Partners?

As most of my readers know I am recently divorced from a 30 year marriage and a 32 year relationship.
  I read a lot of blogs but Survival Blog is how I start my day. That site has posted a couple of letters that got me to thinking.

Here is the most recent post and this is the  one that got my mind engaged.

My thoughts on this subject...

I didn't know it but I have been a prepper for a long time. Guns, ammo, tools, first aid equipment. I used to keep myself in really good shape to, just so I could handle anything that came my way.
Then when I saw many articles about a worldwide shortage of rice in 2006 I really spun up the prepper activities. I showed my wife these article and she did a little searching on her own. The next week we went to Sam's Club and bought as much rice as we could. Then we got some food grade buckets form a BBQ joint, we ordered some Mylar bags and located a source for dry ice. When all was assembled we packaged up the rice in Mylar bags and buckets, labeled then and stored them in a cool dry location. After that it was well, if rice can get in short supply so can many other things. That begat the buying frenzy of sugar, flour, beans, spices, vitamins, bullion, peanut butter, olive oil and a myriad other items. Then IT happened. Under the auspices of the Bush II regime the economy flagged. Bush lost the election to a foreign invader and person of questionable birth and the economy tanked. The industry I had worked in all my life was nearly shuttered. Mid level construction management all but disappeared. Openings for a high school educated person with a lot of experience DID disappear. My formerly robust salary went down to unemployment wages. And stayed there for a long time. I did lawn work and finally got a gig running a 4 unit apartment complex in a crappy part of the town we lived in. During all this time and prior to the end of my employment we moved out of the house we had spent 25 years in. I cashed out my dwindling 401K and bought a foreclose house. So while cutting lawns, evicting dead beat tenants and rehabbing an old apartment building, I took on the rehab of the house we had just bought. And I gotta tell ya it needed a lot of work. I literally worked my self to the bone. Good wife was plugging away in the insurance industry and had to make a sudden change in job as her boss lady had to suddenly retire. She took a large income reduction there. Moving on, the apartment owner who lived in Kalifornia did not understand about cold weather or old building or that the salary he was paying me would not allow my to finance his repairs and would not understand so the job came to an end. Now I was rehabbing my house full time. I made very nice changes to the place and my wife and I worked a team designing and implement the changes. We ended up with a nice master bedroom and bath, a cool home office, a tasteful guest bedroom, a killer kitchen and a very cool dining room. Then the 401k money ran out. I got a job at a pawn shop for minimum wage. During all this time and hard work my junk knee got worse and I stared having other muscular/skeletal issues. We had no health coverage, we had little money for more house repairs. Then her mother died. The mother she had not spoken to in 5 or 6 years. When she got cancer, my wife rekindled her relationship with her mom. I didn't. The woman hated me and I hated her. I did attend the funeral as gesture of good will toward  my wife. As we had a limited income the house rehabbing stopped. And Little Miss Gotta Do Something started attendding events with hers sister and  her girlfriends. The next hammer hit us. I lost my job at the pawn shop due to side effect of the many medications I was taking. This was a scheduled event not an out of the blue thing. On my way home my wife called me and said, "Don't be surprised when you get home but I moved out". Now, during my employment at the pawn shop she had left for 3 weeks and could not give a reason for doing so. After a dinner together and discussing her nonsensical claims, she moved back in.
For the last 8 years I had spoiled her. I was doing ALL the cooking, cleaning, lawn work, home repairs and vehicle maintenance as well as shoveling the mountains of snow we were getting at the time.
Every afternoon she called me with her supper order. Or I would surprise her with something. Her friend, co-workers and bosses were all flabbergasted that big ol' biker me was doing all this. In the evenings all she had to do was put on her "comfy clothes" and read, watch TV or  play on her laptop. So I was really rocked when she told me she had "lost herself".
Then the real reason came out, I was turning into my father. This is the man she spent many hours with when I moved to Texas out of High School. He was her buddy. Then his health went to crap. And admittedly he became somewhat of a hypochondriac. My wife said many times that she didn't know if my step mom was a saint or just stupid. Dear wifey forgot that her mother did not leave her step dad when he became ill, her father did not leave his longtime girlfriend when she got cancer, she bad mouthed a woman we knew after she left her husband for having the affront to get cancer. Then the man who was her buddy, the man she bad mouthed for his health issues, died. In the end, she left because I could not get a job making the money I used to make and she ended up being the primary wage earner. There were may thing that went on other than what I have disclosed here but the fact is money or no, she had a good life that may women would love to have.
I had to split my tools with her, she got the house I paid for and labored over, emptied the bank account she was to turn over to me, left me with paying for things I don't have, sold all my stuff that was not out the day of the divorce and moved a man in with her that same week. So, let me say this, you never know who a woman is. Deep in the hearts of many of them lurks a dark evil creature that will break your heart, ruin your life and call it fair. My prepping is on hold until I can improve my income and I have no desire to start a meaningful relationship with a woman. At least I now know who she really is. And I have a better understanding of who I am.