Slow Descent Into Madness

It’s funny, you think you know someone then, BAM!  They hit you with a shocker so big they blow your mind.  Like they really dig horse porn, or when they were young they dressed in their sister’s clothes because they liked the feel of lacy under-things on their skin.  After that, your relationship is never the same.  It’s like you can divide your whole relationship into two parts.  Everything that happened before the revelation and everything that happened after it.

Sadly, this is not one of those type interactions.  This is the story of a slow descent…  Well, you read the title already.  You see, with Nora, her problems started at home with her parents.  I think every one’s problems start there, but part of adulthood is rising above circumstances and becoming an adult on your own terms.  A sign of maturity, you might say.

Her parents were a collective piece of work.  Her father started out kind of rocky, and never got over it.  His father died, and every man his mother married after that was progressively worse than the last and they also all died.  I believe the final number was 5 (as in she outlived 5 husbands).  He grew up in an abusive relationship with all of his father figures, but in those days, a mother would take what she could just to have a roof and food.  Women were hard pressed to find work in those days.  Needless to say, he and his brother are not entirely there now.

Her mother had an equally rocky start.  She was not the oldest or the youngest of 8 children, but she was the one selected (seemingly at random) to be shuffled off to live permanently with the grandparents.  I really feel for her, and this situation (which, by the way, has never been satisfactorily explained to her) has played hell with her self esteem ever since. She’s on her third marriage (likely this one will stick) and she doesn’t speak to pretty much any member of her family, including her daughters.

Needless to say, her parent’s marriage didn’t last.  They divorced about the time Nora was beginning puberty.  Her younger sister started to act out violently (mostly at her) and her parents played “kid ping-pong,” sometimes at the request of the girls.  At present, their hatred for each other keeps them from being in the same state together, let alone the same room.  Later stories will help press home the dysfunction in this family, but rest assured, it runs deep.

Why would I marry into that, you might ask?  See the previous blog post.  I didn’t really know what I was getting into.  I found out the history far too late, but then, I wasn’t really digging at the time.  For the first five years of our marriage, things were not what you’d call fine, but the were on par with what I had come to know as normal.  We fought, we made up, we had make-up sex…  You know…

Well, the descent started during those five years, but was almost imperceptible.  It was after the first five that the trouble started and the signs started to show.  I used to think her temper was cute, and it came in handy when trying to get a refund for a defective product or if the service / food at a restaurant was bad.  I can’t tell you the number of free meals she garnered by going “psycho bitch” on managers.  I even used to tell my friends to put her on the phone to negotiate with any company they were having trouble getting through to.  It always panned out to be better than they even asked.

It was after that magical 5 year mark that she started directing that anger at me for whatever shortcoming she perceived I had at the time.  I’m not sure what the trigger was, but it started to come fast and heavy.  At one point one of us suggested marriage counseling (I think it might have been her).  I said, “sure.”  That counselor was priceless.  We went to two “couples” sessions and shortly thereafter were given the “we need to split you up” treatment.

At the time I had no idea how bad she had gotten, but I was put in a room with a guy, and she was put in a room with a woman.  We would talk about football and fishing, and they would talk about how evil I was.  What’s funny is, in my first individual session, my counselor (we’ll call him Bill), said that they were going to prescribe her a pill or two to see if that evened things out.  I was all for it, and we went home with a shiny new bottle of Paxil and a rather shocking bottle of lithium (both for her).

I didn’t think much of it, except that I had read somewhere that lithium was used to treat psychotics and depressive people.  I assumed that she was depressive.

Well, things improved, though not entirely.  The meds made her moods more even, but there were occasions where she’d intentionally do things to hurt me, and no, not call me a stupid doody-head kind of hurt.  We’re talking, throw a full cup of coffee at my head, kind of hurt.  As luck would have it, she was a lousy pitcher and I was pretty quick on my feet.  I don’t even have many scars.  Lucky for her I still don’t believe in hitting a woman (though, there were times I really started to question that belief).

At one point, she decided she felt fine (a common trait among the psych med takers, I hear) and she stopped taking the pills.  That’s when her normally colorful tendencies went into shades as yet unknown to art or science.  I have stories and I will tell them, just you wait…

I remember the day I’d had enough as if I were still standing there.  She was livid that I had taken a Saturday to help a friend move, and she let me know with a tirade of verbal abuse and rage so venomous I finally said, “What  am I really hanging on to this for?”

I was raised that marriage was a “forever” proposition.  In fact, my entire family has almost no history of divorce on both sides, all the way back to the boat.  It’s me and my uncle, and he only got divorced because his wife (who was a German citizen) missed home and just left one day.  Not too much he could do.  I’d say he got more of an annulment than a divorce.  So, when I say I finally got to the point where I’d had enough, I really had a mountain of preconceived notions about permanence and commitment to climb before getting there.  Maybe I’ll cover that another time.  I have a mental record of the major events that pushed me over the precipice and into the realm of “I’m done with this.”

Until next time…

Historical Idiocy: What the Hell was I Thinking?

I know what you’re thinking.  This is going to be about how stupid my ex is.  Not so.  The idiocy in question is my idiocy.

When I was in High School (yeah, that far back) I had one thing on my mind.  If you’re a guy I need go no further, but if you’re a woman (or girl), I may need to elaborate.  I had it in my head that sex was some grand mountain which I had to scale and that having scaled it I would then be a man.  How wrong I was.  Manhood was an illusive ideal, and sex was absolutely NOT the induction I was looking for.

I was a senior and looking for love and found it in the form of all the girls I lusted after but could not have.  As most of you know, that feeling blows.  I knew without a doubt that I could do more for them (these smokin’ hotties) than the assholes they chose to date (my apologies to religious folks that may read this, but I just don’t care that I’ve offended you.  Grow up.).  The ideal was Trisha G.  She still rings in my mind as the perfect representation of hot.  I used to fantasize about…  Nevermind.   I’d go so far as to say that if she’s even a shell of her high school self, I’d make a play.  Now that I have what every girl wants (money), I’d stand a chance.

As most guys do, and before they hit their stride, I settled (though, in the looks department, not by much).  I saw a girl that I thought was just beautiful, and as luck would have it she had pitiful self esteem.  Jackpot!  See, her parents had gotten divorced and she lived with her mother.  When I was a Sophomore I didn’t know much about her, except that she had gone to a party with my younger brother (two years my junior).  He screwed it up, and left the door wide open for me.  Now that I think about it, the last several girls I dated before…  What was the name I gave her?  Oh yeah, Nora…  They had all dated and / or been out with him first.  I like to think they were using him to get to me, but that’s probably not the case.  I digress…

As a senior, I got it in my head that dating younger was easier.  I was right (take notes if you’re a high school guy).  I dated friend’s younger sisters (much to their chagrin), I dated hot sophomores and juniors, etc.  It was easier than dating the captain of the cheer-leading squad, and the hotness factor was much the same.  Status worked both ways, because she got to date a modestly popular senior and I got to date someone I was likely to score with.  So, I set the trap…  The problem with my plan was, that I didn’t understand long term relationships and how long term they could become.

She dug me, I dug her and the next thing I knew I was attempting to save her from her disastrous family situation.  Her dad was a dick, her mom was loony and her sister was a violent little shit that I would have loved to slug (remember that self esteem thing I talked about earlier?).  At 17 years old, it all translates to feeling needed.  At 35, it translates to, “what a dip-shit I was.”

I jumped in with both feet, and decided that I could rescue her from herself and her situation like the white knight of Dumbfuckistan.  We eloped when I was 19 (yeah, very romantic, but she was 17 which is fine in some countries, but not here).  How, you ask?  Well, she had a friend who was pregnant from whom she collected a urine sample.  She took the sample to a doctor’s office and proceeded to make all the appropriate emotional responses when they told her she was pregnant.  They gave her a paper proving she was pregnant and we drove to a state where marriage at 17 was legal without parental consent (provided the bride was pregnant).   The rest is history.

In retrospect, any girl who has the presence of mind to defraud the government of any state in which she does not live is not the sort one should marry, let alone join in her fraud.  In those days, the Internet didn’t exist, so she got the information from the public library.  That (especially today) is just scary.  I mean, a girl who reads legal books to fake a pregnancy and marriage?  I should tattoo “stupid ass sucker” on my forehead, right?

Well, the subsequent ride has been one for the ages.  Come on…  You’re curious…  Admit it…

Stay tuned, boys and gilrs.  The crazy is coming…

This is the beginning…

I’m not usually one for long introductions, so I’ll try to keep this short.  I’ll call myself Heath, and my ex…  We’ll call her Nora…  She’s nuts.

She can’t hold a job for more than a year.  She had cancer and waited until AFTER she got better to start smoking.  She refuses to speak to either of her parents and doesn’t want our three children to ever see / be around their own grand parents because of some trumped up false accusations of wrongdoing (more on that later, I promise).  She lives with an abusive, drunk, married man yet claims to be his fiancé.  She never has two nickels to rub together, mainly because her money views revolve around status (and alcohol).  She can’t live without conflict, and constantly drags everyone she loves into her misery.  She can’t spell, needs a dictionary to read an e-mail from me when I write as if to a ten year old and has no common sense to speak of, yet fancies herself an intellectual.  About the only thing she had going for her was that she was attractive (which tells you what I was thinking).  I could go on, but I digress.

With that, we’ve begun to scratch the surface of the issues which will be outlined here under my moniker.  I promise to keep this all in a humorous slant, because life is short, and if you can get a chuckle out of my misfortune, I’m all for it.

Am I perfect?  Not by any stretch.  I’m a sarcastic asshole (part of the reason I’m divorced), but my current wife seems to be OK with it.  I love life and having fun with friends (and even people I don’t like that much).  I hope you (all 3 of you that may eventually read this) can get the humor of the situations in which I’ve found myself in relation to the nut job above.

Cheers!