Dear Future Husband,

Dear Future Husband.... I have been searching for you for at least 27 1/2 years now..... I've had the perfect wedding planned for you for years. I've had the date picked, for years. It started with 05/06/07..... Then it was going to maybe be 10/11/12...... This year is was 12/13/14. I've always wanted a wedding date with consecutive numbers. This is the last year for that chance. So I want to apologize to you. I haven't found you yet, and I'm so close to giving up. I don't like the feeling of giving up. I don't like the hopelessness feeling that comes with heartbreak. I don't like planning my wedding and my future with a man... only to realize he isn't you. Future husband, I can promise you, that when I do find you I will love you with all my heart and soul. I will give you so much that you will wonder how you survived before you found us. I will love and cherish you for all of my days. I will be loyal and faithful and helpful to you. I will fix you dinner, make your plate. I'll wash and fold your clothes. I will spoil you. And you will let me. I am a very giving person, always have been... always will be. I promise I will give to you so much that you will probably feel smothered. But, please know I'm not trying to smother you. It's the way that I love.... Just ask my kids. But dear husband of mine, that I haven't yet had the privilege of meeting yet..... I need you to do a few things for me.

Please, be an adult. You don't have to act your age all the time. But please.. be able to have an adult conversation without... running away... throwing a fit.... throwing a temper tantrum.... hitting me.... yelling at me... or giving up on us. I promise I wouldn't be investing my time into you if I didn't think it was worth it.

Please have lived your life. Please have crazy and wild stories about riding on top of the car. Please have an insanely beautiful ex-girlfriend. I want to be crazy jealous of the time you had with her...  but ridiculously overwhelmed by the fact that she had you...  but now you're mine. And will be forever. But even though you have the stories... please respect our relationship. Don't compare... Don't tell me stories that I don't want to hear (sexual escapades with said beautiful ex).

Please.. and this is one of the big ones. Please... Love my children. They have been through so much in the past few years. I have put them through so much in the past few years. They deserve you to  treat them like they are your own flesh and blood. Their own fathers don't treat them that way. They deserve someone who does. Love them, discipline them, cater to them, be hard on them, let them get away with things. Let Brooke fix your hair. Teach Bryson to catch a football and play baseball. My children are my world.... They will always come first in our lives... as will yours if you have any.

Please have manners. Say please and thank you. Chew with your mouth closed. Hang up your towel after the shower (most the time). The little things count more than you could ever imagine and mean more to me than I could ever explain.

Please remember this.... White Roses. They're my favorite. Yes my favorite color is red... but White roses will always get you far.

Please talk to me. Voice your opinion. Voice your fears. Your dreams. You wants and needs. Please don't keep it bottled in.... I am your biggest advocate and I will always have your back in any situation. (Within reason).

Dear future husband.... I am so excited to meet you. I miss you and I don't even know your name. I love you, and I don't even know the color of your eyes. I dream of you and I've never heard your voice. I know that we will be happy, I know that we will prevail and I know that we will have our happily ever after.

Dear future husband.... here's the biggest one of all.......... Please exist. Please be out there and find me. I need you more than you could ever imagine and I want to begin the rest of my life with you.

28 days to make or break a habit.....

Where do I go from here? 8 months doesn't seem like a long relationship... but to me, it is. My longest relationship actually. What's crazy is I didn't need 8 months. I knew from the day I met him that there was something special about him. I knew from the first week with him that I wanted to see him every single day for as long as he would let me. I knew within the 1st month that I was happier than I ever could be. I knew within 2 months that I loved in... and I've known for a while that I could and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I've also known from the day I met him that he had a drinking problem. I found out after the first week just how bad it was. By the 3rd week I knew I should've ran. But, like I said.... with in the first hour I knew there was something special about him. I couldn't walk away. I couldn't run. On Halloween he ruined the holiday for my kids because he took forever to get ready and then he was drunk by the time we were going to trick or treat. We went to 4 houses and then it was time to get home. On the way home he let me know he had decided to do acid. It was a holiday "tradition" and he didn't want to pass it up just because we were together. I should've walked away then.... I tried.. We broke up, for all of 24 hours. I don't know why I took him back. I don't know why I couldn't walk away.... But I didn't. Things got better, the drinking got better. The drugs went away. The happiness came back tenfold. Then Thanksgiving came..... we had an amazing morning together cooking and getting ready for dinners with our respective families. He finished with his parents first so he went to a bar while he waited for me to finish..... He managed not to be drunk so we went to the apartment and had a great evening watching movies and snuggling. Christmas came..we had the most amazing Christmas morning. The most amazing time opening presents with my kids in the morning. Going to my parent's for breakfast. He then went to Emily's and his parents to do their things. I came home to the apartment around 6 or 7.... he had been drinking and had some more left. The kids went to bed and he got drunk... very drunk. Then he got called out to work. Left to work drunk  and terrified me and my friend because he has to drive for his job. Then Valentine's Day came.... the Thursday before he got mad  at me. I don't even remember why. On Valentine's Day he didn't call me all day (he was at work) finally he called me at around lunch time and told me Happy Valentine's day. He showed up at home from working all night at around 7AM he brought me some Easter Lillies and an Easter Bunny... he said it was because when he was at walmart at 6AM they were already pulling out the Easter stuff and thought it was funny. It's hard to explain but that gift was.... was just so... Daniel. I know you're  reading this thinking...  WHY DID YOU STAY?!?! Because those bad things I mentioned... Are all the bad things I could think of. Plus I had to think very hard about those things. The good had always outweighed the bad until recently. That's why I was always able to look the other way. However last Thursday I couldn't anymore. I couldn't turn my head while he got drunk, again, 3rd night in a row, and while on call. Long story short we got in a fight. Long story short he's gone. ... my family  is gone. My security is gone. My happiness (the kind only he can give me) is gone. Thursday at lunch we asked who was gonna take who's name. He said he likes the name Beaman so I said oh so will you be taking my last name?!? And he laughed, kissed me, and said no of course not... you WILL be a McAfee someday.  Less than 12 hours later we're over. We're done. I don't understand, I don't want to understand. I want to wake up and redo Thursday. I want to make different decisions and give him the chance to make different decisions. I've talked to him every single day... every single day for 8 and a half  months. I've seen him ALMOST everyday since September 15, 2014. Unless he was at work or something. Now it's been a week. A week without a word. No texts. No facebook messages. No smoke signals. Not one single tiny itty bitty word. It's so weird, I'm not used to it. It hurts. It's a nice relief. It's unimaginable the mix of emotions I am having. Mostly just sadness. Sad for my kids who lost the closest thing to a father they've ever had. Sad that his son Malachi has lost his chance at the stable family we could provide him. Sad that all the progress Daniel has made to better his life will begin to backtrack, quickly. Sad that the family I worked so hard to make fell apart in just a few hours. Just sad... I have cried every day for a week. A little less each day but still every day. I know that I'm going to be ok. I know that we're going to be ok. My kids, and I will make it, we always do. But it isn't fair... we deserve the happiness Daniel was able to give us. But we don't deserve the pain he caused with his drinking. I know that he is capable of getting sober. He is able to be the man I know he can be. But he has to be willing... and right now. He isn't willing to let go of that life for the family we had. For the family we could be...... I can't write more tonight.... But that's the just of it.

Waves...

It comes in waves... I'll go days, weeks, sometimes even months without a single breakdown. Without too many tears. Then, I'll come across something. I'll read something, hear something or think of something. Then the tears start and sometimes they just can't stop. Right now happens to be one of those moments. I have seen a blog posted by a few friends. I've wanted to read it but I haven't had the courage. Today, I finally got the found the strength, I pulled up the blog and started to read. I didn't get past the first page without tears. It's titled "I'm an accomplice to my brother's suicide". Her younger brother took his life a few weeks before his 21st birthday. Sound familiar? Tony was 3 weeks and 3 days away from being 21. After reading her blog it's so comforting and yet so condemning? Is that the word? Every word she said was true. We were all accomplices.  We all helped by not knowing how to help. Some people by refusing to help. Like Erin I am using my pain to help others. Like Erin I have become involved in the AFSP. I opened up my laptop and I had  so much to say... Now that I'm typing... I've got nothing.. The best thing I can say is learn the signs, and watch for them. Most importantly... if you see the signs... Take action. Please don't bean accomplice by doing nothing. Stand up, speak out. Do Something.