Alongcameanarc

I saw ex-stepdaughter and her long time boyfriend this past Saturday. SD came to son’s baseball game. After the game I walked up and gave son a hug and said hello to SD and boyfriend. Boyfriend said hello, EX turned around backwards and ignored me, SD kept her head down and side eyed me without looking up or turning her head towards me and barely grunted a very muffled hello. My thought at the time was I don’t think she realizes just how stupid her behavior looks or that her behavior is a near identical replication of her father’s behavior.

She’s a walking talking oxymoron in the flesh. I kinda sorta get siding with your parent over your ex-step-parent in a divorce. Up to a point anyway.

She was and may still be a ‘mean girl’. She was THE mean girl during middle and high school. SD is an attractive girl. I believe her boyfriend thinks he won the trophy girl. SD was the mean girl at home as well as school. She bullied, lied about and stole from her siblings and step-siblings all throughout the years. I see a lot of Ex’s traits in her. The two sides of the same coin, sweet when she needs to be, not so sweet when it suits her. My youngest son from my first marriage and SD are 2 months apart in age and spent almost their entire school age years together. Son suffered a great deal at her hands over the years. Some of her shenanigans towards son got her in trouble at school. She treated youngest daughter with pure distain and just plain ignored youngest son.

SD lived with us full time for several years but testified against her dad in open court at least twice back in the mid 2000s. SD testified to her dad’s abusive behavior and that she wanted to live with her mom again. SD ended up back with her mom 1/2 time after that.

Ex ignored and/or excused SD’s behavior away and always blamed her behavior on SD’s mother. One example was staying out with boyfriends. My oldest daughter is 4 years older than SD. It was the same time frame for both girls but oldest daughter had already graduated high school. Ex called oldest daughter a slut to her face when she stayed out all night with her boyfriend and told her if she let on to youngest daughter where she had been he would kick her out of his house. SD was declaring she staying at her mom’s over the weekends, but we found out this was a lie. All throughout high school, SD was spending the majority of the weekends ‘camping’ with her boyfriend and her mother was covering for her. Ex said nothing to SD. I asked how is it he is calling my adult daughter a slut for staying out a handful of times and remaining silent when his teenage daughter is spending the weekends with her boyfriend. EX raged at me stating that it wouldn’t do any good to say anything to SD because her mother would let her spend the night with her boyfriend every other weekend anyway. But Ex continued to call my daughter names in front of everyone. Understandably, oldest daughter moved out of our house. And SD got a pass. There was also youngest son from first marriage GF. SD and son are the exact same age, in the same school grade. SD and her boyfriend stayed shut up in her bedroom when they were at our house. Ex said nothing to SD. Nothing. Son had a little GF for a while. The first night he took her up to his bedroom, Ex stormed up the stairs, slammed son’s bedroom door into the wall and screamed they are not allowed to be in son’s bedroom. Son’s GF ran out, left the house and broke up with son. Ex was terrifying. Again, I asked why the disparage in rules. Rage- rage was his answer.

Another example was clothes. Oldest daughter had a job and was using the lion’s share of her wages to buy herself new clothes. It wasn’t long before daughter was complaining she couldn’t find a lot of her clothes. She speculated that SD was taking her new clothes to her mother’s EOW in her backpack. SD vehemently denied taking anything. Then one weekend SD was at her mom’s posting selfies of herself and her friends online. Sure enough, SD was wearing oldest daughter’s brand new clothes. Im not talking about a shirt or two, Im talking about hundreds of dollars in new clothes, an entire wardrobe. Ex barely said anything to SD. Ex refused to address it with his ex-wife. Ex told oldest daughter there was nothing he could do and essentially told her to just suck it up. Once I had the proof SD was stealing daughter’s clothes, I started keeping anything new she purchased in my closet. SD never returned daughter’s clothes, and Ex wanted the subject dropped. Again, Ex gave SD a pass at daughter’s expense.

Ex was harsh and unloving towards my 4 kids, Step-son and our 2 kids together. Ex never hid that SD was the favored child. Although SD had flavored status with Ex, he was still an asshole even to her. Just not as big of an asshole as he was to the rest of the kids. The biggest difference between all the kids was how Ex talked to SD in baby talk. This high pitched sing song voice. Ex was talking to SD in this voice when I first met him and SD was 3 yrs old. I assumed Ex would start talking to her in a normal voice as she got older. Nope. It’s continued to this day. Youngest daughter picked up on the baby voice when she was around 11 or 12 and SD was pushing 20. Youngest daughter would shake her head and say Im the baby and dad’s never talked to me in baby talk, youngest son is disabled and dad never talks to him in baby talk. Ex did not talk to anyone except SD in baby talk Youngest daughter would ask why? Never really had an answer for her. After the divorce process started, Ex started talking to youngest son in baby talk if other people were listening, otherwise the baby talk was still reserved for SD. It’s been a disgusting and contrived display. I should add, Ex has a pretty deep voice, so the baby talk is so far from his natural voice and I cannot imagine SD hasn’t noticed what the rest of us cant not notice. SD basked in Ex’s babying when she was little but holy moly, to hear him talk to her in baby talk as an adult…Ex’s baby talk to SD is so overt all the other kids, to include youngest daughter, Ex’s daughter, refer to the baby talk as Ex’s SD voice.

SD wore her disgust for EX on her sleeve. She frequently asked why does he act like that? What’s wrong with him? And sometimes she said out loud-he’s an asshole. She told me many times she didn’t understand why Ex treated me the way he did. So on some level SD knows just what Ex is capable of.

SD continued to spend most of her weekends and evening away from the house over the next several years and we rarely saw her. She eventually moved out with her boyfriend late 2019 and we almost never saw her after that.

So it was a bit surprising, and honestly disappointing, how hard and fast SD came to her dad’s defense once his affair was finally common knowledge and I filed for divorce. SD has first hand knowledge just how bad Ex treated her mother, SD undoubted knows Ex treats me with the same psycho behavior as he treated her mother, yet SD totally rejected me and completely embraced the affair partner, actively granting her dad a pass to commit the same Narc behavior to yet another woman. And it appears Ex actually did exactly that.

SD turns 29 on her next birthday. So she’s old enough to know better.

It’s hard sometimes: remaining silent, refraining from defending yourself. Last summer youngest son was playing Bocce. The state tournament was out of town in July. I informed Ex in writing of the tournament date in April. I informed Ex’s mother of the tournament date in May over the phone. So apparently in late June Ex and his mother planned her one and only visit to our state last year the same weekend as the tournament. And neither of them had the common curtesy to give me a heads up. I found out through the grapevine last minute. They had every expectation son should just forfeit the tournament without telling me. I brought up to Ex that common curtesy dictates they inform me of the conflicting schedules. Ex replied copying SD, youngest daughter and his mother, that I didn’t deserve common curtesy and rehashing what a POS wife I was during the marriage. It was insane. Ex’s mother who should have never been copied to our conversation in the first place interjected her two cents, and in a way that told me Ex didn’t give her the whole story or at least gave her a very skewed version, or maybe she was just being the nana/mommy enabler she always has been. I still stand by the fact that if someone knowingly makes plans that directly affect me, they should tell me. Not leave me in the dark to find out third hand and last minute. Yet Ex told me in writing I didn’t deserve to be told and his mother came to his defense. If they had kept me in the loop in a timely manner son could have been better eased into not attending the tournament, instead of the last minute shit show they created.

SD and youngest daughter remained silent during this exchange but it’s clear SD frosty attitude towards me completely iced over after that.

I have learned silence can be and is golden. Why defend myself to people who think nothing of treating son and I so shabbily.

Youngest son routinely comes back from Ex telling me how badly Ex, SD and boyfriend talk about me in front of him. This is really the only area I have struggled with remaining silent. Three adults who claim to care about son trashing his mother in front of him. That’s not love, that is self serving, obtuse and tone deaf. Flying monkeys doing what flying monkeys do best…and SD is a willing and completely entrenched flying monkey.

At the ripe old age of 28.5, instead of growing up and on, SD is still the enabler, back stabber, mean girl of her youth, she just added flying monkey to her long list of personas. And that makes me kinda sad.

It wasn’t until after the divorce started and Ex was ordered out of the house and I could breathe a little that I started online searches of Ex’s behaviors. I never understood Ex’s weird obsessions centering around SD. I learned pretty early on he had SD on a pedestal. He had two kids and the disparages between their rankings in his eyes was irrational. SD couldn’t do anything wrong, and SS couldn’t do anything right. My 4 kids soon rated down with SS from the get go. One golden child and 5 scape goats. Even our two children together never ever measured up to SD. As our marriage droned on, Ex made it clear to me she rated above me too. It was so weird. Ex expected me to put him first, but he put SD first. Now I realize the terminology: triangulation. Ex uses SD as a pawn. It’s still weird. I understand the mechanics of his behavior but I still can’t wrap my head around the why. I don’t understand Ex purposefully making one child believe they are less than another in his eyes. I don’t understand making your spouse believe they are less than a child. But I do now understand it’s triangulation. I just have trouble wrapping my head around the reasoning. I lived it. Am living it. Youngest daughter lives it. It’s so purposefully hurtful. I pray SD one day realizes what is completely evident to everyone else.

1058 is not just a son of 399, but one of her famous quads born back in 2020. 399’s death last October threw me for a loop. I cried for weeks after her death. Jesus will always be my hope and strong tower who guided me thru my divorce and He will be there every step of the rest of my life. 399 was the poster child of my new found independence born out of my divorce from Ex. Her death felt like a literal slap. The sting lasting long after the news.

1058 died this week in the exact same manner his mother died last October. Hit by a car in the Grand Teton National Park area, with one big difference. The person who hit 399 called the authorities and made sure she was taken care. 1058 was found in a ditch, with injuries consistent with a car strike. And Im right back to where I was last October. In tears.

Life is so fragile and short and wildly unpredictable. 1058 just emerged from his winter’s hibernation and now his life is gone just like his mother’s.

After 399 death last fall, I purchased this beautiful photo as a reminder: Don’t wait. Do the things. I begged Ex to go see her, and as with everything in our married life, Ex dictated who, what, when and where. So we never went, never saw, never did. Period. Full stop. 399 and her cubs are my inspiration.

Ex is truly a piece of work. Ex has ignored and purposefully and publicly dissed youngest daughter for over 4 years. They have had almost zero direct communication during that same 4 plus years. The extremely few times they have communicated it has been a disagreement. The last communication Ex and daughter have had was spring of 2022 when Ex demanded high school graduation tickets for himself and affair partner. Youngest daughter told Ex she didn’t want his GF at her graduation. Ex essentially told daughter either accept my GF or don’t contact me again. They have had no communication between spring of 2022 until a few days ago. Ex sent daughter a cruel and wildly inappropriate text out of the clear blue. The text accused her of something that never happened.

Daughter speculated that maybe Ex found an old letter he received from child support enforcement and misunderstood its context. Daughter turned 21 last year and Ex’s child support obligation to her ended when she turned 21. I don’t believe Ex misunderstood an old letter. I believe Ex’s life choices have dropped him in the toilet and he is lashing out. But whether he misunderstood an old letter from last year or he just chose a random subject to lambast daughter with, Ex’s behavior isn’t normal behavior, and this text is beyond disgusting. I redacted daughter’s full name, which Ex had typed out. Ex blamed daughter for his own follies and then told her to change her name. How grotesque and low he is.

I have had Ex blocked on all social media, to include Facebook, since I found out about his affair nearly 4.5 years ago. The text to daughter is a serious red flag something has to be amiss in Ex’s life. Ex still has his Facebook set to public so anyone can go take a look. My oldest daughter did just that and found a treasure trove.

Apparently daughter has been publicly excommunicated from Ex’s life. But the reason for Ex lashing out at daughter appears to be Ex’s on again off again affair partner is apparently off again. Ex’s Facebook display is certifiable at best.

I will post those screen shots in a bit…

I have so much to say about this post. There are no whole truths, just snippets of partial truths. We are 4.5 years down the road and Ex is still perpetuating his lies. Ex has been repeating this farce about losing ‘’20 years of his life’s equity’’ since the divorce trial. ‘’Including the $470,000 house I had to sign over, vehicles I had to sign over, and anything in the house.’’. Ex makes it appear that he lost $470,000 plus cars and household items in the divorce. The truth is far from his piteous description. The house had/has a mortgage, which I was ordered to refinance in my own name. Plus the house had a $34,000 solar lean in addition to the mortgage, which I was also ordered to refi in my own name. The remaining home equity after deducting the mortgage and solar lean was very comparable to Ex’s 403b, which he was solely awarded.

I was awarded my vehicle which was financed and he was awarded his truck which was paid off. The equity in my financed vehicle was comparable to the value of his paid off truck. I refinanced my vehicle in my name only. As far as household items….Ex removed a great deal of items from the house before he was order to move out. Included in the items he removed was approximately $12,000 worth of guns, gun accessories as well as some very expensive weight equipment. The items he removed were worth at very least equal to the remaining household items, but in reality probably worth more. I was awarded my very small work retirement acct. The biggest sticking point for Ex was our 2014 Honda Civic given to our then 16 yr old daughter to drive in mid 2020. The Civic had been my daily driver since purchasing it new in 2014. I purchased a new vehicle in 2020 and we decided since we knew it was a reliable car for daughter to drive and for daughter to drive youngest son around in, it was presented to youngest daughter for her exclusive use. Ex demanded from the divorce get go that he wanted to take the car away from daughter, sell it, split the proceeds and if I wanted her to have a car to drive I would need to buy her a car out of my 1/2. And poof, just like that all the reasons daughter was driving the Civic went out Ex’s window. He was only concerned with the money at that point. I refused to sell it. By the time our divorce trial came around, daughter had been driving the car for 3 years and it became one of the hills I was willing to die on. I told my attorney I would not agree to taking the car from our daughter as she was just entering college and needed transportation and I wanted him to make a stand for keeping it at our trial. Ex sounded so petty and vindictive at trial, demanding to sell the car. The judge awarded the Civic to our daughter. Ex and I were ordered to sign the title over to daughter.

It’s almost comical Ex would bring up Disneyland. I asked him so many times to let’s take the kids but he had some lame excuse why we couldn’t/wouldn’t take them every single time I brought it up. He always feigned how ‘broke’ he was and there was no money to go, but that just wasn’t true. Family vacations, or family time period, were dead last on Ex’s priority list. Now that I don’t have to consult with Ex, we go to Disneyland. And it is so much fun. Far more fun than the years of doing nothing, but watching Ex fall asleep on the couch after drinking himself into a stupor every night.

And that’s it. He had to split ‘’20 years of equity’’ 50/50. For some reason he thought, and still thinks, he should get 100 % of ‘his equity’ rather than the half he ended up with. That’s the problem with adultery and divorce. You don’t get to cheat and walk away with everything and that chaps Ex’s ass.

A friend forwarded this from Ex’s Facebook page:

I asked my friend, so does he actually only have one friend now? Yep, Ex deleted every single Facebook friend except his apparent off again affair partner:

I wouldn’t know much of anything about Ex at this point, except for the fact he made that hideous text to our daughter a few days ago. And of course the fact he has kept his Facebook public, which begs that he is hoping people actually see his weird posts even after deleting everyone except GF. To be totally honest, I believe Ex spends inordinate amounts of time contemplating my demise. These latest posts of his haven’t changed my belief.

More to come….

Honestly, I don’t understand much of this Ex post. I think it was a drunken rant mostly. He even has the ‘interviewer’s first and last name name incorrect. The ‘interviewer’ generated by Ex’s counter filing for guardianship was indeed a retired county circuit court judge. Ex stated the ex-judge (interviewer) asked him if he was trying to take son away from his mother: the retired judge interviewer, the second interviewer, had full privy to the first ‘interviewer’s’ official report. In that first report by the first interviewer, Ex had requested the interviewer recommend our disabled son be placed in state guardianship rather than in my guardianship. Essentially, Ex had stated if I can’t have guardianship of son, I want to make sure nobody will.

I posted about the interviewer’s in a previous post. There were two interviewers. One generated by my initial petition for guardianship, at which Ex requested state guardianship, and a second interviewer generated by Ex’s counter petition for guardianship for himself. Ex is commiserating the second interviewer, initiated by his counterclaim.

Ex had literally asked the court (first court appointed interviewer) to throw the baby out with the bathwater (hand son over to the state) , and the second interviewer asked him if his intent was to take son away from me. Ex is angry the retired judge understood that Ex was more concerned with winning than Ex was with doing what was best for son. With my rebuttal to Ex’s counter filing for guardianship for himself, I included both Ex’s written divorce ‘proposals’. Ex was offering full sole custody to me in exchange for no support from him. The retired judge asked Ex why he was tying custody and support together like that. Ex said he needs to buy a house for himself and he may not be able to buy a house if he has to pay support.

In addition the interviewer Ex is complaining about interviewed son’s doctor, teacher and disability case manager. They all unanimously stated it was me who did all the things. son’s case manager said she had never even met Ex. Of the total of 33 IEP and disability services meetings since son’s birth, Ex had attend a grand total of 3 meetings. This is fact, as all of these meetings require attendance logs. Ex’s signature is only on 3.

Ex wanted to look like ‘super dad’ after the fact and after the divorce and was angry just how uninvolved he had been was becoming unavoidably apparent to the outside world.

More to come….

As I have already stated, I wouldn’t know about any of these Facebook posts of Ex’s if Ex hadn’t chosen to turn his anger towards our daughter and sent her that 1:00 am text out of the clear blue.

It appears the GF packed up and moved back to my town. Ex talked her into selling her house, quitting her job of 20 yrs and moving with him 4.5 hours north of here. And after all that she left him after only 6-7 months and moved back to where it all started. Instead of accepting his screw ups, Ex is sitting around all alone 4.5 hours north of us contemplating who he can lash out at and blame for his current plight. Namely our innocent daughter. And….writing middle of the night posts blaming me (and God) for everything wrong in his life.

More to come….

So far in his weird pity party posts when he mentions ‘karma’ it has to do with me. Then followed the karma post with a song about killing. I realize Ex may have been thinking of someone else, maybe the now ex-adultery partner GF, but honestly I believe Ex perseverates on my demise. Ex posted the 3 posts directly above, then deleted the 2nd and 3rd posts the next day. Ex is seriously off. And terrifying.

It’s really amazing how he takes absolutely no responsibility for anything and even goes so far as to say if women were in danger of losing everything in addition to their man maybe they would try harder in the marriage. Amazing- no accountability. No culpability. No responsibility for the man. No admissions that maybe, just maybe he is the one in wrong. Goodness

And I believe Ex fantasies about my demise

More to come…..

If I ever pause to second guess my memories of how horrible Ex is, today is one of those days that re-cements that yes he is that bad. No question.

Today was a Special Olympics tournament. Son sees his dad every other weekend. This tournament weekend son is with me so I took him to the venue. I don’t know ahead of time for sure Ex will attend son’s tournament.

I haven’t written about it yet but Ex moved 4.5 hours north of us 14 months ago. Ex 100% blamed me as his reasoning for this job change in his December 2023 notification of his impending 1/24 move. I looked up the online ad posting for his new job. He 100% took this new job for the salary increase and sign on bonus, but it sounds better to tell me, and anyone else listening, he’s moving away because of me. This move eliminated Ex’s every Tuesday dinner night with son.

Son stated his dad would attend the tournament, so I suspected he would. According to son, Ex would be bringing his GF, Ex’s older daughter and her boyfriend.

Ex showed up in time for son’s first game alone. And appeared surly from minute one.

5 of son’s siblings came to cheer son on. My oldest 4 children from my first marriage and youngest daughter, plus one of my daughters-in-law, my son-in-law, grand-daughter and youngest daughter’s boyfriend.

When older son2 arrived, he went to son and gave him a hug. I don’t know where Ex had disappeared to but he suddenly reappeared standing behind son. Son asked older son2 to say hi to his dad. The rest of us were across the court sitting on the bleachers watching the spectacle unfold. Son2 waved to Ex and said Hi. Instead of Ex saying hi to son2, Ex turned around to face the wall, and remained facing the wall until son2 walked back to the rest of our group. Son2’s wife commented, you were completely ignored. Son2 said yeah I was, I said hi to Ex for son’s sake but Ex couldn’t bring himself to do the same.

Ex skirted around the edges the first 2 games, looking down, playing on his phone and acting completely disinterested in the games. He did pull out his selfie stick and record son’s on court play time, but went right back to head down playing on his phone as soon as son was on the bench. I did not witness Ex cheering even once the entire day. Son likes to wave at his dad and I while sitting on the bench and I watched son become visibly frustrated trying to get Ex’s attention. Ex was looking down. It was the same at the few practices Ex attended. He was almost exclusively looking down at his phone the entire time.

After game 2, there was a break for a hosted lunch. Ex disappeared at the beginning of the lunch break. He reappeared just before it was time to head to the court for game 3. Son and I were sitting on the bleachers with son’s team. I saw Ex come through the doors on the opposite side. Ex called son’s cell phone telling him to get up and come to him. Son kept saying where are you? I pointed across the way and said he’s over there. Ex was motioning for son to leave me and his team and come over to where he is. Why cant Ex be a civil adult and walk over and say hello and ask son if he wants to go for a walk instead skulking around drawing son away from everyone?

Later, at the end of son’s 3rd game, son walked over to Ex, who was sitting next to a woman Ex very briefly lived with over the summer of 2023. Ex and the affair partner GF broke up for most of 2023 and Ex was on the prowl for a new girlfriend and briefly found one.

The woman was friendly to me, but Ex stood up and turned sideways facing away from me. Son said dad say hi to mom. Ex turned completely around away me and said nothing. The woman walked away. Since there was a 2 hour down time until the 4th game, I said to Ex would you like to keep son with you until 4th game? Ex growled ‘’it doesn’t matter!, then said NO!’’ and stormed off as fast as his feet could take him.

Son spent the rest of the day perseverating over ‘why dad no want me?’ And ‘why dad so mean to mom?’

Ex is satisfied with burning himself down as long as he believes he is taking me down too. I just thought Ex might like to spend a couple hours with son. Apparently not.

And all the bad memories of life with Ex come flooding back. This was 20 years of day to day life. Ex is trying his best to utilize his tried and true silent treatment. And he’s looking and acting like a pathetic fool out in public

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, elbowing me in the side saying there’s a bailiff. 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 the top of 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: all the air sucked out of the room because every single one of us besides Ex took in a sharp deep breath at the exact same moment. 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, rivaling any hyena. 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 himself to the courtroom door with those evil solid black eyes drilling the judge, he 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. He pushed the courtroom door open and stood in the opening into the courtroom a couple minutes later and screamed yet again ‘you ruined my life’. He turned back around and darted 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 my kids and had known exclusively behind closed doors for almost 20 years. 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.