One significant event can change a relationship from tolerable to fed-up in an hour’s time. When you move in with a man, you are invited to spend your life, time, and money with him. That is, until he decides to revoke the invitation. This is one woman’s story of what can happen when a live-in relationship goes bad.
It was about ten in the evening. I was lying on top of the bed watching Law and Order when he came home and walked into our bedroom. He was disheveled as usual, wearing jeans, worn out sneakers and a print shirt unbuttoned at the top. He gave me a blank stare from his red, slightly freckled, and blotchy face. He reeked of old, stale liquor, which welled up from his body and clothes, and flowed across the room to my offended nose.
It wasn’t the first time he had come home looking this way. It was the determined look on his face though, that got my attention. He stood in the threshold for a while staring at me. I felt the atmosphere change, so I moved from a laying position to sitting on the edge of the bed. Something was up. Soon, he smirked as he walked closer to the bed. He kept staring straight at me. The closer he came, the more I could see his enraged, puffy, blood shot eyes.
“I want you to go!”
“What?”
Go where? I wondered.
“I want you to go!”
“What are you talking about?”
We had been living together for the past two years.
“Angela, I want you out of here right now!”
He was clearly more drunk than usual. I believed Hennessy was talking for him. He wants me to move out? From past experience, I knew he was going to be unreasonable about his request. This could even turn into a real ugly argument. So I felt the need to remind him of our arrangement.
“Uh, excuse me, but weren’t you the one who asked me to move in?”
It was true. I was perfectly happy living in my one bedroom, newly renovated apartment in the South End of Boston. If the building hadn’t had a fire, I would still be there. I was going to move back home with my parents until I could find another place. But no, he said we could live together, share expenses and save money. It made sense at the time. He had a nice apartment, and I was practically homeless. I didn’t want to move back in with Mommy and Daddy at my twenty-something age.
After about a year and a half living together, our relationship began to change. I suspected something was going wrong. Jason was always a heavy drinker, but his consumption appeared to escalate. He started staying out later and later, until the wee hours, with no real explanation. I never asked for an explanation because I didn’t want to hear the truth.
After some weeks, he started to stay away all weekend. He told me he was hanging out with his former roommate, drinking hard, and then passing out on the couch. Right. I knew what was going on. But again, I was afraid to confront him. I decided to let things ride. I gambled that over time he would get the other woman out of his system, and then return to me. After all, we lived together. Isn’t possession nine-tenths of the law?
All these issues flashed before my eyes as I sat on the edge of the bed. In his drunken haze, I must have looked like I was being defiant, because I hadn’t moved.
“Get out. I want you to leave now!”
He rushed toward me. I grabbed everything on the bed as he tried to give me the old heave-ho. He snatched me from the bed, and dragged me across the floor - sheets, blankets, and comforter all at once. Caught up in all the bedding, I fell on the floor with everything tangled around me.
I was shocked at how aggressive he behaved. My butt hit the floor hard, and it ticked me off. This was beyond the pale. I wasn’t going to be passive and let him get away with his despicable drunken behavior. I paid half of the household expenses, many times more. I wasn’t going to be thrown out like a cat. I got my bearings, and stood up to confront him.
“Come on mutha fucka, make me leave!”
I was angrier than I can remember. I gave him the Bruce Lee/Matrix one-handed gesture for him to come and get me.
We leaped at each other like Sumo wrestlers. He grabbed me by my shoulders, I grabbed his, and we tussled from the bedroom to the foyer to the dining room to the living room. Neither one of us was willing to admit defeat and let the other have the upper hand. This was going to be a fight to the death. We wrestled from room to room until we ended up exhausted in the living room. Completely out of breath, we both went to our corners and sat down across from each other. He looked at me with that stupid smirk on his face.
“When I catch my breath, I’m gonna fuck you up.”
"Not today you won’t."
He had already proven to me that he couldn’t take me.
“You’re gonna get more of what I just put on you, you old drunk.”
We were both huffing and puffing, him on the couch, me in the armchair. We were both out of shape and out of breath; we could barely breathe. The room was silent except for the sound of our lungs gasping for air. When the skirmish started, I was wearing only some shorts and a big t-shirt. My big breasts were sore from flopping around during the tussle. I had put up with a lot of his shit in the past. This time, I was fed up, sore, and done with it all.
“Look, I’m leaving. It’s clear you don’t want me here anymore. So, I’m going. But you are not going to drag me out into the street tonight. You’re gonna have to wait until I find somewhere else to live.”
Still sitting and gasping for air, he answered, “I don’t have to wait for shit!"
A man under the influence could be dangerous once he got his dander up. I decided to up the ante.
“I bet you will after I call the police!”
I left the armchair and scurried for the kitchen phone. He stumbled after me, catching me by the hand as I lifted the wall handle. The alcohol on his breath was overwhelming.
“Wait a minute, Angela. We don’t have to get the police involved.”
Humph. Suddenly he wasn’t that drunk anymore. He had sense enough to know if the police showed up and saw how inebriated he was, and this being a domestic dispute; he could end up in jail. We decided to call a truce for the rest of the night. He slept on the couch, and I slept with the lock on my bedroom door.
First thing I did the next morning was to go to court and get a one-year restraining order. I was sure that after last night, he wasn’t going to try to wrestle with me again. Still, I wasn’t sure if he would try to hit me once he got liquored up and angry again. And, I didn’t intend to have him pulling me out of our bed again. I wasn’t going to take the chance. When he received the restraining order in the mail, he got the message, and slept on the couch until I moved out.
The second thing I did was to go to a realtor to find an apartment. Money wasn’t going to be a problem. I was a good saver, and had good bank and credit. I just needed to get out of a bad situation as soon as possible. I was able to find a nice three-bedroom apartment for the same money I was paying in the South End. It was in Dorchester, and closer to my job. I moved out the next month while he was at work, leaving the keys on the kitchen table.
When you love someone and it goes bad, it’s twice as bad when you share living quarters. Not only do you have to separate your things and move on, you have to separate the feelings you have, and move on. It’s easy to move furniture. It’s difficult to move a heart away from love.
Jason and I spent two years living together, and four being with each other. A lot happens between a man and a woman during that time. A lot of love, some hate, many arguments, a few discussions, but there was something that held us together. I couldn’t say today what it was. He smoked and drank; I didn’t smoke, and drank fruit punch when we went out. We had laughed and cried together. Now we would go our separate ways.
I vowed to never again put myself in the position of having someone tell me to leave because I moved in with him. I would either stay in my own place or, if I were to marry, move into a place that both of us owned. Possession means nothing when the other person wants you to move out. You become an uninvited guest, and stay at your own peril.
In the beginning, Jason was a kind man, and we were happy. As time passed, his alcohol addiction took control of his personality, and turned him into an angry, unhappy alcoholic. I wondered then what I saw in him that kept me blinded to the fact that he had a solid alcohol problem. Maybe I thought that my love for him, which was fierce, could weather the storm. It wasn’t enough. Once I left, I believe that was the first rung on his ladder to the bottom. I take no pleasure in that belief.
There are times I reflect on that single evening, and wonder what would have happened that night if I didn’t fight back, or he persisted in making me move out. Maybe single woman are able to tolerate abuse more than the single mother. Maybe I had a high tolerance for abuse when it came to him.
I found out later from his family that his new woman broke up with him after a few weeks. Guess she wasn’t going to have a constantly intoxicated man around her children after she got her fill of sex.
Employment for Jason became difficult to maintain because he was always drinking on the job, and he became a real mean drunk. Then, he started to look like a drunk, and getting jobs became even more difficult. The last I heard, he had lost the apartment, was unemployed and living with a relative.
Upon reflection, we had become a Habit that broke when he found someone New. New is always exciting, full of adventure, unknown experiences, and thrills. Habit is just something you do every day without thinking. It’s hard to break Habit, because it’s what you know. New can be intimidating and frightening to experience. It was time for me to break my Habit and find another New. Or, stay with Me for a while.
Years have passed since that event changed my life and provided me with a valuable learning experience. I bought a house and never worried about being kicked out again as long as I paid my mortgage. I opened and funded an emergency bank account in case I became unemployed for a few months.
I am more careful about who I let into my heart and in my bed. It’s not always easy to make the right choices about a man. But it’s better that what can happen if you make the wrong one. I’m not going to hurry.
