I was chatting with a Doctor from another clinic and she was telling me that she could get me all the information I needed to work in the Middle East. She had done it and it had served her well. I asked her about my children and she said that the common practice was to place them in French boarding schools while you sign up for a year over there. I was seriously considering it but after delving more deeply into the restrictions I decided against it. I would be leaving one oppressive situation and accepting another in its place. I really didn't want to leave my kids either. I was desperate but maybe not that desperate.
I started considering another option: The one of the underground. There is a way to lose your identity and live in another place without being found. However, I knew that my children were old enough to call their dad and divulge our location especially if they were mad at me for taking them away from their friends and home. Besides, I would also not be able to tell my mother or any close friends that I had left or anything about this. I would just disappear one day and that was it. I thought that was unfair to my parents and my children. If I had been alone, I would have done it in a minute but I wasn't and that was the end of that option.
The only thing left was to stay where I was and deal with the devil I knew rather than a devil I didn't know. I would have to fight on alone and make it through, protecting what I could while suffering the vindictive attacks of a Dark Triad family. I had no idea how deeply this darkness would affect me and that it had the ability to devour my health and sanity. It was a passage through terrible cruelty placed on me for the enjoyment of others. Most days I would be frantic and fearful of what would happen next. I just had to do it, that's all.
My dad died in the middle of all this. His battle with alcoholism had ended with a stroke and then cancer. I really didn't know how I felt; I just had to be there for my mom. And so, I made all the arrangements with work etc. and the children and I boarded a plane to be with my Mom. When we arrived it was literal chaos thanks to my ex. We no more than got in the door than my mom's phone started ringing and my daughter kept answering it. My mom had to tell her to get off of the phone. I was unaware that it was my ex who had been checking on our whereabouts with the people in my neighborhood. Nobody knew where we were because we had left in such a hurry. I was furious with his nosy prying and spying. I was annoyed with my daughter, too, but there was no time for creating another problem on top of the ones we already had. We ate and went to bed for it was to be a long day tomorrow.
In the middle of the night my daughter woke up my mom and told her that her dad was in the alley. Or course my mom got up and shook me awake to tell me what was going on. I was so scared again and so traumatized that he could not even give our family a time to b together and to grieve our loss together without interruption. He had made the 3 hour drive in the middle of the night to do what? Lurk in the shadows like a fiend. I thought he must be possessed. His obsession had completely consumed him. Did he think he could force me to love him? The whole time we were there my daughter was on the phone with him giving him all the details of the funeral and people who were at the house after the services. She obviously didn't know what side of the fence she was on but at that moment but he would fill her head with all kinds of garbage until he broke our bond into a million pieces. He was out for blood.
After the funeral we packed up my mom and I drove her back to my house to stay with us for a while. Family needs to be together during this time. In a few days, there was a knock on my front door. There he was, my ex, expecting me to be glad to see him. NOT! He actually asked me why I hadn't told him of my dad's death. I answered that it was none of his business anymore. He wanted to explain that he was a friend to my dad and on and on, to which, I slammed the door in his face. He wouldn't know friendship if it hit him head on. I was enraged at his selfish perceptions, as if he was the only person who had rights. I had a right to peace, to move on without harassment and to decide who could be in my life and who could not. I had a right to respect in times of sorrow and to be respected as the mother of our children. I knew he was not the weepy person who was at my front door. That victim mentality was one of the reasons I had left him. He was not who he pretended to be. He was an angry vindictive opportunistic liar with a false face. Each thing he did only pushed me farther away from him.
I had reasons to fear this man. He would attempt to convince the world that he was a wonderful man who only fault was loving me…. to death, if necessary.
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