Feb.25, 2017
I must try and make entries more often. Most days when I get home from work I am too weary to do anything but get a few things ready for the next morning and then climb into bed. I don't get up early anymore - 7am gives me time to get ready for work and still make a stop to pick up oats for the horses and feed for the steers and hens enroute. It is a 45 minute commute each way and I don't get home until 9:20 or so. Thank goodness we close the store at 8pm and not any later.
I am usually in a pretty good mood as I drive home, but as soon as I pull into the yard any happy feelings I may have completely disappear. And when I step into the house, my day is completely ruined. There is always a mess everywhere, stuff laying around and footprints on the floors because Nick is too lazy to take his boots off when he comes inside. It doesn't matter what I tidy or clean the day before, it is all undone within about 24 hours.
Enough whining about stuff that goes on and on. The day before yesterday when I was off I noticed some scraps of paper stuck in the mud by the garage where we put the garbage. Actually, to be truthful, where I put the garbage. I don't think Nick has ever put the kitchen or barn garbage in a black garbage bag and set it by the corner of the garage. I had walked by these three scraps of paper earlier that day on my way to the barn so on my way back in I picked them up. My plan was just to cram them into one of the bags that was there, but I couldn't help but recognize one of the pieces as part of a bank statement. I knew I didn't tear mine up and put them anywhere someone might get an account number and a name, so I knew it had to belong to Nick. It said 'Home Equity Line of Credit' with the mortgaged property as our farm. The date was January 4th, 2017. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Well, I knew what it must be and what it must mean, and for a few minutes I was incredulous that Nick would have the nerve to do such a thing without my permission, but then I realized that there was no reason for me to be surprised by the degree of his deception and denial. Each time I was sure we were as dysfunctional as we could get, down another notch we would go.
I suppose the bank thinks Nick owns half of the farm, which of course, is not true. Every penny of the down-payment was mine, as is more than half of the equity. We started out by agreeing to each put $1500 into a joint chequing account each month, from which the $800 tractor payment would come and the rest was to go on the mortgage. The mortgage payment was around $1000 but we were planning to pay it down as quickly as we could. Oh boy, those were the days! As things started to fall apart, I did check a statement every few months to make sure that the mortgage was being paid off, but for the past two years or so I have been giving Nick a cheque for $1000 every month, which means I am paying the $1000 mortgage payment and he is covering the $800 tractor payment, which translates into my paying 20% more than he is.
I am really steamed about the fact he was approved for this without my permission and I intend to call the bank my next weekday back at work. I plan to ask to speak to whoever it was who set it up - I have dealt with this branch for about 23 years and I know most of the staff by name. I could wager a guess it was Danny who is involved, and I am also going to ask him if he checked the balance of Nick's credit card. When I finally asked Nick a few months ago how much he owed, he told me his unpaid balance was $27,000.00. Then I noticed he was still buying stuff with his visa and when I asked him how he was doing this he told me he had had the credit limited raised. So obviously he maxed that out and still has not stopped buying his expensive protein powder and amino acid powders - he takes several different kinds as well as creatine. Like I mentioned before he gets a parcel in the mail at least once a week and sometimes 2 and 3 times in the same week.
Besides the fact that I need to know exactly what this line of credit on the farm means to me as far as the extent to which I can be held legally responsible, this out-of-control spending of his means that it is me who has to now pay for all the feed for the animals as well as everything else. I have noticed he has started doing local errands on my days off now and the past two times has asked if he could take my car because his has a flat tire - and so he uses my gas. And when the snow needed clearing after the snowstorms a couple of weeks back Nick announced he was out of diesel fuel for the tractor as well as a supply of gas for the generator. It cost me nearly $100 to fill the four containers we like to keep topped up in case of emergencies, two with diesel and two with gas. Descriptions of the signs and symptoms and the type of behaviour typical of morbid jealousy include an addiction of some kind - and I am now certain that Nick is addicted either to on-line shopping or all the performance and physique enhancing supplements he takes or perhaps to both.
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