Nobody's Fault But Mine

It was a Saturday morning, and I was up at five. Not for any particular reason, mind you. I woke up at five every day and it stuck on the weekends too. The difference on Saturdays and Sundays were the hangovers.

At 45, the hangovers hurt but I was so used to them, I didn't even vomit anymore. I was just tired and felt like crap. Another wasted weekend.

I looked at myself in the mirror and the usual amount of disgust was there. I looked at a middle-aged man who weighed 365 pounds, had graying hair, didn't bother to shave, and didn't take his blood pressure meds way too often.

I had so many tasks and maintenance duties piling up to do around the house, it didn't even bother me anymore. I was lazy and lethargic.

I looked at my wife sleeping peacefully in our bed. I loved her more than life itself, but I felt she was giving up on me. The weight and blood pressure problems caused erectile disfunction and when I could get it up, it was only for a short time. I'm sure she was tired of me using my fingers on her. I didn't like the taste or smell of her pussy, so I didn't do oral on her very often and felt bad about that. Not bad enough to change for her though. I regretted that too.

I made a cup of coffee and opened up Literotica to peruse the new stories by my favorite authors. Nothing exciting popped up, so I hit the categories I liked. Loving Wives, Celebrity, Romance, even the occasional Incest story hit the spot. I'd get lost in the stories all day. If the story aroused me it got five stars no matter how bad the grammar was in the story.

My wife wouldn't wake up until after ten. There was no reason for her to do so. She knew it would be another day in front of the television and on our phones. My kids would get up around then as well. My seventeen-year-old son would get up around nine and eat breakfast. He'd shower then retreat to his room for the day. My sixteen-year-old son would do the same, but he'd stay in his room until he got hungry and then he'd take a shower and eat breakfast. That was usually around noon.

I tried to get them to wake earlier and go to breakfast with me, but I usually got a no on that request. My wife would join me if I woke her, but she would often be crabby later due to not getting the extra couple of hours of sleep. Often, she'd fall asleep on the couch in the early evenings which kept us further divided.

I finished the first round of stories and decided to make breakfast. I always intended to eat healthy so I could lose weight and get healthy, but between thinking about it and making it, I usually succumbed to the devil on that.

As I looked through the fridge, I saw we had green peppers and onions that I had diced up earlier in the week from another aborted attempt to food prep and eat healthy, some tomatoes that were diced up from taco Tuesday, and some black beans.

"Healthy today," I promised myself and tossed the veggies in a pan with some olive oil. After separating three egg whites, I added one whole egg and whipped it up.

As the eggs cooked, I made some whole wheat toast and grabbed the butter spray. The butter spray was supposedly made up from the stuff that settled on the top of the butter when it melted, and they said it was healthy. It had to be better than butter, so I ate it. It was good.

As usual I overcooked the eggs and swore I'd never make that mistake again, but I repeated it all the time anyway. I splattered some hot sauce on them grabbed a fresh coffee and a large glass of water. I had to stay hydrated, you know.

I changed my lifestyle several years before and lost over 100 pounds. I got disheartened because I stalled and didn't lose weight for over a month. I said >fuck it, and started drinking again. Drinking made me gain weight, which in turn made me hate myself. That, of course, caused me to drink more and I was stuck in a never-ending cycle of self-hate and weight gain.

I ate my unsatisfactory breakfast, added a banana that was too brown, and logged the food into my tracker app. I hoped I was starting a new lifestyle change. I doubted it.

*****

I met my wife when we were eighteen. We worked at a department store in different departments but saw each other in passing. She was an adorable brown-haired lass with a nice set of breasts that begged to be sucked. We were both virgins and had little dating experience, but we fell in love.

We dated until I finally proposed to her on Valentine's Day, after several years of her begging and getting upset with me for not asking. It wasn't that I didn't want to marry her, I was just afraid to get married because I knew that she wanted to have a family right away. She was desperate to be a mom. I loved that about her, but it scared the hell out of me.

I was an immature, bar-hopping knucklehead who couldn't keep a job. How the hell was I supposed to have a family?

I got lucky and found a job that paid a salary plus commission and felt better about having kids. I was moving up in my company and got a branch manager job. The bosses loved me and how I could come into a meeting with no reports and no notes and correctly recite the status of all of my work. I didn't know any better. I figured I'd look stupid if I had to keep looking at notes to answer questions.

Then I screwed it up. I got complacent and lazy. As the manager, I had no one looking over my shoulder making sure I was getting my job done on a regular basis. I had weekly meetings, but I faked my way through those. I couldn't get out of the rut I drove myself into. Then I got a break.

It was the fact that the owners liked me, and the general manager thought I had potential that saved me. I was offered a different job in corporate that paid a bigger salary but wouldn't pay any commission. I wasn't making any commission anyway, so I jumped at the second chance.

It was the second-best thing I ever did. We had our first son Liam a month after I changed jobs and a year later we had our second son Pete. Then shit hit the fan at worked and I almost lost everything again.

The owners made some bad decisions, profits were free-falling, and they started laying off whomever they could get away with losing. When that wasn't enough, we took salary cuts. It was devastating.

One of our laid off employees found a job at one of the big banks who were expanding in our area and got me an interview. I got lucky that they were building a new office and needed bodies in chairs. I had a big body. The interview was a formality and within a month, I was making twice what I had been, and life was looking good again.

I was good at my job and earned a couple of promotions. I kept gaining weight and kept drinking. I got the diagnosis of high blood pressure when I was 35 and did nothing about it except take my medicine somewhat regularly.

My kids were doing fine, work was going fine, and my marriage was going fine. I thought I was sitting in high clover. In reality, I was cultivating the beginning of the end.

My wife and I decided to spice things up in the bedroom. We watched porn together every Friday night. She began to give me regular blowjobs, and to both of our surprise she started to enjoy anal sex. She'd dress up in stockings, high heels, and lingerie. We'd drink wine, and fool around on the couch while watching porn. It was a great time for us, but after a while, the kids got older and the danger of getting caught was too high; we stopped doing it.

We stopped doing things for our marriage period. We didn't go on date nights, unless it was a birthday or anniversary. We didn't make love unless she was so horny she couldn't hold out any longer, and that stopped almost completely when my ED started. My drinking didn't help that either.

I knew she was drifting away. There wasn't another guy or anything like that, she wasn't the cheating type. It was just that I wasn't doing my part to keep her happy and I wasn't such a prize that she couldn't become unhappy. I was so lazy; I didn't do anything to save the implosion of my marriage.

*****

Back in the present situation, I watched nothing on television until I got the energy to find something to eat for lunch. There was lunchmeat, leftovers, frozen pizzas, soups, and tons of other food, but I ended up going to Taco Bell and gorging myself on tacos and bean burritos.

As I ate in the car, I beat myself up for another failed attempt to be healthy. I dove farther down the well of despair and went to the cigar store after finishing a lunch that would fill three people.

Twenty-five bucks later, I was reclined in my car in the Wal-Mart parking lot puffing on a Nicaraguan Puro and reading more stories. There were no more new stories that interested me, so I read some of the same stories I'd read over and over.

I was gone about two hours when my wife realized I was gone and texted me.

"Where are you?"

"Smoking."

"Come home."

No please, no reason, no nothing. Such was my life at that point.

"Fine."

I drove the three miles home and walked in the house annoyed. I wasn't allowed to smoke in the house so I couldn't finish the one I started or the second one I intended to smoke, and it irritated me. It was too cold yet to smoke on the deck, so I'd have to go back to the car to finish my cigars.

"I'm home," I said tersely. She walked into the living room and sat on the couch. She looked like she had been crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Just then, a moving truck backed into my driveway. "What's that doing here?" I asked as I watched her father and brothers exited the truck. My heart sunk. I knew I'd finally blown it and she was leaving.

She was crying and trying to find the words, but they wouldn't come. Tears fell from my cheeks as the doorbell rang.

"I understand," I whispered. "Always remember I loved you and I always will."

She started sobbing and I ignored the second ring. I walked down to the garage, got in my car, and left her to leave me without my being in her way. I didn't even think about my kids who weren't around. I was a coward who thought he was playing the martyr.

My tears stopped by the time I pulled into the liquor store's parking lot. They started again, after I bought the fifth of Jack and drove to a cigar lounge. Six hours later, I UBER'd home and found no wife, no kids and all rooms except the kitchen and guest bedroom devoid of furniture.

*****

I woke the morning after she left in the same shape I'd have been in on any Sunday morning. The hangover was slightly worse because it was from whisky, but I started so early, so I ended up not too bad.

I walked into the kitchen and was glad she left me a coffee maker. Sitting in front of it was a note and an envelope of papers.

It started, "Ben." Not, "Dear Ben," or any other term of endearment. I don't know why I expected more.

The note continued, "I've rented an apartment near the boys' school. The envelope has divorce papers and if you sign them and give them to my attorney, he will file them. If you don't sign them, we'll have to go to court, and I don't want to do that. I think it's clear that this has been coming for a long time, and I waited until the kids were old enough to understand. You'd have been surprised at their reaction. I cried for hours when they told me they expected me to leave you years ago. You wouldn't have known about that conversation. You were in the basement on your third bottle of wine by then. This is so hard for me because I love the man I first met so much and desperately hoped he would come back to me. I just can't continue to hurt while I wait. I feel so unloved, and you never used to make me feel that way. Please get yourself help before you end up dead from a heart attack or worse. I can't be there when that happens. You told me you loved me and always will. I wish I could say the same, Cheryl."

I put the note on the fridge and noticed she took the calendar that let us know when the boys had activities. I wondered for a moment if they would even give me a copy of it if I asked.

I picked up the envelope with the divorce papers. She was completely fair. She didn't make as much as I did, but she didn't ask for maintenance. The child support was calculated by the state, so she had no say in that, but it wouldn't kill me. She wanted to sell the house and that irritated me because it was my home. We didn't have a lot of equity and it needed a lot of work done so I decided to not bother trying to sell. I'd take a loan out and buy her equity out.

Just like that, my life as I knew it was over. I motivated myself enough to shower and get an UBER to a bar in the same strip mall as the cigar lounge where my car sat.

*****

I woke the next day in a jail cell. I had no memory of what I did to get there, or of the previous day after getting to the bar. An officer was standing in the open doorway and said, "Well, I thought we were going to have to take you to a hospital. Are you feeling okay?"

"Just a headache," I moaned. "What did I do?"

"Nothing. I found you wandering down the county road where there aren't any sidewalks. You were incoherent and couldn't remember your garage code when I got you home, so I brought you back here to sleep it off. Thank you for not driving in that condition."

I nodded. "Sorry for the trouble."

He handed me a cup of coffee and I sat up.

"Look, you got really lucky it was me last night. Some of the other guys on shift would've found any number of things to write you up for just to teach you a lesson. I'm not gonna do that if you promise me you'll get some help. There are some local counseling centers that treat alcoholism, and you should call one. I don't know how much you drank, but you blew a 1.9. With someone your size, you must have drunk a shitload. You're lucky to be alive."

"Sorry. My wife left me yesterday."

He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "You're not the first guy to lose a wife and you won't be the last. You can't kill yourself over it and drinking like you did last night will kill you."

I took a drink from the strong black coffee and said, "Is it okay if I go home or..."

"Yeah, you're not being held for anything. You can't drive though. You're surely still drunk enough to be impaired. I'll give you a lift. I'm off in ten minutes."

"Thanks," I said as he led me to the lobby.

I sat and looked at the floor wondering if I had the strength to stop my life from spinning out of control. I felt my phone buzzed and it was a message from Cheryl.

"Are you okay?"

I smirked. Maybe she loved me, but she just couldn't put up with me? I could only hope.

"No. I'm not sure I ever will be."

"Please get help, Ben. Don't make the boys lose their father."

"They already have."

I turned the phone off and cried. The policeman came out and said, "Are you gonna be okay? Is there anyone that can be with you today?"

I shook my head. "No. No one gives a shit about me anymore. I have no family besides my wife, kids, and in-laws. My friends are just acquaintances. I'll be fine alone at home."

"No drinking?" he asked gruffly.

I laughed. "My stomach couldn't handle it if I wanted to."

"Okay, come on then."

*****

I waved to him as he drove away and walked into my garage. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew I had to get my shit together. I didn't know if I could do anything to get Cheryl back, but I had to try. I sat on the bed in the guest room and cried myself to sleep.

I was startled awake by the sound of the door opening. I tried to jump out of bed and confront the intruder, but I couldn't move fast enough. I heard Cheryl calling out to me and groaned.

"In here," I shouted and listened to her bound up the stairs.

"What are you doing?" she yelled.

"I was trying to sleep."

"Why are you in the clothes you wore yesterday?"

"Cheryl, what do you want? I thought you left me."

Her anger faded, and she said, "I thought you were going to do something stupid. Your last message..."

"Jesus, are you kidding me? You dare move out, and by the way, fuck you for taking all the televisions. That was a dick move. You dare leave me and take my kids, and I'm not supposed to think I've lost my sons? It sounds like you've already poisoned them against me."

"Ben, I..."

"Just go, Cheryl." I was pissed. If I didn't have alcohol still coursing through my veins, I'd have probably handled it better. Hell, I should've been groveling at her feet. Instead, I was going ballistic.

She started sobbing and said, "They love you, Ben. Don't let your anger make you forget that."

She turned and ran from the room. I heard the door slam shut and I fell back on the bed.

"Way to go, dumb ass," I said to myself. I would have screwed up a two-car funeral.

*****

The next morning, I called into work and took a week's vacation. I needed to get my head on straight and working wasn't going to help. I had plenty of time off built up, so no one was too upset.

I looked up some counselors and found one near the house. I set up a time to go in and get started and felt pretty good about that.

After lunch, I started picking off the littlest of the things I had to do around the house and made a list of things I'd need for the bigger things. I picked up some new curtains for the bedroom, bought new furniture and a television for the living room, and finally, I got a membership to one of the local health clubs. I had to get in better shape.

I was looking at the clothes the club had on display when a young lady walked up to me.

"Can I help you find something?" she chirped.

I laughed, "You don't have any fat man sizes."

"Oh, don't call yourself fat. That's no way to treat yourself."

"Okay, but you don't have any clothes that will fit someone of my enlarged stature."

She giggled, "Not out here. The boss has it in her mind that we should sell goal clothes. You know, smaller sizes so you can lose weight and fit into them?"

"That's dumb."

She laughed and whispered, "I know."

She stayed with me as I walked around the clothes and I found myself enjoying talking about nothing with her, when she got back in work mode and said, "We have bigger sizes in the back. Take a look and pick out what you want. I can bring it out for you."

"Okay." I picked out a couple of pairs of shorts, a jump suit, and several dri-fit shirts. She bounced off to the back room and I couldn't help but think of the fine view of her butt while I picked out a gym bag.

"Good choices," she said, as she bounced up to me. "I like how you got a set in a smaller size too. That's a great attitude to have." She looked around and whispered, "My boss will be happy."

I nodded and handed her my credit card. I took another peek at her butt as she walked around the counter to ring me up. I couldn't think of a better one I'd ever seen.

"All set, Mr. Randow. If you need anything else, let me know. My name's Flora, and I'm glad to meet you."

"Thanks, Flora. Nice to meet you too."

She bounced away and I felt better about myself again. I was taking the first steps to getting my shit together and I felt so good I had a healthy dinner.

*****

The next day I visited an attorney, and we looked over the divorce papers. He was an older gentleman that reminded me of Matlock. He was sharp as a tack and said, "Could've been worse, but divorce is what it is. If you want to try and work it out, I can delay it for a while. If you don't sign and file, you have to live apart for six months and show that you tried to work it out. Folks tend to use counseling to meet that requirement, but there's other ways."

"Well, she moved out, so the clock is ticking on that. Can we go the counseling route?"

"I'll present it to her attorney and see how it goes."

"Sounds good to me."

He nodded and said, "Ben, work on yourself. Yours is a sad story but you definitely have some aspects of your life that need to be cleaned up."