PREVIEWS

I was home from the hospital with two babies and still recovering from my surgery. Day by day I threw myself full on into motherhood. They were my constant companions and responsibilities. I loved their adorable faces and baby hands. I would grow with them. I was a full time mom now with no outside employment which is what I wanted. Tired? Yes but it would be worth it .I just knew it.

Immediately following my return home it was time to buy the car tabs which meant standing in long lines before the end of the month. When I discovered he hadn't done that while I was in the hospital I was put off. He said he had been working but that was low season for construction and this was only an excuse not to do something for me. It never failed; he just wasn't going to let up on me.

During midnight feeding and diapers and ear aches and loads of laundry he announced that he was getting another job, this time with a union company. I knew it was an opportunity for higher pay and greater benefits and even overtime pay but I had to ask if his friend was going to work there too. Of course, the answer was yes. This worried me greatly. Past performances of the two of them together were hardly a good thing: More of that I could do without. Actually it had proved to be dangerous in all too many ways.
In a few weeks he came home with his union book and put it in the kitchen drawer where we kept such things. He would have to keep track of it and take it when he needed it. I gave it no further thought. It was his responsibility, right?

Several weeks later he came in and was looking in the kitchen drawer for his union book but it wasn't there. He started accusing me of moving it or losing it. I told him I hadn't seen it since he put it in there when he brought it home. He dropped the conversation and went outside to do some chores.

The baby was in her infant seat and my little boy was walking and toddling around and wanted to go outside. So I checked with his dad to see if he would spend some time with him outside. He agreed and so coats on and he was ready to play. I stayed in with the baby and did some housework. It seemed very quiet outside so I thought I would check. My little boy was missing! I felt like my husband had intentionally ignored him when I wasn't looking. We lived in a wooded area and there were millions of places he could have wandered into. He could be seriously lost. I was scared out of my mind. We told all the neighbors and everyone went out looking for him. It seemed like forever until one of the neighbor boys found him up the road in a horse pasture. Another neighbor drove me up there to get him and brought us both home safely. I was so busy calming myself down and taking care of my children that I didn't have time to focus on what my husband had just done. He didn't even look for our child. He just stood there. What was going on inside of his head? How could he be so careless?

Later in the month my mom came over for a visit and to spend time with the grand-babies. I always welcomed the visit and loved what she would bring as gifts for the kids and for me: especially home canned tomatoes. While she was there my husband went back to "the drawer" and called me over to look into it. I thought it was an odd time to do that but I pulled the drawer open and there was his union book. I turned and looked straight at him. I glared into his eyes and said, "YOU! (did this)", in an unmistakable tone of disgust. He pulled back and had a grin of gratification on his face. He had just pulled off psychological sadism and his thrill was showing. I whirled around and went and sat by my mother. What a fool! If he simply wanted the book to reappear without blame why didn't he say he found it in some other papers in his filing box or something? I guess he just needed to do something horrible.

Mom went home, my husband went to work and I had to think about all these recent events. I decided that I had to gain some form of acceptance to what was happening in my life. I was not going to condone his behaviors, nor was I going to deny them, I just had to get through it until I could leave him. There were things that I just did not understand. What would cause somebody to act like this?

When I did leave (which would be years from now): I did not leave him for another man or for more money or for any other reason than I could not find his "goodness". After 17 years of searching for it through, forgiveness, compassion, patience ignoring, rephrasing, justifying, shifting perspectives, and self-sacrifice, I hadn't been able to find his redeeming quality. I couldn't find the one thing that would allow me to deny or forgive the fact that there was an infinite supply of selfishness, cruelty, rebelliousness, and spite within him. I knew it would never end: he was still a bully boy who tripped unsuspecting victims in the school hall and laughed at their shock and humiliation at having to pick them-selves up off the floor in front of gawking on-lookers. He found too much pleasure in that for me. It is what fulfilled his empty core. 

The right opportunity finally arose when my daughter was eleven and I took my children and I left quietly without accusation or reproach. I released him from our matrimonial bonds. In anticipation of our divorce I sought counsel from an attorney about the laws in our state regarding no fault divorce. I wanted to know if I had to give reasons why I was seeking to end the marriage or if I could just file and leave it at that. The reason for this was threefold:

1.  I didn't want his reputation for abuse to affect his children's lives. I felt protective of them. I didn't want to cause them public shame.

2.  I wanted to save myself from having to argue with him in court about what he did or did not do. I knew his glib ability to twist things in his favor and so I wanted to thwart that from the beginning.  I could not afford to underestimate his convincing ways. I had not forgotten his conniving "poor me" mentality.

3.  I didn't want to give him any reason to seek revenge on me for a nasty divorce. His past behavior told me that he was vindictive and I needed to watch out for that. I decided not to tell the court what I had lived with.

What would eventually materialize was the harshest truth I had ever had to deal with and it wouldn't happen until years later. I would go through this same thing with my two children. I tried desperately to reach them but to no avail. They had followed in his footsteps. It would be a long time before I could accept that they, too, were people I had to walk away from. Once again, I could not find their "goodness". Theirs was an ample supply of lying, defiance, bilking, stealing; disregard, using; and smearing, laced with chaos and manipulation. It would take years to become aware of the depth of their maliciousness and betrayals. They were my children! The unfolding of this journey will be addressed beginning some 11 years later in the story. Stay tuned. For right now, in this story, however, they are still babies and innocent children and I love them with my whole heart. There are miles to go before I am free.