wet birds don't fly at night |

At first I wrote a nice rant defending myself against some of the names that were hurled at me and then decided I didn’t need to go there. Maybe some time, but I think I am moving past that. It just gives the negative events more power by giving them even more of my attention.

I am a pretty optimistic person and choose to focus on the good. Some people have heard about things that went on in my family growing up and think that I must have had a terrible childhood. But I don’t remember things in that way. I don’t focus on the incidents, but rather on the large picture. The forest instead of the trees. And from that view, my childhood was very happy. So was my marriage. There were intensely bad times, but I am just not wired to keep those in memory. Perhaps that is why it is so painful. I remember the good times and his wonderful qualities. It hurts to be unwanted and unloved. I feel like I could be deathly ill in the hospital, and he would not come to see me. No matter what, no matter when, I will not abandon him. He can always call me for help or comfort. I am the richer for it as I don’t have to dump twenty years of my life as if they never happened. I remember my marriage as happy and my husband with great love that will not die. And true love does not require reciprocation. Love never fails.

Every afternoon at work, I miss my husband badly. Before things got totally out of control and his flying monkey interfered, he would call every day and be absolutely sweet. I have twenty saved voicemails dating back to 2001 from. I can’t bring myself to delete them, but it is so sad to listen. Every afternoon my heart aches for him to call. How could he just throw away twenty years? And then primarily for a job he claimed he didn’t even really want except that it wasn’t a dead-end job like the others. I firmly believe the flying monkey had a great deal to do with this, and I am confident in this, and can pray as did St. Paul, may God repay the F.M. according to his deeds.

Today it is so politically incorrect to pray the imprecations. Paul did. And so do I. That man has come between what God has joined, and dared to be the man that hastened to put it asunder.

Many may say, he did me a favour. Perhaps he did, but that was not his place to do. I already was working on ridding my marriage of the abuse, and if we then divorced, that would be OUR place and OUR business, not this busybody man-crush “friend.”

Whatever a man sows, that he shall also reap.

I look forward to the day.

This is going to be a series that I write to myself as I feel myself getting stronger and overcoming. I know this might sound stupid, but until today, I knew I was in an abusive relationship but had a cognitive dissonance in that I could not bring myself to admit to myself that I, a strong, intelligent, courageous woman, am an abused woman. But once I could face myself, it was as if so much guilt and burden lifted off of me. I have been married twenty years, and there were periods of emotional abusiveness throughout the entire time, but not enough to quench my spirit, or at least that is how I see it now. And certainly there were much more good times than bad, but that is not the way to judge a relationship if the bad involved abuse. But the past seven or so years have been simply dreadful for stronger stretches of time. The prevailing love of the prior thirteen kept me going. And I don’t like to quit. Or give up. I got married daggoneit, and I am going to make it work!

With just the little I have shared with some people, it was astounding to me how each and every one of them immediately recognized that I was being abused. And each time I thought, “Dear God, if they only knew the REST of it.”

I believe I am done mooning over him though I may have some slippage. I realize that nearly every single thing he has done in this divorce is a continuation of the mind games. I made one last settlement offer which was way beyond reasonable and less than I am sure I would get if we go to trial. I am not going to bother again. I have done all I can. If this request is ignored or rejected then I am just going to move this case along. Next up is a hearing for Temporary Support. I just want him to pay his half of the shared debt. Period. It is absolutely ridiculous that he hasn’t even attempted to. Nada. He told me this is what he was going to do, and he did. Well, then I just have to follow the path that the justice system allows. He will no longer rent space in my head. Heck, he isn’t even paying rent, he is a squatter. No more. Unless God works a miracle.

It has been rainy. Those were the best days to curl up with my husband and just nap. I miss that.

The Christmas party went very well last night, and it was great seeing old friends. There was only one strained moment when one lady asked if my husband was working that night. Everyone else knew and didn’t bring it up, or if they didn’t know, they didn’t care to ask me where he was. Fine with me. I got to gab on and on with some old friends and make some dinner plans for January. And ended up with a great White Elephant gift!

And after a few years of feeling really down on myself from being put down, I have spent some time recently in improving my appearance, and it has paid off because nearly everyone there said, “Oh my goodness, you look GREAT!” with genuine enthusiasm. That made me feel very good. I did try to dress up, style my hair, and put on makeup. And the outfit was classy cute, at least I think. And the shoes were TO DIE FOR. Shoes cheer me up.

Yesterday was hard. Still reeling from irresponsible cowardice of his mediation appearance, the other side of me warred within, and I really don’t know how I resisted texting him, “I miss you.” I do miss him. I miss his warmth. The way he smells. I had better stop. The texting urge is coming upon me again.

I am going out to a Christmas party tonight so that will keep me occupied. My husband used to mock me for being “anti-social,” and I believed him and claimed that for myself. I have discovered that is not true. In fact I have discovered that I am incredibly social. Here is how this struck me:

When I brought my car to be repaired ($600–remember he has abandoned all of his financial responsibilities–and submitted a “possibly” fraudulent financial affidavit–I say possibly fraudulent because that is left for me to prove, perhaps it was honest mistakes or misunderstandings–however it is a fact that it is grossly inflated for use as a fair determination of his ability to pay his marital debt), I was wearing a Barbie shirt I made. The shirt made quite a splash with a very nice lady that I spent some time chatting with. I didn’t know the repairmen were listening. I would think repairmen (and these were older experienced men, not young kids just starting out in the field) would not have paid a whit of attention to Barbie shirts and a crinolined skirt.

So the next day, I went to pick up my car, and the three repairmen said, “I really liked what you had on yesterday much better.” And meant it! And the outfit wasn’t “sexy,” it was just cute. When I left I mentioned to the friend who drove me that if I were with my husband, the rest of the day would have been sheer misery as he accused me of inappropriate behaviour with these men behind his back. Heck, I might have even been accused of sneaking out in the middle of the night to have group sex with them. I kid you not. When the compliment was paid, I would have been unresponsive and cold. I would have come off like a real b**ch because I did not want to have to deal with the interrogation that came later. Instead, I had a very nice jovial conversation with these men, and I think we mutually brightened each other’s day. I have found that my life is like this now. The REASON I avoided a lot of social situations is because I never knew what innocent incident would prompt some bizarre accusation. Though I still do hate weddings. I always have. I just find them boring beyond belief unless the table-mates are very interesting. When the table-mates are interesting, they can be fun, particularly if you don’t have to worry about being accused of having sex with man, woman, and object. Sorry that is a bit a graphic. I am getting a lot of things out that have burdened me.

But in all this I miss him. I believe the marriage can be saved if he would go to counseling for his abusive behaviour, and we went to marriage counseling. I am learning now that it is very unlikely that this was just a “me and him thing,” and that it is very likely that the pattern will continue in our future relationships. I am taking the steps to arm myself with the self-respect and discernment not to be abused again.

I believe in marriage. I believe in the twenty years we had together. Everyone and anyone can come down with a “sickness.” I believe abusive behaviour is a sickness that can be treated just as my depression is a sickness that can be treated (and is being treated).

Love hopes all things. Love never fails.

that I am sure my husband will somehow manage to infer p0rn in or one of his busybody skank friends that think they have the right to pass judgment on my youtubz on the interwebz

Maybe in the future I will talk more about what happened, but it was an utter waste of time and money. Why I am surprised at anything he pulls is beyond me. And I have lost all respect for his attorney. Not as a legal professional–he is doing his job, but as a person. He was so discourteous and inhospitable that I saw him for maybe four seconds for a very quick hi despite all of his email professions of “oh I am looking forward to meeting you etc.”

I guess that is one way to avoid putting a human face to the person who is suffering the consequences of your client’s actions. The “meeting” was so brief that I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line up unless all of the other guys were black, and he was the only white guy.

Another piece of bull is some mock sympathy in which he stated that he arranged for two conference rooms as he thought “that would make more me comfortable.” I don’t think he expected my return response of my philosophy that mediation involving real life should be done to each other’s face and that I did not wish to be separated the whole time no matter how upsetting it might be. I get to the mediation and what do I find? HE insisted on separate rooms the whole time. My husband is a bona fide coward. No matter how upset and frightened I was, I was willing to face him. The coward couldn’t face me. And his attorney’s bluff was called. It wasn’t for “my comfort” that there were separate rooms the entire time. It was for their purposes.

I don’t play legal games. When I make an offer, it is the “real” offer. When I say something, it is the real reason with no hidden agenda. I am so stupid to expect the same. This is why I never went to law school. I can’t play those games. Sure they are ethical under the Florida Bar. That doesn’t make them right.

I have mediation for my divorce this Thursday. I hyperventilate thinking about it. I desperately want to see my husband, but I know its not good for me. It is easy to be strong sight unseen. Well not easy, but easier. It is so obvious why God hates divorce. It is a tearing of the flesh as painful as a literal mauling. I am going to want to run up to him and cling on and never let go.

I’ve been living to see you. Dying to see you, but it shouldn’t be like this. This was unexpected; what do I do now? Or could we start again please?

[bonus points to whomever knows that song just from that snippet--bit out of context for this application but those lines are perfect--I wrote them from memory, I just went to check to see if I got them right and it was perfect]

I am currently reading Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. The author has been a counselor for thousands of abusive men, both psychically (not applicable in my case) and mental/emotional. Each time I read of things that are nearly exactly what was going on in my home, it gives me a jolt. I had accepted these things as normal. We are almost a textbook case. I nearly laughed out loud when the author said that the most typical way that such a man will try to cover up his abuse is to claim and try to tell others that the female is “crazy” and “making it all up.” I wanted to ask, “Hey! Have you been talking to my husband?” That was his constant threat and from the audio recording of the night we separated he is ranting in the background on how [name of his friend who egged him on in his bad behaviour] already knows “all about how crazy I am so that no one will believe me.” And all of the guys think they are slick and original when they pull that stunt!

Things got so bad, and I got so tired of being lied about that I actually paid and voluntarily submitted to THREE polygraph exams to stop the he said/she said treadmill. I issued the challenge for him to do so as well. Of course he won’t. The hundreds of dollars these tests cost me were worth their weight in gold for the vindication value. What was especially rewarding was that after the test, the examiner said to me that judging by my biological reactions that I was one of the most honest and frank people that he has examined. What also was rewarding was my reaction to one of the “test questions” in which you are told to purposefully lie so that the examiner could get a baseline for bodily reactions. The question was “Do you believe in God?” and I had to purposefully lie and say “No.” He said that my reaction of LIE!!!! was completely off the chain. You know, you like to think that your faith and conviction is strong, but we are all experts at lying to ourselves. The machine doesn’t lie. My body reacting viscerally to even pretending like I was denying God.