Get out the popcorn, this is a Jerry Springer sort of deal =)
My first and second mrAru were stationed on the same sub, and roomies in barracks. I met both of them at Campaign HQ where we all played D&D and assorted other games. I dated both of them simultaneously, though mrAru 1 asked me to get married. I stopped dating mrAru2 [obviously] and actually was having second thoughts when we actually got hitched - but someone convinced me it was just cold feet [I should have ignored them.] It was more or less fine while he was still in the Navy, but he got out and we both started working in the nuke industry. That is where it sort of went mentally abusive.
See, we decided about a year before he got out to buy a house. For some stupid reason of banking, the bank he used refused to let me have any sort of access to his accounts. No check writing, no early form of ATM card, no credit cards. Despite the fact that my exroomie was the one that was convicted of stealing my checkbook and passing bad checks. So we decided I was going to stop working the nuke contracts, and the house we bought really needed renovation. The problem started when we hit a money disbursing issue. He didn’t have the time to work on the house while he was working the contracts, they typically lasted 2-3 months and were away from Tidewater VA. When he wasn’t working he had the time, but refused to spend any money. The mortgage automatically came out of his account, but the regular utilities [water, electricity, telephone] would be randomly turned off for nonpayment, generally while he was away on a contract because I couldn’t do anything about paying all the bills every month. We had mrAru2 and 3 or 4 different roomies over the course of a couple years - the ‘rent’ they paid was not adequate for me to eat and pay every bill every month. [except the water bill, that was quarterly and every damned time mrAru 1 swore he paid it before he left on contract]
[mrAru 2 was from a divorce home and his dad was a deadbeat that rarely paid his child support so mrAru1 had issues with money leaving his bank account.]
The straw that broke my back was pretty simple. A friend had given me a set of appliances that was effectively brand new - the apartment complex he was a manager for went condo and all the apartments got a renovation, and all the appliances even the ones that had just been replaced got thrown away. While mrAru1 was away on contract, I had been given enough money for Christmas to buy the stuff to redo the floor and cabinets in the kitchen with the basic builder grade cheap crap from the local big box hardware. All mrAru 1 needed to do was supply the elbow grease, and rental for stuff like the floor sander, and little odds and ends, probably a hundred or so in adhesive, nails, stuff I knew I didn’t know that I needed. So off I went to visit my mom and dad, we had a cousin that was getting married and mrAru didn’t like going to weddings [neither do I, but family is family]
I came home to a house that was FULL of dust, mold and mildew kicked up by sanding the ancient kitchen floor, and the kitchen itself an empty shell as all the base cabinets had been pulled out. As I stand in the living room having an asthma attack, mrAru 2 [who had been at sea and got home pretty much as I was getting home] shoved me out the door and put me up in a motel overnight. He cleaned the stairwell, and the entire upstairs of the dust and crap, and barriered the base of the stairs with heavy plastic to keep the crap downstairs. I moved back into the upstairs of the house. Luckily, the only bathroom in the house was upstairs. mrAru2 bought me a cube fridge, a brand new coffee maker, a hotplate and washed up my favorite la creuset pan [the one that has the 3 qt sauce and the 9 inch skillet as a combination] and a set of stuff to eat off of, and bought me a fridge of groceries [and kept me supplied with groceries for the next 6 months.] By the time that mrAru was rotating up to Groton [9 months] the dust and crap still had not been cleaned up by mrAru1, the kitchen had not gotten finished, and I was seriously peeved at mrAru1.
We sat down and discussed his passive-aggressive bullcrap. I pointed out that his issue with prying any sort of operating budget for me out of his bank account, and his behavior about working on the house was driving me insane and if we were going to remain at least friends something had to change. He decided that his issues were not going to get better, and we decided to get divorced. At the same time, mrAru2 was living with a girlfriend who couldn’t manage to deal with mrAru1’s passive aggressive crap and they had moved out. She was driving mrAru2 nuts, and he dear johned her while on a short med run, so she took his car and got both a MC and Visa in his name, using his power of attorney and maxed them out on vacation to Disneyworld in Florida.
mrAru2 asked me if I wanted a fresh start up in Groton with him, I said yes. mrAru1 and I did the separation paperwork, he kept the house and car, I kept my IH scout and half the furniture, half the bank account and all my remaining stuff [I had gotten my storage locker broken into and most of my stuff stolen, and a lot of my gaming stuff had been stolen by the same roomie that also stole some checks and bounced them all over Norfolk.] and off we went to Groton. Divorce got finalized, and mrAru1 and the former GF of mrAru2 brought the paperwork up, and hung around for the wedding. They named their first daughter after me.
We really do get along much better as friends than as spouses.