10/4/2022

Ardent readers of late will have noted that I've been posting about Leah, my feelings concerning her and our marriage and they're mostly in a positive light. On Monday I was reminded as to why we are separated and heading towards divorce.

Trust.

It's really not so much the buffet of dick of which she partook from 2018 to whenever. That I can forgive, especially knowing Leah's character. Her cheating was a violation of my trust.

Yet my perceptions of her managing money while we were together with a joint account were a far more profound trust issue. Case in point — the previous regime's stimuluses during the COVID-19 pandemic. I know I received my $2,000 since that amount went towards purchasing my car. As for the second stimulus, amounting to $600, Leah never gave me a clear answer since she kept the bank account as a black box from me and she was the sole gatekeeper. I'm an idiot for not reviewing the statements and I have a weak-ass reason as to why I didn't review the statements.

Ages ago, by 2022 reckoning, Leah and I had a fight over money. She said I was being a spendthrift while she was the one being sensible. So I acquired several bank statements and pored over them. I knew about joint expenses like groceries, phone and utility bills, etc. I know which notebook I used but it's either packed away in a box in my room or stored over at my sister's basement.
I was auditing our expenses to see how we could save money, plan for the future, and raise us both up. The four-letter word at play here was budget and if calling an African-American the n-word means getting capped, the b-word (and I'm not talking about 'bitch') would get Leah to cap my pasty white ass. While poring over the account, dividing things in half, discovering where the money was going — mostly because (and this is hyperbole with a foundation in reality) my buying rolls with butter from Wawa were driving us into penury — and Leah was absolutely profligate while I was pinching pennies and worrying about our future.
What stood out was how in December of 2018 I received an $800+ Christmas bonus. The January 2019 bank statement showed how Leah spent about that much over what we both earned at the time in the span of a month. I shouldn't be surprised considering how when I'd receive my yearly honorariums from Virginia regarding my contributions to the fortean website, she'd take them and declare they were tribute to keeping the household afloat because I wasn't the primary breadwinner. When I brought this to her attention, there was bluster, there was screaming, there was belittlement, everything I associate with Leah at her worst because I caught her red-handed pissing away money on booze and probably feeding whichever random cock was using her pussy as a dumpster. Not only did I catch her, I had hard evidence.
Since I wanted to save the marriage and our relationship, also being the product of an abusive and man-hating biological mother, I acquiesced to make the peace. It's an old strategy which does me no favors, but hope springs eternal that one day it will bear fruit. In short and not to be too charitable towards Leah, I enabled her by being weak and not sticking to my guns. Better yet, when I deigned to try and speak with her mother (who continues to be Leah's landlord) she didn't want to hear any of it which is typical considering the number of times Leah vented to me about her challenging relationship with her mother. Nu, bubbe. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Flash forward to Monday the third, my accountant wanted to know if I received the third stimulus.
Record scratch. There was a third stimulus?
So I asked Leah, bad idea, who blustered and said I got half of everything but positioned it as if the stimulus was for the household who split $2,000, $600, and $1,400 between them. Akshully the stimuluses were for individuals not households. I should've had $4,000 between the Trumpbux and Bidenbux but no. Again my fault for believing our household was only eligible for the first two rounds while the third was for families and individuals who were more desperate to stay afloat.
That's probably not the case.

But it's money. Money comes and money goes, no matter how much gravity one associates with it.

Also I shouldn't be surprised. Leah was fired from her job at a supermarket, after dropping out of high school, for stealing from the till to pay for her lunches. She explained her craft and I felt it was quite clever, but not clever enough considering she did get caught. Also she confided in me about how she would steal money at home.
Not to mention how she told me father was terrible with money and how their family finances only improved when her mother took him out of the driver's seat. Already there was a prejudice against men managing money. Let's not forget how she would throw it in my face how I made less money than her. Drawing upon her upbringing, Leah told me how her mother was always the breadwinner while her father had low-paying teaching jobs. I'm winning.
Twice!

But it's my fault for trusting her. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" as the saying goes.

That shame is mitigated because I learned my lesson. Whomever I may have a relationship with next, I'm going to keep my finances separate and merely transfer money into the joint account to cover the necessary and shared expenses like phone and utility bills, rent or mortgage payments, and so forth. It'll be a challenge not to come across as an asshole. Already I hear my tape of Leah in my head calling me an asshole because I demand absolute control over finances, and I fear whomever I meet next could have a little bit of Leah in her. That's why I fear being considered an asshole in this respect.

in other news

I am surprised, but also unsurprised, how a former acquaintance of mine completely disconnected myself from them. The amusing bit is how they bemoaned being blocked by former friends and acquaintances before things went south. I didn't unfriend them but when I tried to send a friendly, brief message on a social networking site I discovered they blocked me.

Bullet dodged.