Starting Over Chapter 1, a blind justice fanfic

I have finally decided that I would leave Jim. I haven't told anybody yet, not even Jim.This decision wasn't a recent thing. Actually, I was going to leave him about a year and a half ago. We had been married for four years, the first two years or so was great. But then our marriage had lost its "spark", and it just was never the same. Jim was pretty much everything I had ever wanted in man-he was strong, masculine, he was sexy, always felt safe in his arms, he was honest (or so I thought). There was only one fault (at least there was only one then), he wasn't very open. He never seemed to open up as much as I would have liked him to. Hell, getting Jim to talk, to open up, was as difficult as trying to pull teeth. Maybe more difficult.

Let's face it, Jim and I came from two different worlds. Just so you realize what I'm talking about, I'll give you some background info on me and Jim. In fact, when we started dating, people always told us "It'll never work out, you guys are too opposite, yet too much a like". Only have I came to realize what that means.

He grew up in Red Hook in a low middle class family. He had two younger brothers, Rick and Tom. His father was an abusive alcoholic (who died 11 years ago). His mother always held at least two jobs to support the family. As a teenager, Jim took up boxing, I guess as a method of self defense. In high school, he played basketball and was on the track team. After he graduated high school in 1983, he joined the Army (he's a desert storm vetran) as a way to pay for college. He attended State University of New York at Albany, graduated magna cum laude in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice. Fought in Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. When Jim came home from the war, he joined the NYPD.

I, on the other hand, grew up in a wealthy family in Manhatten's Upper East Side (Fifth Ave. to be exact). My father was a businessman that worked as a CEO of an advertising company. My mother was an interior designer. I have two younger sisters, Allison and Sonia. My sisters and I attended a prestigous private academy. After I graduated high school in 1984, I attended Brooklyn College with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration in 1988. When I was a younger, I took ice skating and horseback riding lessons. I always loved to keep with the latest fashion trends. So I chose to make it my career. I'm a fashion designer/editor at Stylin' Magazine.

So now that you have a little background info on me and Jim, you get it, we are about as opposite as night and day. Jim had it pretty rough growing up, I had a life of luxury.

I definately walked down a different road than Allison and Sonia. My father always seemed to prefer Allison and Sonia's husbands and lifestyles opposed to Jim and my lifestyle with him. Allison married a lawyer when she was 25 and has two kids. Sonia married a doctor when she was 24 and is pregnant with her second child. They definately have a luxurious lifestyle to say the least.

And there had always been that tension with my family. Jim and my father were never best buds, but they were never sworn enemies either. Jim had always said my father never tried to accept or understand him, I always told him that it wasn't true, he was simply not giving my father a chance. But looking back on our relationship, I'm begining to think that maybe Jim was right. Given Jim's background, my father always thought he wasn't good enough for me, that Jim was nothing more than "punk from the wrong side of the tracks". Jim didn't have any control over the type of life he was born into, just as I didn't have any control over the type of life I was born into.

And what about myself? Well, I married a cop from Red Hook. Married for five years. No kids. And now, we are getting divorced. Now, all I have to do is tell Jim.