Alongcameanarc

What an absolute shit show. I met Ex about a year and a half after his divorce with his first Ex-wife and spent years living their divorce aftermath and ongoing custody disputes. I watched Ex poke and poke and poke and then Ex-wife’s explosive responses and at times retaliatory retribution for his cruel provoking. Ex had perfected provoking her then pointing out her ‘crazy’ behavior. Ex-wife had an inability to let Ex have the last word. To her absolute detriment, Ex-wife had a drug and alcohol problem that jaded everything and gave Ex that added oomph to point out crazy.

And here I was reliving Ex’s divorce and custody 2.0. But I don’t have a drug or alcohol problem and I’m typically able to allow Ex to poke without response. Ex was playing the same plays from his original playbook and it wasn’t working the way he planned. One would think he would already know how it would play out. After all we were 19.5 years into me acquiescing to the rages, the silent treatment, the poking and provoking. I had learned his game years ago and I didn’t want to play. I had not only learned but had started calling him out and that infuriated him. Our divorce was no different. I had no desire to play his games. Ex is controlling, mean, hateful, condescending and just all things Narcissistic, and now I find out an adulterer to boot and I just wanted out.

After finding Ex’s pathetic and juvenile email to his married work whore, I retained a divorce attorney about a week later. The attorney was a referral from a church friend. At the initial consultation I told the attorney my Ex would be an extraordinary A-hole, maybe the worst he had ever dealt with and would refuse to settle throughout the divorce. I had all the past experiences with his ex-wife to go on and I knew what I was in for. I remember that subtle glaze pass over the attorney face. The yeah right, I have heard it all before face. But he agreed to take my case and I charged the $5500 retainer on my Discover card.

Ex walked in from work on the exact same day I had retained my attorney with the craziest divorce proposal. He wanted me to agree to not retain attorneys and settle amongst ourselves. All I could think was, too late. He didn’t know about my attorney yet. Ex’s proposal offered Ex signing over sole custody of our two joint children to me in exchange for me agreeing to release Ex of any spousal support obligation. It said Ex would agree to ‘allow’ the kids and I to live in ‘his’ house for a few years with me making the house payment, while I got my feet under me, but after I believe 5 years the house had to be sold and all the equity goes to Ex. The proposal even stated that if I remarried my new husband ‘owed’ Ex all the house equity and he would have to immediately refi in the new spouse’s name and pay Ex the equity. Ex had a retirement acct thru work that he considered ‘his’ alone. That retirement acct was more valuable than the equity in our home. Ex’s proposal had Ex retaining 100% of that acct. I questioned him about the retirement acct. Ex very matter of factly stated that’s his work acct and is funded by ‘his’ wages therefore it’s his and will not be part of the divorce negotiations.

Apparently Ex never considered that I didn’t want to date, didn’t want to remarry, would reject his insane proposals, just wanted him out and gone. He never considered that I would view his infidelity as my catalyst to my freedom and independence. I never, not even once begged him to stay, begged him to reconsider his affair, or reconsider the divorce. I wanted him out of our house, and that threw him completely off his game. He wanted me to cry and beg, throw myself at his mercy. His ego took hit after hit. I don’t believe he wanted me or wanted to stay, but he did want me to beg and grovel at his feet, tell him I couldn’t live without him. He wanted open ended opportunities to berate me and tell me all the reasons his infidelity was entirely all my fault. I popped his bubble. He was on the defense, trying to defend and justify his affair.

As I stood there in the kitchen reading this insanity, all I could do was shake my head and silently wait for my divorce filing to be served on Ex.

I asked him to move out. I asked him to go live with his affair partner. He said no, this is his house and if I don’t want to live in the same house with him during the pendency of the divorce I was free to leave, but he’s not going anywhere and the kids stay with him. What I discovered later was my finding Ex’s email letter to his whore jump started the divorce process before Ex had a chance to cement the relationship with his whore. She was married and still living with her husband and didn’t seem completely on board at the time with ending her marriage. So there was poor poor pitiful Ex. His wife knew about his whore, wanted zero reconciliation and wanted him out and his whore wasn’t agreeing to end her marriage for him. During that first few months Ex seemed completely lost. He flipped back and forth between attack dog rage and pathetic victimhood. I didn’t know which I was getting from minute to minute. But one thing was absolute every single night, his drinking turned him into a rage monster later in the evenings.

Shortly after I found Ex’s letter to his affair partner, he came in from work with his signature smirk mouth and informed me he had changed the password to his email because ‘’you tend to get into other people’s things’’. Without missing a beat, I laughed and said well, you tend to put your dick in other men’s wives so I guess that makes us even. His smiley smirk mouth remained although now twitching, but his eyes turned to angry solid black, and he appeared speechless for a moment.

As the days passed he became more and more agitated and angry. The threats were constant. He flipped between begging me to sign his proposal so ‘we can get on with our lives’, the life where I had the kids and he had all the assets. And on the flip walking around the house stating if I didn’t agree to his proposal he was going to take everything including the kids and make sure I was out on the street with nothing. He name called, chased me around the house, yelled, screamed, told me I was nothing. I changed out the master bedroom door handle to a key lock. We had a large 600 pound gun safe in the master closet and I changed the keypad combination. Ex was demanding his guns. He was following me around screaming ‘gimme my guns’ on repeat like a petulant 4 year old having a tantrum. He was continuously taking things from the house to a storage unit and wanted his guns to take to the unit too. He was terrifying.

One Sunday afternoon I took our two youngest and two of my older children out to dinner. Ex had left on Friday evening and hadn’t returned. While we were out I saw on our Ring camera Ex had returned to the house, stayed for a bit, then left again. Upon return to the house, I found a set of keys on the kitchen counter. I went upstairs to see if everything was intact. Ex had broken into the master bedroom, splitting the door in the process, but the safe combination had been changed. It appeared he had come prepared with the new door handle to change out after breaking into the bedroom. Shortly after the kids and I returned home, Ex reappeared and in a rage. It went downhill quickly. He was yelling and cursing at me, repeatedly calling me a fucking bitch among other names. Ex started calling my two older children names when they told him to leave me alone. Ex kept calling my son a ‘fucking pussy’, telling him to come closer so he could put him on his ass and teach him who’s in charge. ‘Come here little fucking pussy so I can take you out’. For context, Ex is 6’2’’ and son is 5’7’’. Ex repeated his profane challenges over and over and over. Our joint 17 year old daughter was witnessing the whole scene with her mouth wide open. Our disabled son was telling Ex ‘be nice to mom and brother’. My older daughter was telling Ex to leave older son alone so he started calling her names too. I called the police. Ex’s behavior in front of the police was on some levels shocking, yet really not. It was his typical Jekyll and Hyde MO. When the police arrived Ex became calm and cool as a cucumber. He told the police my kids and I had done all the things he had done and he was this helpless victim who was being ganged up on. Ex literally stated to the police, my son was telling Ex to come here little fucking pussy and that I was calling him a fucking bitch. Ex said we all conspired together to get him in trouble because I wanted him to move out. Our joint daughter kept saying he’s lying, it was all him. Ex told the police I had brainwashed his daughter against him. The police told him it would be best if he voluntarily moved out, but Ex had this cockamamy story about how if he moves out he will forfeit his claim to the home equity and its his house and he intends to stay with the house and claim all the equity. The police were useless and wouldn’t do anything. Unfortunately, that afternoon’s events were becoming a regular daily occurrence.

I think it was shortly after that Ex emailed a second divorce proposal. This proposal was still financially lopsided in favor of Ex. In exchange for me taking sole custody of both kids, I would forgo all support from Ex. I would keep the house and the accompanying $34,000 solar lean on the house but I would have to refi both in my own name and I get to keep my financed vehicle. Ex would keep everything else. As an alternative, Ex proposed we sell the house and split the equity between us and Ex keeps everything else including ‘his’ retirement plan. Ex is big into spreadsheets so he included yet another spreadsheet showing how he’s at a complete financial disadvantage and how he generously is giving me the upper hand. There was no way I would be able to afford to keep the house under his scenario. In fact there was no way for me to be able to afford a rental for the kids and I either. My attorney hadn’t filed the divorce yet, and Ex still didn’t know I had an attorney. I sent Ex’s new proposal off to the attorney. Attorney’s opinion was similar to mine. The proposal was relatively fair as far as assets go, but without support from Ex, the kids and I wouldn’t be able to survive financially. And the attorney said a judge wouldn’t approve of a decree written as Ex wanted it. Ex made well over double my income at the time. So I just decided not to answer Ex and wait for the divorce filing.

Ex was impatient. Demanded I answer. Kept telling me he was offering a generous offer and I wouldn’t get any better by holding out. He eventually went to the courthouse and filed for divorce, outlining his latest proposal and filing for mandatory court mediation. My attorney had also filed but Ex hadn’t been served yet. Apparently the court called Ex the next day to let him know I had filed first and wanted to know if he wanted to proceed or withdraw his petition and get a refund on his filing fee. He chose to withdraw and wait to be served.

Around this point in time, Ex’s mother group texted Ex and I saying she was planning dates for her and Ex’s stepdad to fly out in June for a visit. I texted back and said I was surprised Ex hadn’t told her yet, but he has a married girlfriend at work and demanding a divorce so he can be with her. That was the very last entry to our group text. She called me later that day and said she had spoken with Ex and he had said the woman was just a ‘friend’ and they just talked occasionally at work. She was pretty upset asking me to give Ex another chance because he hadn’t crossed the intimacy bridge. I told her I found a letter he wrote describing past physical intimacy and that he’s looking forward to more. I told her his letter said he was working to eliminate all obstacles to be with her. His wife and family being the obstacles and that he was waiting for her to make the decision to leave her husband. Mother in law coughed and I think I heard her choke.

Editing to add: Cause I forgot this detail until now. Over Spring Break, March 2021, my older daughter, younger daughter and youngest son took a road trip to Yosemite National Park. It had dawned on me that for the first time in almost 20 years I was free to travel and none of us had ever been to Yosemite. We kept our plans quiet until the absolute last minute. Ex was as indignant as ever when he found out we were leaving. He told me I wasn’t leaving until I turned over his guns. I told him I would consider giving him the guns if I came back to an intact house. I knew he would struggle to get the safe out of the house intact. We had to remove the door when it was originally moved into the house and up the stairs because of its size. Now it was fully loaded and he didn’t have the combination. He was following me around demanding his guns right up to driving away. We drove all day to get to Yosemite. We had found and reserved online a really cute motel just outside the park. It was cuter in person and because of the Covid slowdown very reasonably priced. That first night we were playing card games and my Ring app kept repeatedly going off. It was Ex. He was kneeling down on the front porch prying the Ring camera off the house. I asked him through the Ring what he was doing? He said he was taking the Ring with him. We argued over the stupid Ring for about 10 minutes, until I reminded him I would only consider releasing his guns if I came back to an intact house. This is a screen shot of him prying on the camera that day. I really don’t know if he was actually trying to take the Ring or if he was just attempting to ruin our trip. Or maybe both. He knew I would be able to see what he was doing. His attempt at ruining our trip was laughable and sad.

On our second day at Yosemite, stepson called older daughter. They hadn’t spoken in many years. Almost as many years as Ex and stepson hadn’t spoken. Stepson was fishing for dirt on me for his dad. Truly amazing. Ex and stepson were actually bonding over Ex’s bad behavior. Who knew? Was this Ex’s second attempt at ruining our trip to Yosemite?

Once home from Yosemite, Ex started up the relentless ‘gimme my guns’ again. If we were both at the house at the same time he followed me from room to room shouting for the guns. If I entered a room and shut the door, he stood outside the door shouting at the door endlessly. I could hear ‘gimme my guns’ ringing in my head. I took lots of pictures of the guns for my records and gave up and gave him the guns and he hauled them off to his storage unit.

Ex and I filed a joint 2020 tax return in April 2021. Putting solar on your home comes with a 24% federal tax rebate incentive. The solar loan from the solar Ex had installed in November 2020 was structured to have a lower initial payment awaiting the federal incentive return which needed to be applied to the loan to keep the payment the same for the loan duration. Otherwise, if the federal incentive isn’t applied to the loan, the payment increased by $55 per month for 15 years. The tax refund was scheduled to be deposited in our formally joint checking acct, Ex had removed his name from and was now my acct. alone. Ex hounded me. He wanted the tax refund which was approx $9800. I told him it hadn’t cleared yet but it was owed to the solar loan. We were receiving letter and email reminders from the solar finance company that the deadline to pay the 24% incentive was fast approaching. Ex was relentless. He wanted the money.

Our temporary divorce hearing was set for May 2021.

Living in the same house with Ex while waiting and waiting for court relief was unbearable. Some nights he stayed out until late, other evenings he planted himself in the living room. No matter where he spent the evening he was completely drunk. There was no getting around the fact he was drinking and driving on the nights he stayed out until late. He arrived already toasted.

Ex had until 5:00 pm on the 30th day. He stayed until 3:30 pm that 30th day. I think the only reason he didn’t stay until 5:00 was his mother and stepfather were coincidentally arriving at the airport that afternoon. Ex had been out for a few hours that morning. When he returned he just started grabbing things and running them out to his truck, locking the truck and running back in for more stuff. When 3:30 arrived he grabbed two of the family dogs, one of which was our 7 year old Golden Retriever we had had since she was 9 weeks old and most definitely the family dog. I said she needs to stay with the kids. He looked at me with pure hate and sneered, ‘Im taking the dog and I will make sure you never see her again’ and he took her and locked her in his truck. He came back inside for something. I asked him to please leave his house key. He screamed ‘I’m your landlord. Landlords have keys to the houses they own’. I said you are restrained from entering again. There’s no reason for you to keep keys. He said ‘Fuck you’ and headed back out the front door. On his way out the door, he stopped, turned around and screamed ‘thanks for making me homeless you heartless fucking bitch’, slammed the front door as hard as humanly possible and was gone. I took all the exterior door handles and had them rekeyed.

Ex was relentless with our 17 year old daughter during that time as well. Daughter must have been around 12 when she started really picking up on Ex’s behaviors. She’s a really smart intuitive young lady and Ex never gave her credit. He mistreated me openly in front of her. He was short and snappy and very critical of her. No matter how hard she pushed herself, no matter how good her grades or how well she did in sports, he never had kind things to say. Instead it was a critic of how she should have/could have done better. And she was old enough to see how unloving he was to my older children, her half-siblings, and how much he favored his oldest daughter over everyone including her. Daughter got so upset watching how he talked to me, and didn’t miss his silent treatment towards me. She commented frequently why does he act like this? As she grew older she asked on occasion if I thought it was time to leave him. She always quantified those statements with she wanted brother and herself to go with me if I left.

Once Ex’s affair was out in the open, I watched a new more confident side of daughter emerge. She was not happy with her father and for the first time in her life she started speaking up. Having Ex still in the house with us gave him ample opportunities to corner her, screaming ‘I’m a good person’ and ‘why cant you see what a piece of trash your mom is?’ He had her cornered against a wall one evening yelling so loud I could hear him in the master bedroom upstairs, saying ‘because your mother is such a piece of crap mom and wife, she broke the marriage vows years ago and I was free to move on. So it’s not ‘cheating’. Once I heard the screaming, I made my way down stairs, and as I rounded the corner to the stairs I saw he was just inches from her, with his long arms outstretched making air quotations when he said the word ‘cheating’. I had never heard daughter talk back to her father before that night. She told him he’s not a good person, she has been watching him for years mistreat everyone. She said he is always angry and she’s seen how horrible he treats her mother and how often he completely ignores her mom. She then said give me examples right now of how mom is a horrible wife and mother. Right now. He stuttered, stammered then went silent. She said see, you’ve nothing but excuses for your bad behavior. He still had her backed against the wall. I walked down the stairs, squeezed in between them and told her to go to her room. She didn’t waste any time and ran upstairs. Ex then started spit screaming at me, how dare you get in the middle of conversations between my daughter and I? I told him screaming at her, he’s a good person wasn’t having a conversation, it was harassment. He just left without much else to say. He continued to look for opportunities to corner her and found one a few weeks later. It was a typical day. I was at work, daughter was home from school on one of her early out days and getting ready for work at 4:00. The Ring app notified there was movement on the front porch around 3:30. My initial assumption it daughter leaving for work, but it was actually Ex entering the front door. Ex had no business being at the house at 3:30. He had left work early to catch daughter at home alone. He knew she was at home and I was at work. My stomach dropped and turned upside down, because he wasn’t having normal conversations with her at this point. He was verbally attacking her at every opportunity, resulting in extremely heated arguments between them. She had made it a point to not ever be home alone with him because of how volatile he was. I told my boss I needed to leave and rushed home. I knew it wasn’t going to be good. I was too late and my heart sank. I passed daughter as she was leaving our neighborhood headed for work. She called me when she saw me. Daughter was so upset. Ex had gone home early to catch her while he knew I wasn’t there. He cornered her in her bedroom not allowing her to leave. It was more of the same telling her he’s a good person and berated her for not taking his side. He wants her to reject her mother. They argued and she ended up darting past him, ran out of the house and left for work.

In the midst of the divorce ramping up, was guardianship of our disabled son. He had turned 18 just a few months prior to the divorce. I had been a stay at home mom, right up until the two youngest were in high school. Son requires 24/7 care and supervision. I did take a part time job during the school day with the school district the kids attended once our youngest entered 2nd grade. This job allowed me to be off at home in the mornings, at afternoon release and off all breaks. Even after the kids entered high school, I was able to pick son up at the end of his day. There was approximately a year and a half I worked full year, before the district made cutbacks and my scheduled was again following the school year. I had attended every single IEP, IFSP, ISP since his birth. Of the 33 total meetings, Ex had attended 3. We know this because meeting attendee have to sign the attendance roster. I was on the board of directors for 12 years for our local disabilities chapter. Of the doctor’s appointments since birth, and there were a lot, Ex had attended one appointment. I have taken son to family disability summer camp every year, Ex attended our very first year and refused to go again. I have been heavily invested in the disability community. I take son to everything I possibly can to keep him involved with his community. Ex has never shown much interest in being involved and rarely attends anything, even now. Ex has played organized Bocce with son a few times, but other than that nothing. If left it up to Ex, son would sit on the couch watching TV and little else. When we made it to court Ex stated both in his court memorandum as well as verbal testimony that the only reason I had been the one to attend everything was it was more convenient to have me do it. It backfired on him somewhat. He testified that I had all this time off and he worked full time so I was the one to go. This may be somewhat true, but Ex’s job afforded him the ability to flex his hours pretty much any time he wants. But the real hiccup in his theory is I worked too during the week when all these appointments are scheduled and had to take either personal time or sick time to attend. When Covid hit I was working full time. Due to Covid rules son couldn’t be at school if he even had a slight sniffle, which is common for him. Even allergies weren’t allowed to be in the building. Ex very rarely offered to take the time off to be at home with him, so I ended up using every single accrued sick day, personal day and vacation day I had to stay home with son. By the end of Covid I was actually having to take DOC time because I ran out of paid time off. Ex just didn’t want to, so he did not. Ex spent years telling me every single time an appointment or sick child came up that his job is more important than mine. Every time he further said that we had to cater to his job because if he lost his job we would be homeless and living in our car, but if I lost my job it would be inconvenient and tight but we would survive. He never waisted an opportunity to degrade or pat himself on the back. And this was one of his completely obtuse testimony talking points.

The day I retained my divorce attorney, I had asked what would happen with our disabled adult son. The attorney advised that he wouldn’t be a part of the divorce because son was already an adult. He stated that whoever filed for guardianship first had a leg up and the opposing party would be playing catch up. He wasn’t a guardianship attorney and I couldn’t afford another retainer for a second attorney so I filed on my own. I served Ex with the guardianship filing. He was furious. After all, he had been trying to bargain uncontested ‘custody’ in exchange for no support.

My guardianship filing generated a court visitor. My filing had been fairly benign. I was still in that mindset that talking about Ex’s behavior to the outside world was taboo. The visitor came to the house and met son and I. I had listed I believe 11 witnesses in my filing. She interviewed every one. She also interviewed Ex and Ex’s only 2 witnesses, his 2 adult children. I don’t know if the visitor was new to her employment role or if she favors father’s or if she’s just really gullible but the most likely reason she appeared to be just really bad at her job. I don’t know. All my witnesses stated the same things. I did everything. Son’s doctor, son’s case worker, disability directors, EVERYONE said I did everything. After the report was issued, I read that the visitor had interviewed Ex on 3 separate occasions. Ex had requested the visitor recommend son be placed in state guardianship instead of with me. He had said that I was greedy and money hungry and just wanted control of son’s SSI. The visitor’s official recommendation listed in her report was state guardianship because of how at odds we were and that it was dad’s request. I was floored, but I had witnessed Ex’s treatment of his first wife. He is the win at all cost guy. If he couldn’t win, making me lose was still a win. I used to ‘sort of’ joke Ex was willing to set himself on fire if it meant he could burn Ex-wife down. Now it was me he was trying to burn down. He never cares what’s best, he just cares about coming out on top.

The court initially put a guardianship hearing on the books for April.

What Ex did next kinda sorta surprised me. But God is in the details, and He took what Ex meant for evil and turned for good. Just before the April hearing date Ex filed a 6 page single space typed objection and rebuttal to my petition. He was contesting my petition for guardianship and filed for guardianship for himself. He actually stated in his petition that he did not want another court visitor to be assigned because he accepted the previous court visitor’s report, which was weird considering her recommendation was state guardianship. Maybe he just didn’t want to have to pay the mandatory $400 visitor fee. His counter petition turned out to be blessing in disguise. The state requires a court visitor assigned with each and every petition. Ex’s 6 page objection to me being named guardian was a bazillion word essay on what a piece of crap wife I was. There was almost nothing about how he would be a better candidate for guardianship. One of his incredibly few bullet points outlining why he’s the best candidate: ‘he takes son to do his most favorite thing ever’- to eat a Costco hot dog and ice cream. I filed a rebuttal to Ex’s objection, but this time I didn’t hold back. I was honest about Ex’s extreme drinking. I outlined my involvement in Son’s life. I included the court case number for Ex and his first wife outlining Ex’s children with Ex-wife testimony in court that their dad was mean and abusive and that they wanted to live with their mom. And the fact that Ex and step-son had been estranged from each other over 10 years at that point. I included both of Ex’s divorce proposals offering to trade off sole custody to me in exchange for no support from Ex. Step-son also filed a notarized objection and faxed it from the Army base he is stationed at. He stated things like his dad is primary care giver to son. Aside from a few hours at step-son’s wedding, Step-son hadn’t even seen son or Ex in approximately 11 years, let alone the fact he lived exclusively with his mother prior to enlisting in the army. Stepson had zero first hand knowledge of anything pertaining to his father or our family since approx. 2007-2008. Kind of amazing how a father and son can bury the hatchet and bond over the father’s infidelity and subsequent desire to destroy the soon to be Ex-wife/stepmother. Im journaling Ex, Ex-wife, step-daughter and step-son’s journey under ‘His first wife’. Their story is a doozie.

Ex’s petition did two things. It generated a new court visitor and the courts combined our temporary divorce hearing and the guardianship hearing to run concurrent in May rather than be two separate hearings. The new visitor wasn’t new to the game. Turns out the second court visitor is a retired circuit court judge. A huge difference from first to second visitor was the second called me to let me know every time Ex called her to give me equal time. He called the visitor repeatedly. It was still Covid. The court visitor wanted to stick to phone and/or Zoom. Apparently Ex was demanding a face to face with her. She called to let me know they were meeting at a local outdoor park and she was requiring masks at all times. She said she wanted me to know so there was complete transparency. A far cry from the first visitor who met with me once and Ex 3 times and I didn’t find out until her final report. I wish I had reported the first visitor. She was extremely unprofessional.

The following Friday, Son’s teacher called to let me know Ex had shown up at school unexpectedly and signed son out for the day, so I assumed this was the park interview. Son’s teacher knew of the guardianship dispute because she had been interviewed twice by the two court visitors. Daughter called me while I was still at work to let me know her dad had dropped son off with her and had left. She said it didn’t appear the meeting with the visitor had gone well because Ex was very agitated and angry. He said he wanted the face to face so the visitor could see how good he is with son. He called the court visitor a man-hater. Then he left and didn’t return that weekend.

The second visitor’s report was very detailed which was also a far cry from the first visitor. Nearly a whole page of her report was her interview with Step-son. It was quite obvious she didn’t find stepson credible.

Step-son is every bit the liar his dad is. He told the visitor he was 12 when he testified in his parent’s trial. Step-son was 3 weeks shy of his 17th birthday when he testified in early 2008. Step-son had run away to his mom’s house at approx 16.5 yrs old mid 2007 and refused to return to his dad’s house. Ex-wife refused to make him return to dad. So for approx 6 months leading up to the trial Ex and step-son had no communication. At the trial, step-son told the judge if he is forced to return to his dad’s house he will run away again, and if the judge wont allow him to return to his mom, he will just couch surf, because living on the streets was preferable to living with his dad. Step-son stayed with his mom and Ex and step-son did not speak. Ex began stating that step-son was dead to him and that he no longer had a son. Step-son enlisted in the army and left shortly after high school graduation. Ex and SS had no communication ever. SS returned for approx 3 days about 2 yrs later to marry his high school GF then returned to the army. Ex and SS did not begin to communicate until approx 2019 and then only phone calls at birthdays and Father’s Day. No it wasn’t until Ex’s affair became public knowledge that SS apparently thought he could swoop in and save Ex’s day with a bucket full of lies. SS had no knowledge of youngest son whatsoever, but he sure tried to make the court visitor believe he did.

It didn’t appear the court visitor found Ex credible either. She noted that she had asked Ex why he had offered to sign custody over in exchange for no support obligation and now that I have filed for support, he is fighting custody. His answer was that he needs money to set himself up in life and have a place to host his kids. But now that he may have to pay support he wants custody.

Ex was a walking talking oxymoron. Because of youngest son’s disability son qualifies for paid hourly Support Services. On the one hand Ex filed an objection to me having guardianship, countering with first the state having guardianship then later him having guardianship. But for our temporary divorce hearing, which was to be held concurrent with the guardianship hearing, Ex filed that I was son’s primary caregiver and that I should be claiming 100% of son’s support hours in addition to my job salary. Ex imputed son’s support hours in addition to my work pay and according to Ex he shouldn’t be required to pay any support because once the two wages were combined I actually make similar wages to him. Son’s support hours were going to his support persons supporting him while I was at work. Son had barely enough hours to cover my work hours. Yeah, the math wasn’t mathing. Also, Ex was voluntarily relinquishing sole custody of our daughter to me.

The temporary hearing in May ended up being divided into two dates because Ex rambled on and on during the first day, so it was continued to a second day about 10 days later. Our joint daughter spoke with the judge in private during the first hearing day. I wasn’t privy to her exact conversation, but she did say she told the judge that I did everything for son and that her dad was drunk all the time and she worried who would be there to take care of son if her dad had his way.

Ex called step-daughter as a witness during the second May hearing. She was taking some criminal justice college courses at the time and I heard some legal mumbo jumbo jargon during her testimony but by and large I feel her testimony hurt Ex more than helped. She hadn’t lived with us since 9/2019 and really hadn’t spent much time with the family since then so her first hand knowledge of 9/19-5/21 was incredibly limited. Plus during the couple years prior to 9/19 she was gone every weekend and out late during the week with her boyfriend. She was asked about who took care of things when she did live with us. She matter of factly said I did. I took all the kids to doctor appointments, went to their school meetings, signed them up, attended, made dinner, helped with homework, did all the things. Not her dad. She did lie about Ex’s drinking though. She said she hadn’t witnessed any abuse of intoxicants in our home. It was an odd way of phrasing it: abuse of intoxicants.

The judge ruled at the end of the second day. I was awarded sole legal guardianship that day. On the divorce case, I was awarded temporary spousal and child support as well as sole occupancy of the house pending our divorce. I was ordered to cover the mortgage and related expenses pending the divorce. State law allows Ex 30 days from the judges ruling to vacate our home. I said 30 days???? My attorney said his experience is spouses ordered to vacate the family home usually run home, pack up and are out in a day or two. I told my attorney- you don’t know my husband he will stay until the bitter end and will make my life a living hell. Attorney said no, Im sure that wont be the case. He doesn’t know Ex like I know Ex. Within a couple minutes of the end of the hearing, Ex group texted his two daughters, his mother and his affair partner that I had taken everything and that he now had only $1600 per month to live on. He is the victim. Total lies. But lies and victimhood are Ex’s mantra.

Our divorce trial is set for December 2021.

Ex not only stayed the entire 30 days, but moved himself out of the spare bedroom and into youngest son’s room with son.

With the slamming of the front door that June day, life changed dramatically in so many ways. The first real aha moment was taking over all the bills. There was enough money to pay for everything with a little money left over. And Ex had his money too. I kept thinking, how can this be? I had money left over every month and Ex had his money too. We had lived for some time with all the money I now had exclusive access to commingled with the money Ex now had exclusive access to, yet Ex had claimed for years that we were too broke to do anything, go anywhere, buy anything. The years of lies all laid bare. It was liberating, yet sickening at the same time.

Ex spent the next 6 months living in his oldest daughter’s mud room. He was soaking up every ounce of sympathy he could muster. I don’t know how in the world they pulled it off. Stepdaughter’s house was 670 sq ft. Teeny tiny little house made even smaller considering they had stepdaughter, her boyfriend, Ex, 3 very large dogs, and son every other weekend too. Ex was storing his 2021 $50,000 Forest River travel trailer instead of living in it.

Oldest daughter, youngest daughter, youngest son and I started planning a trip to Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier National Park for July. Oldest daughter and I agreed to split the Airbnb and gasoline in half. Youngest daughter threw in some money too. We stayed with my oldest daughter’s grandmother while in Wyoming. It was a group effort to make the trip happen. In the 19.5 years of living with Ex, we had taken only one vacation, and that was a summer of 2019 trip to Wyoming. Ex had throughly ruined that one and only vacation and I wanted do over. Ex called son numerous times during that trip making snarky remarks that his mother was stealing Ex’s money. Always trying to ruin anything and everything.

Ex ramped up sending me horrific attack emails and texts with attached spreadsheets on a consistent basis. No two spreadsheets were the same. He drug our daughter into the mix of his group texting madness.

I think it was August 2021 that the 2020 tax refund finally arrived. I really didn’t know what to do with the money. After talking to my attorney, I decided to move the refund into savings and hang onto it until our upcoming December divorce trial and let our judge decide if we should split the cash or pay on the solar loan. The very next morning after moving the refund over to the savings acct, Ex texted and said that he saw the refund deposited and he had withdrawn $5000. Big lesson learned that day. Double and triple check banking information. At Ex’s request earlier that year, the bank had removed Ex from the checking and saving acct, but hadn’t removed him from the online access to the saving acct. although they had removed him from the checking online access. It was 100% the bank’s error. I went to the bank and told them to reverse the transfer. The bank manager told me it was too late and I was out of luck. He could have reversed it but refused. I filed a formal federal banking commission complaint online against the bank. Things moved pretty quickly after that. First a commission representative contacted me within about an hour. The bank officially removed Ex from online access and refunded the $5000 into my acct. They froze Ex’s accts., that afternoon demanding repayment of the $5000 immediately, furthering that Ex had committed fraud.

Ex had spent the money within minutes of transferring it out of the savings acct. He had hired and paid a $5000 retainer to of all the attorneys- his Ex-wife’s former attorney. This attorney was and is unscrupulous. I guess Ex thought he needed what his Ex wife had: an attorney willing to get low down and dirty.

Well, the first ding to his retainer was the banking issue. He sent me an email copying both our attorneys stating that was his acct he withdrew the money from and he had no idea what anyone was talking about because it’s impossible to commit fraud by withdrawing money from his own acct. I responded with screen shots of emails and texts between us referencing him taking himself off all our joint accts as well as the bank ledger notes when he requested removal. We eventually settled up. He had to pay the bank back. He was refusing to apply the money to the solar loan, so the payment went up. Not that he cared, I was responsible for the monthly payment. He kept 1/2, I kept the other 1/2.

Sept 2021, Ex filed to have our divorce judge removed from our case. His filing stated the judge was biased against him and he didn’t feel he could get a fair settlement at our divorce trial. It was too late for this move but wow, they were going forward with it. The judge denied the motion. They filed to have another circuit court judge make the decision. That judge denied the motion too. So they filed a mandamus brief with the state Supreme court requesting his removal. My attorney had to respond to all these filings. Fees were running up. My attorney said he had absolutely no doubt Ex had already blown through his initial retainer and then some. He said the moves Ex’s attorney was using were unscrupulous and he would never advise a client to go thru this process. I told my attorney- I warned you at the beginning. Ex will do whatever it takes to win and he retained that particular attorney specifically because she is unscrupulous. They drug the judge thru the mud. He voluntarily recused himself. Ex and I were put back in the draw and assigned a new judge. My attorney said Ex may have ‘won’ getting rid of the original but he didn’t win anything with the new judge. He said the new judge is fair and will rule what’s best for everyone. I think we were into November 2021 by then.

Early December 2021, Ex’s attorney filed for a trial reschedule because she will be on vacation during our trial date. She said her vacation was on the books before our trial date was scheduled, yet she waited until December to speak up. I don’t remember the exact month of the reschedule but I believe it was sometime in May 2022.

Ex moved out of stepdaughter’s house and into his travel trailer.

Our joint daughter decided to buy her father a Christmas gift. When Ex showed up to pick son up for Christmas, daughter sent the wrapped gift out with son asking him to give to dad. We were on the porch and could hear son tell Ex the package was from daughter as he got into the car. When son returned from Ex, daughter’s gift to Ex was inside son’s bag still wrapped. Ex had sent it back unopened. At least he didn’t do what he did with his older children and throw the unopened package. All the same though, I know that hurt daughter’s feelings. Daughter returned the gift to the store.

In January 2022 Ex sent a group text to both daughters, his mother and his GF that our family Golden Retriever had died. She was only 7. It was a long rambling text all about himself and his feelings. It said they all knew how important she was to him. And he was true to his word that last day at the house. He had made sure I, and daughter, never saw our sweet dog ever again.

March 2022, Ex filed a motion to end all temporary support, to have me refund all support paid so far and have me charged with ’ fraud’. First thing my attorney filed for a continuance because he was on the one on vacation this time. Ex fought the continuance and they had to have a hearing. More attorney fees. His attorney argued that if my attorney couldn’t be there in person then they wanted him to attend electronically so the hearing could go forward as scheduled. Judge granted the continuance to April.

Ex’s ‘fraud’ argument was that ‘lied’ about son’s support services hours and that I should be working those hours in addition to my job which would nullify any support obligation on his part. In court, when asked how I would pay for a support person for son while I was at work? He testified I should pay for a support person out of the money I made working son’s support hours. So essentially his argument was I should work all of son’s support hours on my off time from my job, collecting those wages for the hours worked, then pay a person out of pocket to work for son while Im at work, and this grand idea releases him of a support obligation.

Ex moved out of his travel trailer and in with the adultery partner GF.

We both had to submit financials again for this hearing. Ex had taken a $22,000 loan from his work retirement acct for additional attorney retainer as well as ‘living’ expenses.

They also made a huge deal about my youngest son from first marriage living with me and contributing to the household. The same son who was living with us when Ex was living with us.

We could have already been divorced back in December 2021 if not for their continuance. We could have been divorced in May of 2022 if not for these shenanigans. All this did was push our divorce trial out to September 2022 and Ex was forcing me to rack up exorbitant attorney fees. Ex was spending thousands of dollars fighting the temporary support orders. Ex’s behavior at the hearing was beyond the pale and fortunately in direct line of the judge’s sight. Ex kept his eyes of me at all times with those solid black eyes squinted in a look a pure hate with his mouth curled in its signature smirk. A look I knew well. I don’t believe it went unnoticed by the judge. In contrast, when it was time for Ex to take the stand, he turned himself towards the judge, used his long arms to accentuate every point he was making in his whiniest voice possible. It was literal Jekyll and Hyde right there in front of the judge.

The judge ruled by letter about 2-3 weeks later. The judge said there was no ‘fraud’ and he imputed the $300 older son was contributing as shard living towards my income to be recalculated. That’s it. It was a 2 sentence ruling. But hey this whole ordeal probably cost me at least $3000 in attorney fees and no telling how much for Ex.

Ex was paying his support by personal check at the first of every month. He was writing little notes in the note section of the personal checks every month. ‘Cunt’, ‘good for you Christian’ , ‘WW’ (wicked witch), etc. I recognized wicked witch right away because that’s what he had his first wife in his phone. The picture for Ex-wife was the green wicked witch from Wizard of Oz and labeled ‘cunt’. He had, and may still have, me labeled ‘cunt’ in his phone. I know this because son came back from his dad with pictures of Ex’s phone opened to our text messages. I’m labeled cunt in Ex’s phone.

Ex took it upon himself to deduct $300 off of the total support the next month following the judge’s letter. He seemed quite pleased with himself. He handed son the check at son’s baseball game to hand to me. He stood there waiting for my reaction when I looked at it. I told him it was the wrong amount. He laughed, his whore laughed. Then the two of them skipped away holding hands. Not joking. They skipped.

I contacted my attorney. I said judge’s letter says to add $300 and recalculate. Doesn’t that mean add to income for child support calculator? Attorney said yes thats how he interprets judge’s order. My attorney contacted Ex’s attorney. She argued nope it’s straight $300 off. She sent a letter to the court stating her interpretation and our interpretation and asked judge to clarify. Judge issued a second letter stating it is $300 added to my income and recalculate child support. No change to spousal. After recalculating, Ex’s child support obligation decreased by $5 per month and he owed the $295 he shorted support that month.

Both our joint children graduated high school that summer. Son repeated 4th grade so daughter and son were in the same grade from 5th grade on and for the first time in their school career they attended the same school together 9th-12th grade. The graduation ceremony was a ticketed event. Ex wanted tickets for himself and his girlfriend. Daughter was angry he would bring the woman to her graduation and decided on her own to text Ex and tell him she did not want the woman at her graduation. Ex responded essentially stating Im bringing her and if you cant accept her don’t contact me again. After the ceremony, Ex and GF came to the graduation staging area. Ex and GF congratulated son and the GF took pictures of son and Ex together, but they kept their backs to daughter and said nothing to her. Daughter pushed herself so hard during high school. She was a straight A student and graduated on the honor society role and with her national dual language endorsement. Although she didnt say much about Ex’s behavior, I have no doubts this hurt daughter a great deal. To me watching first hand the man Im ‘dating’ treat his own daughter like Ex treated daughter that day at her own graduation would have been eye opening. Yet this woman was participating in Ex’s petulance.

Part of the state laws governing divorce pendency is no liquidating assets, no canceling insurance, etc. It’s status quo until the end. Ex had an HRA card through his work. His employer loaded $700 per year per spouse onto the HRA card. So $1400 per year. The money is for any out of pocket for any person insured on Ex’s insurance. So it covered the kids too. The unused money rolls every year. We hadn’t used any of the money in that acct since 2019 I believe. I had used $800 to cover the out of pocket for a dental crown I had to have placed. Ex blew a gasket when he was notified. He sent me an email telling me to never use the card again because it’s his. We argued over email, then Ex had his attorney send my attorney a cease and desist on the HRA card. I forward my attorney that email argument in which Ex admitted what the intended use of that card was for. Never heard anything back from Ex’s attorney concerning this subject, but…..

Shortly after that, my attorney received notification that Ex’s attorney was officially withdrawing over irreconcilable differences between her and Ex. I believe I remember laughing out loud. His down and dirty attorney met the real behind closed doors Ex and it didn’t go well. I told my attorney I bet Ex leaves her scathing reviews online and files a formal complaint with the state bar against her. He filed complaints against 2 attorneys representing him when it was him and ex-wife. And I started looking for reviews online.

Ex started requesting discovery all over again. Apparently lawyers won’t release client files to clients who owe them thousands, so Ex thought he would just request it all over again from me. My attorney told him I had already submitted the requested documents and would not be resubmitting.

I took Son to the orthodontist to get badly needed braces. Son was insured by both Ex’s insurance as well as my insurance. I had planned to use the HRA card for left over out of pocket. The office ran the card and it declined. I knew there were thousands of dollars in that acct. Ex had removed me from the HRA acct. I asked why it declined. He said he removed me to prevent me from using any more of his money. My attorney contacted Ex to let him know he had violated state law by removing me from that acct and we were giving him the chance to reinstate me otherwise we were filing contempt of court. Ex responded that he was filing a formal complaint with the state bar for my attorney’s ‘threats’.

We are getting close to our September trial date. My attorney filed contempt of court and requested the contempt run concurrent with the divorce trial.

Ex represented himself at our mid September 2022 divorce trial. Just prior to the trial date, Ex filed a 135 page court memorandum, complete with photos, charts, spreadsheets and a detailed rundown of what a piece of crap human I am. Ex’s memorandum headliner stated that statistically I would be remarried within 5 years so there was no reason to award support, which would save him from having to file to end support in the future.

I told my attorney the Honda Civic our daughter had been driving since June 2020 was a hill I was willing to die on. Ex once again was demanding the sale of that car and he wanted the cash, otherwise he wanted the entire value of the car imputed to my ‘column’ of assets. With absolutely no proof, Ex declared our house value at over $500,000. I think he just pulled that number out of his ass and ran with it. Ex itemized everything he could think of in the house and imputed an arbitrary dollar value to everything and it was under my column for a grand total of $10k. Under his column he listed his guns, accessories and weight equipment but under the dollar value it said ‘personal’ under the value column.

7 ladies from my disability mom’s group and my oldest daughter attended the trial with me. I believe whole heartedly in the power of prayer. Those sweet ladies were praying fervently for me that day. The only other people in the courtroom that day was Ex, my attorney, the judge and of course me.

Ex did bring his angry black eyes and smirk with him that day. He appeared to be willing me with his eyes to drop dead right there in the courtroom.

There’s lots more of the trial to come….

After our final divorce trial mid September 2022 I thought things were finally done. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought we would be officially divorced by the end of September 2022. But alas no. Ex just couldn’t accept what he considered defeat. He couldn’t or wouldn’t just move on. My attorney wrote our final divorce decree and submitted it to both Ex and I for review. It appeared to very accurately reflect the judge’s trial decisions. Ex filed a formal objection to the entire decree. A hearing was set for the Monday after Thanksgiving to hear Ex’s objections. The very end of November. So we wait. Again. 

A friend and I attended that November objection hearing. When my attorney saw me walk in for the hearing he said you know this is just a procedural hearing, you didn’t have to attend. I said verbatim- I wouldn’t miss this shit show for the world. 

Even my vivid imagination hadn’t envisioned the scope of the shit show that ultimately ensued. 

The biggest difference at the objection hearing from other hearings we had gone to-a bailiff was stationed in the courtroom in front of the judge’s bench between the judge and Ex. My friend who attended with me was the first to notice and point it out. This was the very first time I had seen a bailiff in the courtroom at any of our hearings. I asked my atty what’s up with the bailiff? My attorney said that usually indicates the court anticipates potential trouble…..

The first thing the judge did was lean way over the bench, glasses pulled down to the end of his nose so he could look over them at Ex and in a really harsh tone, said why are we here Mr. Ex? Ex had written his own divorce decree and gave a copy to my attorney and a copy to the judge. Ex’s decree was a far cry from what the judge had ordered in September. Next Ex went straight into why spousal support is unwarranted. Judge- (harsh tone interrupting Ex) What in Attorney’s judgement does not reflect what I ordered at trial? Ex- (whinny) said ‘nothing’. Judge- I repeat, why are we here Mr Ex? Ex (in a now angry tone) said you ruled incorrectly and I want you to correct your ruling. 

Honestly- my memory of that moment is all the air was sucked out of the room because every single one of us besides Ex took in a sharp deep breath at the exact same time. I looked over at my friend wondering if she had heard what I just heard? We just looked at each other with our mouths agape. 

Judge said objection denied and dismissed. This hearing is adjourned. Ex started screaming. I mean this booming hysterical screaming. He said things like: Who do you think you are? And how dare you sit up there making arbitrary decisions ruining peoples lives. He screamed in his loudest voice you have made me an indentured servant to her (pointing his entire arm straight at me) The judge said leave. NOW! 

By then the bailiff was directly in front of Ex, arms outstretched telling him to leave. Bailiff kept walking forward, Ex backing up……Ex backed to the courtroom door with those evil solid black eyes drilling the judge, opens the door, and standing just inside the doorway, screams ‘you’ve ruined my life’ to the judge. After opening the courtroom door, he walked half way through the doorway and using his whole body tried to slam the courtroom door. The big heavy wood door was on one of those slow close hinges. He couldn’t slam it even with his best efforts, so he just screamed this guttural scream and walked out. We thought it was all over and Ex was gone. Nope. Ex came back into the courtroom a couple minutes later and screamed again ‘you ruined my life’. He turned back around and out the door and then he was gone. This time for good.

You have to imagine the loudest scream humanly possible. That is what Ex was doing. And for the first time ever knowing Ex, the outside world got to experience the true blue died in the wool Ex the kids and I knew exclusively behind closed doors. An angry, bitter, crazed, out of control man attempting to control every aspect of his surrounding through rage. I thought back to one of Ex’s mantras towards both myself and the kids throughout our marriage: if you want to show me how mad you are over something, I will show you I will be more mad, more angry. Ex was showing the judge just how angry the judge had made him. Did Ex expect the judge to cave and cater to Ex’s angry tirade? And change the orders? Ex’s behavior that day was embarrassing. So embarrassing, I was almost embarrassed for him. Almost, but not quite. Any normal sane person would have been embarrassed and ashamed of their own behavior. Not Ex, he was enraged and indignant that no one was showing him they felt as sorry for him as he felt for himself.

My atty said Ex is lucky, most judges would have had the bailiff arrest him. I said gee arent we lucky he’s a ‘nice’ judge. I told my atty- you didnt believe me way back in the beginning when I said Ex would probably be the worst you’ve ever dealt with. He laughed and said well you have to take what people say with a grain of salt, but now that we are at the end I admit in my 35 yrs as an attorney Ex is officially the 2nd worst. 

It was shortly after that objection hearing I went to the courthouse to look through the court computer for a copy of legal documents I was unable to locate at home. What I found instead was a letter Ex had written to the judge. A letter Ex filed with the court a couple weeks prior to the objection hearing and had not served the letter on my attorney or I. consequently my attorney and I knew nothing about it. Standing there in front of that court computer reading Ex’s letter, the bailiff’s presence in the courtroom as well as the judge’s tense and harsh demeanor suddenly made sense. They were preparing for an unstable self-righteous lunatic. 

Ex’s next move was to file a formal objection to the contempt charge he had been found guilty of. That generated yet another hearing for late December 2022. I attended that procedural hearing with my attorney. Ex was a no-show. The objection was denied.

I received the latest updated bill from my attorney after the final hearing. $24,850. A shocking amount of money. I had already charged $12,000 of that amount on credit cards up to that point. I had been looking to the mortgage refi to roll that initial $12,000 debt into the house because I honestly didn’t know how else to pay it off. Now there was a bill for an additional $13,000. I felt sick looking at the bill. I emailed my attorney and asked him to please be patient with me. I was expecting an extra few thousand from the house refi I had designated to replace the downstairs carpet, so I would pay on his bill as soon as I received that money. It was a few days later I received a call from my attorney telling me an anonymous benefactor had come into his office and paid $10,000 of the remaining bill. I now had a balance owing of $2800. I was floored. I doubt I will ever know who that anonymous benefactor is, but they are literally a life saver. It could have been the attorney himself. I know by the end he expressed frequently how sorry was for the direction Ex had taken things. My friends who attended the trial with me joke it was the judge himself. Or it was maybe a kindhearted person from my community. Whoever it was I am grateful.

It appeared Ex and his GF broke up around December 2022/January 2023, because Ex was back living at his older daughter’s house.

Today is Valentine’s Day 2025. My last Valentine’s Day with Ex was 2021. 4 years ago. Valentine’s Day had become a complete joke of a holiday in our house long before 2021. Ex never surprised me with gifts, flowers, a date night and poo poo’d every attempt on my part to schedule a date night. Even when I worked everything out all by myself he would rage that ‘he’ can’t afford date night. This was all occasions not just Valentine’s Day. Leading up February 14th 2021, Ex wasn’t even speaking to me. If he had anything to say to me, he mainly said it via text or email.

Valentine’s Day 2021 was just 11 days before February 25th, 2021 and the end.

Ex’s spending spree really started back in June 2020, culminating into a free for all by February 2021. He found out from someone at work part of the Covid relief was the ability to withdraw funds from your retirement account without having to pay the 10% early withdrawal penalty. So that is what he did. He withdrew $100,000 from his retirement. Taxes had to be paid out of it of course. About $35,000 towards taxes. He paid off his $22,000 truck loan and my Honda Civic loan, which we then turned the Civic over to our youngest 16 year old daughter to drive. Ex told me I had $22,000 to either buy a car outright or use as a down payment towards a more expense vehicle. I chose to put a $22,000 down payment on a new SUV. We paid off some credit card debit and his personal loan. After the bills were paid he started spending what was left on stuff for himself. A new gamer’s computer, treadmill and weights come to mind.

October 2020 Ex went on another spending spree over the next few months leading up to February 25th. This spending spree didn’t have the luxury of an early retirement withdrawal to fund his spree. He was methodically emptying our bank savings. I don’t know what was going through his head besides complete self absorbed selfishness. Ex contacted a solar company about installing solar on our house. He didn’t ask my opinion, and as I found out later he didn’t need my permission to have it installed even though I was co owner. They just needed one signature. So in Oct of 2020 Ex signed the contract to have $38,000 worth of solar installed on our home. The solar company installed it late November 2020. Early November, Ex ordered himself $1200 worth of new weight equipment. Also in Nov, 2020 Ex informed me he was broke and wouldn’t be contributing a dime towards Christmas that year. He told me it was my job to inform our 8 children and grand children we were skipping Christmas this year. If I didn’t want to skip Christmas then the expense fell solely on me. December rolled around and Ex bought himself his very own Christmas gift-an AK47, ammo, clips, scope, new clothes for himself, more weight equipment, etc totaling over $4000. When I found out about the expenditures, I asked about where the money came from as he had said he was broke. Ex told me he saved his money. A few days after that he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. He knew I was upset. I guess this was an appeasement. I told him I wanted a wedding ring in the jewelry case at Costco, as we had been married 19 years and he never bought me a wedding ring. The only ring I had was a gold band I had purchased for myself early on after he had refused to buy me a ring. Apparently I didn’t deserve a $2500 ring from Costco. He instead ordered a $350 Yakima roof rack for my SUV.

January 2021 was fairly quiet money wise. But February is coming. Early February Ex started salivating over a 2021 model Forest River travel trailer even though we already had a 2019 Jayco travel trailer we were financially upside down on. We owed about $4200 more than it was worth. I told Ex I didn’t think another trailer was a good idea.

Just before February 14, 2021 Ex asked me through text what did I want for Valentine’s Day. I said I wanted nothing. He kept insisting and eventually ordered a $125 purse from Coach Outlet store and had it delivered. So that was Valentine’s Day. I got to open the package left on the porch.

February 16th, 2021 Ex went and bought that $49,000 2021 Forest River travel trailer, putting down $4000 on it. Ex went into a frenzy trying to sell the 2019 Jayco that was upside down by $4200.

Then February 25th happened. Ex drunker and meaner. Screaming he wants a divorce. I found this ridiculous letter in his email to his married work whore.

I wish I had done things differently concerning that 2019 travel trailer. Ex thought he was the only one on the loan and title for that one too. He set up a sell meet and found out he needed my signature too. Then started the threats when I didn’t immediately hop to. He’s going to stop paying on the trailer and ruin my credit because he can’t afford two trailer payments. Bla bla bla

I mean what the what? That would have ruined his own credit too. So I caved and signed. Ex took $4200 out of savings to cover the difference between the selling price and the loan. I wish I had a do over, at this juncture in my life I would not sign.

In three months time, Ex emptied $13,700 out of our savings never to be seen again and signed a solar contract lean on our home for $38,000. All while having an affair. And that’s just the money I know about and could prove.

This is the 4 year anniversary of the mask slipping completely off and of my eyes completely opening to the fact I was married to a true monster.

I guess I could post this under any number of headings, Control or Provocateur or maybe just plain old mean stupid jerk. Maybe that’s what I should have titled this post. Mean Stupid Jerk. Anyway…..

Our son is a die hard Marvel fan. He lives and breathes Marvel Avengers. I remember taking him to see Iron Man, the birth of the Avengers series, in the theater. I don’t recall how son found out it was coming to theaters, but a life long Avenger addiction was born the evening we went to see Iron Man. Son proudly wears Avenger themed clothing daily, his bedroom is an Avenger haven. We watch the entire Avenger series of movies on repeat. I have seen them all more times than I can count. Son can’t wait to watch again and again and again. Son loves going to see movies in theater more than most anything else. He sits still watching intently until the end, then asks to watch it on dvd again once we get home. He is so disappointed when I have to tell him we will have to wait.

I have to admit though, I was hooked as well. I became an unabashed Avengers geek that night as well. I was most definitely hooked. Captain American was and is my favorite Avenger.

I have looked forward to the next installment movie with as much anticipation as son. We have had such a great time going to see all the movies together.

I can think of a bazillion worse addictions than looking forward to the next Avenger series movie.

Unless you are Ex. There just isn’t anything Ex hasn’t been hell bent on ruining.

Ex made it clear movie going isn’t for him. And he refused to go with all the kids and I, ever. Im so thankful for my kids who were/are willing to do so many things with son and I. Apparently for Ex laying on the couch working his way towards a drunken stupor was more important. But he just couldn’t leave it at that. He had to ridicule, belittle, make fun of.

We made it all the way through to Infinity War without Ex ever attending even one Avenger movie with the kids and I. Not one movie. I told Ex we wanted him to attend End Game with us when it finally hits the theater. He humphed and said we’ll see, which in Ex speak meant no way.

When ticket sales for End Game opened I bought tickets for everyone, including a ticket for Ex. One would think I had asked him to volunteer for an unnecessary root canal and the kids saw his distain. Why couldn’t he just suck it up just once and do a family outing?? He initially said no, he would stay home. He told me to give the ticket away. He told me he wasn’t supporting Hollywood with his presence. He told me my obsession was ridiculous. Son was so hopeful his dad would come too.

The kids wanted him to participate. It was the finale. The end. In the end Ex relented and attended. He sat as stiff as a corpse next to me. Angry. Emotionless.

Why did he have to work so hard to ruin absolutely everything? Even something as simple as a family outing to a movie?

Ex’s ugly toxic opposition to everything I ever wanted or needed began early in our marriage. He progressively stepped up that opposition over the years to make it seem I was somehow selfish and self absorbed. All while going behind my back spending all our money on secret things for himself.

Son and I see practically every movie that comes out to the theater now. Son loves it and I bask in the quiet, no longer having to listen to ridicule.

As with my other topics I’m sure I will be adding to this as time goes along.

Ex is an extreme provocateur. The provoker.

I wrote about my laptop and about looking online or really anywhere for answers in an earlier post.

Ex’s need for control was/is absolute. There was no questioning him, no having your own opinion. He is the smartest person in the room and he doesn’t mind telling you why that is the truth. He never came right out and said ‘I am the smartest’, no he just told you how sound his thinking is and how stupid everyone else’s thinking is. This is how he ruled our house.

We had two boys who bucked that thinking on a regular basis. Stepson and my middle son from my first marriage.

Although I have really only scratched the surface with stepson under ‘His first Wife’, Im sure I will add some about him here too and a-lot more there.

First, I am about to write about my middle son. Of my 4 older children, middle son took his dad and my divorce the hardest. Ex came along and son totally rejected him. I mean from the very first. It was you cant tell me what to do. You’re not my dad. Ex had it in his head that oh yes I can.

After all Ex’s bluster about loving being a dad, loving doing things with his kids. This really didn’t appear to be true. He tolerated the littles. They were all fun and games and took direction. But once they developed opinions and personalities of their own, He worked hard to squash the opinionated, because after all his opinion was the only opinion that mattered.

Ex never once worked to gain a relationship with any of the kids. His kids included. Stepson and son were the black sheep. Stepdaughter was his favorite and by a long shot even above our 2 children together. She has sat on the golden pedestal even to this day. No rules applied to her. She gets the baby talk and the rest get the gruff commands. Even though her behavior was pretty awful at times, she never talked back to him. She sucked up to him to his face. No one else did this. Ex also liked to make the others jealous of his time with SD. Middle son really took exception to Ex’s lopsided parenting.

Son and Ex butted heads daily, hourly, maybe even minute by minute. As son aged his angry outbursts grew. Ex had zero tolerance for any backtalk. He was obsessed with eye contact during his ‘lectures’. If any kid lost eye contact, the lecture started over.

I totally despise smokeless tobacco. Chew. Barf. It was something my first husband did and I made no bones to Ex about how much I hated it. I was completely honest about my distain for Chew. I said I would never ever date or marry anyone that had the disgusting habit. I disliked it that much. Ex agreed. Always said how it is a disgusting habit and He doesn’t blame me, it’s gross.

Imagine my shock catching Ex with Chew. He outright freaking lied about his Chew habit. This wasn’t some gray area we hadn’t discussed before. He justified himself by saying he totally agreed with me: it’s gross. He said he didn’t lie, he just didn’t tell me. So the chew and the expenditures for chew became a marital issue.

I didn’t catch on to what Ex was doing for a long while. Ex was provoking middle son and taking extreme pleasure in disciplining him after the provocations. Son had and still has an aversion to chewing noises. I mean He really doesn’t like it. Ex started chewing gum on the pretext he was chewing gum in an effort to stop using smokeless tobacco. Like I said it took me a while to see past the gaslighting. Ex only chewed gum in son’s presence. It was dramatic, loud, mouth wide open, smacking, spittle spewing gum chewing. He chewed one piece after another. Over time Ex developed the most toned temples Ive ever seen on human. His temple muscles bulged with every wide open round mouthed chew. Ex sat near son, walked next son. Son’s displeasure was boldly written across his face. As soon as son showed even an ounce of displeasure, Ex laid into him about how disrespectful he was being. It was gum smacking lecture time. Round and round it went, day after day. Things were so volatile between Ex and son, when son turned 16 he went to live with his dad. Son’s siblings and I have talked about it. None of us remember Ex ever chewing gum anymore after son moved with their dad. Ex had been deliberate. Such a stupid and subtle act yet so powerful. Ex was driving my son away and this was one of the many situations I was on my laptop online posting anonymously about. I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it.

I have asked my son for forgiveness. I pray he has forgiven me. He has grown into such a sweet reliable hardworking adult and I am immensely proud of him.

I purchased blog space a couple years ago, but couldn’t bring myself to make that first move. I couldn’t put it in words where someone else could read it. Where someone could possibly judge me, or think Im lying or worst of all Ex might find it. Ex would have to be researching Narcissism to even remotely come across this blog. Not a likely thing to happen. But still, 23 years of living under someone else’s near constant anger leaves indelible marks that are not easy to wash away. Those marks have changed me. In some ways for the better. I’m way more cautious now. I have had no desire to date. I have learned to walk on solid feet. My house is eggshell free. But those marks have changed me. In some ways not so better. It’s been 4 years since I found his love letter written to the married woman at work and Im terrified to date because I could end up attracting another man who lives to control and belittle. I would rather be on my own than live that again. Those marks are a doubled edged sword.

If Im honest, I haven’t completely given up on walking on eggshells. Communicating with Ex takes me right back there. Anxiety, fear, second guessing everything. Im still struggling a bit to talk about my personal feeling and how truly harsh and unloving he was to my kids.

It seems so silly. When I read that 399 had been killed, all the suppressed emotions just bubbled to the surface and I wanted to write it down. All the memories. All the things Ive kept secret for so many years. Ex drilled it into my head, our kids heads. His public image matters more to him than anything. Don’t make him look bad. ‘How do you think that makes me look?’ Actually your actions make you look pretty darn bad and I don’t care anymore who knows it.

Im not looking for sympathy. I keep thinking about all the women out there who are living the life I lived. Covering up for, making excuses for, lying for their men who walk in from the outside, shut the front door of their house and remove their Mr Nice Guy mask they have been wearing all day, exposing the mean, angry man looking to land his pent up frustrations. Those men spend every day diligently working 2 jobs simultaneously. The job that earns the paycheck and the non-paying play acting job, pretending they are someone they are not, having spent all his time in public suppressing his angry feelings because showing his coworkers and neighbors would expose his true black heart. Image is everything. Their man comes home exhausted from working both those jobs. And with the slamming of the front door, she and her kids pay the price.

Can you imagine how taxing it must be for a person with so much pent up rage to put on a stellar theatrical performance all while simultaneously working your 9-5?

We lived fairly close to Ex’s job site for most of our marriage. So he would be home from work around 5:30 every afternoon. The living room, kitchen, dining area completely emptied around 5:15 everyday. On the off chance he arrived a little earlier, kids were scrambling to gather their things to run to their rooms before he walked in the door.

Our last home together has a gas fireplace, which Ex did not want ran, ever. Ex set the temperature for furnace and air conditioner as soon as we moved in. Cold in the winter, hot in summer. In the winter it would be freezing in the house when the two youngest and I got home every afternoon. We turned the fireplace on to warm the downstairs up. We have a little Jack Russell terrier who made a bee line straight to the warmth every time. God forbid we ever forgot to turn it off before Ex came home from work. He walked strait in the door without passing go, walked to the fireplace, used his foot to move the dog away from the fireplace, stating angrily, ‘Im not paying to warm a white rat’s ass’, then he would slap the wall switches hard making a loud slapping noise, to turn the fireplace off. Then move around white gloving the house. Sigh

One particular memory that stands out, I was making dinner. Chicken breast cooking in the oven. My plan was to cook the chicken in the oven, then cut it up and brown it the in pan with the veggies for stir fry. The house is open concept so the down stairs is mostly one very large room. Ex walked in from work without saying a word, walked to the oven and opened it. He then turned to me and growled what is this shit? That chicken isn’t edible. It’s white and disgusting. Then told me Im a horrible cook and that I lied before we were married when I told him I could cook. Next he angrily yelled at the two youngest to get their shoes on, they were going to Costco for pizza. I finished the meal at home all alone. Ex ate the stir fry in silence after work for dinner the next night.

These were every day occurrences.

I only remember asking him once if he speaks to his co- workers the way he comes home and speaks to me? He paused for a few seconds, I guess to formulate a good one two punch, then said of course not, I respect my co-workers and they respect me. I would never talk this way to someone I respect. And there you have it.

Oh how do I start? Ex never met a mountain he wasn’t willing to die on. Every single ‘infraction’ garnered an equal reaction. No matter how petty or small, he was as equally angry over the small things as he was over something big. His thumb was always on everything and everyone except his oldest daughter. She had an unspoken pass.

Ex was/is terrible on so many levels. Silent treatment was ‘the thing’ from 3 days in. It started out as a few days here, a few days there and grew in intensity and length at a furious pace. By the last few years of our marriage his silence was lasting 6-8 weeks at a time, with maybe 2-4 weeks of non silent treatment before the next session started. No eye contact. No acknowledgement I was speaking to him, literally pretending I didn’t exist. Quite the feat while in the same room together. He was dedicated, I’ll give him that. In the beginning I was so confused and worked hard to get him to speak to me. I learned early on it wasn’t worth my efforts. My efforts never gained me anything other than an explosion of rage. He would scream why don’t you get it? I have nothing to say to you. All while looking like the devil himself. The first time I saw his eyes turn solid black, all the brown disappearing, with one side of his mouth curling into what I later learned was his signature smirk and that same corner of his mouth twitching on repeat, it was terrifying. The air just left the room. Then one day out of the blue, with no warning he would be cheery and acting as if the previous weeks had never taken place. No explanations, no apologies, no nothing. In the beginning I was so happy the silence was over I just let it slide, but later on the switch flip just grated on me. To be treated in such a base disrespectful manner and to never know why. I wanted answers. I wanted it to stop. If I questioned him what I got was rage and a return to silence.

I didn’t drink alcohol when we first got married. He professed similar sentiments. As with everything else, this was simply mirroring. The drinking started out slow. He would buy beer 2-3 times a month. But it was never just a beer or two. It was 12 packs at a time. He drank so fast, downing one after another and the drunkenness hit him fast. The beer morphed to 5 litter boxes of wine. I think mostly because it was cheaper. He could put a whole 5 liter box down nearly nightly. By the end he was drinking liter bottles of saki. I rarely saw him buy or drink hard alcohol. I feel like he thought there was some stigma associated with going to the liquor store, and he could pick up the beer, wine or saki at any grocery store.

Slowly the drinking morphed to once or twice a week, eventually it became nightly. His mouth lost all inhibitions. Drunken fits of rage exclaiming all the things that made him mad, all the things out of his control that he believed rage would bring back under his control.

Our finances: financial abuse.

Not a term or concept I was familiar with while we were still together, or really realized the full extent until we were living separately. It started years ago. But as with the slow burn, the frog and boiling pot, I didn’t feel the fire until I was fully engulfed.

I wasn’t working outside the home but was receiving child support for my 4 oldest children. There were no jobs in Ex’s job field here locally, so he took a rather low paying entry level job once his unemployment benefits ran out. Ex had put his student loans accrued prior to our marriage into deferment when he lost his job back east, and kept them in deferment through unemployment and continuing while working the current job. He let his car be repossessed. I don’t remember the reasoning behind letting it go. Money was tight, but I don’t remember it being so tight we couldn’t have swung having a second car. My van was paid off so it was our only car payment. This was probably control too. I was very much stuck at home with no car to drive.

I was in charge of paying the bills. We added Ex to my bank account the child support was being deposited into. Ex wasn’t making a significant amount more than child support. He made more than a few comments about how it was wrong that my ex husband was contributing almost as much as him to our household. Ex was thoroughly emasculated by this fact, almost jealous. Ex didn’t ask about bills, didn’t make an effort to share in the budget decisions. Didn’t seem to want to look at the bank account at all.

As vacancies opened at the company he worked at, Ex applied and little by little moved up the ladder, and after several years eventually landing a job in his degree field. As his wages increased so did his interest in our finances. He started making little snarky comments that I am spend thrift. I was wasting money. He made a comment here and there about probably needing to restart his student loan payments but he never followed through. He also never asked me to take care of it, nor gave me the information to have been able to complete the task. I had never paid any of his payments. I knew nothing of the processes, his logins, nothing. Honestly, I believed, and still believe, this was 100% his responsibility to set up his repayments. I would have been more than willing to make the payments once he figured it all out. This subject started one of the worst arguments of our entire marriage. He had received a letter, or maybe an email, from the Department of Education stating something about his payments were in arrears. I had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently it was my fault. He was screaming he had told me to take care of it. Take care of what? Logging into his department of education acct with the credentials I didn’t have and applying for various repayment plan types I knew nothing about? That wasn’t my responsibility it was his. The more I defended myself, the more he screamed. I had made him look bad, I wasn’t a responsible person and couldn’t be trusted. He screamed he had obviously made a mistake allowing me to have access to his money. He was in a blinding rage.

He managed to get it all taken care of himself pretty quickly. He put the payments on autopay. Easy peasy. But not. His anger over the situation stewed and brewed and festered.

Ex was still battling it out with his Ex-wife. Hearing after hearing. Ex had used credit cards to retain two different attorneys. The bills were piling up. He had a serious falling out with the first attorney after spending a fortune. The falling out was over Ex’s displeasure with his representation. Ex-wife had the court rule in her favor. Ex filed a formal complaint with the state bar association. He represented himself for a bit, then retained another attorney but again lost ground in court. We were approaching $20,000 in credit card debt almost exclusively due to attorney fees.

Around this time Ex’s grandmother died. He received I believe in the vicinity of a $25,000 inheritance. After the inheritance deposited, Ex told me to pay off all the credit card debt, so I did.

Ex never let go of the student loan issue. Eventually he declared he was taking over the bill paying and told me not to touch our checking account without discussing with him first. I was now having to ask to go to the grocery store, get gas, etc. Not that he ever apologized, but I guess he must have realized I wasn’t as big a spend thrift as he had accused me of being. Because now his snarky unkind remarks shifted to how I wasn’t bringing in my fair share. I wasn’t contributing enough to the household. I was a drain on his money. I needed to figure out how to bring in more money.

I couldn’t win for all the losing. With his blessing, I took a seasonal part time job to make some extra money for Christmas. Ex was gung-ho until he figured out it meant he was on kid duty every minute he wasn’t at work. He was angry my job interfered with his work, his leisure. He wanted me to quit. So I did.

Im not sure why I stayed after his next move. Ex walked in from work one evening with that smug shit eating smirk on his face. He said he was letting me know he had opened a new checking acct in his name only and had his pay checks diverted to that acct. He further stated he had gone to our bank and had taken his name off our joint acct. He then presented a spreadsheet outlining who was to pay for what. He was to cover rent, utilities, his own car insurance, his own car payment and gas, his own clothing and shoes, and his own cell phone. Ex was making decent money by then.

I was to cover my car payment, my car insurance and gas, my cell phone, our daughter’s cell phone, 100% of the groceries and sundries for the house, all 8 kids birthday presents and parties, any presents for parties our kids might want to attend, all entertainment for the kids (movies and such), all clothing and shoes for all 8 kids and myself. I wasn’t working outside the home, but I was still receiving child support for my older 4 kids at the time. I told him there wasn’t enough money to cover. He said that was my problem. He would not be covering my laziness any longer. I told him when I had gotten job he was angry it inconvenienced him. He said find a job and put the kids in daycare. I asked him who would be paying for daycare? He said once I was working and earning a paycheck I would pay for it out of my earnings. I asked him what was he going to be doing with all the extra money he was going to have every month. He said it was his business.

He password protected the online access to his new acct. And told me his money was none of my business.

I told him I wanted a divorce. I wanted him to leave the house. He told me he was smarter than my ex-husband. He would fight me for the kids, he had no intentions of ever paying me support. He would make sure I ended up on the street.

Isolation

When Ex first moved to me I introduced him to my friends. I made dates for friends to come over for dinner. One by one Ex picked apart every female friend I had. He never said much about the husbands but about the wives he had a lot to say. I would invite the couples over for dinner. Ex’s behavior was bazaar. He would kind of hang around the edges not really engaging, and then after we ate, he sat down in a chair/couch and went to sleep. Leaving me to entertain both spouses. After they left for the evening, Ex got up and gave me all the reasons he just can’t ‘stomach’ the wife. Eventually they all stopped coming over.

The silent treatment and Ex’s either inability or distain for having couple friends are the two biggest surprises to manifest early on in our marriage.

I don’t believe Ex has any respect for women and that fact showed up immediately. He spoke derogatorily about every single female friend I had, but not just my friends, but also my mother, my eldest daughter after she became a teenager and young adult, even his own older sister. He made it his mission to ruin every relationship I had. And the men, the men I was accused of looking at provocatively. Ex told me it was disrespectful to go out with friends, even for just a lunch or dinner meet up. Ex picked apart our pastors, nitpicked sermons and eventually declared he would not attend church anymore because the sermons were so boring he couldn’t stay awake at church.

Ex never shared much about his work days. I shared my work days with him though. Eventually Ex accused me of having an affair with my direct supervisor. So I stopped sharing about my work day.

Later on in the marriage Ex wanted to hang out with a male work friend. This was really a first. He had shown no interest in having friends and had actively sabotaged my friendships. Ex’s friend was married and had children. Ex made no effort to have a couple friendship relationship, but the friend made the effort. So every few weeks they invited us over for dinner. Ex started pretty quickly to undermine my establishing a friendship with wife. He was brutal in his critic of her. I really liked her and this was upsetting and disappointing. Why couldn’t he like anybody? I sometimes joked to her the Ex appeared to be dating her husband. Ex’s total focus was on the friendship and he barely acknowledged my existence. I think in Ex’s own weird way he was ‘friendship (love) bombing’ his friend. In the year or so leading up to my divorce my friend confided that Ex spoke really awful about me. I was hurt and too embarrassed by his behavior to tell her he spoke pretty awful about her too.

My friend had seen a lot over the years. I don’t remember the exact year, but few years prior to this, Ex and I and our two youngest kids were invited over for dinner. Ex and his friend went upstairs to hang out after dinner. Wife, kids and I were downstairs. The guys were drinking. Husband mentioned at one point that he was a little concerned at how much and how fast Ex was drinking. He was getting visibly intoxicated and he had asked him maybe it was time to slow down a little. Friend was showing no signs of having drank too much. Friend said Ex wasnt listening and when he stopped going downstairs, Ex then took it upon himself to go get his own. I told friend he was unfortunately witnessing what Ex does at home. Out of nowhere Ex ran down the stairs and out their front door. And just kept going. I yelled where are you going? His answer? Road March. And then he disappeared into the darkness. They lived in a large subdivision in the hills on the outskirts of town. We lived a mile or so closer to town but still on the outskirts. We all just looked at each other. Friend said he was concerned because Ex is incredibly intoxicated. We waited a few minutes to see if he came back. Nope. Friend and I loaded my two kids in my car, I called my older son who was home and asked if he had seen Ex. Nope. I told son I was bringing the younger kids by and drop them off while I look for Ex. We didn’t see Ex on the way. After dropping the kids off and telling son to call me if he saw Ex, we headed down the road towards town. The road is 4 lane road and is kinda steep with a wide concrete sidewalk. It is well lite with street lights the entire length. We could see Ex probably a half mile further down running at a pretty fast click. Then down he went face first into the concrete. He immediately popped right back up and kept running. I drove a little past him and friend said come get in the car. Ex stopped running and turned toward us. His appearance was a bit shocking. I suspected the fall we witnessed was not his only fall. Both knees and shins were solid blood. As were both hands and elbows and one side of his face. Friend got out of the car and said get in the car. Ex started repeating himself over and over. ‘You don’t understand’. Friend said no I don’t, come get in the car and tell me about it. Then ex turned right and headed up the hill into a field falling yet again, then he again disappeared into the darkness.

Not knowing what else to do, I took friend home and hoped for the best. Son called right after I dropped friend but before I made it home. We had a short but steep driveway. Son was watching out the upstairs window and said Ex attempted to run up the driveway, but face planted, popped right back up and ran in the front door. The master bedroom was downstairs and that’s where he thought Ex had gone. Sure enough. I found Ex in our king bed under the covers snoring. I pulled the covers to take a look. Ex was fully dressed complete with his shoes. He was covered in blood, dirt, grass, twigs. I called friend to let him know Ex was back and then I slept on the couch. I was mortified. Ashamed, embarrassed but deep down glad someone else had seen Ex’s drinking and just how bad it was. Ex worried so much about his image and controlling everyone and everything, always asking us how our behavior would make him look and here he was passed out cold after a completely out of control drunken episode out in public.

The next morning was the same as every other morning after. No acknowledgement the previous night happened. I stripped the bed and washed the sheets.

She’s a novel all on her own. Actually, I have always joked, their story, my story, could have made a Jerry Springer episode or maybe even an entire season. In some ways I feel terrible that I believed ALL his stories about her in the beginning. That I allowed him to mold and shape my view of her. But man, she made it easy to believe him and occasionally he was on point. She lived to have the last word as did he. She was a blow for blow kind of gal. She never ever sat back and just let the dust settle. And then there was her drug problems. Their relationship was the absolute most volatile and angry I could have ever imagined on my own. It was the very definition of toxic. They were both acting crazy, but in different ways.

One thing I learned over the course of the 16 ish years I had to deal with ex- wife’s shenanigans: even a broken clock is right twice a day. She had truths to tell. It was hard at first to take anything she said seriously because of how outrageous her behavior could be. After she moved to my state, her truths were her mantra to me almost every single face to face we had. I believe she wanted validation for how Ex had treated her during their marriage. She was hell bent on convincing me. Ex just called her crazy. But…. But as the years passed I was recognizing her truths were actually my truths. By the end, her story was my story. I don’t know exactly when her drinking and drug issues started. Ex never accused her of either while they were married.

According to Ex they met while he was on leave while stationed in Afghanistan around the time of the first gulf war. He was back on base on the east coast. She was a brief fling who contacted him later to let him know she was pregnant with his child. Ex said he proposed but found out at that time she was married to another man. He said she told him she had been separated from her husband for some time. They just hadn’t gotten around to divorce. He said they got married after her divorce was final. I only have his recounts to go on. No idea if any of that is true. I can say with all certainty though, stepson is his dad’s carbon copy. They couldn’t look more alike if they had been cut from the same mold, which I guess they were.

Ex always blamed ex-wife for everything. I don’t really remember him ever accepting any culpability for their failed relationship and divorce. She was the devil and he was her victim. According to Ex, she had cheated on him with an airline pilot and filed for divorce. Later on after we were married and living together, Ex disclosed he had been so angry she had moved her boyfriend into ‘their’ house with their kids he broke into the house while she wasn’t there and had used a big knife to carve up the finish of the bedroom furniture. So many unsettling stories he waited to tell until after we were married and living together.

The first time I met ex-wife was during ex and my second face to face meeting before we got married. She just barged right into his apartment when I was there alone with their two kids. The door was unlocked and she walked right in unannounced. Walked strait up to me and put her hand out for a hand shake and introduced herself. I still remember how cold her hand was. After that I made sure the door remained locked at all times. She showed up unannounced several more times after that. The door handle would rattle, and when she couldn’t just let herself in she would knock. She was friendly but was definitely there for no other reason than checking me out. She was very attractive, very thin and always dressed impeccably.

Ex and I got married November 2001 in Nevada.

Ex frequently complained of no money and being broke. He often said I would do this or that but have no money to do it. He wished my kids and I could come east and be with him and his kids for Christmas but he just doesn’t have money for that. I had a rather small settlement from my first marriage. A paid for newer minivan and about $6000 in cash. Ex knew this. I had told him I felt I should put the cash into an IRA, but he said it was more important to invest in our future. He had no problem with me spending every last penny. I ended up footing the entire cross country trip and time spent on the east coast after we were married. This was a real lapse in good judgement on my part. But also an unrecognized glimpse into our financial future.

My second meeting with ex-wife was the Christmas break immediately after ex and I got married. Their kids were with ex-wife when we arrived on the east coast. She brought the kids over for dad’s visitation week a few days after we arrived. Ex-wife was dressed in a short black leather mini skirt, leopard print low cut blouse and stiletto healed knee high black boots. Hair and make up perfect. She looked like she could have been dressed for a night out clubbing. Step-daughter was dressed in a somewhat similar outfit. She had on a little dress, black at the bottom, leopard print at the top and a little pair of fuzzy black winter boots. Her outfit was cute. The only thing Ex said to ex-wife was wait here I have something for you, then shut the door leaving her outside on the front porch. He took step-daughter into the bedroom, made her take off the outfit and put on jeans and t-shirt. He then walked back to the front door carrying the entire outfit, opened the front door and threw the outfit right past ex-wife and down the sidewalk barely missing her. This surprised me as much as it surprised ex-wife. Ex then said in a voice dripping with venom you may like to dress like a prostitute, but I will not allow you to dress my daughter like one too. Those clothes will never enter my house again. Then he slammed the door with every ounce of strength he had right in her face. It took me a bit to pick my chin up off the floor. Red flags flying.

We had planned to be there 2 weeks, but surprisingly the area got snow for the very first time in umpteen years and absolutely paralyzed an area unaccustomed to snow. We stayed for about a month. Things with the ex-wife were just weird. They were on a week on week off schedule. The ex- wife didn’t come get the kids at the end of the week. She didn’t answer her phone. Several days after she should have picked them up, she showed up at Ex’s door completely unkempt and disheveled. Worlds away from the put together manicured woman that had shown up preciously. She announced that she couldn’t take the kids because she was on the way to the police station to file a police report. She stated right there in the doorway she had been raped and couldn’t take the kids until she got it all sorted out. And then she was gone.

I asked Ex if she needed help. Should we do something? He said no, he didn’t believe her. He said she was acting out to gain attention. I guess I will never know.

Ex’s children’s behavior was something else indeed. More the older child. The son. A year younger than my oldest and the same age as my second child. Ex had previously disclosed that his son was getting into a lot of trouble at school and at daycare. Bullying. A lot of bullying. Stepson was much larger than my children. Somewhat in height, but extreme in weight. He was a 190 pound 9 year old and he threw his weight around like a hammer. He was hitting, punching and tackling my children from the get go. And he made it abundantly clear he did not want my children touching his toys. Step- daughter did her fair share of hitting too. Her super power was making up wild stories and whining to her dad. He never questioned or investigated the validity of anything she said. He just took her at face value and acted on it. She loved to get her brother in trouble and the subsequent babying from daddy. Now with my 4 kids there she had 5 times as many opportunities to tattle, watch dad come down on another child on her behalf and then receive babying. Ex spoke to Step-daughter in baby talk 100% of the time. She was 5 at the time. Step-daughter’s wild story telling continued right through to young adulthood and at times has caused very serious repercussions for others. Ex’s talking to her in baby talk still continues even now. He defended her each and every time justifying her behavior as her mother’s fault. Actually Ex blamed his ex-wife for stepson’s physical and verbal bullying too.

Ex had a large glass front buffet/hutch with dishes and knickknacks he inherited from his grandparents. All the cup handles and such were all faced the same way. Every day or two stepson would open the cabinet and turn one cup the opposite direction from the others. The first time he did this he was wholeheartedly laughing to himself. I asked him what was he doing? Stepson asked me to wait until dad got home and I would see what was so funny. Sure enough, Ex walked in, eyes scanning the room looking first for what was ‘wrong.’ He walked strait to the hutch and turned the cup handle to face the same as the others. Stepson would pick something different around the apartment each time. Ex always seemed to be silently perturbed the things were out of order. I sometimes wondered if he would have been more vocal with his displeasure if I hadn’t been there. He just had an angry smirk and annal retentive briefly flashed to mind.

If I hadn’t been there that December Ex’s kids would have been in daycare. But he wanted me to watch them instead. Although his apartment was actually large for a one bedroom apt., it was seriously small for 6 kids jockeying for space. My kids and I brought my kids Nintendo 64 with us from home. Ex’s kids didn’t have a video game system at his apartment, so stepson was all about the game system. As with his own toys he took it over and wouldn’t let anyone else play. At one point he had gathered up all of his toys and put them in the corner behind the TV. He then sat himself in front of the TV playing my kids N64 while protecting his toys from my kids. He hit my kids anytime they attempted to touch a toy. Ex was totally useless. He told me he wasn’t there to witness this so I needed to deal with it. So I dealt with it. As soon as his dad left for work Stepson was once again sitting in front of the TV playing the N64 and guarding his toys. I asked stepson if he wanted anyone to play with his toys. He said no. I asked him- so you want to keep toys separate and no one should play with someone else’s toys right? No sharing? He said yes while simultaneously playing the N64. I said ok! We will do it your way. I turned to my kids and said Stepson’s toys are off limits, please don’t touch them again. Stepson was grinning ear to ear and continued playing the N64. My kids were wide eyed. I then walked to the TV and turned it off. Stepson jumped up and shouted Hey I was playing the game. I said I know. The N64 belongs to these kids and I want to honor your wishes. They will play the N64 and you will play with your toys. No sharing. His 9 year old brain was working overtime. Eyes darting back and forth. Obvious he hadn’t considered the whole big picture. I asked him to please move out from in front of the TV so the others could play with their toy. He sat cross armed sulking for a while. I asked him if he would like to reconsider sharing? He said yes. I said so you want to share your toys and you want these kids to share their N64? He said yes. And just like that, the sharing standoff was over. The toy saga was fairly quiet the remainder of our time there.

Or so I thought….until the drive back west and ex- wife’s phone call

Ex’s kids had been with us 3 straight weeks. We waited to head back west and home at the end of Ex’s parenting week. We were on the road maybe an hour when ex’s cell phone rang. It was Ex-wife. She was screaming from the very first word. It was so bad. The reason behind her anger- I, me, the stupid fat bitch stepmom wouldn’t allow her son to play my kids N64 and I, me the stupid F’ing cunt made her son share his toys. Those are son’s toys and no one should ever be allowed to play with them. It is son’s TV (Ex’s TV) so son should be allowed to play the N64 anytime he pleases on his TV. They were screaming at each other in the car in front of my 4 kids. Ex kept saying nothing she was saying was true, so ex-wife put stepson on the phone and screamed tell your dad what you told me. It wasn’t until that moment Ex knew both his kids were sitting there listening to their entire argument. Stepson mumbled how he wasn’t allowed to play the N64 until he let the other kids play with his toys. The ex-wife put step-daughter on phone she mumbled something similar.

As a parent, this argument was dumbfounding to me. Ex-wife was screaming every obscenity imaginable right in front of all 6 kids because I required my kids and her kids to share equally and hitting was off limits. She had the audacity to call me vulgar names because I didn’t sit quietly and allow her son to hit my kids when they did something he didn’t like. Like touch a toy.

Red flags were flying high by that point.

I repeatedly asked Ex to just hang up. Stop talking to his ex- wife. No such luck. He wanted the last word as badly as she did. What a miserable start to our cross country drive.

I found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks after we returned home. I was in my late 30s. Ex is 2 years younger than me.

I saw Ex once during the pregnancy. It was a really lonely time. I wasn’t really sure we would ever really be together. But it was a busy time. 4 kids with me full time and pregnant with my 5th. I had high blood pressure problems with all but one of my other pregnancies. This one was no different. At 33 gestation I was hospitalized due to extremely high blood pressure. I was induced a couple days later. Pressure spiked to incredibly high numbers and never came back down. Ex booked a flight out but wasn’t in time. Such a crazy crazy crazy and fast induction. Cytotec. Labor came on fast and furious. Hard pain immediately. No lead up. Just pain. At about 4 hours in, I was alone in the hospital room. I called the nurse and told her I needed to use the bathroom. She said she had to check dilation first. 4 centimeters. So she helped me up and I walked to the bathroom. I walked about 1/2 way back to the bed and the urge to go again hit me hard. I turned back to the bathroom. The nurse said what are you doing? I told her I needed to go again. She said NO! And started pushing me to the bed. I kept protesting. The nurse caught my baby as I was climbing back on the bed. Literally. I was on my hand and knees trying to get back on the bed.

My sweet little boy was whisked off to the NICU within seconds. He wasn’t breathing on his own. I remember 3 things so vividly. He was limp and gray, white gray and his legs looked off, although things were moving so fast I couldn’t put my finger on why his legs looked off.

My OB still hadn’t arrived and neither had Ex. I was still alone. About an hour after my son made his appearance this side of my womb, in walked a youngish doctor who seriously needed some sensitivity training. He just blurted out we suspect your son has a genetic disability. We have sent blood work off to confirm. It will be a day or two before the bloodwork comes back, but we are pretty sure. It was like he was standing at the counter ordering a Big Mac. Strait forward and cold. Im not even sure he let go of the room door handle. Then he turned and left the room.

Baby boy spent 2.5 weeks in the NICU, then sent home on Oxygen. Thankfully he was a big boy. 6 pounds 9 ounces at 33.5 weeks gestation. He would have been a tank if he had gone to full term. And his legs-he was born with severe club feet and had to have a number of surgeries and castings to straiten his legs.

Ex spent a few days with me before heading back east.

Ex wanted me to move to him. We had started talking about this possibility while I was still pregnant. He didn’t technically have a permanent job. He was a contractor for a rather large international company based on the east coast. The company started laying off tens of thousands of employees world wide shortly after baby boy was born and Ex ended up being laid off in a group of 50,000.

I look back through my life and the hand of God has been up front and center over and over. This was no different. I thank God I didn’t move there. We went into a kind of holding pattern at that point. Without any prompting from me, Ex signed over sole custody of his kids to his Ex-wife, drew up an odd child support arrangement that ex- wife agreed to and signed. Ex-wife asked Ex to let her and the kids have all his furniture he was leaving behind. It had been the furniture in their home together before their divorce. Ex refused her request and then to spite her put up a free ad and gave all his grandparent’s furniture away to the first response to his ad. Then moved to me. Ex came up with the child support agreement himself. They didn’t use a state calculator. It said he would pay ex-wife a percentage of his take home pay. He was paying her very little and sending personal checks to her through the US mail.

And things continued to get more weird. Both Ex and Ex-wife are control freaks.

All was somewhat quiet initially. Ex was here with me, his kids were back with ex-wife. Ex turned out to be a drill sergeant with my kids. Relentless. He was obsessed with the most inane things. Underwear and socks folded how the military folded underwear and socks. He would check drawers almost nightly. If they were folded incorrectly according to his specifications, he dumped the entire drawers on their beds and made them start over. I was really dumbfounded by the sheer dedication Ex put into this. I was the total opposite. I never cared if their underwear was neatly folded. All I had ever asked of them was dirty in the dirty laundry bin, clean in their dressers. My own underwear drawer was and still is very untidy. Ex was genuinely angry at me over my own personal underwear drawer. He never ever washed or folded laundry, but he made sure I understood laundry was my job and I was critiqued on my lack of proper folding skills with HIS underwear for years.

Ex would not allow my kids to snack on breakfast cereal. In fact they were not allowed to snack between meals period. The kids were not allowed to use the downstairs bathroom for number 2. 10 people living in a house with 2 bathrooms. If one of the kids got desperate for a bathroom and used the downstairs bathroom Ex grounded that kid for 2 weeks.

The kids were to maintain full eye contact with him at all times when he was speaking to them. If they lost eye contact he started over. He could lecture for days it seemed. Weird. And I was overwhelmed.

Ex tried calling his kids frequently. Ex-wife either wouldn’t put them on the phone or would be on another line while they did talk to dad. Ex and Ex-wife argued, screamed, name called, accused.

There was one day Ex called during the day. Stepson answered the phone, apparently against mom’s instructions. According to stepson they were home alone. Mom was at work. Ex called child protective services and reported ex-wife.

Ex-wife’s boyfriend called Ex out of the blue one evening to tell Ex ex-wife had some sort of medical episode and he had taken her to the ER. The hospital ended up forcibly admitting her to the psych ward for a 48 hour hold and he had the kids. Ex contacted his sister who lived in the area and she came to get the step-kids. Boyfriend took the sister on a tour of Ex-wife’s house while Ex-wife wasn’t there. The house had been the marital home when Ex and Ex-wife had been married. Boyfriend said ex-wife had been having extreme episodes of paranoia and had ripped out all the flooring in the entire 3000 sq ft home. The entire house was subfloor. He said she had lost her extremely high paying job and was working temp jobs through an agency. He said there was never any food in house unless he went shopping, and her car had been repo’d. Boyfriend apparently didn’t live with ex-wife but was there frequently. Ex’s Sister said the frig and pantry were empty. Ex bought a plane ticket and flew to sister’s house.

At the end of the 48 hr hold, ex-wife went to sister’s house in a taxi demanding the kids back. Ex said ex-wife was laughing at him telling him he was a fool for flying out because she would never allow him to take her kids. Step-kids went home with their mother and Ex flew back to me.

Summer arrived and Ex flew out to pick his kids up to bring them out for the summer.

Once back Ex went to Radio Shack and bought phone call recording equipment. Ex-wife was calling frequently and Ex was recording everything onto cassette tapes. Ex-wife grilled the kids about every detail. Called us names and talked about how weird we are. She would tell the kids their dad had replaced them with that new baby. She also made promises of all the fun things they would do once back with her. She put her boyfriend on the phone too and they both promised to spend lots of money on the kids. Even telling the kids if they lost a tooth while with dad not to tell dad but hide the tooth and bring it back to her because she would pay them like $100 a tooth. Ex recorded every call, then would listen and re-listen and listen again, sometimes transcribing the recordings.

Ex-wife made calls to the Sheriff’s department for well checks as well. Several times.

Stepson was the same. Punching, hitting, and shoving my kids to get what he wanted. But just with my younger two boys, especially the youngest. My oldest son wouldn’t engage with stepson’s provocations. Step-daughter was a cute little girl who Ex spoke to in baby talk and treated like precious glass. Ex treated his two children soooo differently. One could do no right, the other could do no wrong. My 4 children were relegated to the same boat as stepson. 5 scapegoats and One golden child.

Step-kids were supposed to spend 2 months with their dad. About 1/2 way through the visit stepson asked to talk to his dad and I. Stepson said he didn’t want to go back to his mom. He unloaded stories that shook me. He said their mother left them alone overnight most nights, with instructions they were never to answer the phone or the door. He said people had shown up to talk to the kids but mom was there too so they couldn’t tell everything. We learned later that DHS had actually called Ex-wife and scheduled an appointment and allowed her to remain in the room while they interviewed the kids. Stepson said his mom held his hand the entire time and squeezed his hand when they asked questioned she didn’t want him to answer. He said they sometimes didn’t have food to eat and his mom would call her boyfriend and scream at him to bring them food. He said one night his mom and the boyfriend got into a really bad argument at the top of the stairs. Boyfriend was on a step below ex-wife. Step-kids were at the bottom of the stairs. He said his mother pushed the boyfriend really hard snd he fell down the entire stairs. When he hit the bottom he didn’t move and his head was bleeding. He said his mother walked down the stairs, stepped over him. took boyfriend’s car keys, walked out to the car and drove away without ever saying a word to the kids. Stepson said she never came back that night and they thought boyfriend was dead. He said he took his little sister upstairs and locked themselves in the bedroom. He said the boyfriend woke up a long time later and left without talking to them either. Stepson also said his mother liked to lay in bed all day sometimes with his little sister watching TV. He said she would lock him out of the room because he was a boy and because she hated his father and he reminded her of his father.

Ex made it his life’s work to take her down. To the exclusion of everything and everybody. He became a man obsessed. It was as if nothing else existed anymore. I cant say I entirely blamed him. His ex-Wife had gone off the deep end but so did he. He declared her crazy to any and all. My regret is I overlooked or didn’t see or maybe didn’t want to see his glaring red flags. I don’t know. Now he is a man obsessed with me. The same obsession, the same dedication. The same blinding anger. I never went off the deep end though, and I believe that fact has enraged him far more towards me than I ever saw towards her. He hasn’t been able to point his finger at me and declare crazy and make that monicker stick, and that frustrates and enrages him.

After stepson’s admissions, Ex started making phone calls. A lot of phone calls, recording each and every call. The cassette tapes were piling up. Hundreds of hours. He started with DHS and the police. Then court records. Then everyone who ever knew her.

~~~~~~~Updating 1/26/25~~~~~~~~

Ex did find out some very interesting and unexpected information by calling DHS. The caseworker assigned to Ex-wife was surprised to hear from Ex. Ex-wife had apparently lied to the caseworker telling him Ex had just moved away leaving no forwarding address. She said she didn’t know where he was or how to get ahold of him.

The caseworker also let Ex know there had been a hearing but he was unable to release the details without a subpoena. Ex filed for an emergency hearing back east and then representing himself filed a subpoena of DHS records.

Ex-wife had been awarded their marital home in their divorce, with the stipulation she refinance the house into her name only. She never did refi the house. During Ex’s digging he discovered she had stopped making payments even before he had moved to the west coast and the house was in foreclosure. She had actually been evicted from the house over that summer and was couch surfing with relatives. We had assumed something was up because the last two months of child support checks had been returned undeliverable.

Ex received only the juvenile court order but no other records. Child neglect and abuse had been founded. Ex-wife had stipulated to the charges. The kids were placed in state custody with physical placement with mom.

The day before the emergency hearing, Ex flew himself and step kids back to the east coast.

Ex was awarded temporary legal and physical custody. A full trial date was set for a several months in the future. Ex ordered the full transcript of the temporary hearing. It was a typed written transcript. Not like today’s audio recordings. I believe it was $500 to get it transcribed and took months to receive.

Ex wasted no time. He began calling everyone. Her mother, brothers, uncle, her boyfriend, her friends. He wanted dirt. Anything he could use in court against her. Ex was recording each and every call. Her mother was having none of it. She stated she knew what kind of abusive husband he had been. The mother actually told Ex if he did not lay off her daughter, she knew people who could take care of him. None of her friends would talk to him either. They stated Ex-wife had confided how he treated her. Ex poo poo’d it all stating they were just covering for her.

The surprisingly talkative one was her boyfriend. And later one of her uncles.

The hearing transcript finally arrived. Ex-wife blamed Ex for pretty much everything. She testified how he had it out for her and started all the problems when he turned her in to DHS. She testified Ex was paying her next to nothing in child support and she just couldn’t make ends meet and she had no choice but to go to work that one day to make money to buy groceries and Ex seized upon the opportunity to get her in trouble with DHS. Ex had filed his hearing motion to include all the things stepson had told us. The judge ordered step kids back into his chambers and questioned them about what Ex had filed.

I totally agree he wasn’t paying much in child support. We were pretty broke at the time. Ex was trying to get himself established and had a very low paying job. He couldn’t find a job in his field. Ex-wife couldn’t explain what happened to her high paying job she’d had for years or why she was working sporadic temp jobs. I actually saw the last 2 years of income tax filings Ex and Ex-wife filed jointly together. I believe the years were 1999 and 2000. She made over $130,000 each year all by herself. A great deal of money back in 2000.

Ex-wife called the kids once or twice a week. Ex recorded every call. She sounded defeated. Told the kids she couldn’t live without them. Wasn’t sure how she could go on.

Ex-wife retained an attorney very shortly before the scheduled trial. A day or two before the trial her attorney called Ex and stated they were filing for a continuance and that there was no need for him to fly east because there would be no hearing. Ex stated he was not going to agree to a continuance. Lawyer stated it wasn’t up to Ex. Ex flew himself and step kids east. The trial was postponed. I don’t believe a new trial date was set right away. When it was finally set it was months down the road. The Ex visited with his sister a couple days then they flew home.

Things with Ex-wife’s attorney went dark fairly quickly. They initially requested a ton of discovery but wouldn’t respond to Ex’s requests. Then the attorney stopped communicating all together.

Ex-wife’s boyfriend was just a chatterbox. Ex seemed to live for talking to him every single night for hours. Ex was completely ignoring me, the kids, dinner. He was working and talking in the phone. That was it. At first the boyfriend told Ex he didn’t give permission for Ex to disclose to anyone they were talking. He didn’t know Ex was recording every call. At some point they broke up and then boyfriend didn’t care who knew they were talking. The boyfriend said Ex-wife was using drugs. Hard drugs. Meth, heroin, cocaine. That’s why she lost her job, that’s why there was no money for food, all the money was for drugs.

Ex’s obsession with talking about ex-wife was gross. He would talk to the boyfriend for hours at time. If he wasn’t talking on the phone, he was listening to the tapes. Over and over and over. He wouldn’t take a night off for anything, including my birthday. I had to purchase my own chocolate cake from Costco. All the kids just wanted to sing me happy birthday and have cake and ice cream. Certainly nothing extraordinary. The kids had school the next and it started getting later and later. Ex was shut up in a bedroom talking and recording. I went into the bedroom and told Ex it’s past the kids bedtime and they are still waiting for you so they can sing me happy birthday. The Ex was so engrossed in his gossip session he had completely forgotten my birthday. He told boyfriend he needed to go and ran into the kitchen, opened the plate cabinet directly above where the cake was sitting. I had already taken the cover off and put candles on the cake. Ex drug the stack of plates out of the cabinet dropping them directly onto the cake and the tile counters all around the cake, shattering the whole stack of plates. The cake was inedible, covered in glass shards. Happy birthday to me.

In the course of calling all Ex-wife’s known associates, Ex had spoken to Ex-wife’s uncle a couple times. The uncle wasn’t open to discuss Ex-wife in the beginning but did disclose she was staying him. He told Ex he didn’t want Ex calling him anymore.

Ex-wife dropped off the radar. She stopped calling step kids. Her attorney wasn’t returning phone calls or emails. The attorney petitioned to postpone the 2nd trial date, which was granted, but otherwise was ignoring Ex’s communication.

Out of the blue, Ex-wife’s uncle called Ex. Man oh man, he had a story to tell. He started with Ex-wife had disappeared and wanted to know if Ex had any information, which of course he didn’t. He said he was on the outs with Ex-wife’s mother and brothers because of the situation. Im not positive but I believe the uncle was the mother’s brother. Uncle said she came to him with the saddest of stories. She was Ex’s victim. Ex had destroyed her financially, caused her to lose her job, the house and car, and caused the taken kids to be taken away. He contacted the mother and mother corroborated Ex-wife’s story so he took her in. Loaned her a great deal of money and co-signed for a brand new car. As soon as she had the money and car, she disappeared. She never made even one payment on the car. The finance company was demanding the payments from Uncle.

A couple months later he called again with an update. I don’t recall all the details but I do remember some. The car had been seized in a large drug sting operation. It was being used as a mule car. Ex-wife was not in the car. It was believed she loaned the car out in exchange for personal drugs. Uncle said he had received an emergency services visit that ex-wife had been found unresponsive and alone in a motel room and emergency services had been called. Ex-wife disappeared and her whereabouts were unknown. The uncle gave Ex all the police reporting and court filing numbers. Ex was able to obtain all the records. No one knew where Ex- wife was.

All was quiet for months. No communication from Ex-wife whatsoever. She had just dropped off the face of the earth.

The next communication concerning ex-wife was stunning. She was in Europe and she sent a proposal through her attorney for return of the kids to her custody to live in Europe with her. We later learned once Ex-wife hit absolute rock bottom she contacted a college friend who was living in Europe working as a contractor for the Army. That friend paid for Ex-wife to come Europe and live with her while waiting for a job opening. Ex-wife waited until she was fully employed as a contractor herself before letting anyone know where she was. It appeared she had cleaned her act up.

Her attorney started making threats. Filed for a new trial date on the east coast. Ex did his research. Since neither parent lived on the east coast anymore, Ex went to our local courthouse and domesticated all their court documents to our state and filed for a trial here. It was pretty obvious Ex’s move took everyone off guard. The attorney withdrew and Ex-wife hired a local attorney who continued bombarding Ex with custody and visitation proposals.

After months of back and forth, Ex wife agreed to Ex having sole legal and physical custody. She agreed that the kids would not go to Europe, but she would come here for visits. I believe they agreed to 4 weeks per year and she had to stay local with like a 100 mile radios. She agreed to sending Ex her itinerary before each visit. She also agreed to pay $700 month child support.

Ex came for her first visit. She came alone and picked up the kids in a rented car and took them to a local motel. The visit was seemingly low key. She took them to a couple movies, out to eat. She showered the kids in gifts, which they brought back to our house.

The second visit was I believe 2 weeks around Christmas time. She rented a mountain rental home close to a ski area. This time she wasn’t alone when she came to pick the kids up. She brought a boyfriend. He was an Army contractor. Hired gun, private base protection. Think 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi kind of guy. They took the kids to the mountain house for about a week, then back to our town for the last few days.

Ex-wife rarely failed to just stun you with sheer drama. The kids were due back in 2 days. Ex received a call from stepson asking him to come pick him and his sister up from the motel. Stepson said mom is being arrested. It didn’t register until after the dust settled, Ex had flown out to the car and to the motel inebriated himself. He said when he got there, their car was under the motel entrance awning. The kids were sitting off to the side with a police officer, the boyfriend sitting on the curb rocking back and forth muttering to himself and clearly very drunk and Ex-wife was in handcuffs being led to a police car. He said his daughter was screaming and crying for her mom. Ex asked if daughter could say goodbye to her mom. Step daughter ran up to her mom and hugged her. ExWife screamed at the police officers to get her away from her. Screamed at daughter to get away and otherwise said nothing else to daughter.

The police report stated the group of 4 came into Red Lobster for dinner. The employees said the adults were arguing when they got there. They ordered dinner and lots of alcohol. The arguing escalated into a physical altercation between the adults. They were told to leave. The employees said the woman was the driver. The man was falling down drunk. They said they had overheard the motel they were headed to, then called 911 and reported it. Apparently once back at motel the adults exited the car and continued their fight in the motel parking lot. The police asked who was driving. Ex- wife said boyfriend was driving. Boyfriend was too drunk to give a coherent answer. So the police asked the kids. The kids both said their mother. The police asked her to take a sobriety test. She refused and was arrested.

The kids did not see their mother again that visit. she spent the night in jail. Then flew out to Europe the following day.

Both Step kids were quiet and somber for weeks after that. Especially step- daughter. She really just withdrew. Ex decided to put the kids in counseling.

Ex looked up the boyfriend who just left and started calling him. His name was Ken and he had a lot to say.

~~~~~~Updating 1/27/25~~~~~~~~

We found out after the fact Ex-wife returned a couple months later for her court appearance for the DUI. She requested a diversion, which would allow the DUI to drop off her record if she completed it. And to my knowledge she did complete the program. She didn’t try to see the kids. No one knew she was here.

A few months later Ex-wife sent Ex her itinerary for her next visit with the kids. Ex filed for an emergency hearing to try to prevent the visit. Her attorney filed a motion to hold the hearing the first day she was in town for her next intended visit. Her visitation motion was granted.

Just before the visit Ex received an email from the Army Chaplain of the Army base Ex-wife was working at in Europe. He introduced himself stating he was a friend of Ex-wife’s. He went on to state that he will be accompanying Ex-wife on her upcoming trip to visit the kids and he was assuring Ex there would be no issues this time.

~~~~~~~~~Updating 1/28/24~~~~~~

The court hearing came and went. Ex-wife presented evidence she had completed her DUI diversion. She claimed she no longer drank. Claimed she had received counseling. Mr Chaplain verified her stories. The judge ordered the visitation to go forward as planned. Ex was livid. They stayed local and everything was quiet to our knowledge.

Im fairly certain there were no more visits from Ex-Wife and Im not sure how much time passed but I believe it was just a few months until Ex-Wife’s email arrived announcing she was pregnant, married to the Army Chaplain and moving to our town. Once here, they rented a house just a few blocks from us. She arrived with two brand new vehicles. A brand new truck her husband mainly drove and a brand new Toyota Camry.

Ex-wife’s first order of business was to file motions to end child support and to reverse physical custody to her due to the fact she no longer works and will be a stay at home mom with her new baby due in a few months.

That first hearing after she moved here was fairly short. Judge ordered temporary orders and a trial was scheduled for a later date. Ex-Wife was ordered to continue to pay child support. Her visitation schedule was updated to every other weekend and a weekly dinner night.

And everything went to shit almost from the get go. Step kids were 15 and 11 when their mother blew into town. Ex and Ex-wife were every bit as volatile as they had ever been. They were arguing over the phone, email and in person. They were having in person screaming arguing matches in our front yard. They were equally hell bent on having the last word. The angrier Ex-wife became at Ex the more she targeted me.

Ex-wife started up with the well check calls to the local police if she didn’t get her phone call to the kids answered.

At every single kid exchange that I was involved in she screamed the words ‘’let me set you straight on what kind of man you married’’. Every time. Her words are burned into my brain. And then she let loose a list of things he did to her during their marriage on repeat every time. The one that caught my attention and caused me to pause: she said he ignored her all the time, Pretending she didn’t exist in her own home. She stated he would sit in their computer room with his head phones on blaring his music, surfing the web or playing computer games and getting falling down drunk every night. She was almost desperate in her attempts to make me understand. We didn’t have a computer room, but he did have a laptop, head phones and a couch, otherwise she was describing my life to a tee and it struck a nerve. I slightly envy her that computer room. At least she didn’t have to deal with his irate behavior in the midst of nightly living. Something else she said often: just wait until you don’t live up to his expectations, he will make you pay. This one I stored in the back of my brain. It wasn’t until late in our marriage that this particular mantra of Ex-wife came back to me. In the year leading up to finding Ex’s affair, he frequently told me I didn’t live up to his expectations. Huh? I was having deja vu. I had heard that before. It occurred to me, he said this to ex-wife verbatim. This man had no new tricks up his sleeve. He was on repeat and I was his current target.

Ex did things that just made himself look so bad and made him angry at me if I pointed that fact out. I don’t remember which occasion it was, but step kids arrived from their mom with a wrapped gift for their dad from the kids. Ex refused to open it, throughly disappointing his kids. It just sat there until ex-wife came to pick the kids the next time. Ex walked out to her car with his kids carrying the gift. She rolled the passenger front window down, smiling at him. I don’t know maybe she thought he was coming to say thank you? Instead of thanking her, he grabbed the gift and flung the package like a frisbee into the passenger window and in his angriest voice told her to never ever buy him a gift ever again. Then turned around and stormed back into the house. I guess there were no doors to slam this time. The kids were wide eyed. My chin was on the ground. I wasn’t expecting this. I had asked him numerous times to just accept the gift. He was disappointing the kids. He wouldn’t talk about it. Ex-wife sat there looking as stunned as I felt. I was embarrassed.

Ex was hell bent that none of our kids would have a cell phone or drive until they were working and could afford to pay for the cell phone, car insurance and for a car themselves. By this time we had my 16 yr old son and two 15 yr olds, step-son and oldest daughter. There was a certain amount of reason to Ex’s constant blathering. We definitely weren’t in a position to pay for 3 cell phones, car insurance for 3 or 3 cars. His solution- one shared pre-paid cell phone and no driving. They did a lot together so the one cell phone sort of worked. Sort of. There was constant arguing over who was using too many minutes.

Then things changed. Ex-wife added step-son and step-daughter to her cell plan and gave both their own cell phones. I don’t remember if I stated earlier, but Ex had bought recording equipment from Radio Shack and was recording every phone call between step-kids and Ex-wife. So the fact they now had cell phones nearly sent Ex over the edge. He was bonkers. He initially tried to tell them the phones had to stay at their mother’s house.

RxWife also took stepson to get his driving permit and he was driving her brand new Camry. In addition, the house that Ex-wife and husband had rented was a small house with a mother-in-law suite out back. Ex-wife and husband were living in the suite. Stepson and step daughter were in the main house.

Ex-wife filed a motion to have the phones available for her to talk to kids while at dad’s. Granted. So Ex then used the phones as punishment every time they got out of line in his eyes. He would ground them from the phones every time they arrived back with him. This escalated the arguing between Ex and Ex-wife. He tried telling Ex-wife they were grounded from the phones even on her time and he was keeping the phones until they were ungrounded. She called the police. Police came to our house. Ex turned the phones over to Ex-wife. My goodness. It really was a shit show. In the middle of this my two oldest were still sharing a single pre-paid phone and watching the shit-show. My oldest had gotten a job and asked his dad put him on his cell plan. His dad did add him with the stipulation oldest son was required to pay his dad for his cell phone.

DHS, a police detective and several police officers arrived incredibly unexpected one morning. I had been having so many issues with middle son. Mostly because of Ex’s and middle son’s incredibly volatile relationship, as well as stepson was still stepson. The only thing that had changed was Stepson was now 6 feet tall, 310 pounds and still a bully. Middle son was skipping school. He was angry. He was constantly running off. I was heartbroken because no agency seemed willing to intervene, instead blaming me for not controlling the him. I think my initial reaction took the detective completely guard. When they announced who they were, I said oh Thank God, are you here to help with middle son? They stared at me like I had just spoke a foreign language.

Nope, not there to help. Ex had been reported for abuse and neglect. I will admit the female detective was thankfully very polite. I very clearly remember the officers head straight to the basement and exclaim out loud, ‘this is a family area’. I said yes?? The basement had two rooms. We had 1/2 set up as a TV room, the other 1/2 was the laundry room. Im not sure what they had expected but from their reaction I thought they were expecting a true blue dyed in the wool dungeon. They took their notes, took pictures and the detective stated that if abuse was eventually substantiated against Ex, he would have to move out. But everything was still under investigation. I was terrified.

Ex-wife and step-son were at play.

Sometime later a police officer came knocking at the front door while Ex was at work. He said he was there to do a well check. We stood on the porch talking. I started to cry i was so overwhelmed. The officer was sooo kind. He said I wouldn’t usually make a police report for a well check but I intend to this time. He said go to the station and request the report tomorrow.

The report was eye opening. The officer reported that Ex-wife and her husband had come to the police station angry that their DHS report hadn’t resulted in my kids being removed from Ex’s care. Ex-wife was demanding the police go get Ex. She didn’t want her kids to have to go back to Ex ever again. The report also said step-son and ExWife had made the abuse together. The officer said they needed to go back to DHS and discuss their report with DHS but that he would go make well check.

Shortly after stepson turned 16 he ‘ran away’. To Ex-wife’s house. Ex-wife took him to get his driver’s license on his 16th birthday and gave him her new Camry to drive exclusively. The car was completely his to drive. He wrecked it 3 weeks after getting his license. So then he was driving the husband’s truck while the car was in the shop and husband was driving a rental,

Lots more to come….

The church sermon this past Sunday was in part about Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Judas spent years one on one with Jesus, walking the walk and talking the talk. Yet Judas chose to betray Jesus in the most heinous of ways imaginable. His behavior begs the questions, was Judas really a Jesus convert who intentionally turned his back? Or was Judas’ heart and head hardened to Jesus teachings and he never really fully committed his heart making his betrayal an easy turn of events? Whenever I think about these questions, I inevitably think about my ex husband. This sermon once again brought thoughts of Ex.

My first husband was a product of my rebellious teenage years. Older, but definitely not wiser. The party guy. Slightly dangerous and fun. Fun until he wasn’t. He never could commit to being a committed monogamous husband, dedicated father, friend. As I grew older and my Christian faith grew, the chasm between first husband and I grew wider and wider. He never really grew up. 4 very small children at home and he just wanted to party with friends and have a long string of affairs, look at and surf porn. After 9 years of marriage the divorce was in full swing. I admit I was lost. And potentially looking for answers in all the wrong places. One of those places was an online divorce support group. Catalogs of divorce resources and a chat room. I chatted with whoever was online. Venting, asking for advice, shooting the breeze. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted and had lacked in my first marriage. A dedicated Christian man who loves his wife and wants to spend time with her, loves his kids and looks forward to caring for and raising them. Someone who desired to be my best friend because he loved me and wanted the same. Someone who despised pornography as much as I.

Looking back I see how naive I was. At the time it was flattering to receive attention from a man who said ALL the right things. About a year into my divorce there he was. Said he is Christian, said he loves his kids, said he despises adultery and pornography. It never occurred to me he was watching me, studying me, learning my wants and needs…..mirroring me. After months of online voyeurism he made his move. He said everything I thought I wanted to hear. His values were my values. His wants were my wants. He seemed perfect. We talked about the bible. We talked about our Christian beliefs. I couldn’t believe how compatible we were. It felt as if heaven had opened and dropped this perfect man for me. There one on big problem though. He lived on the east coast, I lived on the west coast.

He flew out to meet me in person. Physically he was an attractive man. Pretty face, tall, thin, toned, fit, polite, said all the right things. He stayed a few days. I was hooked.

A few months later, my parents agreed to watch my kids and I flew out to see him. He picked me up from the airport sweaty and smelly. He said his car was a mess and he wanted to clean it that morning and ran out of time to shower before he had to be at the airport. It wasn’t in character with what I expected. Dirty, sweaty and smelly. I met his two children. On the second or third morning ex decided to leave me with his kids while he went to work. It was unexpected and I was a bit uncomfortable with the situation as I was completely unfamiliar with his kids, but reluctantly agreed. His kids behavior should have raised red flags. His ex wife’s behavior should have raised red flags.

Several months after that, Ex flew to me. My divorce from first husband had only been final 5 weeks. He proposed. We drove to Nevada and got married. It was our 3rd face to face meeting. It was November.

The next month was Christmas break. Ex flew to me and we drove with my 4 kids back to the east coast.

One night Ex made a confession that left me gobsmacked. We were just talking about our hopes and dreams, our future after adulterous ex’s. My ex told me he prays to God that he be given the powers of the Archangels to battle Satan and defeat him. It was so odd, I initially thought he had to be joking. Then I realized he was very serious.

I believe my reaction to his admission threw ex for a loop. I was so taken aback I initially didn’t have a response. I just stared. Incredulous. I remember stuttering with no words. Eventually saying, you need to repent and ask for forgiveness. Humans were never created to battle Satan. We are not Archangels and never will be. Without Jesus, humans are nothing in the face of Satan. You need to repent of this fantasy. Ex looked at me with pure unadulterated hate for an ever so slight second. His eyes black as night. Terrifying. What had I done?

That look in his eyes has never left me. It was hate, evil, confusion, lack of understanding. I wondered in a split second why did he wait until now to tell me this fantasy? This wasn’t a Christian belief. Where was the person who professed similar beliefs to mine?

I found out I was pregnant with our first child in January. He was still living on the east coast.

I felt less and less loved. I felt abandoned. I was pregnant. I had 4 incredibly young children with a man who rarely saw his kids and my husband lived 3000 miles away.

Try as I might, I can’t let go of the image of Satan being the most beautiful yet the most evil creature. Ex had drawn me in with his pretty face and charms, and Christian declarations mirroring my own, but ultimately declaring his desire to be equal to an Archangel. What an odd and sacrilegious desire. My Christian self felt betrayed. Ex had a way about himself. One minute he was sullen and seemed to have this suppressed underlying anger just bubbling to burst out. And the next minute he’s charming and sweet. I never knew which ex I was getting. I look back and realize walking on egg shells began very early in our relationship.

September arrived and with it a new baby. Baby arrived 6 weeks early and spent the first weeks in the NICU, born with a disability.

Ex wanted me to move my kids and I cross country to live with him. He shared custody of his two children with his first wife. Week on, week off. My first husband really hadn’t had any objections to the move when I approached him. But God had other plans. Ex was laid off from his job before we could even get started on a move.

Ex surprised me. He decided to move to me and leave his children with his ex-wife. He signed over full legal custody to her with him having a couple month visitation over the summers.

Our baby was 3 months old when ex gave away everything he owned and drove cross country to me and we began living together for the first time.

3 months after ex moved to me, I found out I was pregnant with our 2nd child. I have a very vivid memory of the evening baby girl was born. I don’t have memory of screaming out while pushing during labor but Ex asked me why did I scream out. He told me it was embarrassing. Embarrassing??? Who tells their wife her reaction to labor pain while pushing his kid out is embarrassing? His comment stung.

Our 2 children are 15 months apart.

I started seeing more cracks in Ex’s christian beliefs.

My ex was overtly adept at using rage and physical intimidation to make me believe physical violence was a considered potential outcome our entire marriage. He told me on more than one occasion that he had great restraint to not physically act on his anger. He portrayed it as some super power he had and how lucky I was he could control how angry my perceived bad behavior had made him, as he towered his additional 11 inches of height over me, arms outstretched emphasizing every angry point with flexed wrists repeatedly flicking the air without landing his desired blows. 

There was a night in late 2019 that I came to fully realize my ex was incredibly capable of physical violence. This particular night he was drinking as usual, but more angry than usual. I was upstairs in the master bedroom trying to avoid him. Around 1:00 am all was quiet and I assumed he had gone to sleep, so I quietly crept downstairs to the kitchen for a snack to take back upstairs. I was so wrong. He was sitting on the couch with his headphones on. Wide awake. I didn’t  speak to him, but my very presence set him off. It was as if he had been downstairs mulling over his absolute hate for me and there I was. Out of nowhere, he leapt off the couch and charged at me, backing me up to a wall, screaming, swearing at me with his long arms flailing. I yelled at him to back away, but he wouldn’t. He put his hands on the wall on either side of me, screaming so loud, spit was leaving his mouth hitting me in the face. He was so drunk. Maybe the most intoxicated and still upright I had ever seen him. The wall was the only thing keeping him upright. One of the times he shifted his weight to steady himself, I darted under his arm and around the corner and up the stairs. As I ran up the stairs, I came face to face with my wide eyed youngest daughter and my youngest son from my first marriage. I hadn’t realized until that moment they were standing on the landing witnessing the entire exchange with ex. The shouting from downstairs had brought them out of their bedrooms. I didn’t have time to think because my ex was coming up the stairs behind me screaming how much he hated me. The kids were between me and the master bedroom, so I told them to run to the bedroom. As soon as I went through the door, I attempted to shut and lock the door. Ex was too fast and slammed the door into the wall preventing me from shutting it. The kids ran to the side of the bed closest to the door, I ran to the other side. Ex was standing there using the wall to steady himself. Those angry black eyes drilling me down. His inner demons dancing on his face lighting his eyes with pure evil. He was a man possessed. He was so focused on me he didn’t to see the kids. Still spewing hateful words he ran at my side of the bed. I climbed over the top of bed as fast as I could towards the kids yelling run. The 3 of us ran down the stairs, through the living room and out into the garage. We heard ex stumble down the hall behind us still screaming at me. He slipped on the stairs and fell on his rear end, sliding down the steps, so I believe he didn’t see where we went. While in the garage, we could hear him moving around inside the house and talking to himself, then it went silent. Minutes ticked by. Silence. My son called my oldest daughter and asked if we could come over and spend the rest of the night at her place. I needed to get the car keys and my sleeping youngest son. What we witnessed when I opened the door is a sight I still to this day regret not taking a picture of. I just wanted out and away from him. At the time taking a picture was the last thing on my mind. Ex had sat down on the loveseat and had apparently passed out. His body was faced forward, but bent sideways with the top of his head on the loveseat next to his hip. So contorted only alcohol could have allowed his body to be bent in such a way. His mug of alcohol had slipped out of his hand and was spilling out onto his lap and the loveseat. He was out cold. We grabbed what we needed and left. The image of my youngest daughter will forever be burned into my brain. Her 14 year old eyes were open wide and filled with tears. Although she has spent her whole life experiencing how critical and demeaning he is, this was her first time seeing him like this. His raw unfiltered anger looking to land on her mother. After we got to my oldest daughter’s house she sobbed for hours while laying her head on my shoulder. I had no words. I just hugged her. 

The next morning after a few hours of restless sleep I left the kids at my daughter’s house and went back home The Ex was lying on the couch asleep. The loveseat wet and alcohol stained. His clothes stained purple. His alcohol mug lying on its side empty next to him. He sat up when he heard me come in. He didn’t realize he was alone in the house. He also appeared not to remember what had transpired just hours earlier. I told him what he had said and done. I told him I believed he was attempting to physically hurt me, but his extreme drunkenness and passing out was actually my saving grace. I asked him what he had planned to do to me if I hadn’t run from him? He denied everything. I told him 2 of the kids witnessed everything. That seemed to startle him and silenced him for an ever so slight brief second. I could see his brain working in real time searching for a retort. Then he did what he always does. Justify and blame shift. He actually had the audacity to tell me if he had done what I said it was my fault. I told him I wanted him to leave the house. He told me it is his house and he will not leave. He said I was free to leave at any time, but he would prevent me from taking anything with me and the kids stayed with him.

Sometime in early 2019 I was offered a promotion at work. I was currently working part time during the school year following closely with the school breaks. Our second to the youngest child is disabled and unable to care for himself, needing 24/7 supervision and care. My work schedule afforded me the ability to take care of him during school breaks as well as afternoons and evenings. The promotion included a full time year round schedule. I told my boss I needed a few days to consider it. I was already having to rely on my older children on occasion when my work schedule conflicted with school breaks. Taking this job would mean having no choice but to find outside care. I was so torn, although flattering, accepting the job seemed ludicrous. I made the mistake of telling the Ex about the offer. I told him I felt I needed to turn the offer down due to son’s care needs. His reaction was swift and dripping with anger. Ex stated that I wasn’t contributing enough financially to the household. I wasn’t pulling my financial weight. He shouted how could I even consider turning down additional income? He said turning it down was unacceptable and lazy and he was done with me taking advantage of his money. With a heavy and apprehensive heart I accepted the job. The job start date was July 1st, but we already had our one and only vacation of our entire marriage scheduled. A trip to Wyoming in the recently purchased travel trailer. I negotiated a delayed start date for as soon as we returned from Wyoming. I had such high hopes for the return to Wyoming, instead it was the very embodiment of the previous 18 years living with the Ex. All the pain and disappointment. I came face to face with the undeniable reality that he is incapable of true happiness. That trip was the pivotal turning point in my journey to rediscover my self worth.