I didn't want to make this journal after  FluffyShutterbug and I finally split from each other. I wanted to just move on with my life and pretend the last three years were just a bad dream. But since I've been made aware that Jamie is going around telling people a side of the story that paints me as an uncaring partner who abandoned them when they needed help, I feel I need to set the record straight.

I've explained a lot of what I experienced since 2020 in several previous journals so, I'm just going to focus on my relationship with Jamie. I want to start off by saying, my marriage to Jamie wasn't all bad. We had a lot of good times that I still like looking back on, and even though I'm going to mention Jamie's boyfriend occasionally, I have no beef with him, and as far as I know he doesn't have one with me either. This is about Jamie's framing of events near the end of our time together and leaving out context.

So, I mentioned in the past that Jamie got a job with Six Flags in 2021, and got their boyfriend a job with them in 2022 before they were both laid off in August of 2022. Months beforehand I told Jamie that they should really start looking for a new job with better hours and pay. They'd only worked at Six Flags to get job experience they were lacking, and due to the wage and hours, I was covering most of our expenses. They didn't listen to me, and then they were back at square one where it might as well have been they never even had a job for a year in the first place!

So, once they both got laid off, I became the sole provider of income in a household of three. I saw plenty of evidence that Jamie's boyfriend was applying to open positions he thought he might be qualified for, but I never could tell if Jamie was or not, they never updated me. I mentioned in other journals that I was having to do food deliveries like Favor and Doordash to make sure we had enough for the rent. The rent we were paying was around $1500 a month, which is basically the equivalent of an entire, biweekly paycheck of mine. Jamie and their boyfriend would help me sometimes, which I appreciated, but ultimately it was still me bringing in all the money.

Jamie and their boyfriend's relationship was very dysfunctional, they'd argue all the time, and half the time I had no idea what it was about. I had plenty of friends who confessed that they could tell there was something wrong in my relationship, even if I wasn't telling them, and it was ultimately that, that finally got me to sit Jamie down and we both agreed that it would be best to get a divorce.

Even though I already had so much on my plate, I was the one expected to make sure all of the divorce paperwork was completed and on time. The only thing Jamie did was sign where I needed them to sign, but all the while they had all the free time in the world due to being unemployed, they'd constantly pester me on the status of the divorce. This was basically my life with Jamie, if something important needed to be done, I was the one expected to do it, even if it was something Jamie had the capacity to complete on their own.

During all this, I tried my best to maintain some semblance of a social life and tried to fulfill my need for intimacy with different romantic partners that helped support me in such a difficult period in my life. But I was still under so much stress, I entered the worst depressive episode I’ve had so far. I literally couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed for about a week to do anything except my full time job at home. I literally didn’t even shower for four whole days in a row because I just didn’t see the point in anything. I was carrying everything on my shoulders and just wanted it all to end.

Eventually I finalized the divorce and it was approved about a month before our lease was set to expire and we were going to move out. But being officially divorced didn't stop Jamie from expecting me to bail them out of every situation they were in. They asked me if I could help them move their stuff to another part of Texas, which would have included me paying for a U-Haul for them, and then driving said U-Haul to their move in spot and then back to San Antonio. I would have had to drive it because neither Jamie or their boyfriend had their licenses. Their boyfriend at least had the reasonable excuse of being nearly blind in one eye, but I remember the three of us talking about them at least trying to go through the process of getting licenses back in January of this year, but of course, Jamie never followed through with that, even when I made it clear that I was willing to pay for them to take the test, and let them practice with my car while I'm in it.

I told them that I'd try to save up the money to help with that, but due to expenses I don't have a lot of wiggle room to save and I had to also get ready to move my own stuff as well. I also advised them not to put all their hope on me and to have backup plans just in case I couldn't follow through. But I guess Jamie took this as me saying "yes, absolutely," because they never made any backup plans.
 
Anyway, because life could never stop throwing curveballs of fire at me, I was visiting my master in July and ended up driving back to San Antonio late at night. Let me take the time to give you some advice; if you ever feel like you're starting to doze off at the wheel, just pull over to the first parking lot you see and take a nap. I wish I had taken that advice, but I basically closed my eyes a few seconds too long, lost control of my vehicle, and slammed head-on into the median. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as it could have been, I walked away with just a black eye and a very minor but painful injury to my foot, but my car was totaled and I knew I wouldn't be able to get it fixed. I was stuck without a car to do deliveries with, or to help me move.

Of course, Jamie found out when I got home in the morning that my car was gone and I'd injured my foot, but that didn't stop them from asking "so, are you still going to be able to help us move?" I was absolutely stunned that they could still think that was possible after what I just explained to them. I stopped being nice and just told them "Jamie, my car is gone, I'm nursing an injured foot, I still have to pay our last month's rent, and I have to figure out how I'm going to move my stuff now too. I told you to make a backup plan in case something like this happened, hell, we talked about you getting your license in January, whatever happened with that?"

Their answer was "we didn't have the money to take the test," to which I told them I would have much rather you came to me at the start of the year asking for 20-40 bucks for a drivers test than $1000+ for a moving truck! And this is what's making me make this thread, because I've been hearing Jamie has been telling the story as "Ash didn't want to help us move!" I even spelled it out for them after my car accident "It's not that I don't want to help you, if I could, I would move you to where you need to be in a heart beat, but I have no means or money to do so! I can't help you if I'm not able to." But they still want to act like I was just being vindictive and refusing to help them because "they weren't my problem."

You know what’s crazy, I just remembered that months before my accident, during a point where I was expressing my frustration to Jamie about all the stress I was under. I basically predicted my own accident and told them “Am I just expected to continue working my day job, work my delivery job, without taking any time to rest, working myself to exhaustion until I finally fall asleep at the wheel one night and end up dead on the side of the road somewhere? What will you do then? Have you ever considered that very possible turn of events?” I guess they really never learn, even after it’s too late.

They eventually did find a friend who was willing to use their van to help move their stuff, so it's not like I left them in an empty apartment to get evicted. But Jamie doesn't want to take responsibility for their own life and admit the truth that they could have done more. I acknowledge that they're on the autism spectrum, but that's no excuse to continually rely on other people to take on extra responsibilities to support both them and you. When I married them I wanted a partner, but instead it felt more like I became the parent of a terminally online child who couldn't do anything for themselves.

I made so many sacrifices to try and make our marriage work, because I cared for Jamie that much. I cooked, I paid for internet and utilities, I put Jamie on my health insurance, I took care of our cat, I tried to put money aside for us to have fun every now and then, I put myself in $13,000 worth of credit card debt to take care of every emergency life threw at us that needed to be paid for! I gave, and gave, and gave, and gave… and I almost never got anything back from it.

And after learning the way Jamie has been framing the story, I guess I was just expected to keep giving, and taking on new responsibilities to support us like I had goddamn superpowers! It’s like that old Goldfinger song:

So here I am, doing everything I can
Holding on to what I am,
Pretending I’m a Superman
I’m trying to sleep
I lost count of sheep
My mind is racing faster every minute
But could I do more?
Yeah, I’m really not sure
I know I’m running circles but I can’t quit
And I’m so confused about what to do
Sometimes I wanna throw it all away

Around the time I decided to pursue divorce I learned two lessons in life that I wish Jamie had learned as well:
1. Don't sacrifice your own happiness for someone else's, especially when it's not working. It's not fair to yourself or the other person, you should be feeding into each other's happiness, not as a one-way street.
2. Sometimes, when you're at your lowest point, sometimes you only have yourself to rely on to get yourself out of it.

Thanks for taking the time to read my side of the story. Please don't go after Jamie, or message them about this. I just wanted to get my side of things out there to give context to Jamie's very selective and summarized version of events. It especially makes me mad that they seem to be l leaving out the fact that by the time moving day began to approach, I no longer had a car, and had basically been living paycheck to paycheck.