Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

I worked 2 jobs for six months and so did Jose. In that time we saved enough to start looking for a new house so that we could marry and then live together. Remember we have been dating for a few years by this time and always maintained separate homes. I did not want to set an example for my children that I personally could not approve. We started looking at homes and I found some very cute ones. Jose wanted to buy this disgustingly ugly, run-down POS with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a dirt basement. Why??? It was going for $28,000.00. I don't think that it was even worth that much. It was GROSS. Of course, we bought it. We spent three days just killing bugs that the 15 Mexican men that rented the house had left behind. Yes, I said 15. I scrubbed and cussed. Then I cussed and scrubbed. Finally, the house was clean enough for the kids to come home. They had their own bedrooms and we had ours. We couldn't afford the house and a wedding so we were married by a judge, and no one was there (my family was running on Chicano time). So, when the ceremony (sic) was over we went home and changed clothes. I made lunch and he went to his brother's house to hang out. While I was unpacking everything, I found a white frilly blouse XS. My heart stopped in my chest, I felt light headed. I was numb. When he returned I asked him about the blouse. He was sure it was a joke played on him by his ex-roommate. I believed him. The bright side of the new house was that the new neighborhood was full of little kids and my sweeties had the yard full of neighbor kids. They were having a blast! Jose wasn't drinking at; he wasn't really a drinker in the first place so I felt reassured that the previous incident was isolated and wouldn't happen again. We went on like that for several years. The worst part about our relationship at that time was that I learned that Jose was a "Pot-head". That is something that I did not know beforehand. Jose's sister came here from Honduras and she needed a place to stay. My husband had her come and stay with us. She was only 19 and had 2 young daughters she had left with her mother in Honduras. We initially got along and she was trying to work construction with my husband, until Jose's other brother and sister-in-law came from New York. Jose's brother and sister-in-law came to stay with us with her 2 children, a boy and a girl; I welcomed them gladly and moved my 2 babies into the bedroom with me and Jose. Then everyone changed. I would come home from work and my brother-in-law and sisters-in-law would have the living room full of people and they would all go upstairs to the bedroom that we had for them to use. It was like I was unwanted in my own home. I started to notice that my children's clothes were on my brother-in-laws step-children. I would go to make dinner for my family and all the pots and pans were dirty with food from an early dinner that my sister-in-law made. The final straw came when I arrived home from work and they, all three, began to yell at me because we had run out of toilet paper. "Excuse me? One of you couldn't go to the store while I was working and buy some? I am not your mother." The insults began. "My brother doesn't care about you. He had a real woman and you broke them up. No one likes you with your blond hair and your money, he only uses you and we all hate you." GREAT! How nice is that? I tried to talk with Jose about the situation and he told me that I was just picking on his family. I was miserable. I just wanted to grab my babies and leave. I didn't really have anywhere to go at the time, but I had good credit and I just wanted out of the hell that was my home life. Mother's day weekend they started treating him the same way. His sister told him he was a horrible person because he didn't buy her a gift for Mother's Day. They had an argument and he told her that he didn't buy anything for his wife either (true), and she was his sister not his mother. She proceeded to tell him that her new sister-in-law had bought her a dress and shoes and that Z (sister-in-law) was now her second mother. Give me a break! This trick was spending all day with a new Mexican boyfriend she had met in our town. I saw her. So did my husband. That Saturday the cable company came to install cable in the room that we had for my brother-in-law and his wife and her two children. The problem was that the service was to be in my name! He finally, saw the light! It sure took him long enough. Then the two new children came.