Woke up today in a rotten mood. Cold, dark, and drizzly outside. Had an argument last night, which didn't help, and on top of it had a bad bad dream. I really just wanted to put the covers over my head and go back to sleep but I have too much to do today. WOW am I pouting or what?
Maybe some of it is that I finally have to make myself take down the Christmas decorations and I hate doing that. I love Christmas and would keep my decorations up all year if the rest of the family wouldn't have me committed for trying to impersonate Mrs. Claus (or Paula Dean since I love to cook and they do look a lot alike....oops going of topic).
Some of it could be that my surgery date is getting closer and that means I have to start really facing the fact, which of course I don't want to do. It is so easy to talk about it and act like you are strong and everything will be OK when it is "sometime" in the future. Now it is 2 weeks away and I think a bit of panic is setting in. That is also why the argument bothered me more than usual I guess.
Yesterday was such an AWESOME day! I had to run all over town, which normally I hate doing, but Jessi and I just made it fun. She has started a Vlog on YouTube and we were just being silly. We walked around the grocery store just blabbering on and on about nonsense and laughing at the people that looked at us like we needed medication or something. If you want to check her out search HalfassedVlogging on youtube.com. She is just starting out but I think you will get a chuckle out of some of her stuff.
I really would love to not go anywhere today, light the fire, put on comfy sweats and watch movies. Sounds like waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more fun than getting dressed and going out into the cold yucky weather. I am so done with winter and it just started!!! I need some SUNSHINE!!!
OK I whined to you all and now I feel better. Guess I just needed to vent a bit. Plus after reading what I wrote I realize I just need to suck it up and stop being a baby!! Sheesh!!!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
My Wake Up Call
Well, it has been quite a long time since I posted. Much has gone on. School has been very difficult for me. I think being out of school for about 25 years has something to do with that. We were studying in my Psychology class that if you don't use portions of your brain they get moved to areas with more action. So say the area that learned math...ya my brain probably moved it to the area that watches reality TV shows or something!!
I did make it out of this last quarter with a 2.63 GPA (YUCK) I guess that is just a tick off of a B- but I was hoping for better grades than that. I missed a B by 13 points in my English class AARRGGGG
Part of the trouble with the end of the quarter was I got some disturbing news. I decided it had been awhile since I had gone for my "Lady Land" check up so I reluctantly called and made an appointment.
Got in and got all of the girlie parts checked and everything seemed ok until my Dr asked me if I had ever had a mammogram. Well I told him that I had one about 10 years ago but couldn't even tell you where that was at because it was in California somewhere. He told me that even though the recommendations have been changed to every year after the age of 50, he still believes in every year after 40 PLUS he said he felt a lump! That made my heart race and in place of the irritation I was feeling about having to go and have my boobs smashed between two pieces of Plexiglas was a new feeling....fear.
On an off note before I go on, I just want to ask what misogynist created the mammogram??? I mean seriously! Do they check for testicular cancer that way? I think not.
Anyway, I called and made that appointment. When I showed up I kept telling myself there is nothing to fear it is all just routine and proceeded to study for Psychology to keep my mind off worrying. Unfortunately that didn't work very well.
For those that have never had a mammogram let me talk you through it. They call you back to the back and ask you to remove everything from your waist up and put on a robe. Now depending on where you are it could be a hospital gown backwards that they are calling a "robe" or an actual robe. I was lucky, I was in a center for womens breast health so I got the good stuff!
I put my robe on and put the rest of my things in a locker. All I had left with me was my list wristband with my key to my locker and my cell phone. I played so many games on that phone I am surprised it didn't blow up! Then they finally called me back. I had a very nice lady that was a breast cancer survivor as my radiology tech. She was very sweet as she mashed, poked, squished and prodded my breasts in every way possible. "Hold still"......I loved hearing that! I wanted to say, "How can i move you have my boob in a vice!".
Well I was released from the torture chamber and allowed to go back to the waiting room so the Dr could read the films. After a bit I was called back and he began to show me "areas of concern". After I heard that I kind of went a little foggy. No one wants to hear that from a Dr. He said he wanted to do a sonogram and a couple more mammogram films. So back I go. The sonogram was nothing of course, i mean cold and sticky, but no pain. Then back to the chamber for more squishing. Although this time I didn't feel it as much because my mind was a bit preoccupied with what the Dr had said and the areas he had shown me.
After everything was said and done I got dressed and was informed that my Dr would contact me with my results.
That was at the time the longest 3 days of my life. I finally called the Dr's office but they wouldn't release the results because the Dr was out of the office so I had to make an appointment for the next day. My father went with me and I am glad he did. The news was not what I wanted to hear and the Dr was going on about needing a needle biopsy and things like that and I think I just went numb. My Dd helped to gather me and get me back home. I immediately called and made the biopsy appointment. I didn't want to wait any longer than necessary to know what was going on in side of me.
I went for the biopsy by myself. They put you in a very large machine that squished you like the mammogram but this time you are laying on your tummy. The nurse asked me if I was comfortable and of course I said no, I mean really? You are about to use my boob as a pin cushion, comfy not a word I would use right now!
The actual procedure was very uncomfortable. It hurt before, during, and definitely after. I was told to use Tylenol for the pain, but what they didn;t take into consideration was I bled quite a bit so it set up a hematoma (blod clot) inside my breast that was pressing on nerves and I cried most of the night trying ice packs to help with the swelling.
The next day I was fine, a little bruised but felt much better. Now we again got to play the waiting game. After 3 days I called the Dr's office, as you can tell I am not much on patience, and the nurse told me that due to my results the Dr would need to speak to me to talk about surgery. I really don't even remember hanging up the phone. Surgery.....the word just kept bouncing around in my head.
Luckily it wasn't too long before the Dr called me and she informed me that I had breast cancer. She told me that as breast cancer goes, I had the best kind, if there is such a thing, because it is confined to the glands and milk ducts and doesn't spread fast. She also told me that they wanted me to have an MRI to check and make sure that everything was found with the biopsy and help pin point the exact location. The MRI wasn't bad, you get an IV and then have to lay in a loud I mean LOUD machine while they take pictures. Of course again I had to lay down and have my boobs squished, but no one was poking me with needles so I was good. Kevin came along to keep me calm since I am claustrophobic and was a bit nervous about this "tunnel" I had to go in for the MRI machine to do its work. As it turned out no claustrophobia YAY.
Now, more waiting, have I mentioned I am not a patient person? This whole process is hurry up and wait ARG! Now we hear back from the Dr that read my MRI. He has found 3 more "areas of concern" 2 more in my left breast and one in my right. Soooooo, yup you guessed it, more biopsies wooohoooo lucky me huh?
Since I had such an awful experience the first time, and they were doing two biopsies, one in each breast, this time Kevin came with me. It was an MRI guided biopsy so again with the loud machine, but this Dr was awesome and with Kevin there to squeeze my hand when I was hurting I came out of it feeling much better than the first time. There was very little bleeding or bruising so that was a plus.
Again....more waiting. 3 days they say...ya ok well I am ready in three days so I call the Dr's office. The results are in but she is with patients so I have to wait. I waited till about 5:30, 6:00 and figured now she wasn't going to call me till the next day and I had been so stressed knowing the results were in I was about ready to cry. But my Dr, awesome as she is, called me at about 7:30 from home to talk to me about my results.
It was all pretty much more of the same. The two biopsies came back positive and they were pretty sure the other two sites were as well. She said we could biopsy those if I wanted but I was pretty tired of being stabbed in the boob. We talked about options and well, to cut to the chase we decided that a double mastectomy would be the best. My right breast is not as bad as the left. She refers to my left breast as the nightmare...nice. But if I chose a single mastectomy with a lumpectomy I would still have to go every 6 months for MRIs and they would want to biopsy anything that looked suspicious. I have personally had enough poking and worrying, and I know my family has been out through the ringer, so with her input on the subject we made the decision.
Now that the decision has been made I feel better in a sense, but I am terrified in another. Not the least of it is just going through major surgery, but what is going to happen. I mean whether or not women want to admit it alot of our sense of being a woman is wrapped up in our breasts. Now I find out mine are "damaged" and have to be removed. Hard to process ya know?
I did make it out of this last quarter with a 2.63 GPA (YUCK) I guess that is just a tick off of a B- but I was hoping for better grades than that. I missed a B by 13 points in my English class AARRGGGG
Part of the trouble with the end of the quarter was I got some disturbing news. I decided it had been awhile since I had gone for my "Lady Land" check up so I reluctantly called and made an appointment.
Got in and got all of the girlie parts checked and everything seemed ok until my Dr asked me if I had ever had a mammogram. Well I told him that I had one about 10 years ago but couldn't even tell you where that was at because it was in California somewhere. He told me that even though the recommendations have been changed to every year after the age of 50, he still believes in every year after 40 PLUS he said he felt a lump! That made my heart race and in place of the irritation I was feeling about having to go and have my boobs smashed between two pieces of Plexiglas was a new feeling....fear.
On an off note before I go on, I just want to ask what misogynist created the mammogram??? I mean seriously! Do they check for testicular cancer that way? I think not.
Anyway, I called and made that appointment. When I showed up I kept telling myself there is nothing to fear it is all just routine and proceeded to study for Psychology to keep my mind off worrying. Unfortunately that didn't work very well.
For those that have never had a mammogram let me talk you through it. They call you back to the back and ask you to remove everything from your waist up and put on a robe. Now depending on where you are it could be a hospital gown backwards that they are calling a "robe" or an actual robe. I was lucky, I was in a center for womens breast health so I got the good stuff!
I put my robe on and put the rest of my things in a locker. All I had left with me was my list wristband with my key to my locker and my cell phone. I played so many games on that phone I am surprised it didn't blow up! Then they finally called me back. I had a very nice lady that was a breast cancer survivor as my radiology tech. She was very sweet as she mashed, poked, squished and prodded my breasts in every way possible. "Hold still"......I loved hearing that! I wanted to say, "How can i move you have my boob in a vice!".
Well I was released from the torture chamber and allowed to go back to the waiting room so the Dr could read the films. After a bit I was called back and he began to show me "areas of concern". After I heard that I kind of went a little foggy. No one wants to hear that from a Dr. He said he wanted to do a sonogram and a couple more mammogram films. So back I go. The sonogram was nothing of course, i mean cold and sticky, but no pain. Then back to the chamber for more squishing. Although this time I didn't feel it as much because my mind was a bit preoccupied with what the Dr had said and the areas he had shown me.
After everything was said and done I got dressed and was informed that my Dr would contact me with my results.
That was at the time the longest 3 days of my life. I finally called the Dr's office but they wouldn't release the results because the Dr was out of the office so I had to make an appointment for the next day. My father went with me and I am glad he did. The news was not what I wanted to hear and the Dr was going on about needing a needle biopsy and things like that and I think I just went numb. My Dd helped to gather me and get me back home. I immediately called and made the biopsy appointment. I didn't want to wait any longer than necessary to know what was going on in side of me.
I went for the biopsy by myself. They put you in a very large machine that squished you like the mammogram but this time you are laying on your tummy. The nurse asked me if I was comfortable and of course I said no, I mean really? You are about to use my boob as a pin cushion, comfy not a word I would use right now!
The actual procedure was very uncomfortable. It hurt before, during, and definitely after. I was told to use Tylenol for the pain, but what they didn;t take into consideration was I bled quite a bit so it set up a hematoma (blod clot) inside my breast that was pressing on nerves and I cried most of the night trying ice packs to help with the swelling.
The next day I was fine, a little bruised but felt much better. Now we again got to play the waiting game. After 3 days I called the Dr's office, as you can tell I am not much on patience, and the nurse told me that due to my results the Dr would need to speak to me to talk about surgery. I really don't even remember hanging up the phone. Surgery.....the word just kept bouncing around in my head.
Luckily it wasn't too long before the Dr called me and she informed me that I had breast cancer. She told me that as breast cancer goes, I had the best kind, if there is such a thing, because it is confined to the glands and milk ducts and doesn't spread fast. She also told me that they wanted me to have an MRI to check and make sure that everything was found with the biopsy and help pin point the exact location. The MRI wasn't bad, you get an IV and then have to lay in a loud I mean LOUD machine while they take pictures. Of course again I had to lay down and have my boobs squished, but no one was poking me with needles so I was good. Kevin came along to keep me calm since I am claustrophobic and was a bit nervous about this "tunnel" I had to go in for the MRI machine to do its work. As it turned out no claustrophobia YAY.
Now, more waiting, have I mentioned I am not a patient person? This whole process is hurry up and wait ARG! Now we hear back from the Dr that read my MRI. He has found 3 more "areas of concern" 2 more in my left breast and one in my right. Soooooo, yup you guessed it, more biopsies wooohoooo lucky me huh?
Since I had such an awful experience the first time, and they were doing two biopsies, one in each breast, this time Kevin came with me. It was an MRI guided biopsy so again with the loud machine, but this Dr was awesome and with Kevin there to squeeze my hand when I was hurting I came out of it feeling much better than the first time. There was very little bleeding or bruising so that was a plus.
Again....more waiting. 3 days they say...ya ok well I am ready in three days so I call the Dr's office. The results are in but she is with patients so I have to wait. I waited till about 5:30, 6:00 and figured now she wasn't going to call me till the next day and I had been so stressed knowing the results were in I was about ready to cry. But my Dr, awesome as she is, called me at about 7:30 from home to talk to me about my results.
It was all pretty much more of the same. The two biopsies came back positive and they were pretty sure the other two sites were as well. She said we could biopsy those if I wanted but I was pretty tired of being stabbed in the boob. We talked about options and well, to cut to the chase we decided that a double mastectomy would be the best. My right breast is not as bad as the left. She refers to my left breast as the nightmare...nice. But if I chose a single mastectomy with a lumpectomy I would still have to go every 6 months for MRIs and they would want to biopsy anything that looked suspicious. I have personally had enough poking and worrying, and I know my family has been out through the ringer, so with her input on the subject we made the decision.
Now that the decision has been made I feel better in a sense, but I am terrified in another. Not the least of it is just going through major surgery, but what is going to happen. I mean whether or not women want to admit it alot of our sense of being a woman is wrapped up in our breasts. Now I find out mine are "damaged" and have to be removed. Hard to process ya know?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Happy Birthday Harry!!!
Last Saturday we celebrated Kevin's father Harry's 86th birthday!! He is just plain adorable and I love him to death. I had really wanted to do something special for him, so I decided to plan a birthday party for him at the VFW. He has been Commander there twice and it is like his 2nd home, so I really thought it would make him happy. Much more than just taking him out to dinner, or something like that.
You see Harry and his late wife Vivian (Kevin's Mom) and Kevin, used to live in the apartment above the VFW. Kevin says he has so many memories of that place. Back in the day it was hoppin' every night. It holds a lot of memories.
So I started making phone calls and got it all set up. People at the club let other people know that it was his birthday, so a few people showed up specifically to see Harry. He was very happy.
The picture is of Harry when he was in the Navy
Kevin's son Anthony and his Girlfriend Sarah With Harry
Kevin and Me with Harry
Friday, July 2, 2010
Codi's Tattoo
I was going to share this awhile back, but don't have a video editing program so it will have to be in chunks, sorry :(
This is Codi getting her first tattoo. She designed it herself. Happy 18th Birthday!!
It was fun :)
Thursday, July 1, 2010
I want my Mommy
I woke up feeling like crap today. To top it off it is raining outside! I just want to crawl back in bed but I have to drag my butt to school!!
Why is it no matter how old you get, when you get sick your first reaction is I WANT MY MOMMY!!? It is funny. I didn't have the greatest relationship with my Mom but I still get that way. We revert back to being five and wanting someone to take our temp and bring us soup and 7-Up and hold our hand or rub our back.
I know I don't feel like being a Mom today LOL so I guess maybe I just want a stand in. Ok, you cook dinner, do the laundry, and tidy up, while I lay in bed and whine!!
Why is it no matter how old you get, when you get sick your first reaction is I WANT MY MOMMY!!? It is funny. I didn't have the greatest relationship with my Mom but I still get that way. We revert back to being five and wanting someone to take our temp and bring us soup and 7-Up and hold our hand or rub our back.
I know I don't feel like being a Mom today LOL so I guess maybe I just want a stand in. Ok, you cook dinner, do the laundry, and tidy up, while I lay in bed and whine!!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
One foot in front of the other.....
So, I have been keeping my self busy, and mostly out of trouble. School has occupied most of my time and brain power! I am just NOT a math person so it doesn't come easy for me. But I am determined to pass this class with a good grade. I had an A+ last quarter, I am hoping for an A this quarter too, but will settle for a B. Codi says I am an overachiever, whatever.
I have been trying to find things to occupy the free time that I do have away from my head shoved in a text book, and rediscovered my love for crotcheting. I used to love to scrapbook and crotchet but just haven't had the time, or the energy (mastly the latter) to do any of that. I took on a HUGE task of making an afghan (a blanket not the person LOL) for Kevin's father's birthday. He is 86 and I figured a handmade gift would be better than other things that he could just buy for himself, or that he doesn't need. Handmade to me just says you care a lot more than some plaque or something that would sit on a shelf and gather dust.
WELL, I didn't realize what I had gotten myself into until I got about a quarter of the way through the project and read repeat rows 5 thru 26 3 more times!!! Then several times through the process I discovered I had gotten off count and had to unravel SEVERAL rows to get back to one that was correct. I almost cried one time because it was all of the work I had done one Saturday afternoon. But that taught me to pay much closer attention!
Between school, and crotcheting, and dealing with Codi and Kevin's son, I have gotten back to feeling like life is becoming normal again. The last two years are beginning to fade and I am feeling more and more like "me" again. I don't have things overshadowing my life. Oh don't get me wrong. There are things still going on that remind of just how stressful this whole process is/was, but for the most part I am feeling happy and hopeful again, which is a great feeling.
The finished project :)
I have been trying to find things to occupy the free time that I do have away from my head shoved in a text book, and rediscovered my love for crotcheting. I used to love to scrapbook and crotchet but just haven't had the time, or the energy (mastly the latter) to do any of that. I took on a HUGE task of making an afghan (a blanket not the person LOL) for Kevin's father's birthday. He is 86 and I figured a handmade gift would be better than other things that he could just buy for himself, or that he doesn't need. Handmade to me just says you care a lot more than some plaque or something that would sit on a shelf and gather dust.
WELL, I didn't realize what I had gotten myself into until I got about a quarter of the way through the project and read repeat rows 5 thru 26 3 more times!!! Then several times through the process I discovered I had gotten off count and had to unravel SEVERAL rows to get back to one that was correct. I almost cried one time because it was all of the work I had done one Saturday afternoon. But that taught me to pay much closer attention!
Between school, and crotcheting, and dealing with Codi and Kevin's son, I have gotten back to feeling like life is becoming normal again. The last two years are beginning to fade and I am feeling more and more like "me" again. I don't have things overshadowing my life. Oh don't get me wrong. There are things still going on that remind of just how stressful this whole process is/was, but for the most part I am feeling happy and hopeful again, which is a great feeling.
The finished project :)
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Through the Fire....
Well my divorce is done. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Why you ask? Well, I guess it is kind of hard to explain. On the one hand I didn't want to be married to this man anymore, but on the other I went into it very sad. Sad I guess to see all of the years we had together compiled into binders full of papers, speeches from our lawyers, and dissection of the judges. Sad to see lies and deceit at a time that I was feeling reflective and a bit humbled I guess. Oh don't get me wrong, there was anger on my part as well, but mostly sadness.
They say divorce is like a death, that you go through all of the same stages that you would if a loved one was taken from your life by illness or accident. The first stage is denial. We both went through this to a certain degree I think. Even though I was the one to leave him, there was a part of me that wouldn't let go for some time. I had to struggle within myself to let him go and sever contact, or keep it as minimal as possible. He was in denial briefly but flew fairly straight into anger with all the force of a hurricane. I just couldn't get fully out of the denial stage. I knew our marriage was over. We had years and years of irreparable damage. But my mind and heart kept lingering on the times that weren't awful. The times when there was laughter and smiling. I guess my head knew it was over, but my heart was having a difficult time truly letting go.
Then the whole thing exploded. His anger started coming at me from every angle. Through mutual acquaintances and friends, through emails, through screaming phone calls, through threats, and manipulations of myself, and my children. That was when I began to move into the anger stage with both feet firmly planted on the line he was crossing.
Up until this point I was still naive enough to believe that he was able to admit the things he had done that destroyed our marriage with me doing the same. Like they say there is your side, their side, and somewhere in the middle is the whole truth. But that wasn't what was actually happening. He was talking to anyone that he felt might give him information, or have a bad word to say about me. He was making phone calls to people he hadn't spoken to in years, some he completely disliked, but that didn't matter, he wanted to dig anything up that could be used against me. The sad thing is I am not sure that it was just to use against me in court. I believe it was more so just to make himself feel better about the things he had done, and to sway more people to believe I really was this monstrous creature he was portraying me as. It was as if anything bad he could hear about me comforted him and reassured him that he was not to blame in any part for the "death" we were dealing with. He really seemed to feed on it.
Then it had to get down to the nitty gritty. Money. He has since said that he never tried/planned to get out of paying me anything. Now this is the part that may divide you readers. There are the people that believe that spousal support is fair and necessary in many cases to get the party that was making lesser, or no income during the marriage, back on their feet. In my case, I was a stay at home mother for most of our 20+ year marriage. His job, and true love, was the sea. He told me once that he joined the Navy to be out to sea not to sit on a beach. I understood and accepted that fact. I wanted him to be happy and work made him very happy. Happier than the children and I could ever seem to make him. I liked to see him smile and I think work was the only thing that he felt true pride from. As well he should have because he was amazing at his job. So many people praised him for his work, or envied him for his expertise, and flat out talent for his work. I do believe it was the perfect job for him. I was happy for him. I only wished that we could have make him as happy. So I accepted the times that he passed up opportunities to spend 2 years at shore and opted to do back to back sea tours. For his career and happiness I knew it was what was best.
After the split it was all turned around and he began to make me out as a lazy woman that didn't want to work. That he had tried to get me to work but I had refused. When in fact we had had multiple discussions about the fact that we agreed we wanted our children raised at home, not by a daycare provider. He especially, coming from a family where his parents both had to work and he was left on his own quite a bit, wanted a more traditional upbringing for our children. I had always had one dream, and some will agree with it and others will scoff, but I wanted to be a Mother, a good mother. So this was something that we easily agreed upon. Until court, then all of that was a lie that he never supported or wanted.
See the thing is, the state we live in is a "No Fault" state. So they don't care what reasons you have for divorcing. The only thing they decide is child custody, support, and spousal support, that is all. So his statement that he never tried to get out of paying me anything just didn't wash. He withheld information to keep the court from knowing what he was making, which in turn kept the court from assigning any child support or spousal support and painting me as a lazy, flaky, less than successful mother could only serve one purpose. To hopefully get the court to say that our daughter, who was the only child we had left at home, should be with him, and/or that there is no reason he should have to pay any spousal support to me. So like I said it all boiled down to money.
So now you enter the arena of court, and that is seriously what it felt like. Both sides, jousting for control, and jabbing at each other trying to find that soft spot that will weaken the other parties defenses and kill their case. My lawyer told me to be short and to the point. To tell the truth but don't go on and on unless he asked me for more clarification. So I did that. I felt like everytime his lawyer spoke to me he was circling me, waiting for me to make that mistake that would leave him the opening to say "AHA see your honor she is an awful excuse for a human being" This went on and on all day long. Very draining! Also, very difficult to sit next to the person you spent 20+ years with and feel the hatred and anger coming of his body. It was disturbing to say the least.
I was very happy when the judge said we were done and could be dismissed. I wanted to get as far away from that room and that experience as I could. I wanted to get back home to my comfort zone, with the people that loved me and believe in me. I was tired of being looked at and spoken about/to like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
I came home to my family and soaked up as much love as they could give. I felt like I could breath again! I posted to my Daily Booth account about the experience, speaking about how I sat there and listened to what a rotten, lazy, worthless, flaky mother/person I supposedly am and adding that at lunch I fell and scraped my knee, and that after it was all over I came out to a parking ticket. The topper to an awful day. My daughter posted a comment about how angry she was that anything was said about my abilities as a mother. She was very angry. I honestly had just vented to my friends on line, not thinking that my daughter would read it as well, but, as I later told her father, I never posted anything that wasn't true. I am not sure how that became my fault, but it did.
I received an email from him a few days later that was filled with anger and fury. Every word in it was like a punch to the face or a kick to the gut. It was obvious he wanted to hurt me in anyway he possibly could. He was angered by my post saying that I was trying to turn our daughter against him and that I had been trying to turn both of our children against him for years. I was confused by this statement because up until 6 months ago I was pushing our daughter to try to develop a relationship with him that she was refusing to have. She would not answer his calls and even wanted me to tell him to stop calling her. I told her she needed to learn how to talk to him about her feelings. As for our son, I had no idea what he was talking about.
He viciously attacked me as a person quoting information that he had gotten from sources that had been twisted to fit the needs of its use, either by him, or the source. He accused me of many many things, a few were true, as I said I made my mistakes, but none the least of was that I was a horrible mother.
You see when he is angry, I mean this angry, he goes for the jugular. I have seen it in action and it is vicious and precise. Being on the receiving end of it was none to pleasant, but I knew what he was doing. He knew the most important thing to me was being a good mother. Many times through the years he told me what a wonderful mother I was, my children tell me that I am a good mother, but now, on this day, to suit his purpose of trying to inflict as much pain as possible, he attacked that.
He continued his assault spewing vulgar language every other word. I had an image of him standing before me, face, red, eyes bulging, exploding like a volcano. His accusations and name calling just kept getting worse and worse. Now not only attacking me, but the man I am with. The email built with a crescendo that made it seem as if the words would leap off of the screen and slap me in the face. I felt like his anger was begining to spin out of control and take on a life of it's own!
Then he slipped into almost a child like rage. I had an image of a red faced 3 yr old stomping his feet and yelling and screaming. Demanding things go his way OR ELSE!!!
I responded to his aggression very matter of factually. Addressing a few of the topics from the onslaught. I was short and to the point and left it at that. I pray this will be the end but I know it won't be. If not with words, he will find some other way to try and make my life difficult. What I don't understand is that if he is truly happy it is all over, why would he continue to do things that require a connection or communication in any form? This puzzles me and is a bit disturbing. I too would like to move on. It is very obvious by now that the idea of any type of civil relationship between us is impossible. I wish we could just get on with our lives in peace.
I guess in a way his playing games and making me angry helps. I still get those sad feelings. The question of why it had to go down this road plays in my head a lot. I hurt him, he hurt me, but why, looking back on all of this devastation, friends, family all lay in the wake of, why did it have to go this way?
So, I guess the final thought on this whole event is. I came through it. I walked through the fire. I can hold my head up and stop beating myself up for the things I did wrong. We all make mistakes, none of us are perfect, but mistakes are what teach us and from that learning we change and become a better person or we stagnate. I am not the person I was 2 years ago, or even 1 year ago. I feel I am stronger, and believe in myself in a way I have never done in the past.
They say divorce is like a death, that you go through all of the same stages that you would if a loved one was taken from your life by illness or accident. The first stage is denial. We both went through this to a certain degree I think. Even though I was the one to leave him, there was a part of me that wouldn't let go for some time. I had to struggle within myself to let him go and sever contact, or keep it as minimal as possible. He was in denial briefly but flew fairly straight into anger with all the force of a hurricane. I just couldn't get fully out of the denial stage. I knew our marriage was over. We had years and years of irreparable damage. But my mind and heart kept lingering on the times that weren't awful. The times when there was laughter and smiling. I guess my head knew it was over, but my heart was having a difficult time truly letting go.
Then the whole thing exploded. His anger started coming at me from every angle. Through mutual acquaintances and friends, through emails, through screaming phone calls, through threats, and manipulations of myself, and my children. That was when I began to move into the anger stage with both feet firmly planted on the line he was crossing.
Up until this point I was still naive enough to believe that he was able to admit the things he had done that destroyed our marriage with me doing the same. Like they say there is your side, their side, and somewhere in the middle is the whole truth. But that wasn't what was actually happening. He was talking to anyone that he felt might give him information, or have a bad word to say about me. He was making phone calls to people he hadn't spoken to in years, some he completely disliked, but that didn't matter, he wanted to dig anything up that could be used against me. The sad thing is I am not sure that it was just to use against me in court. I believe it was more so just to make himself feel better about the things he had done, and to sway more people to believe I really was this monstrous creature he was portraying me as. It was as if anything bad he could hear about me comforted him and reassured him that he was not to blame in any part for the "death" we were dealing with. He really seemed to feed on it.
Then it had to get down to the nitty gritty. Money. He has since said that he never tried/planned to get out of paying me anything. Now this is the part that may divide you readers. There are the people that believe that spousal support is fair and necessary in many cases to get the party that was making lesser, or no income during the marriage, back on their feet. In my case, I was a stay at home mother for most of our 20+ year marriage. His job, and true love, was the sea. He told me once that he joined the Navy to be out to sea not to sit on a beach. I understood and accepted that fact. I wanted him to be happy and work made him very happy. Happier than the children and I could ever seem to make him. I liked to see him smile and I think work was the only thing that he felt true pride from. As well he should have because he was amazing at his job. So many people praised him for his work, or envied him for his expertise, and flat out talent for his work. I do believe it was the perfect job for him. I was happy for him. I only wished that we could have make him as happy. So I accepted the times that he passed up opportunities to spend 2 years at shore and opted to do back to back sea tours. For his career and happiness I knew it was what was best.
After the split it was all turned around and he began to make me out as a lazy woman that didn't want to work. That he had tried to get me to work but I had refused. When in fact we had had multiple discussions about the fact that we agreed we wanted our children raised at home, not by a daycare provider. He especially, coming from a family where his parents both had to work and he was left on his own quite a bit, wanted a more traditional upbringing for our children. I had always had one dream, and some will agree with it and others will scoff, but I wanted to be a Mother, a good mother. So this was something that we easily agreed upon. Until court, then all of that was a lie that he never supported or wanted.
See the thing is, the state we live in is a "No Fault" state. So they don't care what reasons you have for divorcing. The only thing they decide is child custody, support, and spousal support, that is all. So his statement that he never tried to get out of paying me anything just didn't wash. He withheld information to keep the court from knowing what he was making, which in turn kept the court from assigning any child support or spousal support and painting me as a lazy, flaky, less than successful mother could only serve one purpose. To hopefully get the court to say that our daughter, who was the only child we had left at home, should be with him, and/or that there is no reason he should have to pay any spousal support to me. So like I said it all boiled down to money.
So now you enter the arena of court, and that is seriously what it felt like. Both sides, jousting for control, and jabbing at each other trying to find that soft spot that will weaken the other parties defenses and kill their case. My lawyer told me to be short and to the point. To tell the truth but don't go on and on unless he asked me for more clarification. So I did that. I felt like everytime his lawyer spoke to me he was circling me, waiting for me to make that mistake that would leave him the opening to say "AHA see your honor she is an awful excuse for a human being" This went on and on all day long. Very draining! Also, very difficult to sit next to the person you spent 20+ years with and feel the hatred and anger coming of his body. It was disturbing to say the least.
I was very happy when the judge said we were done and could be dismissed. I wanted to get as far away from that room and that experience as I could. I wanted to get back home to my comfort zone, with the people that loved me and believe in me. I was tired of being looked at and spoken about/to like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
I came home to my family and soaked up as much love as they could give. I felt like I could breath again! I posted to my Daily Booth account about the experience, speaking about how I sat there and listened to what a rotten, lazy, worthless, flaky mother/person I supposedly am and adding that at lunch I fell and scraped my knee, and that after it was all over I came out to a parking ticket. The topper to an awful day. My daughter posted a comment about how angry she was that anything was said about my abilities as a mother. She was very angry. I honestly had just vented to my friends on line, not thinking that my daughter would read it as well, but, as I later told her father, I never posted anything that wasn't true. I am not sure how that became my fault, but it did.
I received an email from him a few days later that was filled with anger and fury. Every word in it was like a punch to the face or a kick to the gut. It was obvious he wanted to hurt me in anyway he possibly could. He was angered by my post saying that I was trying to turn our daughter against him and that I had been trying to turn both of our children against him for years. I was confused by this statement because up until 6 months ago I was pushing our daughter to try to develop a relationship with him that she was refusing to have. She would not answer his calls and even wanted me to tell him to stop calling her. I told her she needed to learn how to talk to him about her feelings. As for our son, I had no idea what he was talking about.
He viciously attacked me as a person quoting information that he had gotten from sources that had been twisted to fit the needs of its use, either by him, or the source. He accused me of many many things, a few were true, as I said I made my mistakes, but none the least of was that I was a horrible mother.
You see when he is angry, I mean this angry, he goes for the jugular. I have seen it in action and it is vicious and precise. Being on the receiving end of it was none to pleasant, but I knew what he was doing. He knew the most important thing to me was being a good mother. Many times through the years he told me what a wonderful mother I was, my children tell me that I am a good mother, but now, on this day, to suit his purpose of trying to inflict as much pain as possible, he attacked that.
He continued his assault spewing vulgar language every other word. I had an image of him standing before me, face, red, eyes bulging, exploding like a volcano. His accusations and name calling just kept getting worse and worse. Now not only attacking me, but the man I am with. The email built with a crescendo that made it seem as if the words would leap off of the screen and slap me in the face. I felt like his anger was begining to spin out of control and take on a life of it's own!
Then he slipped into almost a child like rage. I had an image of a red faced 3 yr old stomping his feet and yelling and screaming. Demanding things go his way OR ELSE!!!
I responded to his aggression very matter of factually. Addressing a few of the topics from the onslaught. I was short and to the point and left it at that. I pray this will be the end but I know it won't be. If not with words, he will find some other way to try and make my life difficult. What I don't understand is that if he is truly happy it is all over, why would he continue to do things that require a connection or communication in any form? This puzzles me and is a bit disturbing. I too would like to move on. It is very obvious by now that the idea of any type of civil relationship between us is impossible. I wish we could just get on with our lives in peace.
I guess in a way his playing games and making me angry helps. I still get those sad feelings. The question of why it had to go down this road plays in my head a lot. I hurt him, he hurt me, but why, looking back on all of this devastation, friends, family all lay in the wake of, why did it have to go this way?
So, I guess the final thought on this whole event is. I came through it. I walked through the fire. I can hold my head up and stop beating myself up for the things I did wrong. We all make mistakes, none of us are perfect, but mistakes are what teach us and from that learning we change and become a better person or we stagnate. I am not the person I was 2 years ago, or even 1 year ago. I feel I am stronger, and believe in myself in a way I have never done in the past.
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