~Living a Lie~

I'm one of those people who live online. I never log off Facebook. I post photos several times a day and I share my life with the world. There are a few things that I never feel comfortable sharing. My relationship issues. I try so hard to keep up appearance in front of our family and friends but it gets harder everyday. He and I have been together for 8 long years. We have one child together and I have one from a previous marriage. I'm 4 years older than him but it's proven to be a decade apart when it comes to maturity. Meaning I can understand what the issues are and deal with them in a appropriate way. I have no problem talking them out and never going to bed mad BUT that's not ever what happens. He blows up, breaks things and has many many times put his hands on me. This has caused us to get into many many physical fights, bruises and trips to jail (I've even been arrested before for telling the police there was no problem when they arrived). I'm not one of those women who is a victim. I fight back and DON'T want to stay with him. I DON'T make excuses for his actions and I DON'T still hope that things will change. Men who put their hands on women will NEVER change. I know that. The one and only reason I've stayed was because I'm not working and have been the stay at home mom since we don't have any reliable family to help watch our children. That's another whole topic there. I've never ever gotten along with his family and even when we are speaking I don't feel close to them. I would prefer not to be around them at all honestly. So I guess I haven't even covered the reasons that we end up fighting to begin with. The major underlying reason is that he is a habitual liar. He lies about big things and little things alike. This issue alone causes us to fight & argue and to never ever have sex together even if all the other problems didn't exist. Our entire relationship is a big example of cause and effect. We've only been actually married for a year now and already I've had a two month long affair about six months into this so called marriage. That certainly didn't make anything better but it made me feel not so alone during that time. It's crazy how alone I truly feel most of the time. He works normal 7-3 hours during the day and now our children are home for the summer but when he's here he's really not. We barely speak and if we do it's only to fight and argue. Every other word out of his mouth is some mean and hateful name he's calling me. "Bitch" is a special name he breaks out when we're really into it because he knows that pisses me off more than anything.I haven't been able to build up a tolerance to that word yet and he knows it. When arguing I always go into it with the goal of solving something and walking away with something accomplished. He argues just to argue. He's the first one to break out all the low blows and has no problem crossing the line when trying to get his point across. I'm over this whole fucking thing. I'm over being talked to and treated like this but more so I'm over my children having to hear us fight and growing up in such a hostile environment. I feel stuck because I don't have the financial means to just pack up and leave with the 2 kids and 2 dogs. I feel overwhelmed because I want to take some kind of action but I'm not sure what that first step would even be to end this. I recently prepared divorce papers and had them printed off. The next step is to pick them up and file them. I feel so trapped in this situation that I already know once I'm ever out of it I just want to be by myself with no man. Which sounds crazy because I've never ever had any problem attracting men. My inbox on Facebook right now is filled with many many men who are trying to get to know me married or not. I think that's what turns me away from wanting another relationship. No REAL man, no DECENT man would even try to approach a woman who is married unhappy or not. I just can't seem to respect the hordes of men who try to be that shoulder for me to lean on during my failing marriage. I guess that's enough for now. Trust me this is only the beginning of the story.....L