M, I Forgive You

You used me, your verbally abused me, you treated me like something that was usable until it was no longer needed and then thrown away; you did everything to me that makes this world a hateful and horrible place, and I forgive you. I forgive you because you have to live with for the rest of your life all the things that you have done, all the memories of the pain you have inflicted on your fellow human beings; the way you have treated your children and your two ex-husbands; all the people you have given up on, including yourself and us; all the lies and cheating and all the tears and bitterness. I forgive you because I know I am free and clear of all culpability. And while I had to live with your decision and hurtful ways, it was only for the short-term, and I know the pain and suffering that rips your heart to pieces each day is a pain you have created for yourself and will last forever because they are scars and memories that cannot be taken back. You cannot take back yelling and screaming and shouting, you cannot take back that pain, you cannot take back the hell that you have created for yourself.

I am not a religious person, M, you know that, but I do forgive you, hopefully you will be forgiven in the eyes that forgiveness counts the most and you will learn to mend your ways to make this world better for the people who find themselves in the unfortunate situation of being in your presence – for their sake, for your sake, for your children’s sake, for all of our sakes.

Words cannot even begin to describe how tired I am of hating you. They also cannot describe the brutal way in which you have hurt so many, almost as if you enjoyed it, and the hate and sorrow you leave in your wake as you pass on by. Thank God you have passed me by now and you’re no longer even on the horizon.

Goodbye Forever, M

“F-You” #4

Finally the weekend ended and we had most or you stuff moved in and even some of it set up, it was time to relax. That was when my wife and her daughter wanted one last ride, one last turn to brake down the boys confidence just a little more.

I had been trying to stay out of the whole fight all day, like I said, me and my wife were on shaky ground to begin with, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand by and watch as a grown women and her emotionaly unstable daughter ripped apart this little kid who was (for the time being) sweet, considerate, inqusitive (if not a little slow), and an all around good kind, everything my wife and her daughter weren’t.

I told them to sop. They had been picking on him all day and I wanted it to end, now!

My wife, who had always critized me for not taking a more active role in the kids life, brushed away my comments as if what I had to say had no berring on the situation. And that’s when I lost it. I said “Fuck you!” Yeah, I know, I lost it, and I will regret saying that for the rest of my life, but I want regret sticking up for her son when she wouldn’t, and I will never regret what I said next. I accused her of chossing favorite amongst her own children – because she was.

Things went pretty much down hill from there. I threatened to take the dogs and the car – good luck walking the 40+ miles to work, it was the least I could do since she didn’t throw so much as a nickle my way when things were really bad, finacially.

More Lies

* Another from the closet of unpublished material

It seems like the lies, once the flood gates opened, never stopped.

After I found the letter from her mysterious ex, I did go snooping. I thought, hell, if she is hiding this what else could she be hiding. Did she have another boyfriend? Probably not, since she had only been divorced from husband number one for a year, maybe a year and half.

I was wrong.

I knew she kept a diary, so as pathetic and as big of an asshole as this makes me sound, I went looking for it. I mean, to me, the first lie was HUGE, it changed the game completely, I went from knowing this person through and through, to not really knowing her at all.

I found her diary tucked in her night stand, although I was surprised to find out that this diary was not the same as the one that I had seen her jot down many ideas in when we went to the Grand Canyon together. That one I spilt some spaghetti sauce on, this one was spotless. But inside, I found more secret and more lies.

She had made it no secret that she had given birth to twins about five months before we met. She said that a family friend had taken advantage of her and as a result she had gotten pregnant. Not able to raise these kids, she gave them up for adoption, since the father had long skipped town. Of course, when she told me this story, several questions popped into my head, like, why didn’t you call the cops? Where is he now? Why was he in your house in the first place?

To these questions she answered that he was a family friend and, to put it simply, she was raped. She had not called the cops because she was ashamed and soon after the incident he moved to L.A. The diary had a different story to tell.

In her own words she described how she became involved with a man at work – a married man – they had an affair and she had gotten pregnant. Again, from the diary not only was the relationship intense, she seemed to be very much in love with him, so much so, in fact, that when I started to put the pieces together, it started to appear as if she might have left her first husband just so that they could be together – he probably promised to leave his wife, which apparently never happened.

As you can imagine I was devastated. This person who I thought I knew, it turns out, I didn’t know at all.

Later I would find more letters where they kept in touch after he moved to L.A., where he apparently still told her that he was leaving his wife and that she should start looking for a job in L.A. so they could move into together when they separated.

And after all that I stayed. What did I think was going to happen? How did I think that this was going to end? I know now that no relationship could survive those big of lies becoming known. I also realize now that once lies that large have to be kept, it shows that there is huge problems with the mental stability of that person. Everybody has lies that they keep, or skeletons in their closet, but I am not sure that those lies are that big.

I could have understood if she said “I made a mistake and got involved with a married man.” At least that would have been the truth, but by not telling the truth she left things open for interpretation, and for me to come up with my own reasons how she could do such a horrible thing. Granted, this relationship took place long before we were together, but still, there is no excuse for cheating. In any case, the best step she could have done to put our relationship on the best footing possible, concerning her past, would have been to tell the truth, because lies like this always come out and people get hurt, the best thing is to get everything out in the open.

Later discussions concerning this matter were met with the same nonchalant shrug off that our last big blow-up was met with and nothing was resolved and things continued to be boiled inside until they have, now, finally boiled over.

Everybody Yell and Scream

* More closet material. This one sums all lot up.

Now, my wife’s son does talk – a lot – but his talking comes in the form of a constant barash of questions, questions about the weather, the moon and stars, about cats, why do we get sick, what is hair for, anything. And it can, at times, ware you down. My wife’s daughter, on the other hand, is also vocal, but in a different way. She likes to run around the house and bark like a dog, or yodle as she is going up the stairs, or spontaniously start to howl when your in the car. Annoying I know.

And I was constantly on her case about it, asking her to please, please stop, or at least don’t to do it in the house or while driving in the car. Usually never worked – OK, it never worked.

On the moring of our move what I constantly heard was my wife and her daughter telling her son to “shut up,” “please stop talking,” or, “do something and help.” All valid complaints (although they could have been fraised more eloqently), but ones that I think should have been coming from my wife and not her daughter, after all, my wife is the one who is supposed to be setting an example and teaching her kids what there proper place is, and her daughter screaming at her brother was not the proper behavior for her, and my wife allowing it to continue was not the proper behavoir on her part, either.

That was my first issue.

My second issue was with the daughter who, as the moment carried her would brake into song and start singing at the top of her lung out in the middle of the street. . .at 7:30-8 ‘o clock in the morning. . .on Saturday. I had to tell her on three occassion to be quite, my wife never said a word to her, at least not about her yelling. The only time I heard my wife say anything to her daughter was when she was dangling of a ledge upstairs, in danger of falling, other then that, not a peep.

Goodbye Forever

* More closet material

There is Counting Crows song that goes: There is a little bit of Maria in everything that I sing.

I am not sure why I created this blog other then the fact that I enjoy writing, and would love to make a living at it someday, and now that I am getting a divorce and need somewhere to vent. Not that I expect anyone to read this, but I can imagine (with a smile) that my soon to be ex-wife is reading this, and it will bring a little enjoyment to a period of my life that has been fraught with yelling and anger.

This certainly isn’t the story that I wanted to be telling. I am 30 years old and have been married for about a year and a half – there will not be a second anniversary. Our first anniversary, which came in September – mostly because we both loved the fall – was a night spent quietly looking at each other from behind our wine glasses, unsure of how to brake the uneasy silence – again, the result of another argument.

I don’t remember what we were arguing about – there are so many arguments and so many things that we argue about, that I have lost track – but I remember very clearly what we were arguing about a week ago Sunday night that led to “The Argument.” Yes, I will get to that in a minute.

I would, for a moment, like to revisit the opening sentence of this entry, the one about the Counting Crows song and the reference to Maria and how she is a part of every song, according to Adam Duritz.

When me and my current wife met (haha, don’t read anything into that, there has only been one) I was coming out of a rough period in my life, but also a great time in my life.

It 2006 and I was graduating from a small college nestled in the mountains of Colorado – it was amazing. In the winter months after school or on the weekends I went skiing, and during the summer I went hiking on any of a number of hiking trails that could be found in the mountain ranges that surrounded this small college town.

I had no worries, other then how to make my truck payment and how to pass my courses – making the truck payments turned out to be the easy part.

Besides living with the fact that after I graduated I would be leaving the beauty of this quite town behind – possibly forever, a prospect that frightens the shit out of me even now - I was also saying goodbye to a close friend – a girl – who was moving back to the Midwest to move in with her on-again off-again boyfriend. And yes I was in love with this girl, she was, and I guess, continues to be my Maria.

At the time I thought that there was nothing there, at least not on her part. She was beautiful, athletic, and I was (am)…a dork. But for a handful of years we were the best of friends, and because we had such a wonderful time together, hiking, camping, roaming around the mountains of Colorado, I wonder if there wasn’t something there?

But I never pulled the trigger and for a while I forgot about her, or at least I thought I did. I met my current wife and at the time it was exactly what I needed in order to take my mind off the huge mistake that I had just made in not telling, possibly the one true love in my life, exactly how I felt.

My to-be-wife was into nature just like me. She enjoyed waisting a Saturday getting lost on the mountains roads of the Colorado Rockies, just like me. She even liked what I thought at the time was an obscure happy metal band (is there such a thing?) that only I knew about. She was older then me by fifteen years, which wasn’t a problem for me since I was never one to run around wild and live life dangerously, and settling down with someone I cared about seemed like just what I needed. We could talk for hours about camping and hiking, politics – anything – and yes, the sex was great and plentiful.

But there were warning signs that there were problems that when I look back at now, I choose to ignore.

The Argument – emphases on “The”

*This is an item that I have had saved as a Draft for a long time. Not sure why I never published it, but here it is – just cleaning out the closet.

First I need to give just a little more background.

At the time of “The Argument” me and my wife were living in a Denver suburb in a nice town but on the wrong side of Denver in relation to the mountains. We had a large house with three bedrooms (the masterbedroom was huge), a large family room, dinning room, and living room. There was also an unfinished basement that was equivalent in size to the first floor of the house – a nice dump.

I hated it.

But me hating it was my issue and had nothing to do with my wife. When you have spent the past two years living the dream in the heart of the Rockies, a stones throw away from Crested Butte, Aspen, and some of the most aww inspiring landscape that God ever put on this Earth, you get to missing it quick.

But I was in love and willing to do just about anything to make my wife happy, and did, much of the time.

Then, in December of 2008, my wife opened a piece of mail by accident addressed to the landlords explaining to them when their house (our house) would be sold in the foreclosure. Oops. At the time it came as a blessing, we would be able to move back to the westside of town to, most importantly, be closer to the mountains.

Now, I should explain that at this time, our marriage was already stressed. My wife credit was in shambles and mine was exelent, so when the time came that she needed a car I was more then happy to get her one. . .she never made the payments, and my credit started to roll down hill like a tobagen in the Swiss Alps.

Now, I know times for people are rough, and back then the recession was just setting in, but also at the time I was fresh out of college and had yet to find a real job and was making $12.58 an hour at a factory job – not necciessarily mentally stimulating when you just spent the last 4 years in college fine tuning your brain – but still, I was never late on my car payments, not once in seven years. She made the first two or three payments on time and then, after that, made them only when she fealt like it.

So I took over her car payments, and now I had two.

Many people would call me immature, but I say that I was stupid. I was stupid because I spent money hand over fist whenever she said she wanted something – a car, computer software, a pool table, a couch. She was (is) immature for taking advantage of me like that; for not making the car payments on time and not showing signs of caring when I was being buried under a mountain of debt.

But back to “The Argument.”

So we found a new house to live in, not on the westside of town like I wanted, or somewhere closer to civilization, but a house a block over. It is small (very small), I think it was built not on level ground because none of the doors close properly – the fridge door falls open, the bathroom doors swings shut, the bedrooms doors upstairs simply don’t close at all, and it is not fung-shui compliant, not that we care about such things in the day and age.

For the previous two months before moving into the house I had noticed something about me, my wife, and her two kids – a boy and a girl. Her and her daughter had all of the sudden become the best of friends. When we first met they were at each others throats – constantly. My wife’s daughter had emotional problems as a result of her parents getting a divorce at an impressionable age, and she directed that anger towards her mother. In January and Febuary I noticed that that anger was being re-directed towards the younger sibling, her son. Not only that, my wife and her daughter would tag team, gang-up and critize and yell at him for any small indscretion.

When we moved, this disturbing behavior increased.

One Last Thing

There is one last thing that I would like to say: saying you love somebody and that you will love them forever, means nothing if you can’t show it. My ex told me over and over again that she loved and would never stop, but her actions told me that all of what she said was just words and in reality had no meaning. It wasn’t easy for me to leave, because I did truly and deeply love my ex, but we had problems and I couldn’t keep on living that lie. In the future, M, mean what you say, and when you say it make sure it isn’t a lie, because if there is one thing that I learned about you through this whole ordeal is that your feelings were never genuine and all your words were just lies.

The End is Near

I think this might be it for this blog – it has run it’s course and served it’s purpose. Looking back at some of the older post I notice bitterness and rage, all justified considering who I was with and how she treated me, but so much has changed that I just don’t see myself in that place anymore. The first month was great, being free from her shackles was enough to make my heart sing, but after that it was a struggle. The following months I had to endure here venom from a new medium – email. This was worse then the face-to-face arguments because I had to keep them just in case they were to be needed in any legal fashion, thankfully they were not. But still I read them over and over, making the situation that much worse, and wondering how someone could treat another human being like that.

I know I have said this before, but I am comfortable with the knowledge that I know who I am, and when I think of what lies ahead and what I have to offer my future better half, I smile. I also know what she is and feel nothing but regret knowing that he children and any future boyfriends, husbands, or lovers, will have to endure her wrath as she continues on her quest of making anyone around her as miserable as she is, including his own children. God help you M, for you will not help yourself, and once again, Goodbye Forever.

Want To Know What I Think?

I think you are an awful person and I think your daughter is an awful person, too. What is sad about that is that you refuse to acknowledge there is a problem when everybody else thinks that there is – me, her teachers, various members of my family, even you said that she had a battery of psychologists try and help her with her issues as a kid – you refuse to her help not only to help her grow and be a functioning part of society but to also help her through her anger issues. In the end it is no wonder she is the way she is, after all, look who she has as a role model.

Furthermore, I believe you put on a face for the world to see, one in which you make yourself try and look like a humanitarian and a voice for the people, when in fact you ran our marriage like a dictatorship were nothing anybody else said meant a damn – certainly anything I had to say. And in the end that is what destroyed us, you took our marriage and threw every wonderful memory out the window and replaced it with something that was bitter, hurtful and downright awful.

Mrs. White, you truly are a monster and contrary to what you told me, that you are not evil… no, you are evil, as evil as they come.

Is This It?

As some point anger and blind hate fall away and your left with asking yourself the question of is this it? For a long time before me and my other half split, I knew that it was over. She was so unwilling to put pieces back together or to resolve major issues that were tarring us apart. How long before? Well, I left on the 15 of May, 2009, I knew the day of our first anniversary what coarse we were on and that it would end in a large explosion. September 22 was our first anniversary, September 25 was her birthday. Both days we spent barely talking to each other or completely apart – the day of her birthday I spent at my mothers, desperately trying to escape the insanity she was introducing into my life and to keep myself in one piece. I honestly don’t even remember what it was we were arguing about – and I know how that sounds, how could you not remember? One thing I have to remind myself and one thing that I will tell you now is that there were so many arguments and moments filled with heated words that I had no choice but to forget or the weight of it all would have crushed me long ago.

But before the time came when I left, I knew that it was over and not soon after I had asked myself is this it? Like I have stated before, we started out so bright and with such heat and passion that in the beginning it was hard to imagine that we would ever be two separate people ever again, we both felt that we were now one – or at least I did. However, looking back I am not sure she saw us in that same warm glow. Since she was so willing to let me – that other part of her life – so easily fall away, I can’t honestly say she wanted anything more out a life, or at least, out of a life with me, then to use me for what I had to give until I wised up and wouldn’t give any more.

So as far as her and I are concerned, yes, this is it. I can only hope that whatever lies ahead for me in the future will be filled with true love and caring.