My husband and I

Well, I told you about the first time I was diagnosed.  I should tell you about the four months before that.  That is after I left my first husband and found my current husband, Jim.  I had left Brian and in June and met Jim in August. 
August of 2003. A small red car pulled up in the car dealership lot that I worked at and out stepped a 6'4 man.  My co-workers and myself were getting ready to close for the night and go out to the local pub for a drink, this included the General Manager/Owner and his General Sales Manager.  So, basically we wanted to get rid of the latest customer, and try to get him to come back another day so we could do just that.  A couple of salesmen tried too approach him before I did and had no luck.  He was eyeballing a newer F-150 Supercrew when I approached him from behind.  Here is this guy in a pair of Levi's that looked fabulous on his physique, but he was covered in black grease from head to toe from his work boots to his ball cap.  It was dark out but he was standing just under one of street lamps in the lot.  From behind, I got a view of Jim's clothes and LEGS there was 4 feet of just legs!  From the waist up he broadened into a V-shapethat would make any woman swoon.  "He had to be Ugly" was my first thought. He heard me approach him and just as I asked him if there was anything I could help him with he turned around and I quickly found out, I was wrong!  I lost track of the dirt and grease and all I could see were his beautiful blue eyes and long black lashes (so jealous).  He had a very masculine jawline, and a cleft right in the center of his chin, and when he smiled he had...dimples!  Jim had huge, broad shoulders the kind that could carry the burden of the world and his arms were huge!  PERFECTION was standing in front of me.  Then, as most men do, he opened his mouth and ruined it.
He explained to me how women coould not be trusted and I wasn't going to be any different.  It seems we were both going through a divorce.  He was fighting for the custody of his kids and I was just fighting to get out.  I asked him if there was anyway he could make an appointment for Saturday morning and test drive the truck and he agreed.
  To my surprise, on Saturday morning, there stood this handsome, clean shaven gentleman ready to take a demo ride in a beautiful grey F-150 supercrew. So we did...and I spent the morning doing paperwork and trying not to stare at him. Normal paperwork was finished, we were talking about what we were each going to do that evening and he told me that he was going out with some of his friends, I explained to him that my family owned a bar in a small town not too far from there and if they headed in that direction that he should stop in and say "hello". The rest of the day went by as usual except for the call I recieved that afternoon from Jim to ask me if it were really an invitation to stop by or if I was just making conversation...I assured him he would be very welcome if he showed up that evening. So, after going to Mom's after work and getting the boys ready to see their father, I headed out.. there really wasn't much else to do and the boys hadn't been going with their Dad for long so I was still nervous about that and didn't sleep well. Off to the Schooner on a Saturday night. Later that night as my Aunts and I were hanging out on the dance floor, and having a few drinks together, in walked my future husband Jim, with two of his friends. My one aunt, Audrey at that point informed me that if I wasn't going to take him home she was. And by the way she looked at him, I believed her! As a matter of fact, my aunt Susan even came over and picked up my drink, and dumped it down the drain for fear that I may do something stupid if I had too much to drink.  And we didn't know him, none of us did(meaning the 50 people already in the bar.) So it can be great to own a bar, and other times your family can shut you off whenever they feel like it! It was a very interesting night, we danced together and at one point a slow song came on and I went to walk off of the dance floor and Jim grabbed me by the hand and I danced with him.  All I could do was press my body against all of the mucsles in his, he felt like perfection. Even though his body was hard as a rock, he held me gently, so as not to hurt me. After a while we walked outside to get some air, he wanted me to see pictures of his daughter and son, his daughter had just had a birthday and turned 6, and his son's birthday was soon. So we looked at pictures of the kids while leaning against the car and he kissed me for the first time, it was as though we had been practicing that kiss for the last 20 years, nothing had ever been so perfect. During the evening, we had to go outside a few times to get some air, (it got really hot in the bar on a Saturday night, especially that Saturday night), and he asked me if he could see me again. I think it was well after 4:00 a.m. when we finally went our separate ways. He left with his friends and I helped close up the bar. My head was spinning and not from alcohol.
Waking up the next morning on my grandmother's couch I thought about what Jim must think of me...imagine that I had just sold him a truck and ended up kissing him that very night, I probably didn't look very good in his eyes. I had no phone number for him and no way to get in touch with him until Monday morning when I got to work. All day Sunday I wondered what he could possibly be thinking, or was he thinking about me at all? Pretty sure there were other women in his life that he didn't get serious about either, I tried to put him out of my mind. This was not an easy task. The man was gorgeous!!! What more could a girl ask for?
Monday rolled around as usual and I didn't hear from him, not until late in the day anyway, he rolled in on his motorcycle to check and see how the paperwork was going on his truck, and to put down a huge deposit, the truck had to go in his mother's name because of the divorce still pending, we talked for a few minutes and before he left I gave him my cell phone number hoping he would eventually call, I didn't want to push things because of the truck, I really didn't want him to think that was the way I did business. I didn't need him to think I was some kind of tease until I got a deal signed. There had been occasions that I lost sales because I wouldn't go out with people, that wasn't in the job description and the boss wasn't really pushing me in that direction either. So, I was lucky in that respect. But was there a new development between the boss and myself?
Jim and I spoke a couple of times that week but between my hours and my kids and his job and his kids we didn't see each other again and on Saturday afternoon his mother came in to sign the paperwork and take the truck home. I asked her if her son, Jim was for real, he seemed so genuine and so shy and wonderful, as a matter of fact he really couldn't look directly at me to speak to me, he always kept his head down as though he had something to be ashamed of, but he was so very handsome, and his body was something out of a romance novel. I didn't know it yet but he was to be my "knight in shining armour." Bonnie, his mother told me that yes, it was Jim. That he had basically been emotionally abused in his first marriage and to be careful not to hurt him. Wow, we both had been down a nasty path for a long time. Why had we found each other now? Was it fate? Finally, someone who could understand...maybe?
Jim eventually called and we started dating on a regular basis, but that was all it was, dating. I never introduced him to my children and I only saw him when my schedule allowed it, after the boys were in bed at night we would sit on my Gram's front porch on the swing sometimes until 4:00 in the morning, each one of us having to get up for work in the morning, but it didn't matter, we both seemed just so happy to be there sitting together and talking about everything under the sun. If the boys were out with their Dad, we would go out to dinner and go dancing for the night, we loved to dance together, we were so compatable on the dance floor, and we had a fantastic time, there was only one problem...the chemistry between us was extreme and I mean extreme, so much so that we had to pull ourselves away from one another at times just to cool off, we had made promises to ourselves and each other to put certain things off until we knew for sure what direction this relationship was headed, neither one of us was ready for another heartbreak. To this day there is the ongoing joke between us about making out on my grandmother's swing on the front porch of her house. It just goes to show that anyone can have will power when it comes to situations like that. I never felt more like a teenager(even when I was one)in my life. We wanted each other, but it wasn't appropriate, not yet. And I wasn't about to be anyone's one night stand. I had been with Brian for so many years, I wasn't even sure what it would be like to be with someone else. Not that there hadn't been certain times when the opportunity presented itself, but that is not the kind of wife or woman that I am.
In October I eventually had enough money to rent my own place and purchase a set of bunk bed for my sons. The house I rented was very small but convenient because it was only one block up from my Gram's and I still had family everywhere to help with the kids...Nick went to the local daycare during the day if I was working and Bradley had started kindergarten. The first night in my new home, I was going to be alone,( without the kids I mean) so that happened to be the very first time Jim and I spent the night together. It was the most intense experience I have ever had, we were already so much in love and that just kind of put the icing on the cake as they say. We have been inseparable ever since. Our relationship could not have been more perfect, even though each one of us had so much baggage, we were both fighting divorces and he was fighting to see his children as much as possible, luckily he had his mom to help out with his kids whenever he had them on the weekends. He was staying with her so his mom would help out with his kids on the weekends if he needed her. Looking back now I don't know where we found the energy to do everything we were doing or the time for that matter. I was working so many hours and he was going to Pittsburgh to school two nights a week after working all day long. Then he would come to the house and see me for a little while before he had to go back to work. Weekends were getting tougher, I worked every Saturday without fail and kids, we tried to keep them out of the relationship as long as we could.
When I left work on Saturdays I would take Mom out to dinner, wherever she wanted to go, sometimes we would let my boys choose, with Nick it was always McDonald's and with Bradley it was always Red Lobster. Every now and again Mom and I would have Chinese or go to have a nice steak somewhere like Jethro's. She and I could have never spent enough time together, but she always made time to sneak off with the boys. She was always going and picking them up from daycare or she would just make me leave them with her if Bradley didn't have school and she wasn't working.
We had a Halloween Party as usual at the bar near the end of the month, I was dressed as a belly dancer and I had dresseed Jim as a Grecian God...Ha! Well, everyone knew from work that we were going to this party, some people wanted to go and meet us there. Which was what I thought my General Sales Manager was going to do. To my surprise, Blondie showed up as I was getting dressed and had the nerve to walk in my room as I was getting dressed. She made a comment about my underwear. She wanted to know where I bought them and exactly what type they were, she had never seen that type before. She was trying to become me. Seriously become me. She wanted to wear my clothes and go shopping with me and become my very closest friend. Thank goodness I had my friend Lena. She explained some things to me and I soon realized I was being stalked because this crazy woman thought that I was having an affair with her lover. She went so far as to go her car, get in it on a Saturday after work and follow me to my home! It gets better....
One afternoon in November,I went picked the boys up at daycare after Bradley got off of the bus and I asked Jim to go with me. We took them to the local playground and had dinner at the house and they asked if he could stay. He didn't officially become a part of the household until sometime around Christmas, not that they knew of anyway. We had spent so many nights together by that time but it was always when the kids were with their dad or whenever they were fast asleep in another room...I guess it was kind of exciting having my own little secret world for a short time.   Never had I felt more love and affection in my life and I felt sexy and desireable because that's how Jim made me feel. He was sexy and muscular and protective and I have never felt safer than I did with him. He was truly everything I had ever dreamed of in a man, and he was mine, you could see it in his eyes, he definately loved me and only me.