Pink is for Positive…

In August of 1995, Kenny and I closed on our first little house about 10 days after our wedding. It was in the old part of Englewood, and the cutest little cottage. Of course we had to remodel a bunch of stuff, but it was just the right size for the two of us and had a HUGE, long, white picket fenced yard in back.

By January 1996, we had settled into our little house and business was still going well for only beginning our second year.

Because I was told I would have a hard time getting pregnant, we decided not to hinder any limited chance by using birth control.

On January 13, 1996, Kenny was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. I had the feeling I might be pregnant…didn’t really have a reason to think it, but I felt it. I had been working in the office when I decided I’d bring it up. I walked into the kitchen and told him that I had a feeling I might be pregnant…without looking up he said, “um hmm”. Even though I knew he didn’t hear, I went on talking about it and he continued giving me the appropriate mouth noises.

After a minute or two, waiting for what I was saying to break through the hockey scores, it was apparent he was unable to detach himself from his paper enough to hear what I was saying to him. I walked over to him, put the ends of my fingers on his forehead and pushed back.

NOW I had his attention!!! Oh my, he didn’t like THAT, at all.

Still makes me grin, thinking about it.

He flew into a rage, jumping up from his chair, screaming like a girl.

I just stood there, leaning against the door jam, looking bored, waiting for him to finish.

When he settled down I said, “did you hear what I said?”

He blurted out, “YES, I HEARD YOU!”

I knew he hadn’t really heard, so I asked, “Well, what did I say?”

Suddenly he paused. I could see his mind flinch a bit, as my words came into focus.

“You said…you might be pregnant?”

I laughed, “yes, that’s what I said, Kenny”.

He began to chuckle a bit. “Oh, I didn’t hear you.” (Gee, really?)

He walked back to the table and sat down, picked up his paper and resumed reading.

Not the response I expected. Not at all. In fact, that was the end of the conversation.

I went back to work and considered his lack of response…but then he was looking at the paper, and it is so utterly important that he get through it without interruption…right?

Later that day, my friend Shelly was coming over to visit.

We spoke on the phone early in the day to decide what time she was coming and talked about ordering Chinese take-out for dinner.

I told her that I thought I might be pregnant…Ahhh, there was the response I was looking for…someone to be hopeful and excited with me!! She said that she would bring a pregnancy test with her when she came. I was so excited to think it might be true…but Kenny’s lack of interest was still in the back of my mind, chipping away at the joy.

That evening, we had dinner and talked hard. The whole time all I could think of was taking that test, but you’re supposed to take it first thing in the morning.

Finally, I just couldn’t stand it anymore and decided that I was going to take it, right then!

I went into the bathroom to do the test. Three minutes…that’s all it took…and when I came out and set the timer, Kenny walked out to the backyard. As he was leaving I reminded him that it would only be three minutes. He said he’d be back.

Shelly and I sat in the living room and waited the eternity of three minutes. When the timer went off, I jumped up off the couch and went to the back door to call Kenny.

I found him standing in the yard by the dog house with a sledge hammer in his hand.

I told him it was time to look. He said, “yea, just a minute.”

Another minute?!! Are you kidding?! I came back into the house and told Shelly to hang on a minute. We waited and waited…and waited…but Kenny didn’t come in.

I went back out and asked if he was coming. He said, “just go ahead”.

“…just go ahead?”

Why would he want me to “go ahead” without him?

Wasn’t he interested?

What was going on?

I slowly walked back into the house, not sure how I should tell Shelly that Kenny wasn’t coming.

It was weird, it didn’t make sense.

How could I explain it to her in a way that wouldn’t make him look like an ass, when I didn’t understand it myself?

I couldn’t.

So, I pasted a smile on my face and said, “OK! Let’s go see!”

We went into the bathroom and looked at the windows on the little stick.

One window had a very distinct pink line in it, but the other window looked empty.

We stood there looking…and squinting…and leaning closer.

Suddenly, I thought I could see something…a faint pink…or was it just my crossed eyes playing tricks on me?

I asked Shelly, “Does that look like a little pink to you?”

“I think I do see a little pink”, she said leaning over to get a closer look.

As we watched, the pink got darker and darker!

There were TWO PINK LINES!! I was, I was!!

We both screamed…And that’s when we heard it.

The sledgehammer hit the side of the doghouse, with a boom.

We were silenced with a jolt.

Did he hear us scream? Was that his reaction…to demolish the doghouse? Why?

He didn’t come in for about 10 minutes after our screams, and while he was out there, he took that doghouse down to the ground.

Finally entering the house, he threw himself into the recliner.

I was sitting on the couch, beside the chair and Shelly was standing on the other side of his chair, almost behind him. I asked, “Did you hear?”

“Yea, I heard you”, he said, keeping his eyes on the TV.

My eyes shifted to Shelly standing behind him, she was already looking at me, uncertain of what she was witnessing. There was nothing from him. No joy. No smile, no hug…nothing…except that he did hear us scream and the doghouse was firewood.

Message received.

I’m so glad Shelly came over that night, twelve years ago…if not, I would have been alone with the wonderful news that I was going to have a baby.

I was so happy that night…and so completely devastated.

Shelly has never mentioned it…

Namin’ Names!

So, I talked to the greatest attorney in Colorado on Tuesday…MY attorney!

Yep, that’s right! I’ve finally found an attorney who loves what she does and recognizes the value of doing the “RIGHT” thing! Only took me three years!

Well…actually, I talked to her about two years ago, but went with the last attorney I spoke with…wish I had stopped with this one!

Anyway, I’ve mentioned several times to her that I wanted to write the story of this divorce.

On Tuesday (during a hearing, and I’ll get to that on another page – it’s GREAT!), I asked her if my writing a book about all of this would get me into any trouble. She said, “you can write whatever you want!”

BUT she added, “DON’T YOU DARE CHANGE THE NAMES TO PROTECT THE “INNOCENT”!

If you’ve clicked on “The Whole Thing” link, you’ve noticed that I’ve changed out a name and replaced it with “Skippy”.

Of course, all of you know who that is…and the only innocence I was protecting was my own.

SO…I’ll be “namin’ names”!!

Besides, if I can get this published…and it’s any good…maybe I’ll finally be compensated for my half of the property and the business. I’ll just be coming at it from a different angle.

But here’s the thing…

I’ve wanted to run it all past all of you, first.

I realize there’s not much there just yet, but there will be and I’m really hoping to get some feed back on some things…

…like, if something reads a bit confusing.

…if there’s something that seems missing.

…not enough detail to hold you.

…boring.

…whatever you think!

On the other hand, all the stuff on “keekers” is really just for fun (they are actually two different blogs, connected together), and hopefully, I’ll be able to fill it up with some worthy information…I just need to find my niche! It’ll come (maybe). Or maybe I’ll get bored with it and dump it…Who knows?!

But “the whole thing”…that one is important to me.

If nothing else, I’ll have my day to speak. And I’m going to post the documents to prove every bit of it!

So, I hope you’ll read…and let me know how it’s reading.

I’m going to tell every ugly thing that was done and I’m going to tell who did it!!

And by the way…

Katherine Grier is my attorney.

If you EVER need her number…just let me know!!

I would recommend her, over and over!!

She was an absolute relief to me, and once the story has been told, you’ll understand how valuable and life-saving that ended up being!

K~

It was a Wednesday…

THE SPRING OF 2003

We had a woodworking shop, about a 1000 sq ft., at the back of our property. One of our sub-contractors, Mark, had been working out there for a long time on something for a customer (probably cabinets). I realized that he never came in the house to use the restroom…days on end, he never came in.

So, one morning I called Mark into the house. I reminded him that he was welcome to come in to use the restroom, or get water…whatever he needed. He said he knew he could come in, but that Kenny had given all the guys “Big Gulp” cups and had told them to use the cups to pee in and then to throw their urine into the sawdust pile in the yard!

Now, let me back up about this sawdust pile.

For some reason, Kenny got the bright idea that it would be better to just dump the sawdust from the woodworking into a pile in the middle of the backyard, rather than collect it and put it in the dumpster. Because there was so much sap in it, there was a constant swarm of bees all over it. It was particularly bad because we had a bee keeper across the street and another HUGE one down the road from us.

I told Mark NOT to throw his urine in the saw dust, but to come into the house!!

That night I brought it up to Kenny and told him that he needed to tell the guys to come inside and use the restroom…that it was disgusting and unsanitary to have them pouring urine all over the yard!

That was Wednesday.

Two days later…on Friday…

The girls were out playing in the backyard. I had the windows open in the dining room, so that I could hear them. I wasn’t too concerned about the “pile of pee” because the girls were very much aware of the bees swarming the saw dust and they stayed clear of it.

All of the sudden, I heard this loud squealing and laughing from the girls. I went to the window to see what all the excitement was about.

Kenny was standing at the edge of that saw dust pile, watching and laughing with the girls…but what he was laughing at was unbelievable!!

My little girls were standing smack in the middle of that pile of urine soaked saw dust and throwing it up into the air, and over their little heads like confetti!

And there stood their father, on the edge, enjoying the view!

I was out that back door before I even realized I had left the window. I yelled to the girls to get out of the saw dust, and asked Kenny what he was thinking!!

He followed the girls into the house, asking me what the problem was? Did I really need to remind him of our conversation two days earlier? I doubt he forgot, but I “explained” it to him, anyway.

I told him that I couldn’t believe he would stand out there laughing while our little girls (3 and 7 years old), threw sawdust over their heads… sawdust that was soaked in the urine of a multitude of men!!!

His response was, “What’s the big deal, they’ll wash!”

“…they’ll wash…”

The truth is that this is what Kenny did all through our marriage. This was just another one of his messages to me…”Don’t confront me about anything or I’ll go after the girls.”

Because I had gotten on him about the men pouring their urine in the yard, he was going to get me back…and he was going to use the children to do it.

There was NO WAY those girls would have walked up to that saw dust pile on their own…it was always covered in bees and they were afraid of it!! (The urine must have chased the bees off by that point).

Knowing the bees were always swarming the sap, what would have prompted the children to approach that pile of sawdust?

Who assured them that the bees were gone?

What man would stand by and watch as his little girls reach into the urine infested sawdust with their little hands?

Certainly, not a man, but a vengeful boy…and one who would put his babies at risk, to scare his wife.

As I share more of these stories with you, you’ll begin to see the pattern of threat.

By the time of this incident, I was fairly aware of his agenda…but it took a while to get there.

The emotional abuse and manipulation this kind of person engages in is very subtle…and you don’t want to believe it, at first. You don’t want to believe that this is the person you married!

Finally acknowledging the truth, was one of my greatest disappointments…but that came long before this incident…

negligence…

On Sunday, April 6, 2008, my oldest – she’s eleven – called me at about 2:45pm. She said that her dad and his new wife had gone to the mall at noon and had locked them out of the house. They had told the girls they would be back at 5:30. Evidently, they gave her a cell phone to use and I guess that was supposed to be their “supervision”. 5 1/2 hours, the girls – 11 and 7 years old – were supposed to just run around and do whatever they wanted. My daughter said that her dad told them, “go have fun!”

What was so amazing is that when my daughter called me, she was about two blocks from my house!! One of the women who work at the clubhouse where Kenny lives was bringing them to ME!

Gee, I guess that cell phone really doesn’t have much of a use, because my children were no longer on the property where Kenny lives and he has no idea!

This is the same problem we had to endure last summer. The girls on their own, in the pool alone, begging people for food, hiding food, being locked out of the house all day…now that it’s getting warm, it’s going to start again.

But this summer, things are going to be different from my end. I’m not going to ask people to document their experiences (like management at Kenny’s complex), I’ll report it all myself.

Diggin’ in deep…

I have so much of this written down, journalled and yet, I am having such a hard time getting to it. The thought of going through all those journals, or even pulling up on the computer the parts of the story I’ve already written, has been so difficult.

To go over it, import it, type it, edit it…I have to relive it. It’s an incredible repulsion.

I’m hopeful though, that I can push through it, and maybe it will finally relieve me of the burden…wishing I had left earlier, wishing I had intervened more when my children were involved…

So, if the story seems to take a bit to get posted, don’t give up on me! I really want to do this…need to. And I really want to know what you think…even if you think it’s boring! You’ve got to tell me!

Right now…

I’m thinking I need to tell you where thing are right now, in all of this mess.

Ol’ Skippy hasn’t made his support payments since July ‘07. Since my budget is based on that income, it’s been unbelievably difficult.

This is the short of it:

In July I ran out of money. I had been covering the expenses for the girls since we separated. Doctors, dentists, eyes, school fees, school supplies, winter coats, shoes…everything. It has buried me, and Skippy has contributed squat! It’s now been three years.

Obviously, at some point you’re going to go under, and that’s what I did in July. I had been paying the mortgage on the house on my own for 18 months. On January 29, 2007, we finally got to permanent orders and the divorce was final! BUT, we still had the house. We refinanced to cover the cost of finishing the 2400 sq. ft. addition and legal fees (not our attorney’s), so now I am “sharing” the mortgage payment with Skippy, but it’s so much higher with the refi, I’m paying about the same amount as I was in the first place.

By July, I had nothing left. I let Skippy know that I had no more money and that if he couldn’t cover mortgage, we needed to let it go into foreclosure. Well, he didn’t like that! He decided he was going to take out a loan, “on my behalf” and continue paying it. I told him that I was not agreeable to that, if I don’t have the money for one loan, I certainly don’t for another!

So, he quit making his support payments, regardless of the impact on the children.

The house sold on October 15th, 2007, but he has still not made his payments to me. It’s been 8 months – 5 months since we’ve had a mortgage!

My attorney filed contempt charges against him. He can’t just decide to stop paying when it’s been court ordered. He has to file contempt charges against me and show cause. But then Skippy is above the law, and does whatever he wants.

We went to an advisement hearing in January on the contempt charges and Skippy cried “poor mouth”, saying he has only made $23,000.00 this year, so they gave him a public defender.

Now, let me go back a bit. This past July, Skippy said he couldn’t make the mortgage payment, but decided to get an unsecured loan to pay a secured loan (the mortgage). The next month (August), he had his wedding and went on a two week honeymoon in the Caribbean – because he’s broke. Then they moved into a 3-bedroom apartment, in a gated community, incurring a 60% increase in rent, it’s now $1600/month – because he’s broke. His new wife quits her job…she’s going to be a “stay at home mom”(?) – because he’s broke. In January, they file for food stamps and medicaid…because you know…he’s broke. In February, they go on a Jamaican Cruise for 7 days. On March 7, it’s Skippy’s birthday. The girls go to his house for his birthday dinner. They have steak and crab. In fact, they have crab for 5 people and enough left over for the next nights dinner.
And having leftover’s is just fine…because…yea, you got it… he’s broke.

So, you tell me…

The Whole Thing: Introduction

He was acting weird. Too attentive, and jumpy. He was pretending to be interested and helpful…”Oh, I can get that for you” and saying, “Oh really? So then what happened?” It was ridiculous behavior, his talking that way, and trying to look me in the eye. I knew something was going on…

The next morning, he went to work and I took my oldest to school. Once I had my three year old settled, I went down to the office in the basement and sat in front of the computer…wondering…do I really want to know all of it? I felt it…I knew it was real and I was about to intentionally look at what I had thought he, of all people…would not do.

I played around with some servers and entered randomly considered screen names, and passwords, but after a while, bored with guessing, I began looking around the office. I found it all written under the desk blotter; the screen names and passwords, and thus began the process of swimming in the bile of addiction and betrayal.

He had acquired a membership and profile on a website geared for people looking for anonymous sex partners. The photo of himself that he submitted for his profile was the one I had taken of him on our 7th wedding anniversary. The same picture of “my husband” that I carried in my wallet…I wanted to vomit. He ever so “honorably” admitted to the women on the sex site that he was married, but then claimed that 15 months earlier I had made some kind of announcement that I was no longer interested in sex…Oh there’s a convenient lie!
He professed his love for me by saying that he was not looking for anything emotional and offered, ever so generously, that he would only give that to me. Blah, blah, blah…
He then went on to describe his creepy sexual desires.

On and on I went, finding the emails of the women he was communicating with, and apparently meeting for sex. I also found a hotel charge on one of our visa bills, with a liquor charge, posted a couple of hours before the hotel charge. He claimed he was a dry alcoholic, and since I had never seen him take a sip of anything with alcohol, I assumed it was for someone else. The liquor store was also only a few blocks from the hotel, so it was very obvious what was happening that particular day.

When he came home “from work” that evening, I knew he could feel something was wrong, he was looking at me sideways, but I didn’t share what I knew…not yet. I wanted more time with the computer…I wanted ALL of it!

After he went to sleep that night, I sewed him up in the bed sheets and beat him with a frying pan. Okay, not really, but it would make a shocking part of storytelling. : )
No, I went out to our company truck, which he NEVER locked, and started looking around. Behind the drivers seat was an expandable folder. I pulled it out and opened it. It was empty, except I could see some sheets of magazine paper. Voile! Pages from a porn magazine! Imagine my lack of surprise!

Over the next two days, I got as much evidence as I could find and printed every piece of it. Obviously he knew I was on to him. He had emailed all of his “girls” and told them that he thought I had become suspicious, so he might not be able to write for a while, until things calmed down. Even knowing that this could tear up his family…his children’s lives, he only wanted to delay, but didn’t intend to stop. How pitiful was this?
Who was this person in my house?

That afternoon, I called a neighbor girl and asked her to baby-sit at about 6pm and then… I waited. What a shame. All those years of keeping silent from friends and family…never telling what the girls and I had really been enduring, in hopes that he could be healed…it had been a complete waste of time. All the times I thought that his inability to tell the truth could be corrected, I had never lost hope and had dragged him from one counselor to another…but this…this was different, and was either going to get straightened out, or I was done.
I was out of excuses for him.

He came home as usual, but with that weird, wide eyed look and full of pretentious interest, again. I told him the baby-sitter was coming over and we were leaving. He became very nervous and asked where we were going…but I just smiled and said, “a ride”. I didn’t know at the time, but it was the beginning of our demise.
Over the next year, the truth would find it’s way, fill our home, and drown us all.