A Difficult Start

About five months after we married, Cindy tested positive on a pregnancy test. Number one son was on his way! I was working at the post office, I think, when we found out Cindy was pregnant. Thankfully this was a period of time when our state had good social benefits. My post office job was temporary and benefits were limited. I have good memories of this time, I don’t remember too much negativity. We had gotten our first apartment. Shortly after this I got a job on by the railroad. Cindy's pregnancy was a pre-existing condition not covered by the railroad's health plan (America, what a country!)

Cindy was a great cook and I had been morbidly obese for much of my childhood. I lost most of my weight during the summer between High School and College, before I met Cindy. After we married I started putting weight back on. I had always yo-yoed with my weight. By the end of 1976 I was getting obese again.

After the baby came, we continued living in our apartment until my father's health deteriorated.

Sometime in the winter of of this year I was injured on the job. Early the next year things started changing, not for the better, in Cindy and my marriage. After a month I went back to work. Then, my father got very sick. We moved back in with my parents to help my dad. I was getting a lot of pressure from my sisters to do this. I was dead set against doing it. I thought it was too much. I was 21, my wife 19. This was about a year into our marriage.

I felt my siblings should share more in the burden of taking care of my dad. Cindy, who was 19 at the time, took care of my dad with almost no help. She and I started fighting a lot. I was very angry. I did not appreciate how much she loved my parents. She really took on a lot. She did it out of love. I just made her life more difficult.

Remember, we had a baby too. Our child had his own health problems. In addition, unbeknownst to me at the time, Cindy, and my oldest brother Darryl, started having sex. This was about 15 months into our marriage.