He’s a Thief?!
Unfortunately, this is one of the most difficult things I have had to deal with and I guess it really boils down to trust. I started to realize money, like crazy amounts, were being taken out of our joint account. He said it was for fast food or medicine at CVS and I believed him for years.
In March 2014, Kemmon and I decided to do the Dave Ramsey classes for our budget. Basically, it is all cash for everything. At the beginning of each month I would take out a wad of cash, and put it in envelopes marked groceries, toiletries, car account, etc. If there isn’t money in the envelope, then we couldn’t buy it. I started to realize that money was going missing or that we didn’t have enough to last us.
“he not only found out the safe had a key slot but he had found the keys. ”
One day at work I realized that $200 was taken out of my envelopes (I had just gotten out the money for the month). I was so upset. I told Kemmon about it and he said that it was okay and that maybe someone at work had taken it. Unfortunately, at that time, there was an old man at my work who was known for stealing and I had caught him in my office before. I assumed it was probably him. I bought a bank bag that was locked with a key and wrote on the bag “Keep Your Fucking Hands Off”.
The bag made me feel so safe. I hid a key in my house and kept a key on my work key ring. Things were going well for a while until they weren’t. I don’t really remember what happened, but I knew someone got into my bank bag. I suspected it was my husband but there is no way he would steal money from me. I said fuck it and bought a safe that had a punch code so I could be the only one to get in it. Now, it had a hidden spot on it where you could get into the safe with a key but I hid that key SO WELL.
“i fell to the floor and the room was spinning. my mind went blank.”
OMG I can’t even tell you how at ease I felt with that safe. I had all of the money and a few other valuables in it and I could sleep easy at night. I knew no one could get into it. I even had double protection because I kept the locked bank bag and then put that in the safe. No one was getting to my money!
One day Kemmon was in the shower and I was putting away laundry. While doing so, I noticed that the tassel of where I hid the key was sticking out of my hiding place. FUCK. He not only found out the safe had a key slot but he had found the keys. He got out of the shower and we just got into it. He admitted he was the one getting into the safe. He didn’t even give a good reason for why he was getting in the safe; he just was. I LITERALLY felt like the two lobes in my brain split in half. I fell to the floor and the room was spinning. My mind went blank. I felt like my whole world was crashing around me. Little did I know this was only the beginning of the lies and all the awful stuff he did to me. Even writing this now almost brings me to tears and it has been almost a year since this happened.
7 years later…
Seven years later I still got tears in my eyes while reading this (and even writing this). It is hard to put into words all of the feelings I felt when I realized he was the one taking money from my purse. Kemmon convinced me that it wasn’t him taking the money. He gave me so many ideas of how the money could have gone missing. Or how I had forgotten I did XYZ and I spent the money. I vividly remember sitting outside in a CVS parking lot when I tried to pay for some medicine and couldn’t get it because I had no cash in our ‘envelopes’. I was just sitting on the curb racking my brain about how $200 could disappear in one day.
I had even gotten to the point of going to the bank and crying to the teller saying I didn’t understand how all this money was coming out of my account when my husband was the only one with access. The sweet woman grabbed my hand and said something about how sometimes family members can do bad things. (Tearing up while I’m remembering that day) I remember calling Kroger’s grocery store and telling them that they can no longer allow my husband to buy things at their store. The manager told me there was nothing he could do. Looking back that is just so silly that I did that but it was truly an awful time in my life.
I think I knew deep down something was off in my marriage. It’s just so hard to believe that the person you love could do something so awful to you. After he got clean, he started telling me bits and pieces of what he was doing. I list them here so I can always remember how deceitful someone can be while in active use and maybe help you if you’re on this journey with a loved one.
He would take his drug dealer to the grocery store and would buy him groceries in exchange for drugs.
He would go to CVS to buy gift cards to then give to his dealer.
He was pawing things
He would wake up at crazy hours when I was still sleeping, go in my purse, steal my bank card and then go to the ATM to get cash out.
He would ask for money for ‘union dues’ or for the company pitch-in and use that for drugs
He stole money from his mom
He sold his plasma
He picked up a side job and wouldn’t tell me how much money he was getting or that they didn’t pay him yet
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