The first nights were a relief for me but people who cared about me were worried for my safety. Many people offered to come over and sleep in the middle bedroom if I wanted. I didn't really want it; I was just so glad to be back in the house. Dolores said she'd come over after dinner. No, I was okay, I said. Kyle didn't take 'no' for an answer. He sent his best friend over to stay. From out in the desert, he called his friend and had him come over to be my bodyguard. He wanted to watch TV. And try as I might, I could NOT get anything to work for him. He was my sentinel, though, and I don't know if he ever slept at all. He took his post quite seriously.
My sister flew down on Friday. What joy she brought to me! She was my constant companion for three days. We talked, we watched movies, we somehow got the TV to work, she went with me to the concert and she helped with Dad. The concert was music of the 60's. We loved every minute of it. We chair danced and Dad got annoyed. The trio sang. We wore our blond beehive wigs with peace-symbol headbands and sang 'Our Day Will Come' and 'Do-Wah Diddy'. Having her here was wonderful support. The time went by so quickly. The next thing I knew, she was on a plane for home again.
As my sister and other family members became aware of our impending divorce, they shared things they had held back for twenty-two years. It wasn't as if I hadn't known. They didn't like you. They felt I had sold myself short when I married you. My brother, who likes and accepts everybody, said that his Shit List, albeit short, has you on it. All were cautious about sharing their feelings, more out of hesitation that I might take you back again than out of deference to you. Now they send me encouraging text messages every day. My brother's is: "Trust me. You're way too good for that worthless bum. You're gonna make it and it will all be over before you know it. And it will be worth it!" My little sister's is: "Hi, Honey, just want you to know we're thinking about you and love you. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can conceive of the glorious riches God has prepared for those who love Him. Keep your eyes on Jesus---everything else will confuse you and make you question yourself. Trust HIM!"
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
But Was I Really Safe?
As the thoughts of you standing over me with a knife or a gun started to pop up in my head, another thing starting slowly dawning. Arguing. When we argued early on, I learned some lessons. I responded viscerally, and my learning curve was steep. When we would argue, you gave me verbal signals when to stop. If I didn't pay attention to the verbal signals, you gave me physical signals. They frightened me, I internalized them, and they became so ingrained they were subconscious. During an argument you didn't want to continue your words were, "Stop! Just stop!" If I didn't stop the first two times you said those words, you would start to lose control. Your eyes would widen and get steely. Your nostrils would flare. You would clench your fists. I remember that once you told me if I didn't stop, you would lose control and you wouldn't be able to predict what you would do. It wouldn't be in my best interest to let you get to that point. How long ago did this pattern start? I can't remember. Again, it was you controlling our lives, controlling me, making sure you got your way even if it meant threatening my safety. I never got to pursue something I wanted to if you said, "Stop! Just stop!" How is it that you could badger and harangue me to your hearts content, no matter how many times I asked you to stop? And I didn't get violent. Yet, I am the one who was accused of violence? Could this have been projection? Once you threw a phone into the fake fireplace in front of Laura. She was terrified. She cried. She remembers that to this day. You weren't saying, "Stop! Just stop!" You were angry about something. And probably manicky too. Hmmmmm.....Let's see now. I couldn't talk about things you didn't want to discuss, but you could hammer away at me no matter how many different ways I asked you to stop. Oh,yeah, I forgot. The rules were always different for you.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Still Changing the Locks
So, I had never really feared for my safety with you. Or so I thought. But the locks were getting on my nerves. Randy had said I should contact one of those security companies. Suzin said I should put locks on the windows. Kyle said I should replace the locks. Ah, but they're expensive, and I didn't want to do that. Hmmmmmm.....one owner's manual was missing. The front door's technical writing had left something to be desired. But in time we waded through all the babble and found ways to change the codes. That said, I still didn't feel safe. Your behavior has been so angry and unpredictable lately. And you got so vicious and lied so fast. How far into crazy are you gonna go? I had some visions of waking in the middle of the night to see YOU standing over me with a big kitchen knife in your hand. I had visions of you holding back just one gun-----that's all it would take, wouldn't it? Just. One. Gun.------over my bed. It would be all over then. I still didn't feel safe. I put extra locks on. At night we put on the extra locks. Then I feel safe. Suzin found one gate that didn't have any kind of lock on it. I went out and bought a padlock.
I had already had an unplanned security check. By me. Three days after our court date I was singing in a show at church. My sister was here. I told her how to lock the front door and leave by the back after she got Dad and the caregiver out that evening because I had to leave an hour ahead of them. I would come home ahead of them, let myself in through the back door by using the keypad there, and then meet the three of them at the front door. But NO! I zoomed on home ahead of the three of them, went to the back door, and punched in the code. Nothing. I punched it in again. This had been the door for which we could not find an instruction manual. In order to solve that problem, you had taken the batteries out. The keycode could not be used. I didn't have a key. I looked into the house through the sliding doors. One window was open. I pushed it up the rest of the way, moved a chair out from under it, and went in, concert black and all. I was very pleased with my breaking and entering skills but not pleased with my lax security.
The next day when Laura and Kyle came over, we solved our security problems.
I had already had an unplanned security check. By me. Three days after our court date I was singing in a show at church. My sister was here. I told her how to lock the front door and leave by the back after she got Dad and the caregiver out that evening because I had to leave an hour ahead of them. I would come home ahead of them, let myself in through the back door by using the keypad there, and then meet the three of them at the front door. But NO! I zoomed on home ahead of the three of them, went to the back door, and punched in the code. Nothing. I punched it in again. This had been the door for which we could not find an instruction manual. In order to solve that problem, you had taken the batteries out. The keycode could not be used. I didn't have a key. I looked into the house through the sliding doors. One window was open. I pushed it up the rest of the way, moved a chair out from under it, and went in, concert black and all. I was very pleased with my breaking and entering skills but not pleased with my lax security.
The next day when Laura and Kyle came over, we solved our security problems.
Changing the Locks
You treated this order to move out like it was a picnic. You sat. You chatted. You let Oliver do most of the work. Lots of guns and ammunition left the premises. Geez, how many of those things did you have? And WHY? At one point the pastor came out to the front porch to talk to me about something. You decided to come out and join us. REALLY??? You stretched out in one of the porch chairs like we were all going to have a friendly 'chat'. You asked the pastor if he did mediation. He said he didn't do the kind of mediation we needed, only the spiritual kind. You said that's what you wanted. You wanted to go to mediation with him with me. Are you on CRACK??? We have restraining orders and you think I'm going to sit in the same room with you and talk? You also told the pastor that I had a boyfriend and that you had copies of emails where you said I had written 'I love you. I love you' to my boyfriend. Let me just say that I am very, very interested in seeing these emails because I don't have a boyfriend and I haven't told any of my male correspondents that I love them. I might have said I 'love' receiving emails from them. I might have said I 'love' being in touch with them. I might have said I 'love' one thing or another. But I am not IN LOVE with anyone so therefore I have not said "I love you" to anyone. I sign all my emails, "Love, Cindy". I am changing that now but maybe I shouldn't. I don't have to prove anything to you. I don't have to change my behavior if I am not doing anything wrong. My phone rang just then and it was my attorney. He wanted to know how things were going. He told me he doesn't care what you say. It has become apparent that if your lips are moving, you are lying. I'll add something to that: If your lips are moving or your fingers are on a keyboard, you're lying.
Dad woke up from his nap and was sitting in his lift chair as you were making your final trip to the van. You said goodbye and that it might be the last time he ever would see you. Dad was confused. He had known nothing about me being locked out of the house. Carmi and I had made up stories, and it worked for two days. It wouldn't have worked much longer. He didn't even know we were getting divorced. I sat down next to Dad and explained that we were getting a divorce, that you had locked me out of the house, and that a judge had ordered you out. What a relief to finally fill him in! I felt I had made the house safe for the two of us. He looked at the pastor and asked him if he had known about it. Yes, he did. I had gone to him for pastoral counseling right after I filed for dissolution. I had told him everything. He said that technically Christians can only get divorced in cases of adultery, but that you had been breaking our marriage vows for years. I told him he could brief Dad on what had happened. He was gracious. He said you had put me in a position where I had been backed into a corner and this was the only way I could protect myself, Laura, him and everything I had spent my life working for. Well put. And true.
The judge had said I could change the locks on the house. That took some time. The elder had figured out how to change the master fingerprint on the keypad lock.
Dad woke up from his nap and was sitting in his lift chair as you were making your final trip to the van. You said goodbye and that it might be the last time he ever would see you. Dad was confused. He had known nothing about me being locked out of the house. Carmi and I had made up stories, and it worked for two days. It wouldn't have worked much longer. He didn't even know we were getting divorced. I sat down next to Dad and explained that we were getting a divorce, that you had locked me out of the house, and that a judge had ordered you out. What a relief to finally fill him in! I felt I had made the house safe for the two of us. He looked at the pastor and asked him if he had known about it. Yes, he did. I had gone to him for pastoral counseling right after I filed for dissolution. I had told him everything. He said that technically Christians can only get divorced in cases of adultery, but that you had been breaking our marriage vows for years. I told him he could brief Dad on what had happened. He was gracious. He said you had put me in a position where I had been backed into a corner and this was the only way I could protect myself, Laura, him and everything I had spent my life working for. Well put. And true.
The judge had said I could change the locks on the house. That took some time. The elder had figured out how to change the master fingerprint on the keypad lock.
Home Again
On the way out of the courtroom you were already doing your 'slippery' thing. You told my attorney you had chemo at 4 pm and your cancer support group that evening. My attorney said if you had been well enough to cancel your chemo for Tuesday in order to spend the day in court telling the judge lies and getting restraining order against me, you were certainly well enough to cancel it again today. HAH! I hired the right guy! The judge told us to wait until the TRO's were signed and copied before leaving. You started to leave. As you pushed the elevator button, my attorney called out and reminded you that you had been instructed to stay put. HAH! (You didn't have your hearing aids on.)
On the way home my attorney told me to get on the phone and have some men meet me at the house. I called the pastor. He and an elder were there when we arrived. Dad had just gotten home from the men's group luncheon at church and had gone in for what became a mega-nap. I saw you as I drove past the house. I didn't know how to honor the TRO. We were to remain 100 yards from each other's home, workplace and vehicle. I parked several houses away. A neighbor was outside. She asked me if I was okay. I said no and started to cry. I briefly told her what had happened. She said something about being glad she had never gotten married. I could see her point. My attorney was gesturing and calling to me. I walked toward the house. As I looked back I saw my neighbor doubled up in pain on the ground. I was torn: do I go to the attorney or go back to find out what had happened to my neighbor? I decided on the former as I had seen other neighbors walking to help the fallen one. My attorney walked me through the house. Did it look the same? Look carefully. Is everything the way I had left it? You had gotten another neighbor's grown son to help load the van. The pastor and elder sat with you while you packed. The pastor called my other two trio friends to sit with me on the porch. I cried. I didn't want this to happen. How DID this happen? How did we go from you badgering me to give you money to hire a lawyer and move out to a judge throwing you out of the house and the two of us having mutual restraining orders? We had passed 'Go' and I hadn't collected $200, not even a Community Chest card. Why was your first move Domestic Violence? This was irreparable. We had a court date set to extend or terminate the TRO's on June 28. For the time being, I had the 'Get Out of Jail Free' card.
On the way home my attorney told me to get on the phone and have some men meet me at the house. I called the pastor. He and an elder were there when we arrived. Dad had just gotten home from the men's group luncheon at church and had gone in for what became a mega-nap. I saw you as I drove past the house. I didn't know how to honor the TRO. We were to remain 100 yards from each other's home, workplace and vehicle. I parked several houses away. A neighbor was outside. She asked me if I was okay. I said no and started to cry. I briefly told her what had happened. She said something about being glad she had never gotten married. I could see her point. My attorney was gesturing and calling to me. I walked toward the house. As I looked back I saw my neighbor doubled up in pain on the ground. I was torn: do I go to the attorney or go back to find out what had happened to my neighbor? I decided on the former as I had seen other neighbors walking to help the fallen one. My attorney walked me through the house. Did it look the same? Look carefully. Is everything the way I had left it? You had gotten another neighbor's grown son to help load the van. The pastor and elder sat with you while you packed. The pastor called my other two trio friends to sit with me on the porch. I cried. I didn't want this to happen. How DID this happen? How did we go from you badgering me to give you money to hire a lawyer and move out to a judge throwing you out of the house and the two of us having mutual restraining orders? We had passed 'Go' and I hadn't collected $200, not even a Community Chest card. Why was your first move Domestic Violence? This was irreparable. We had a court date set to extend or terminate the TRO's on June 28. For the time being, I had the 'Get Out of Jail Free' card.
Getting Locked Out
I went to work on Monday June 7 expecting something unpleasant to happen when you returned from your weekend in the desert. You had sent me some of your 'threatening' messages via text. I knew you were writing something. You said you were going to show this 'something' to a judge in an attempt to have me and my dad evicted from our home. I figured you were going to play the cancer card. I didn't see how anything could happen imminently but I am unschooled in the law; that's one reason why I have shelled out lots of money for an attorney.
Work has always been all-consuming for me. The days fly by and, as is the case at the end of the school year, the time with the children is just a portion of the job. This day I had a meeting with a parent and administrator after dismissal. I wanted to retain the parent's child: not something I do often. A century of research that doesn't support retention as an effective practice for intervention doesn't seem to slow our country's taste for continuing it. In fact, it seems to have ramped up with recent trends, strengthening it by tethering it to test scores. I had wanted to retain this child since the first week of school and I had mentioned it at every meeting with his parents. He was classically not ready for kindergarten and hadn't had much behavior change since September.
You walked in during this conference. You put a letter on my desk and asked me to read it as soon as I was finished. What a bastard you are! What a mean-spirited, horrible man you have started to be! One friend says I was the only one who didn't see it, and she hopes that now I do. But whatever your motivation, whatever sense of entitlement drives what you're doing, whatever your goal is right now, do you realize that you have lost the best friend you ever had? Do you realize you have lost the one person who stood by you through all kinds of adversity, criticism and failure? Someday you will come down off of this manicky high------that's right, I don't care what you did to con your doctors, I know your mania and you are very manicky right now------and you will be overwhelmed by the path of destruction you have taken. This letter you left on my desk was addressed to the watch commander at our local police station. You said you had locked me out of our home and that I had tried to kill you three times during our marriage. You gave some lame description of me holding a knife and tensing up when we were arguing in the kitchen. Really??? Could I have both simultaneously been dicing a potato and being harangued by you? Gee.......does one tense up when pressing down on a potato with a knife???
The message was clear, and I could tell it was directed at me: you have guns in the house, you were claiming that I had threatened your life, therefore you were afraid for you life, and you would shoot me and claim self-defense if I tried to get in the house. This in itself was an act of violence on your part. I was locked out; my dad and his caregiver were locked in. You told the caregiver that if they 'cooperated' and didn't let me in, they would have no problem. I could have Carmi bring things to the corner or you would put them in our van that was parked there, and I could pick them up. You told the watch commander I would be staying at Suzin's. How helpful.
I stayed at Suzin's. I spent the night on the phone. The next day my attorney had an associate go to court for him and present my petition but the judge said it needed to be written up on domestic violence forms and would be heard on Wednesday. My petition was rewritten and it was a 'tell-all'. Even so, I thought I was fighting a losing battle. You were going to play the cancer card and I was going to look like a heartless monster. What kind of woman tries to kill a man with pancreatic cancer and then files for divorce? On Wednesday morning I met my attorney at 7 a.m., and he drove me to the courthouse. I was exhausted. I sat in the courtroom shaking, my mouth was dry, and I thought I was going to lose control of my bladder. You walked in at 10:00 and then walked right back out. A minute later someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was myself. I said, "Yes," and was served with a TRO (temporary restraining order) and a 30-Day Notice to Vacate for my dad and myself. I handed them to my attorney. He then whispered that that service had been illegal. When it was finally our turn, the judge swore us in. I claimed your allegations were completely false. The judge asked me about your guns. I didn't know a thing about how many you had or what kinds they were; I had never paid attention to them. He asked me how the house had been purchased and how title had been held, and when. He asked me if I had any information to add. I informed him that I had been served with a TRO and a notice to vacate while sitting in his courtroom. I was surprised when he decided that you had four hours to move out of the house and two days to either sell your guns to a licensed gun dealer or turn them in to the police department. My attorney reached over, took my hand and said, "You've been vindicated. We got everything we asked for." Honestly, we got everything we asked for plus. My attorney had said we were asking for me to be reinstated to the master bedroom and that what we eventually wanted was for you to be removed from the house. It turns out you had spent all of Tuesday in court getting your motions granted by this judge. When he found out what a LIAR you are, I think he got ticked off and threw the book at you. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving person. I covered up your crap for too long. No more. Now the truth comes out. You can live like a leech and steal from the one person who loves and defends you, then turn around and fabricate unbelievable lies about them. But you can't get away with it. The part where you accused me of attempted murder was hurtful and I tried to find out where the kernel of truth might be, but it just isn't there. My friends bust up into gales of laughter when they talk about it. One friend said, "If my husband said I tried to kill him, people would believe him. If L's husband said she'd tried to kill him, people might believe it. But CINDY, with her singsong voice and endless patience!!! That just cracks me up!!!"
Work has always been all-consuming for me. The days fly by and, as is the case at the end of the school year, the time with the children is just a portion of the job. This day I had a meeting with a parent and administrator after dismissal. I wanted to retain the parent's child: not something I do often. A century of research that doesn't support retention as an effective practice for intervention doesn't seem to slow our country's taste for continuing it. In fact, it seems to have ramped up with recent trends, strengthening it by tethering it to test scores. I had wanted to retain this child since the first week of school and I had mentioned it at every meeting with his parents. He was classically not ready for kindergarten and hadn't had much behavior change since September.
You walked in during this conference. You put a letter on my desk and asked me to read it as soon as I was finished. What a bastard you are! What a mean-spirited, horrible man you have started to be! One friend says I was the only one who didn't see it, and she hopes that now I do. But whatever your motivation, whatever sense of entitlement drives what you're doing, whatever your goal is right now, do you realize that you have lost the best friend you ever had? Do you realize you have lost the one person who stood by you through all kinds of adversity, criticism and failure? Someday you will come down off of this manicky high------that's right, I don't care what you did to con your doctors, I know your mania and you are very manicky right now------and you will be overwhelmed by the path of destruction you have taken. This letter you left on my desk was addressed to the watch commander at our local police station. You said you had locked me out of our home and that I had tried to kill you three times during our marriage. You gave some lame description of me holding a knife and tensing up when we were arguing in the kitchen. Really??? Could I have both simultaneously been dicing a potato and being harangued by you? Gee.......does one tense up when pressing down on a potato with a knife???
The message was clear, and I could tell it was directed at me: you have guns in the house, you were claiming that I had threatened your life, therefore you were afraid for you life, and you would shoot me and claim self-defense if I tried to get in the house. This in itself was an act of violence on your part. I was locked out; my dad and his caregiver were locked in. You told the caregiver that if they 'cooperated' and didn't let me in, they would have no problem. I could have Carmi bring things to the corner or you would put them in our van that was parked there, and I could pick them up. You told the watch commander I would be staying at Suzin's. How helpful.
I stayed at Suzin's. I spent the night on the phone. The next day my attorney had an associate go to court for him and present my petition but the judge said it needed to be written up on domestic violence forms and would be heard on Wednesday. My petition was rewritten and it was a 'tell-all'. Even so, I thought I was fighting a losing battle. You were going to play the cancer card and I was going to look like a heartless monster. What kind of woman tries to kill a man with pancreatic cancer and then files for divorce? On Wednesday morning I met my attorney at 7 a.m., and he drove me to the courthouse. I was exhausted. I sat in the courtroom shaking, my mouth was dry, and I thought I was going to lose control of my bladder. You walked in at 10:00 and then walked right back out. A minute later someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was myself. I said, "Yes," and was served with a TRO (temporary restraining order) and a 30-Day Notice to Vacate for my dad and myself. I handed them to my attorney. He then whispered that that service had been illegal. When it was finally our turn, the judge swore us in. I claimed your allegations were completely false. The judge asked me about your guns. I didn't know a thing about how many you had or what kinds they were; I had never paid attention to them. He asked me how the house had been purchased and how title had been held, and when. He asked me if I had any information to add. I informed him that I had been served with a TRO and a notice to vacate while sitting in his courtroom. I was surprised when he decided that you had four hours to move out of the house and two days to either sell your guns to a licensed gun dealer or turn them in to the police department. My attorney reached over, took my hand and said, "You've been vindicated. We got everything we asked for." Honestly, we got everything we asked for plus. My attorney had said we were asking for me to be reinstated to the master bedroom and that what we eventually wanted was for you to be removed from the house. It turns out you had spent all of Tuesday in court getting your motions granted by this judge. When he found out what a LIAR you are, I think he got ticked off and threw the book at you. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving person. I covered up your crap for too long. No more. Now the truth comes out. You can live like a leech and steal from the one person who loves and defends you, then turn around and fabricate unbelievable lies about them. But you can't get away with it. The part where you accused me of attempted murder was hurtful and I tried to find out where the kernel of truth might be, but it just isn't there. My friends bust up into gales of laughter when they talk about it. One friend said, "If my husband said I tried to kill him, people would believe him. If L's husband said she'd tried to kill him, people might believe it. But CINDY, with her singsong voice and endless patience!!! That just cracks me up!!!"
My Other Blog
When you were first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I started a blog called 'Sayinggoodbyetoyou'. It was a way I could express my feelings about your health and what happened as we coped with this devastating form of cancer. But, as usual, you were 'atypical'. Your pan can wasn't the aggressive, fast-growing cancer found in about 97% of all pan can patients. Yours was extremely slow-growing. In fact, yours stopped growing immediately upon discovery. You had a duodenal bypass and within a month after surgery you were eating regular food and regaining your strength. You started eating solid foods during Thanksgiving week. For three weeks prior to your surgery you had been losing about a pound of weight a day. I thought you were dying before my eyes.
I was there with you for the surgery, the chemo treatments, the CT scans, the doctors' appointments. I even went to your new cardiologist with you.
Now, we don't do anything together. Now we have restraining orders. I am spared the aggravation of your emails, phone calls and text messages. I don't know how your health is, but I think you are going to live a long time. And I will 'get' to pay you spousal support as long as that long time lasts.
I was there with you for the surgery, the chemo treatments, the CT scans, the doctors' appointments. I even went to your new cardiologist with you.
Now, we don't do anything together. Now we have restraining orders. I am spared the aggravation of your emails, phone calls and text messages. I don't know how your health is, but I think you are going to live a long time. And I will 'get' to pay you spousal support as long as that long time lasts.
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