To understand why gambling was such an issue, you have to go back long before we ever met... even before Paul was born. Paul's parents married young and they soon had a son and then another and then another. In between the births of the boys, Paul's dad struggled with a gambling problem. He says now that he used to take his paycheck on a Friday and go to the pool hall and lose his whole paycheck playing poker. He said that there were times when his mother-in-law would have to buy groceries to feed his family because he'd either gambled or drank away his paycheck. It took a long time for him to get it out of his system, but he eventually did and has since worked hard for every penny he's got.
That being said, Paul's parents both enjoy gambling and frequent casino's dozens of times a year. They took him to Las Vegas before he was legally allowed to set foot in a casino. This was instilled in him very young and since then, he's struggled.
When Paul was seventeen, the girl he was seeing got pregnant. A year later, when the baby was one, the girls parents got a burr up their hind end and told Paul that he would either marry their now seventeen year old daughter or charges would be pressed against him since he was then eighteen. And so he entered in a marriage with a woman he didn't want to be married to. He told me once how trapped he felt. He felt a sense of obligation to his child, but he didn't want all the responsibility that came with it.
The marriage didn't last long. She cheated on him several times and he went to Oklahoma to be with his parents where his dad had been relocated for his job. There he worked at a glass factory and eventually started a construction company. The now ex-wife and baby came out to stay with him for a short time, but it didn't last. I don't know the entire story of what happened with the construction company, but I have been told by various family members that he gambled quite heavily during his time in Oklahoma and took money from a client and used to to gamble. His brother said that he and their cousin had to go to Oklahoma once to bail Paul out of a jam when he spent all the money and couldn't finish a job.
At some point he stole a check from a friend of the family for a thousand dollars and his parents had to pay her off to keep him out of trouble. There were other things going on at this time that have never fully been explained to me. He was facing charges in Indiana, though it is unclear for what and how the time line actually goes. He started seeing a woman, a former cousin-in-law, and lived with her for a while. He said he was with her for over a year, though his ex-wife became pregnant with his second child shortly before he was sent to prison. The time lines have never made sense to me.
Paul told me when we first met that he was a serial monogamous. He likes being in committed relationships. However, when he found out he was being sent away, he broke up with the woman he lived with. When the conception of the second child occurred within the time frame of the relationship with the other woman is still a mystery to me. Paul had various check theft and forgery charges from several people and was eventually put in jail. He spent several months in county jails before being sentenced to eight years at the Miami county Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana. I can't imagine the desperation and hopelessness he must have felt.
He seemed to make the most of it, however. He got his associates degree in general studies from Ball State in less than two years and it knocked some time off his sentence, but he still spent three years and eight months of his life locked up without freedom because of poor choices he'd made. He spent some time speaking in public schools to kids about making better choices than he did and seemed to have a passion for it. When he got out in February 2007, he had to readjust to the life outside. Even now, I don't think he really has adjusted. Part of him is still locked behind bars... and it eats at him.
He'd been out of prison just a few months when he met me. He'd barely had time to get a job and start figuring out what he wanted to do with his life when we got engaged and bought a house. Everything was too fast, too soon. But at the time it didn't seem like a mistake. It seemed very much that he was just trying to start his life over and had met a woman he wanted to spend that life with. He was sweet and caring and didn't seem at all like a person capable of doing the things he said he'd done to land him in prison. His family would talk about the man he had been and I couldn't see any of that in the man I was quickly falling in love with.
The first time we went to a casino and every time after, it was nothing for him to lose $200 and want to take more out of the ATM. If I'd win, he'd take half and lose that, too. If I lost, we'd go home broke. There were a few jackpots and that seemed to keep the fire burning. We'd go months without him even mentioning a casino. He'd buy the occasional lottery ticket or play poker online, but that seemed to satisfy him.
And then one night we were at Lowes and Paul suddenly felt like he was having a heart attack. I rushed him to the emergency room and they said he was having a panic attack. A week later his doctor prescribed Xanax and he took them faithfully. The panic attacks seemed to come from nowhere. One minute he'd be fine and the next he'd totally lose it. We would be sitting at home watching a movie and all of a sudden something would trigger a panic attack and I'd have to lay with him for an hour and rub his back or talk to him. Sometimes I could distract him with sex, but for the most part, he just had to be talked down from the cliff.
The Xanax seemed to make all his inhibitions go away. He was soon asking to go to the casino again and for several months, it was binge gambling. He'd go whether I went or not and most of the time he would lose. He'd be tore up and tormented about he money he'd lost, but he wouldn't stop going. The wedding date we'd chosen came and went and we could never come up with enough money to afford it. So September 15, 2008, we went to the courthouse and got a marriage license and went to my brother's and exchanged vows in my brother's living room.
I remember the tears streaming down my face as I looked in his eyes and said, "for better or worse" and "I do". The love I felt for him in that moment took my breath away. I couldn't imagine being any happier! I was finally Mrs. Vaughn and I never wanted to leave his side! Times were tough and money was hard to come by. We'd already maxed out every credit card we'd paid off (some of them twice) and we'd begged my parents to take a mortgage out on their home to help us pay off some debt. But none of that mattered, because I'd finally married the man of my dreams!
He got a job at Tyson and hated it. He was working third shift and the sudden time shift in his schedule was really getting to him. We began talking about moving in with his parents to save money and possibly filing bankruptcy. We couldn't afford the life we'd created anymore. The debt was too large. We felt helpless. As we started staying at his parents house during the week to be closer to our jobs, we found ourselves having less and less time together. Our opposite schedules left little time for connecting. I missed sleeping with him beside me.
After a month and a half of exhaustion and stress and panic attacks, Paul came back to his parents one morning and crashed on the couch. I came in and was sitting on the couch near him when his phone rang. It was unusual for me to answer his phone, but he was sleeping so peacefully that I didn't want it to wake him. It was a local number, so I answered. The woman on the other end of the line said that she was calling to collect a debt, that Paul had written a bad check and it needed to be taken care of immediately.
"Ma'am," I said quite sarcastically, "My husband doesn't have a checking account. There's no way he could have written a check." And then my mind went to the mail I'd gotten a week before. A letter came for Paul from Kroger for 3 bounced checks for varying amounts. He'd convinced me that his identity must have been stolen and went so far as to call Kroger in front of me and ask about how to file an identity theft charge. "I'm afraid he did write a check, Mrs. Vaughn," she said. "It appears to have been written on an E-Trade check." I don't remember what I said to her, but I remember hanging up and throwing the phone at Paul.
"Tell me you didn't do this!" I shouted at him. He woke from his hard sleep immediately. "Didn't do what?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "You wrote a bad check at Zeibart. And the checks from Kroger... those were yours too?" The room started spinning. For a moment I felt that I was going to throw up. "It's not true! It's not true!" he started to say, but I walked him off. I walked out of the house and drove to our house. He called me almost immediately.
"Honey, I didn't mean to. You have to believe me!" He pleaded. "Did you write check to Kroger?" I asked. "Yes." And then I lost it. I drove to my dad's house and collapsed in his arms and sobbed. I barely made it out that Paul had written over $700 in bad checks. I couldn't make sense of it. I was so lost. It took months for the entire truth to come out. There were more than four bad checks. There was also two gas accounts and a thousand dollar check written to someone. When it was all said and done, there was over $2,000 worth of checks and accounts to clean up.
Paul begged me not to leave him. I was devastated to find out that he'd used the money to gamble at the casino. He said that we were having such a rough time and he had just wanted to win enough money to help us out. He swore he'd never set foot in a casino again. But it didn't last.
Life resumed somehow and we pulled ourselves together enough to make it through that horrible week. Soon after, he told me he'd gotten laid off from his job. They'd just taken a chicken order at the plant and he'd taken money from many of our family and friends. We waited for weeks to find out about the order and to see if he'd get called back. The order finally came in, but none of the chicken Paul said he ordered was in it. He finally admitted that he'd missed the deadline and spent the money. And then he said that he hadn't been laid off, that he'd quit because he "couldn't work in a factory".
Then to add insult to injury, I looked him up on Myspace on a whim and found a second profile that he'd created. Only this one said he was single and that he had two kids and was trying to make a life for himself. He had pictures of him and the kids and left me completely out of it. He had one friend: a girl named Tracy that he'd known in high school. I was furious. I was livid. I was beyond hurt. I felt betrayed. I demanded answers and got nothing. I packed his things and left them for him in the living room.
He came home and saw his clothes all packed up and he begged to stay. After all, it was almost Christmas. He said there was no bad intentions on his part for the profile and he hadn't meant to lie to me about the chicken or being laid off. He had just lied because he didn't want to hurt me. My head was spinning. I felt like I'd been stabbed in the back... but I loved him. Even after all the hell he'd put me through... I loved him and I let him stay.
We'd been married less than 3 months and already it seemed like everything was falling apart. When we were only living together, he told me the truth, he (as far as I know) was completely faithful and he loved me desperately. Add marriage and complete commitment to the equation and he lost it. Things with the kids started getting really bad at this point and then it all went down hill fast.
Part Five to be continued.
That being said, Paul's parents both enjoy gambling and frequent casino's dozens of times a year. They took him to Las Vegas before he was legally allowed to set foot in a casino. This was instilled in him very young and since then, he's struggled.
When Paul was seventeen, the girl he was seeing got pregnant. A year later, when the baby was one, the girls parents got a burr up their hind end and told Paul that he would either marry their now seventeen year old daughter or charges would be pressed against him since he was then eighteen. And so he entered in a marriage with a woman he didn't want to be married to. He told me once how trapped he felt. He felt a sense of obligation to his child, but he didn't want all the responsibility that came with it.
The marriage didn't last long. She cheated on him several times and he went to Oklahoma to be with his parents where his dad had been relocated for his job. There he worked at a glass factory and eventually started a construction company. The now ex-wife and baby came out to stay with him for a short time, but it didn't last. I don't know the entire story of what happened with the construction company, but I have been told by various family members that he gambled quite heavily during his time in Oklahoma and took money from a client and used to to gamble. His brother said that he and their cousin had to go to Oklahoma once to bail Paul out of a jam when he spent all the money and couldn't finish a job.
At some point he stole a check from a friend of the family for a thousand dollars and his parents had to pay her off to keep him out of trouble. There were other things going on at this time that have never fully been explained to me. He was facing charges in Indiana, though it is unclear for what and how the time line actually goes. He started seeing a woman, a former cousin-in-law, and lived with her for a while. He said he was with her for over a year, though his ex-wife became pregnant with his second child shortly before he was sent to prison. The time lines have never made sense to me.
Paul told me when we first met that he was a serial monogamous. He likes being in committed relationships. However, when he found out he was being sent away, he broke up with the woman he lived with. When the conception of the second child occurred within the time frame of the relationship with the other woman is still a mystery to me. Paul had various check theft and forgery charges from several people and was eventually put in jail. He spent several months in county jails before being sentenced to eight years at the Miami county Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana. I can't imagine the desperation and hopelessness he must have felt.
He seemed to make the most of it, however. He got his associates degree in general studies from Ball State in less than two years and it knocked some time off his sentence, but he still spent three years and eight months of his life locked up without freedom because of poor choices he'd made. He spent some time speaking in public schools to kids about making better choices than he did and seemed to have a passion for it. When he got out in February 2007, he had to readjust to the life outside. Even now, I don't think he really has adjusted. Part of him is still locked behind bars... and it eats at him.
He'd been out of prison just a few months when he met me. He'd barely had time to get a job and start figuring out what he wanted to do with his life when we got engaged and bought a house. Everything was too fast, too soon. But at the time it didn't seem like a mistake. It seemed very much that he was just trying to start his life over and had met a woman he wanted to spend that life with. He was sweet and caring and didn't seem at all like a person capable of doing the things he said he'd done to land him in prison. His family would talk about the man he had been and I couldn't see any of that in the man I was quickly falling in love with.
The first time we went to a casino and every time after, it was nothing for him to lose $200 and want to take more out of the ATM. If I'd win, he'd take half and lose that, too. If I lost, we'd go home broke. There were a few jackpots and that seemed to keep the fire burning. We'd go months without him even mentioning a casino. He'd buy the occasional lottery ticket or play poker online, but that seemed to satisfy him.
And then one night we were at Lowes and Paul suddenly felt like he was having a heart attack. I rushed him to the emergency room and they said he was having a panic attack. A week later his doctor prescribed Xanax and he took them faithfully. The panic attacks seemed to come from nowhere. One minute he'd be fine and the next he'd totally lose it. We would be sitting at home watching a movie and all of a sudden something would trigger a panic attack and I'd have to lay with him for an hour and rub his back or talk to him. Sometimes I could distract him with sex, but for the most part, he just had to be talked down from the cliff.
The Xanax seemed to make all his inhibitions go away. He was soon asking to go to the casino again and for several months, it was binge gambling. He'd go whether I went or not and most of the time he would lose. He'd be tore up and tormented about he money he'd lost, but he wouldn't stop going. The wedding date we'd chosen came and went and we could never come up with enough money to afford it. So September 15, 2008, we went to the courthouse and got a marriage license and went to my brother's and exchanged vows in my brother's living room.
I remember the tears streaming down my face as I looked in his eyes and said, "for better or worse" and "I do". The love I felt for him in that moment took my breath away. I couldn't imagine being any happier! I was finally Mrs. Vaughn and I never wanted to leave his side! Times were tough and money was hard to come by. We'd already maxed out every credit card we'd paid off (some of them twice) and we'd begged my parents to take a mortgage out on their home to help us pay off some debt. But none of that mattered, because I'd finally married the man of my dreams!
He got a job at Tyson and hated it. He was working third shift and the sudden time shift in his schedule was really getting to him. We began talking about moving in with his parents to save money and possibly filing bankruptcy. We couldn't afford the life we'd created anymore. The debt was too large. We felt helpless. As we started staying at his parents house during the week to be closer to our jobs, we found ourselves having less and less time together. Our opposite schedules left little time for connecting. I missed sleeping with him beside me.
After a month and a half of exhaustion and stress and panic attacks, Paul came back to his parents one morning and crashed on the couch. I came in and was sitting on the couch near him when his phone rang. It was unusual for me to answer his phone, but he was sleeping so peacefully that I didn't want it to wake him. It was a local number, so I answered. The woman on the other end of the line said that she was calling to collect a debt, that Paul had written a bad check and it needed to be taken care of immediately.
"Ma'am," I said quite sarcastically, "My husband doesn't have a checking account. There's no way he could have written a check." And then my mind went to the mail I'd gotten a week before. A letter came for Paul from Kroger for 3 bounced checks for varying amounts. He'd convinced me that his identity must have been stolen and went so far as to call Kroger in front of me and ask about how to file an identity theft charge. "I'm afraid he did write a check, Mrs. Vaughn," she said. "It appears to have been written on an E-Trade check." I don't remember what I said to her, but I remember hanging up and throwing the phone at Paul.
"Tell me you didn't do this!" I shouted at him. He woke from his hard sleep immediately. "Didn't do what?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "You wrote a bad check at Zeibart. And the checks from Kroger... those were yours too?" The room started spinning. For a moment I felt that I was going to throw up. "It's not true! It's not true!" he started to say, but I walked him off. I walked out of the house and drove to our house. He called me almost immediately.
"Honey, I didn't mean to. You have to believe me!" He pleaded. "Did you write check to Kroger?" I asked. "Yes." And then I lost it. I drove to my dad's house and collapsed in his arms and sobbed. I barely made it out that Paul had written over $700 in bad checks. I couldn't make sense of it. I was so lost. It took months for the entire truth to come out. There were more than four bad checks. There was also two gas accounts and a thousand dollar check written to someone. When it was all said and done, there was over $2,000 worth of checks and accounts to clean up.
Paul begged me not to leave him. I was devastated to find out that he'd used the money to gamble at the casino. He said that we were having such a rough time and he had just wanted to win enough money to help us out. He swore he'd never set foot in a casino again. But it didn't last.
Life resumed somehow and we pulled ourselves together enough to make it through that horrible week. Soon after, he told me he'd gotten laid off from his job. They'd just taken a chicken order at the plant and he'd taken money from many of our family and friends. We waited for weeks to find out about the order and to see if he'd get called back. The order finally came in, but none of the chicken Paul said he ordered was in it. He finally admitted that he'd missed the deadline and spent the money. And then he said that he hadn't been laid off, that he'd quit because he "couldn't work in a factory".
Then to add insult to injury, I looked him up on Myspace on a whim and found a second profile that he'd created. Only this one said he was single and that he had two kids and was trying to make a life for himself. He had pictures of him and the kids and left me completely out of it. He had one friend: a girl named Tracy that he'd known in high school. I was furious. I was livid. I was beyond hurt. I felt betrayed. I demanded answers and got nothing. I packed his things and left them for him in the living room.
He came home and saw his clothes all packed up and he begged to stay. After all, it was almost Christmas. He said there was no bad intentions on his part for the profile and he hadn't meant to lie to me about the chicken or being laid off. He had just lied because he didn't want to hurt me. My head was spinning. I felt like I'd been stabbed in the back... but I loved him. Even after all the hell he'd put me through... I loved him and I let him stay.
We'd been married less than 3 months and already it seemed like everything was falling apart. When we were only living together, he told me the truth, he (as far as I know) was completely faithful and he loved me desperately. Add marriage and complete commitment to the equation and he lost it. Things with the kids started getting really bad at this point and then it all went down hill fast.
Part Five to be continued.
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