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In 1997, I moved to an Asian country to teach ESL. I loved teaching, the people, the food, the mountains, and beaches. I stayed there until 1999. I came home for a visit and returned. I met my wife. We fell in love and got married in late 2000. We were quite happy there. We both worked and went for walks and took little vacations. It was a nice time in my life. My mother became very ill sometime around 2003. She had a stroke and was also diagnosed with colon cancer. I knew I had to get home to take care of her. My wife got her papers in order and we came to the States in January of 2004. I actually thought I could take care of my mother and return to school full time and work. I soon learned that was an impossible task. Feeding one's mother through a tube and giving medicine to stop the crying in pain really takes a toll on a person. It fucking ruined me. So here I am living with my wife at my mother's house and my head is spinning. My wife helped change her diapers and clean her up before we got a fat woman that had a stuttering problem sent over from the hospital to live-in and care for my mother. Of course, she wasn't allowed to give medicine or feed her. She could just change and clean my mom and wash bed sheets, etc., Other than that, she just watched TV or talked on the phone. Very frustrating. Right or wrong, I ended up going back to abusing alcohol, among other things. I did crappy in school, slowly dropping courses. After my mother passed away in late 2004, I was emotionally fucked for quite a while. I went back to school and trudged along just barely getting by. Soon, I needed major ear surgery. This set me back with my schooling as well. It took about a year to recover from that mess. Now it was the summer of 2007. The restaurant I worked at closed. I'd worked there for 3 years off and on. The last several months they were dead and I fell behind on everything. I bounced back and got a job making very good money at an Italian place. My wife was working. Not her dream job, but making decent money. I took two summer courses and did very well. I was hoping to get into a Master's program in September or January. But, in August through September, the walls caved in. My wife moved in and out several times saying she wanted a divorce, then saying she wanted children. She said she couldn't take her job anymore and that she wanted to return home. If she could have waited a month or so, I could have saved up and done things properly. But, life doesn't always work the way you want it to.