Shhh…. I have a secret

He came begging me to not send the letter(s).

Did I not realize what would happen to him if I did?

His career would be over!

Yeah, well, I was over a lot at that point.

But, and here it is folks….

“If I end up with a dishonorable discharge and end up in the brig (which is what would have happened), the kids will lose their insurance.”

Boom. Mic drop.

Damn.

Now what do I do? We need that insurance! The medication, especially for the seizures. That stuff is expensive!

Next came the rest of the begging etc.

I couldn’t even charge her with assault because then the question would be why my kids were at her house.

But he swore that he had no idea she was violent! He would never have subjected the kids to her if he had known.

He saw the error of his ways. He would come home and never see her outside of work again.

We could be a family again.

God. I am such an idiot.

I let him come back. But I made it clear that I was keeping the letter and the picture. If I found out he had been with her, or my kids were anywhere near her… Well, he could go to the brig, get dishonorably discharged, and I would figure out what to do for insurance.

Oh, and he could sleep in the playroom on the sleeper couch. All 6’4″ of him.

He agreed. Brought his stuff home. I made him wash EVERYTHING that had been at her house. She was a heavy-duty smoker. Both my son and I have allergy-induced asthma and couldn’t tolerate the smoke.

Funny story- her daughter has heavy-duty asthma, she wasn’t even allowed to have stuffed animals because they collected dust and would bother her asthma. She was forced to have home treatments daily so she could breathe. My daughter complained about how thick the smoke was in their house and that full ashtrays were everywhere.

Again, stellar parenting.

“I can smoke like a chimney, but you can’t have stuffed animals; they might make it hard for you to breathe.”

For about a month and a half, he ‘behaved’. Talked his way back into my bed.

We had sex. I mean, it was good, but, was it?

And he cried about how she was acting at work. Like she didn’t even miss him. Insert eye roll here.

He left again. Not completely. He still had all of his stuff in the house. But he stopped coming home.

Then, on Mother’s Day, the kids and I went somewhere. When we got back, he had taken all of his clothes and left.

My neighbor was out in the yard and came over to talk to me. He said that the ex came over almost immediately after we left, brought a girl with him, and they grabbed his clothes and left.

Marty and I were friends. We had both talked about our cheating others. He understood. His wife (on the way to becoming an ex at that point; he was just over to see the kids) was a cheater, too. She was also very open about it. Marty was allowed to visit the kids if she wanted to go out. Otherwise, he had to beg. He was the best dad, too. Those kids loved him. Despite only the youngest actually being his. (He knew the oldest wasn’t, they hadn’t been together when she was born, but the other daughter…. well. He was pretty sure that boy was his.) He claimed them all. Paid for everything they wanted/needed. And she fucked him over anyway.

Maybe it was the neighborhood.

So, he left. I knew that the first thing he would do was clean out the bank account. I pulled out half. And I was right. Except he got mad that I took money out.

He changed his direct deposit to go to her account. (And didn’t pay for a thing until our divorce was settled and I wrote a letter demanding that the military make him pay, about 9 months later).

I had already gone back to work at that point, but trying to find a sitter for the kids after school was rough, especially since I needed to make enough to pay the mortgage, insurance, car payment, food, gas, and anything else that came up. I finally begged my sister to come and nanny for me for the summer until I could figure out what to do.

My parents helped us out too. But see here we ran into another issue.

My parents had loaned us money, and we were paying it back $100 a month. So, my folks were now loaning me money out of the account that we had been paying them back. It worked. Until… it didn’t.

One day that account was no longer. The bank said that the account had been emptied and closed. Now I was very confused. That account could only be closed with both of our signatures.

Well, it all made sense when I got a call from his sister asking me if I knew that he was at her house with some woman and her kids.

He had driven from Ft. Sill, OK back to Oregon, to where our families lived.

Seriously? What the hell?

I mean it explained why the kids hadn’t seen him in a month.

Did I mention that we lived less than a mile from her?

It also explained why the account had TWO signatures closing it. She freaking signed my name. And he took all of the money in the account.

That was the last straw. I hired a lawyer that specialized in military divorces. This was mid to late July 1999. He kept making ridiculous demands.

He wanted 50/50 custody of the kids he had seen only a handful of times in the last 6 months. He wanted all of the musical instruments that we owned. Well, that I owned. I came into our marriage with several, since I could play anything-except strings. But he wanted them all. He could only actually play one of them, and that was his.

There were several other things that were mine that he claimed. My lawyer shut that all down: Kids were in my sole custody, and I had the right to move with them anywhere I chose. I kept everything that belonged to the kids and myself, including my instruments and my piano. I kept the car. He kept the house. Child support was $422 a month. That never changed. For 13 years that didn’t change. (our son is autistic and stayed in high school until he turned 21).

The middle of September, before our divorce was final, my folks came and we packed up the kids and the house and I sent my kids to live with my parents. The almost ex didn’t even show up to say goodbye.

I was supposed to stay a couple more weeks to work through the agreements. But even then, I only stayed about a week. Then I drove home.

I missed my kids!

The divorce was final the end of October. 5 days before it would have been our 13th anniversary.

Despite it being illegal in Oklahoma to remarry until 6 months after a divorce is final, he was married by the end of the year—he went to Texas to do it, which somehow made it legit in the eyes of the military.