Flashback

A blast from the past. I don’t watch much TV. I turn it on in the evening, and often pay no attention to it. It’s just for the noise.

Tonight I’m watching the news, which is something even more rare than watching at all. I hate the news. At least, network news. But tonight there was a story about the CT Supreme Court reversing the decision on Michael Skakel and sending him back to prison for the murder of Martha Moxley. They showed the Supreme Court Room, and boy, did that bring me back to some difficult, yet triumphant memories.

December 2, 2010, exactly 2 years after the first day of our trial in Superior Court. More than 3 1/2 years since I had left my ex.  2 years since my son had come to live with me.  I remember sitting as a spectator, because that’s where the actual parties to the cases sit, in that auspicious room. The pomp and circumstance was palpable. Classrooms of students from local colleges filed in to watch the proceedings. The officer in charge of the courtroom gives all of us instructions. There was not an empty seat. Classrooms have to book it way ahead of time. The Supreme Court hears 2 cases a day. I had been waiting for 2 years to be heard. Two years from the 3 day trial my ex and I had, as he attempted to make sure I got less than 10% of the estate from a 32 year marriage. He lost that first Superior Court decision. He appealed, and then requested to have the appeal raised from the Appellate Court to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, every asset from our 32 year marriage, every dime, was in his possession.  I had a paycheck.  That was it.  (And just for added stress, my son was in a bad car accident 4 days before, broke his ankle, totaled 2 cars.  Of course the man with all the money did not contribute one cent to the deductible for his health insurance, or on a replacement car.)

7 chairs at the bench in the front. Like 7 thrones. The people who sat there would decide my future. I hoped they were just, I hoped they could see the truth about what had been done to me. Each atty gets a certain amount of time to make their case. My son’s GAL (guardian ad litum) sat with my attorney, to help her if needed. Because, he got it. It took him awhile, but he finally got it, and for the last year, and during our initial trial sat on my side. When my atty made her case, she didn’t even need all the time allotted. The judge in our Superior Court decision could see my ex coming 100 miles away, and did a ton of research for us, since there was no law regarding our issue. He wrote 7 pages, citing cases in other states. It was all in our brief, not much needed to be said. The point was that for him to prevail would have done a grave injustice, I think is what it said.

The justices argued with my ex’s atty. Not mine at all. They had some questions, but not many. They had a lot of questions of my ex’s and some actually argued with him, telling him that what the judge did, he was supposed to do.

In the end, I won. The decision was released April 18, 1 day before my 60th birthday. I had been secretly asking the Universe to give me the decision for a birthday present. Really.

They called my ex “unconscionable” 9 times in their lengthy decision. Unanimously.

And, my case made case law in CT. No one will ever be able to do to their spouse what he tried to do to me again. That makes me proud, really. And really, eases some of the pain of waiting 4 years to finally be free of that man.

A couple of years later, a Yale 1st year law student contacted my atty. His first assignment of the year in contract law had been to write a brief on my case, and could he come and see her for about an hour, and see some of the files. Imagine that. My case, my 4 year struggle ended up being a case which Yale University used to teach contract law.

I could go on, about how my life changed that 60th birthday. How I went house hunting, and bought my dream house, and later segued that house into this lovely life I now have in Florida. How I didn’t even consider having a date until I was moved into my new house. I hadn’t wanted to embroil anyone else in that mess. I learned that avoidance of something doesn’t mean you’re ready for it. I fell in love with someone who devastated me emotionally as badly, if not worse, than my ex did as he tried to separate my son from me, and hurt me financially. What my ex never did to me, my first love after divorce did. No need to expound on that. It’s all in the pages of this blog. I’m pretty cautious now.

Funny what just a flash of one picture can bring back.

Love and light everyone.

It Wasn’t Revenge

He thinks it was revenge.  Revenge for breaking my heart.  Does he not know that a broken heart stems from love?  Does he not know me at all after all this time?

He said he will never forgive me. I said “why would I care if you forgave me?”

It us only important whether or not I could have forgiven myself for standing by, watching, an not doing anything to prevent any more heartache. 

It was for her.  It was because I saw someone getting the crap beat out of them every day, by a lie they were unaware of that was growing daily.  How do you stand by, when you see someone getting set up for the kill, against their own wishes, and do nothing?

It was for her Scott.  It wasn’t about you.

You devastate me, and then wouldn’t let me go.

As the weeks went on, I saw what you were doing to her.  You were still telling me you didn’t want a loving relationship. She obviously thought she was in one.  She had no idea, none, that daily you were laughing inside, as you tried to get me to see you Sundays, Wednesdays.  And if it wasn’t me, because it wasn’t, soon enough it would have been Samantha, or someone. Because you don’t know why you can’t have whoever you want whenever you want.

Your dream, to have a different woman every night of the week.  Your fantasy.

Her fantasy and mine, to have a man who loved them, and was faithful to them, and building something that bordered on miraculous.

It was for her.  I couldn’t stand by and watch you play with someone else the way you did with me.  I couldn’t watch as you set someone else up for a fatal blow at a time of your choosing.  You know I cannot remain silent, and watch someone get hurt. If you don’t know that about me, it’s because you didn’t pay any attention, you just took what you could from me.

I told you, if you want to be loved, then be lovable. Your actions are not separate from the person that you are, they are a physical manifestation of who you are.

Who you are, right now, is not lovable, because you used two women for your own purposes, oblivious to the pain you would cause.  I told you to stop acting wounded.  You have no idea what a wound is.  You didn’t love either one of us.  You are incapable of loving someone.  You are only capable of stealing from them, to bolster the empty hole that is your heart.  Stealing their pure love, their energy, their lives, so that you can believe you are valuable because these two women love you.

I have told you 100 times, I saw your soul.  Maybe 1000.  You know it was true, you know I knew things about you I shouldn’t have known because you didn’t tell me.  I told you your value is within.  Find it.  Take this time and find it.  Stop leaching off of me and her.

It doesn’t matter what happened to you when you were a child.  It doesn’t matter what you did yesterday.

It matters what you choose to do today.

Try loving yourself, enough to acknowledge who you have been, and to try to be the person you want to be.  The person you think you are when one of us took you to our bed and adored you.

We deserved to be adored back.

It was for her.  It was never about you.  You and only you are responsible for your life.

Like the Phoenix…..

Day 4.  I am better this morning than I was yesterday morning.  Not as good as last night.  I have let him go, let any desire for him blow away with the emotional cyclone he put me through.  I never want to see his face again, I have deleted every picture so I won’t accidentally come across his face, and have to remember how I loved this asshole.

It’s the treachery, the deception, the idea that he thought it was perfectly ok to lead me on all week, to blow my world apart.  That he couldn’t man up, and tell the truth to me, and let me go when I was asking to go.  Such a narcissist, one of the worst I have ever known.  Worse than my ex-husband, and I thought he was the worst ever.  My ex’s lies were just random, about what he was doing, often stories he made up and believed, that were so obviously lies it was almost humorous.  (Though laughing at him brought on his scary scary temper.)  He never set me up emotionally just to punch me in the stomach, just to knock me down and stomp on me.  He was a sick f**k, but S is so much sicker.

Yes S, it turns out you were much like him, as you said.  You were him, taken to a new level that was past my ability to think was possible.

I have known many people abused as children, though his story was one of the worst.  But he’s smart, he could have crawled out of it.  He used to say he didn’t have a filter.

No, S, it’s not a fucking filter.  It’s a conscience.  You said you were developing one?  That’s a laugh.  Really…you are so full of shit. You like chaos, you like hurting people because you NEVER dealt with your own hurt in a productive way.  So you project it, and you act out on as many people as possible, in as intense a way as you can.  And some unsuspecting person like myself, that just saw the possibilities of you instead of the reality,comes along, you must have been fucking drooling to set me up and watch me fall.

Like you said, it’s your karma.  If you had a belief in anything, that would be ok, but you don’t.  You’re a cold, dead heartless man.  I am so glad to be rid of you.  And not to have lost any more than i did.  You ought to go crawl in a hole and stay there, until sensory deprivation makes you forget everything you know, and you have to be reborn.  Go to the monastery, like you talked about.  And stay there.  Then you can’t continue to hurt people for your own gain. (Yes he used to talk about doing that for 6 months.  I used to laugh, I am thinking the monks would exorcise him before they’d let him in.)

I have my book club tonight, I’m grateful for that.  To be with friends who live on the other side with me will be just what I need.  A has still been beside me through all of this. He texts me all morning, during the day, in the evening.  He still tells me he loves me, and we know it’s just an unconditional love he has, that we will always be good friends. He sends me music, pictures of the southwest. Just being sweet, kind, loving, talking me down if I need it (tho I think I was done with that after the first 48 hours), showing me reality in a kind, but firm way.  He has always turned out to be the blessing in my life.  He is diametrically opposed to S, and I am sure that he was put in my life to make me see the difference between a creep and an angel.  I wish it had been S I cut off for A, a couple months ago.  Not the other way around.

My friend Megan from here has been so helpful to me too.  She and I have so many of the same issues, and we have had a running conversation with each other comparing notes, and trying to understand this sick narcissism.  So the blessings that have come from his treachery far outweigh the pain, and the pain was unbearable.  But the duality is, there is equal joy that grows out of the ashes.  Like the Phoenix, I will rise. I will be better, happier, and more loving.  No stupid man who thinks the darkness is where it’s at, is ever going to have too much effect on me.