notadoormat's story

My experience began in 1995. I was twenty years old. I was out partying with some friends and met mine at a bar. I couldn’t remember what he was like the next day, but I remembered that I really didn’t like him all that much. I was angry because my friend (whose birthday it was that night) gave him my phone number. I told her he could be some lunatic and I didn’t want him to be able to find me. Anyway, he called three times and each time I would decline his invitations each time he called to ask for a date – until the third time. I agreed to meet him at a restaurant. I did not want him knowing where I lived in case he truly was some psycho (little did I know at the time - I should have listened to my instincts). Anyway, we had a wonderful first date and he told me that he was going to see for a 6-month deployment and he would be leaving in 10 days. So we really just hung out and had a good time without really looking for anything serious to develop.

While he was deployed, he wrote me slews of letters each day. I would laugh out loud at the way he would describe the daily events that transpired on the ship. He had a gift of storytelling. When he returned, we picked up where we left off and began seriously dating again.

When my lease was up with the apartment I shared with my best friend, I moved into a one bedroom apartment of my own and he spent a great deal of time at my place (it sure beat life with the fellas on the ship). All the while I was working two jobs to make ends meet and he never paid a dime toward the household expenses. At some point, he went to Florida for vacation because he had an old friend from back home that was house-sitting for someone down there and the house was AMAZING. He went to visit her for a long weekend and I was too stupid to have any suspicion that anything inappropriate was occurring. I mean, after all, we were in a committed relationship and were living together – right? When he returned, everything was still going the same and one night he came to bring me dinner at my night job and informed me that he couldn’t see me anymore and he would be packed up and gone when I got off work at 3am. There was no explanation. I was devastated.

I learned from my best friend’s boyfriend (she was working the same shift with me that night) that he had told him that he had naked pictures of his girlfriend in Florida and would he like to see them? I left work, drove home infuriated. I was so angry. But something inside me told me, don’t give him the satisfaction of your anger. Kill him with kindness. It will be so much worse for him. I confronted him when I got home and told him that he needed to leave and that I felt sorry for him because I knew what if felt like to betray someone’s trust and it would be sheer torture to try to reestablish it. I wished him well and sent him on his way. He went back to the ship.

We had to suffer through New Year’s Eve and a SuperBowl party with his friends without me and he was “misearable”. During this time, I received a phone call from the girlfriend in Florida. She told me that he had lied to her constantly while he was down there. Showed him pictures of his cousin’s little girl and told her it was his daughter. He told her about me but only that he was living with me because I couldn’t manage on my own. I was so pissed. I was working two jobs and he was freeloading off of me. After a three hour long conversation with this girl, she told me she was done with him and just wanted me to know what happened.

He called me the next day and wanted to take me to a movie. He arrived with a dozen roses. I told the girl in Florida what time he would be at my place so she could call him there and give him a piece of her mind. He showed up and she called. I almost felt guilty setting him up like that. All he would say to her was okay, okay, okay and then he handed the phone back to me. She told me that she told him “I never want to see you again, I never want to talk to you again, burn everything you have of mine. You are a liar. You deserve whatever you get.” Then she told me good luck and hung up. I told him that I would never be able to forgive him for compromising my integrity by telling her I needed him because I couldn’t take care of myself. He promised he would do whatever it took to get me back. And we continued dating and a several months later, we got married.

Three days after we were married, he shipped out for another 6 month deployment. Again, there were letters and phone calls full of the ol’ charm. Shortly after our 2 yr wedding anniversary our son was born. The first red flag was when my parents came to visit after the birth and he told them “I am afraid he is going to be smarter than me.” Don’t most parents want a better future for their children?

As my son grew, he became more of a toy to him and less of a responsibility. When he was learning how to walk, my N would walk up behind him and push him down. He said he wanted him to be tough. As the child grew and was learning right from wrong, my N became more and more interested in forcing his own interests on him. He bought him a little dirt bike (Honda 50) when he was 3. He taught him how to ride it.

When my son was 3, we had a daughter. She was not planned and he was not thrilled when I found out we were expecting her. He knew he was stuck with me for longer now. When she was a yr and half old, we separated. He moved about 40 minutes away and rented a room from a woman and her teenage kids. (I found out years later that he was screwing her too).

We reconciled at Christmas, but only because he came down with walking pneumonia and wanted to come home. After another year, we moved to his hometown so he could pursue his dream of starting his own motorcycle shop. I told him that I would give him 2 years to turn a profit and then he would have to find a steady job with a steady paycheck. So he started his business and I ran the household and earned all of the income. While he was working so deparately on this business, he rarely came home until the wee hours of the morning and he would end up sleeping on the couch. He would get the kids off to school in the morning and I would get them ready for the evening and bed after work. We were like strangers passing in the night.

The last Christmas that we were together as a family, we went to Virginia to see my family and he left on Chrismas Eve to fly back to Indiana because he had work to do. I guarantee you he was seeing someone else back there (although I will never know). He came back Christmas Day and we drove back together as a family.

The following December he had gone to Louisville to see a friend who was having his second bout of stomach cancer. While he was there the guy’s girlfriend asked him “So when are you going to tell your wife that you are cheating on her?” He said that he wasn’t but there was an instance the previous month when he had received a phone call at the shop from a former high school girlfriend and they were on the phone for 3 hours. And it was she that had to end the conversation since it was not appropriate – not him. I told him at that point, our marriage was over. You should have seen his face. He was shocked. As if, by telling me the truth about the phone conversation, it made everything okay. He said he didn’t want a divorce. He didn’t know what he wanted. I gave him time to get his head figured out.

After 2 weeks of barely a word exchanged between us, I told him I was too self respecting to live that way any longer and he needed to leave. He left that night. He lived at his shop for a while and then got an apartment soon after. I had filed for divorce the 3rd day after he left. In the meantime, I went to the bank and moved all the money to another bank and new account. It was all mine anyway, he was not entitled to any of it. He spent weeks getting the papers signed, he kept conveniently missing places where he was supposed to sign. By the time the divorce was final – 6 months had passed.

I had found out in the 4th month, from the kids, that he was seeing someone else that he dated in high school. She was recently divorced and had three kids. I researched and found out that they were talking to each other on My Space around time I threw him out. Also, I found cell phone records that proved they were talking while he and I were still married. In early October that year, he invited me to dinner and he was attending a friend’s birthday party. His girlfriend was watching all 5 of the children. We went to the party and ended up having wild sex at my house that night. He told me after the fact that it meant nothing and that he had come clean with his girlfriend about it all so there was no need for me to tell her. I wasn’t going to tell her anyway, why would I want to hurt her?

After several more instances of my visiting his place just for sex and then sneaking back home afterward (despite him begging me to stay). In a way, it was nice to dish out a dose of his own medicine. I was using him – for once!

While this was going on, he approached me about something I had mentioned in passing almost a year before about getting my son new bedroom furniture. He had a race car bed and was getting too old for it. He said that he would buy the child a new bed and come get the race car bed. Oddly enough, this was the same time that his girlfriend was moving and she had a son that was younger. Of course that is where the bed was intended to go. My son was on the floor at my house for a week without a bed while I shopped for new furniture to him – constantly arguing with the N about the cost of the furniture. He had already taken my son’s bed from him, I was not going to buy my child junk just so he could get in good with his girlfriend. I found the perfect furniture that my son can use through adulthood. He came unglued because it ended up costing him $2000. Oh well. I wasn’t in a hurry to replace my son’s bed – he was! He still throw that in my face like it was all my fault. He conveniently forgets that he took the child’s bed and gave it to his girlfriend’s son – leaving his own son on his floor. What a worm! That is when I knew I was completely done with the POS.

He married his girlfriend exactly one week before what would have been our 11th wedding anniversary. Did I mention that this girl comes from money? Her dad is loaded – private plane, multiple houses, etc. He definitely picked a good one to be his meal ticket this time.

Since our divorce, he had been paying me support of $100 per week in cash payments. There was never any consistency. I would constantly have to chase him down to collect it. It got to the point where I was unable to budget my household expenses, because I did not know when I would get my support each time. I finally got fed up and had the county prosecutor’s office go after him to have it paid through the court (which he should have been doing from the get-go, but he had to maintain the control and keep me coming to him begging for it). He was fit to be tied. Of course, he turned the whole thing on me and told me that it made me look really bad. He has always paid me and what was the deal? It didn’t need to go that route. He was just pissed because he had to go to the court each week and pay his support. He couldn’t set up payroll deduction because he was self employed. I was tired of being treated like a second class citizen. I told him that it was his responsibility to pay it, not my responsibility to collect it. I was finally taking my power back. I was going to be calling the shots – and he couldn’t handle it.

He packed up all the kids items from his apartment and had his dad bring them to my house. I will never forget the looks on my children’s faces when they saw the contents of that box. I will never know the rejection they felt. They asked me why he sent all their stuff back (this was stuff like drinking cups, toothbrushes, dvds, clothing, toys) I told them I didn’t know why don’t they ask him? They called him and he said he wasn’t going to be seeing them for awhile. He was having a total temper tantrum and decided he would punish me by not seeing his kids half the time anymore. We had split them 50/50 remember? He had them half the time and I had them the other half. All he was doing was punishing the children. My heart continues to break for them as they continue to see his true colors today – even after he has been remarried for a year and half now.

He has the kids on the same days that his wife has her kids. That is 5 kids. They are always together when the kids are at their dad’s house. My daughter is lost in a sea of kids. She is not the oldest and she is not the youngest. She is having trouble knowing where her place is over there. He shows more attention to this youngest stepdaughter than he does to her and I think she is angry about it – although she is still pretty young and doesn’t understand what is causing her feelings. My son is the oldest of all of the kids.

My N thinks that by being a parent, it means that you must invoke punishment no matter what the nature of the transgression was. For example, my daughter and her stepsister were tasked with cleaning their bedroom. The stepdaughter was not cleaning. My daughter was. When the N came back to check on their progress, he was pissed it wasn’t done so he threw the remaining toys away – including an idog that my daughter had received from my parents as a gift. She was devastated. He would not listen to her pleas to not throw it out. My son watched this whole thing play out and when the N wasn’t looking, he dug the dog out of the trash and put it in his backpack and brought it back to my house. How sad is that? I am so glad that he is looking out for her though. I told him how much I appreciated him looking after her over there and he said that the N was just totally unreasonable. Now my daughter thinks about whether or not she is at her dad’s on her show and tell days and decides whether to take a toy or not – or if she should wait for a time she is with me – that way the toy won’t get thrown out.

Yet, during that time period, I would get text messages from him telling me that the children don’t want to come to my house. He always tells them I love them and they are always reluctant to agree to come over. Whatever!!! Total projection.

Last July, we went back to court to modify our decree to reflect that he had the children ½ the time and received the appropriate overnight credits. Additionally, at the time of the modification, his salary had been sliced 40% (according to him – he was in charge of the payroll for this company – and I am sure he photo shopped his paystubs to show smaller earnings – again punishing me for leaving him). The decree was modified that there would be no support paid to either party and that he would take all controlling expenses on my son and I would handle the controlling expenses on my daughter and he would get my son as a tax deduction. Also, I brought up that my tax stimulus payment of $1200.00 was intercepted to pay a tax debt that he was decreed to pay to the IRS and he had not done that. The judge gave him a year to pay that back to me. Since he was going to be officially unemployed effective August 15 as the company he worked for was liquidating.
Well, school started for the kids and I was handling the daycare expenses for them through the school year, as he handled their daycare expenses over the summer. The cost was $600 per month and my pay was also cut when the economy tanked. Without support, with the cut in pay and with the cost of childcare, my expenses swung $1200.00 in the opposite direction. I was struggling – and that is putting it mildly. I found out at the end of November that the A-hole was still working. I called my attorney and she sent him some emails requesting his pay information as we needed to modify again since he was still working. He was so rude to her – sending her emails telling her to let him explain “negotiation”. He refused to supply any information. We petitioned for an emergency hearing. And he decided 2 days before the date of hearing to retain yet another attorney (this will be his 3rd since we got divorced) and they got a continuance for 3 weeks.

We went to court at the end of February and he and his attorney were not at all prepared. My attorney had hordes of evidence discrediting what he had reported for his employment and the judge said that we needed to reschedule because they did not complete any preliminary work and the hearing was too premature. I was able to testify however about how uncooperative he was with supplying his pay information and that we have reason to doubt he was truthful about his income in July as we can see his unemployement statement and he was receiving the maximum benefit allowed which would put his pay at $200 more per week than he reported in the July modification. He, however, has been emailing me that I lied. That he paid all of the tax burden – not me. Again – projection! All I wanted was the man to watch his children before and after school while he was unemployed so I could catch a break on childcare. He refused each time – again punishing me. It was only after the court hearing that he RELUCTANTLY agreed to watch the kids until he found a job. He has now found a job and will start on Monday. We will return to court and impute him for support and hopefully, I won’t have to deal with him much anymore.

I am also currently seeing a psychologist who, herself was married to an N for 9 years. She also has two children – who are now grown. She told me that the children will see their dad for who he really is – it just takes time and it is incredibly painful to watch as they experience his dark side. She said that the reason the man spent our entire marriage keeping me out of church and actually attempting to stop me from having my children baptized is because he sees himself as God and that is why he cannot appreciate organized religion. I honestly feel that this man is an agent of hell. And the reason that I became missed up with him is because I am a worthy adversary. I will not let him walk all over me.

My focus now, is to set the best example that I can for my children - to establish a moral code in them that they obviously will not receive from their father. I have already had to tell my son that when it comes to morals and ethics, he needs to find a different role model than his father. He lives in a gray world and I am trying to teach them black and white. I have been dating a wonderful man for 2 years now and he is such a good example for my children. I think they are crazier about him than they are their own dad. And, they are noticing the contrast in the behaviors of these men. My current boyfriend does no use love as a bargaining chip. He is very spiritual as well and we all are actively attending church (he, me and all of our combined children). I finally feel like a whole person again. He has helped me to rediscover the person I was before the N entered my life and morphed me into a sarcastic, cynical, depressed person. I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and am currently taking medicine for these disorders and I can already tell that I have been reborn. Life really does go on!!!