to try to fix the broken relationship with the family for the sake of my son James because James has been asking a lot about his dads family. The oldest brother Ricky is the family “leader”, so my late husband called him. Well Ricky refuses to take my calls. I then did talk t Ricky’s wife and she told me that he did not want to talk to me because he feels his brothers death is my fault because I did not take Jamie’s calls the night prior and had I taken the calls, Jamie may still be alive.
I had to work in the morning and was not taking his calls for that reason and because I was burned out on all the nonsense involved with this man. I was not with him, I had not control of his choice to die, which, by the way, was NOT his first attempt at death. He had an attempt 9 months prior and was in ICU for almost a month. WE did not know if he would live or die then.
So now that you have the story, my question is, how do I get this family to take my calls? I need them to allow my son to still know his dads family for the sake of his own mental health. How horrible it would be for me to have to tell my 7 year old son that his dads family has no interest in him. I need creative suggestions to get them to open the doors back up for my son.
PS-
To those that refused to wait to read the whole story and tell me to meet a man in church. We can’t decide where we will meet a spouse, it just happens when it happens.
Continuation to my PS above-
Besides just because a person goes to church does not make that person better than someone else. When I was a teenager, my sister had a friend that had a friend that was one of the BIGGEST drug dealers in town dealing cocaine and he went to church each & every Sunday with his wife & kid’s. So because he went to church, was he perfect? Hmmmmm. How about not judging, I was just giving info so the story could be understood.
