Tag Archives: delusions

Why I Made My Tweets Private

Posted on by
12

The short explanation: I was tired of being stalked by a paranoid, neurotic, and vindictive old woman.

How To Make Your Tweets Private

Shame on you! You obviously didn’t take my Lynda.com course about Twitter where I explain how to do this. But since you were nice enough to come visit me at my blog, I’ll give you the simple steps here:

  1. Log into Twitter.com.
  2. Go to https://twitter.com/settings/account. This is the Account Settings page for your account.
  3. Turn on the Protect my Tweets check box.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.
  5. Enter your password if prompted and click OK.

That’s all there is to it. From that point on, the only way someone can see your tweets is if they follow you — and they’ll have to get your approval to do so. While I don’t normally recommend doing this, it’s a good solution if you’d prefer to control who can see your tweets.

I just made my tweets private. It was the only thing I could think of to get my husband’s girlfriend — if you can use that word to refer to a 65-year-old woman — to stop stalking me on Twitter.

How It All Began

It’s been going on since at least November 2012.

Flushing Fish
I think the tweet text makes it pretty clear that the fish was already dead when I tried to flush it.

Back then, while I was cleaning my fish tank’s glass cover, I managed to get a cleaning solution in the water that killed four of the five fish in there. I removed the fish and attempted to flush them down the toilet. Unfortunately, the fish were large and they wouldn’t flush. For some reason, I thought that was funny and took a photo of it, which I shared on Twitter.

Well, my husband’s girlfriend decided that my flushing of a dead fish was evidence that I was destroying my husband’s property — namely, his “exotic” fish. (Nevermind that the fish tank was mine, purchased before marriage, and the dead fish were just tropical fresh-water fish costing about $5 each — if that.) She apparently convinced my husband and his lawyer that they needed an expedited hearing in front of the divorce judge to stop me from doing whatever it is they thought I was doing. They demanded an opportunity to inspect the house and remove his personal possessions so I would stop destroying them. She printed out 25 pages of my tweets — the vast majority of which had absolutely nothing to do with my divorce — and submitted them as “evidence” of my wrongdoing.

This is when I realized a few things:

  • My husband’s girlfriend was in charge of my husband’s side of the divorce. It all came from her; I had confirmation of that later by means I’ve promised not to disclose. My husband certainly didn’t read my tweets (or my blog) and he knew the fish were mine.
  • My husband’s girlfriend was paranoid, neurotic, and likely as delusional as my husband had become. What else could I think? She read a tweet about a fish being flushed and decided it was evidence that I was destroying my husband’s property. Seriously: WTF?
  • My husband’s lawyer was not giving them sound advice — or, if he was, they weren’t taking it. After all, if he’d read the 25 pages of tweets, he’d clearly see that there was nothing in there to indicate that I was destroying anything belonging to my husband. They’d simply look like idiots in front of the judge.

This kind of backfired on them — as so many of their court actions did. My husband was given a date and time to come to our house and retrieve any of his possessions that he was worried about. That meant moving a lot of crap out of the house that he would probably have preferred leaving right there. It also prevented him from accessing the house later, as he tried in May, because he’d already used up his only court-approved opportunity to remove possessions. Oops.

You think she’d learn her lesson. A smart person would. But no: she continued to watch my tweets and attempt to use them to harass me throughout the months the divorce process dragged on.

Show Me Your Weakness and I’ll Exploit It

I have to admit that once I knew she was reading my tweets, it was difficult not to taunt her. She had no life — that was clear — why else would she be so obsessed with what I was tweeting about? Despite my heartbreak over losing the man I’d loved for more than half my life, I had a great life and I tweeted every detail.

I didn’t work much throughout the winter and spring and I traveled a lot, making multiple trips to California, Florida, Las Vegas, and Washington. I shopped for a whole new wardrobe after losing 45 pounds the previous summer. I met new people home and away and did all kinds of things with them. When I was home, I had a steady stream of house guests in the house they supposedly couldn’t wait to get back into. They’d insisted on dragging the divorce on past the original January trial date by asking for a continuance — I made the best of the situation by having a great time while I was stuck there. I tweeted all winter and spring about my activities, making sure I mentioned every fun thing I was doing, knowing just how much it would get under her skin.

A normal person would have stopped reading the tweets. But she’s not normal. She’s obsessed. I accused her in January of living vicariously through my tweets. She read that one, too — I saw it later as “evidence” in court.

She was stuck with my sad sack husband, directing his divorce because he lacked the balls — or moral integrity — to do it himself. I was enjoying real freedom for the first time in nearly 30 years, doing whatever I wanted without having to look at his sour, disapproving face.

And, of course, I packed.

More Tweets in January

The tweets came up again in January when she attempted to get an Injunction Against Harassment on me. I fought it in court. More tweets submitted as “evidence.” I don’t even think the judge looked at them. Why should he? Pages and pages of my usual blather — those who follow me on Twitter know what I tweet about — all copied in triplicate as “exhibits” for the court. I could only imagine what those photocopies cost — law firms charge through the nose for everything!

They showed up with their lawyer. Three of them against me. I won. They had no case.

Another court action backfires on them. Another few thousand dollars wasted fighting the phantoms of her delusions.

The Ceiling Fans

Ceiling Fan Tweet
I really couldn’t resist. Note that I didn’t say here that I removed the ceiling fans; I just insinuated that I did.

When the divorce trial was finally over the other day, I admit I did send one last tweet intended for her consumption, one last thing to really piss her off. The ceiling fan tweet.

During personal property negotiations, she’d listed the ceiling fans as something I must leave behind. I still remember the discussion my lawyer’s assistant and I had about this demand. It went something like this:

Me: She thinks I’m going to take down the ceiling fans?

Her: Apparently so.

Me: Why the hell would I do that? They came with the house. What the hell am I going to do with six southwest style ceiling fans in Washington state?

Her: She’s just trying to get under your skin.

Me: All she’s doing is showing how stupid and petty she is. I don’t want the damn fans.

Of course, she also demanded the curtain rods. But in the final agreement, the curtain rods went to me. I took them, with the curtains — admittedly, mostly for spite, although the ones in the living room and guest room (which were the only ones I really wanted) will look nice in my new home. And although the ceiling fans were not on the list of the items they could keep — after all, I considered them part of the house — I didn’t take them. I just tweeted as if I might have. The ceiling fans had become a running joke with my Twitter and Facebook friends and I knew they’d enjoy the tweet.

Because my husband had refused to inspect the house with me present, it would be at least 36 hours before they could get in to see what I’d left behind. I’m sure her blood pressure was red-lining the whole time, thinking about those ceiling fans.

Sadly, she didn’t stroke out.

It’s Over. Really.

In my mind, the divorce was over. Everything was in the hands of the judge. We’d settled the personal property and I had come away with everything that was mine and the joint property that I wanted, leaving behind far more for them than I’d taken for myself. (My lawyer’s assistant thinks I gave too much away.) I had finally moved out of my house. I was back in Washington, living where I’d spent the previous five summers, working, playing, having a life.

My husband’s girlfriend, however, wasn’t finished with me yet. She just couldn’t let go. She just couldn’t stop harassing me. I guess that when you spend so many months catering to an obsession, it’s hard to call it quits.

I blogged about the latest hilarity here. No need to repeat the details in this post.

It does, however, all come down to tweets. She built her delusion about my ownership of property in Washington on her interpretation of my tweets. Apparently, plain English isn’t good enough for her. In her paranoid mind, she believes everything I’ve written contains a coded message. She reads my tweets and interprets the code she believes they contain. The result: “facts” to feed her delusions.

(A mutual friend of mine and my husband’s can’t wait to meet her. She’s an amateur psychologist and thinks she’ll have a lot of fun trying to figure her out. I’m looking forward to her report.)

Although I made it clear in a recent email to a bunch of people that I think her obsession with my tweets is evidence that she’s sick, I seriously doubt whether that’s enough to stop her from obsessing. And frankly, I don’t want every little thing I tweet about to feed her delusions and get her running to her lawyer to bother mine.

It’s over. I’m free. I shouldn’t have to deal with her crap anymore. Hell, I shouldn’t have had to deal with it in the first place — and I wouldn’t have if my husband was smart enough (or man enough) to rein her in. The only way to break her of the obsession is to take the object of her obsession away from her.

So my tweets have become private, at least for now.

Expensive Delusions

Posted on by
4

When verifying the reality of a delusion gets expensive — and makes the deluded people look like fools.

I have to blog this. It’s the funniest thing that has happened since my divorce turned ugly last August.

The Back Story

As many readers know, I’ve been planning to buy and build a home on a lot in Malaga, WA. What some readers may not know is that back in July, when I thought there might be a chance of reconciliation with my estranged husband, I took him to see the lot I wanted to buy.

I envisioned us building a summer home there where I was making 80% of my income during three months. I envisioned him opening the bicycle repair shop he’d talked about on more than one occasion, possibly with bike rentals, along the nearby 11-mile bike trail in Wenatchee. I envisioned us living back in our paid-for Arizona home during the winter, taking it easy with a semi-retired lifestyle that would leave him plenty of time to fly his plane and build skills for his retirement career as a certified flight instructor.

I really thought that if he saw the land and the view that he’d envision the same life I saw for us. A life that didn’t include him being a slave to pay for a condo he didn’t need and I hated. A life with new, fun challenges in a beautiful place that wasn’t overrun with cheap retirees and rabid conservatives. A life with lots of recreational opportunities and a sunny future.

I didn’t realize then that he was already under the thumb of a desperate old woman who had seduced him with 30-year-old lingerie photos. I didn’t realize that he had stopped thinking for himself and was only doing what his new mommy told him to do.

That’s the back story: I found a 10-acre view lot in Malaga and I showed it to my future ex-husband, foolishly thinking he’d like it, too. Then I waited until the divorce was finalized and I got my settlement to buy it.

Fast Forward, May 7, 2013

My husband and his girlfriend/mommy managed to drag the divorce process out to April 2013. Other factors dragged it into May. On May 7, we had the first of two half-day sessions in front of a judge.

I was on the stand most of that time. During the cross-examination, their lawyer — I can’t really call him my husband’s lawyer since his girlfriend/mommy has been giving most orders to him since at least November — asked me a curious question:

“Isn’t it true that you own a home in Washington state?”

The question really took me by surprise. Me own a home in Washington? If that was the case, then why would I be living in Wickenburg, AZ, in a home filled with memories of a life I’d lived with the man I loved? The home I’d been locked out of by the man who obviously now hated me and had been harassing me since my return in September?

I answered truthfully: “No.”

He pressed on: “Isn’t it true that you have been living most of the past six months in Washington?”

I might have laughed. “No,” I replied. Other than a few short trips to Washington and California and Florida, I’d spent most of the past six months stuck in Wickenburg. Packing.

Afterwards, I talked about that question with my lawyer, family, and friends. It had seemed so out of left field. Did they honestly think I was living in Washington? If so, my testimony, under oath, should set them straight.

At least that’s what I thought.

Another Court Date

After another delay, we had our final appearance before the judge on May 31. My future ex-husband testified. Although most of his testimony was irrelevant and complete waste of time, he did manage to convince me that he’s become quite a liar. Or he’s more delusional than I thought.

My favorite piece of fiction: That during the six years of our marriage, he’d helped me with my helicopter business at least 100 times. That’s quite a feat for someone trapped in a 9 to 5 grind who uses his vacation time to visit family in New York and spends most of his other free time watching television. I was able to get back on the stand and insert a dose of reality for the judge’s consideration.

When we left the court, we all let out a sigh of relief. Now that it was in the judge’s hands, it was finally over. They’d finally stop harassing me.

At least that’s what I thought.

The Abuse Continues

The first indication that I was wrong came the day after the court appearance. He transferred the the balance of our joint checking account, which has always been equally contributed to and used for household expenses, to his personal checking account.

It’s not the money that bothered me. Frankly, it isn’t worth spending time worrying about the $445 that was my share.

What bothered me was the fact that the account was being used to pay our sole joint liability: the home equity line of credit. When the automatic payment came through, the payment would bounce and the account would be charged $35.

I knew this for a fact because I’d been watching my husband’s old checking account, which I could see when I logged into Bank of America. He’d drained that, too, but had stupidly forgotten to stop automatic payments from that account. Since September, he had bounced five checks and had been hit with a $35 fee for each one. (I knew because I still got low balance alerts for that account with all the others I monitored. That’s how I found out immediately about his withdrawal from the house account.) Some people just can’t manage their own finances. Good thing I was in charge of paying the bills all those years.

So by removing the money from that account, he’d set us up for bank fees and a possible hit to our credit scores for late payment of a loan.

And let’s not ignore the fact that he had no legal right to remove any funds from that account without the permission of the court unless it was to pay for house expenses. This money was true joint funds used for a specific purpose. Half the money was mine. He was stealing from me.

What a freaking idiot.

Amazing that it took him less than 24 hours to prove again how stupid he could be.

And Now for the Funny Part

On June 5 — still less than a week from that final court date — I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant, having lunch. I’d just spent the morning traipsing all over that 10-acre lot in Malaga with two surveyors, identifying property corners and the northern property line. I wanted to make sure I could visualize what my future 10 acre lot looked like. I wanted to see what land I had to work with.

(I was very pleased with the results. The lot appears about three times the size I’d visualized, working from incorrect corner markers.)

As I sat eating lunch, I checked my email. And that’s when I saw the latest bit of nonsense from my husband’s side of the divorce: They were insisting that I had already purchased the lot. In fact, they insisted that I had closed in January and that I was already developing it!

I really didn’t have any idea where they’d gotten these specific details. Although the email communication I’d been forwarded — from my husband’s mommy/girlfriend to their lawyer to my lawyer — mentioned tweets, I can’t remember having ever tweeted anything about having bought the land. Why? Well, I’d never bought it. So how could they have information about a closing date? And what made them think I’d started developing the land?

An earlier email message answered one of those questions. Apparently, back in early April 2013, they’d hired an “investigator” to snoop around the property I planned to buy. He’d photographed an RV (not mine) and cargo trailer (not mine) on a lot with a view a lot like the one I’d soon have. He’d provided details about septic system takeouts and obvious earthwork. The investigator’s report and some of the photos were included in the email forwarded from my husband to his lawyer to my lawyer. This was their proof that I’d lied in court — that I owned a home in Washington and was building on it!

Click play to cue soundtrack for this hilarity. (Many thanks to Facebook friend Dean for offering up this very appropriate music track.)

The only problem is, the photos showed the lot next to the one I was planning to buy.

You cannot imagine how hard I laughed when I realized this. My husband and his girlfriend/mommy had spent hundreds of dollars hiring an “investigator” to photograph my future neighbor’s property!

How they screwed this up so badly is beyond me. Who gave the investigator the address? Where did it come from? That has to be a story in itself.

How Delusions Become Costly

You realize that to find out what property I own in Malaga, all a person has to do is go to the Chelan County Assessor’s Office website and do a parcel search for my last name. If my husband or his girlfriend/mommy or their lawyer or the investigator had spent about 5 minutes doing this, they would have concluded that I didn’t own any land in Malaga or anywhere else in Chelan country. And if they thought they got the county wrong, they could have done the same for Douglas and Grant countries.

Did Dr. Tyson know I’d written about delusional people when he tweeted this more than 3 years later?

But the trouble is, they weren’t interested in reality. They were interested in producing evidence to back up their delusion.

They were convinced that I owned land in Washington. That was their delusion.

Maybe they did try a property search. They would have come up empty. But in their deluded minds, they knew I had property in Washington. They would have made excuses for why the tax rolls didn’t reflect their idea of reality. Perhaps they hadn’t been updated lately. Perhaps I’d bought the land in someone else’s name. Perhaps the Chelan County Assessor’s office was conspiring against them to hide the truth about me and my vast Washington real estate holdings.

Hey, anything is possible when you don’t rely on facts.

So they hired an “investigator” and told him where to take photos. Maybe they told him approximately where the lot was and he did some “investigating,” coming up with the only lot on that side of the road that was being developed. Having an RV on it must have sealed the deal that it was my lot, even though the tax rolls said it was owned by someone else.

Never mind that the RV on the lot wasn’t the one I owned, the one he claimed in court to have installed $5,000 to $9,000 of improvements in. (Another lie.) It wasn’t even the same make and model. And even though the “investigator” took photos of the Washington state license plates on the RV and the cargo trailer, no one had the idea to run those plates and see who they were registered to? If they had, they’d see that they were registered to someone other than me. Probably the people who owned the lot.

But that would shatter the delusion. Can’t do that. Delusional people only want evidence to support their delusions.

And apparently, they’re wiling to pay to get that evidence.

What Now?

Well, I’ve informed all parties that they investigated the wrong lot. I made it quite clear how amusing I think this is and how incredibly stupid I think my husband, his girlfriend/mommy, their lawyer, and the “investigator” are. I haven’t heard anything more about it.

But I suspect they don’t believe me. After all, they are delusional. I said in court, under oath, that I did not own a home in Washington. I said this on May 7, 2013. I did not lie in court.

But they obviously didn’t believe I was telling the truth then, under oath. So why would they believe me now?

Packing Up, Getting Out

Posted on by
9

I’m finally free.

I’ve been living in my Arizona home since September 15, 2012. That’s the day I returned from my fifth summer work season in Washington and found the locks changed on the home I’d been living in for 15 years and the hangar I’d been leasing for my business for 11 years.

Apparently, my husband thought that keeping me out of my only home so he could move his girlfriend in was as easy as changing a $15 lock. Needless to say, he was wrong.

He’d been away when I returned that September day. He moved out in early September — or possibly before that– forwarding all of our mail to the Phoenix condo, turning off the water heater, and unplugging many appliances.

September 15 was his mother’s birthday and she was 90. I knew there would be some sort of party for her back in New York and that he’d go. I later discovered that he used that opportunity to introduce my replacement to a collection of stunned family members and friends. Because he spent the next few days with his girlfriend at Niagara Falls — how quaintly romantic! — I had plenty of time to get the locks changed so I could secure my home and hangar and have his airplane removed from my hangar and tied down on the ramp.

For the record, if he hadn’t changed the locks on the house, I probably wouldn’t have, either. At least not right away. And if he hadn’t locked me out of my hangar, I definitely wouldn’t have moved the plane. But since he went on the offensive, I went on the defensive.

The next eight months would be more of the same.

His First Visit

Fish Tank
This fish tank was an early source of harassment. Although it was mine, purchased before marriage, they claimed it was his, that it was worth over $1,000 and contained “exotic” fish. When I gave it away, they used it as evidence in court that I was disposing of my husband’s assets.

He showed up at the house with a police officer on September 18 — the same police officer I’d spoken to only days before when I was concerned that he might do something to hurt me or my possessions when he returned home. He was angry and it showed as he stalked around the house with his camera, taking photos per the instructions of his girlfriend or lawyer.

He didn’t want to talk to me. When I asked him why he locked me out of the house, he replied, “You weren’t supposed to get back until October.”

I said, “And what were you going to do then? Meet me at the door with a bunch of friends to keep me out?” He didn’t reply.

When he left me, he went back to Scottsdale, back to the house he was living in with my replacement, the 64-year-old woman who had become his mommy. The same home where our poor dog, Charlie, was confined in a small, walled-in backyard.

His Delusional State of Mind

Soon afterward, he made his only settlement proposal. According to him, I should hand over my half of our paid-for house (worth $285K), pay the $31K balance on the home equity line of credit (which was mostly borrowed by him through automatic overdraft protection withdrawals), and give him $50K cash. In return, I could leave with everything else that was morally and ethically mine — everything I’d worked hard for my whole life. He’d keep the house, the condo, the furniture, and so many other things I’d bought for our home over the years.

Basically, he was demanding that I pay him so he could move his girlfriend/mommy right into the home I’d made for us over the 15 years we’d lived there.

He was convinced that I was so desperate to leave Arizona that I’d give up what was rightfully mine and simply go away.

I honestly don’t know what gave him this idea. I only had one home — my Wickenburg house. Where did he think I was so anxious to go? What did he think I would do with nothing to rebuild my life elsewhere? I still don’t understand what was going on in his head.

It was around this time that I realized he’d become delusional.

I Settle in for the Long Haul

When I didn’t accept that proposal and the judge awarded me exclusive use of the house and my leased hangar in Temporary Orders — giving him exclusive use of the Phoenix condo — he and his girlfriend/mommy went on the offensive with a series of actions and demands that showed just how little the 29 years we’d spent together meant to him. I had somehow morphed from his loving wife to an evil entity that he needed to destroy. All within four months.

It’s amazing how a weak man can be manipulated by a desperate and vindictive woman.

Because that’s really what it was all about. My husband’s girlfriend/mommy felt threatened by me. The only way she could possibly secure her future with my husband was to paint me as the bad guy any way she could. So when I came home from my summer work early, she likely told him I’d done it so I could steal things from our home. When I moved his plane out of the hangar, she likely told him it was because I wanted his plane to be stolen or damaged. When I won exclusive use of my only home — when he had another place to live and was actually living with her in Scottsdale — she likely told him that I’d moved back just to keep him out and prevent him from being happy.

Everything that I did to defend what was rightfully mine was twisted into some kind of offensive move to prove how hateful and evil I was.

The thing she feared most: that the two of us would get together and talk and possibly reconcile our differences. After all, on the same September day I’d returned home, he’d told a mutual friend that he still loved me.

So she did everything she could to convince him that I didn’t give a damn about him. That all I wanted was to manipulate him and prevent him from achieving his goals. That I was just using him as a tool to achieve my goals.

When I think about how easily he swallowed this line of bullshit, my heart aches. All my friends tell me I’m better off without him and I know they’re right. But I also know he’s not better off without me. And because I still care deeply about him — yes, I still love the stupid bastard — I can’t help feeling sad about the path he’s chosen and the kind of woman he’s chosen to take it with. The man I knew deserved so much better.

But, as usual, I digress.

Community Property, Misunderstood

My Crate
I got this nice wooden crate in college from a boyfriend. For years, it was the table in the den of our house. Oddly, it was one of the first things I packed. (The TV was joint property that I left behind; the Klipsch speakers and stereo equipment was his.)

I discovered that even though we’d only been married six years and I’d acquired many of my assets prior to marriage, he thought that he owned half of everything we owned. He had crazy high numbers for the value of my assets and his quick math had come up with the insane settlement proposal he kept trying to push on me.

The reality of the situation was that he only had a claim to half of everything acquired during the six years of our marriage. That took many things off the table. But he refused to acknowledge this. I’m not sure why his lawyer didn’t set him straight. Or maybe he did but his girlfriend/mommy convinced him the lawyer was wrong. Who knows?

Even when we went to mediation, in December 2012, he was working with inaccurate information. We spent three hours in separate rooms, each of us with our attorney, while a mediator went back and forth. There were 14 items on the equalization list — it would benefit both of us to clear as many of those items off the table as possible. In the end, we agreed on four or five items and I was ready to sign off on them. But he suddenly got stubborn and refused to sign off on anything. All or nothing, he said.

I wonder to this day whether he called his girlfriend/mommy to get that advice. I can’t imagine his lawyer advising him to take such an idiotic stance.

Putting Off the Inevitable

Soon afterward, they asked the court to continue the trial date — originally scheduled for January 2013 — because they supposedly wanted to get a formal evaluation of my business. The court rescheduled for April 25, 2013.

This was a huge mistake on their part. For some reason, my husband still believed that I was in a hurry to leave Arizona. He apparently believed that if he dragged out the proceedings by pushing back the court date and turned up the heat on the harassment, I’d give up and go away.

Again, this boggles my mind. We were together 29 years. You’d think he’d know me better. But he really was delusional. He believed what his girlfriend/mommy — a woman who had never even met me! — told him.

I know this was their plan because they did absolutely nothing to get a formal evaluation of my business and they did indeed turn up the heat on the harassment.

To make matters worse (for him), he failed to deliver the discovery documents my lawyer had requested. After waiting two months for them, we had to take him to court to get him to comply. The judge awarded me legal fees for that action. And even then, he still didn’t submit all the documents on time. We had to subpoena all his bank and credit card companies for the information we needed. It was as if he didn’t think he needed to comply because he was so sure I’d just give up and go away.

Thanks, Honey

Meanwhile, I was glad to have the additional time at home. After all, it was my home — my only home — and it was comfortable and cheap to live in. I had no place else to go. By pushing back the court date, he did me a real favor.

He didn’t do himself any favors, though. The longer I stayed, the more of my possessions I packed.

Keep in mind that I lived in that house at least 9 years before we were married. I had incredible success in my writing business during those years and was making a lot of money. I bought many things for my office and the house — from office furniture and shelves to a hot tub to a wine fridge to kitchen appliances to decorative items like silk plants and curtains. These were all my things, my sole and separate property.

When I first got home in September, I concentrated on packing and storing my most valuable possessions: my antique lamps, my Navajo rug, my Lenox china. But as I remained in the house, day after day, putting up with the harassment they dealt out via threatening letters to my lawyer and other actions, I packed or discarded more and more of my possessions that I probably would have left behind if we’d settled sooner: books, CDs, DVDs, everyday dishes, pots and pans, about half the crystal stemware, kitchen linens, bath linens, bed linens, kitchen gadgets, and so much more.

Kitchen
The microwave looks as if it’s built into the wall with the oven, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t. It’s gone now and there’s an empty shelf in its place. I look forward to using the microwave in my new home. And, for the record, I threw away those curtains. What a bitch they were to sew.

I clearly remember the day I pulled my Sharp microwave oven out of the wall in the kitchen. He’d sent the police to our house to interrogate me on a charge of harassment after I’d made a one-minute visit to him in his condo the day before. The police officer was incredibly kind as I sobbed over my husband’s betrayal and his use of the police to harass me. He agreed that my husband didn’t have a case and even apologized for bothering me before he left. But my anger over this most recent offensive move convinced me to counter it. I got out my tools and pulled the microwave my parents had given me as a housewarming gift back in 1986 out of the wall. I put the shelf that had been there when we moved in back into the wall slot and cleaned it up with some Pledge. The next day, I boxed the microwave up and put it into storage.

I started using the fireplace every day. I managed to burn nearly all the firewood before it got too warm to have fires.

The more my husband fucked with me, the less I’d leave behind for him and his girlfriend/mommy.

Hell, I had nothing better to do than pack anyway. And I had plenty of storage space to put everything. The local thrift shops got all of my things that I no longer wanted. Things I might have left behind if we’d settled sooner, on better terms, without all the pain and harassment. Books, decorative items, luggage, games, electronic equipment.

As they began challenging my ownership of items, I began looking for receipts. That’s when I found the receipt for the telescope and additional lenses. I packed that up in late April and put it in storage. When I resettled in Washington, I’d have it fixed up and put it to good use.

Another Failed Attempt to Settle

Guest Room
I left behind almost all of the guest room furniture. But I did take the linens and, of course, the curtains. The curtains might work in my next bathroom; the rods are really nice.

When I got a new lawyer, his lawyer said they were interested in trying to settle with me. I was all for that. I had already presented him with a counter offer that was very generous. I was hoping he’d come to his senses and accept it. I agreed to attempt mediation again but only if we both sat in the same room and discussed it like adults.

It came as no surprise that he refused. He was afraid of me. He was afraid to be in the same room with his wife without his girlfriend/mommy there to advise him. Poor baby.

We attempted to settle the personal property with correspondence between lawyers. My proposal offered to give him almost all the furniture in the house and condo in return for just a few items that I wanted. We’d each keep whatever vehicles and other property was in question and he could even keep the condo. The net effect was that he’d come out at least $30K ahead for these assets on the table. I asked my lawyer’s assistant what she thought of my proposal and she said she thought it was extremely generous. “Let this be your bellwether, then,” I told her. “If he turns this down, it’s proof that he’s being unreasonable.”

Of course, he turned it down. It had gotten to the point where they — my husband and his girlfriend/mommy — didn’t want me to have anything that I wanted — even if that item was a piece of furniture worth $100 at the garage sale prices the court used.

They sent us a list of property in the house that was obviously prepared by my husband’s girlfriend/mommy. She referred to our upstairs den or TV room (as we called it) as the “mezzanine.” (Jeez, why didn’t she just sign her name to the list?) The list included many of my sole and separate assets, including my antique lamps (no, they’re not “Pierpont Puffs”), Navajo rug (a “woven tapestry,” according to her), and china (yes, it’s Lenox, but she got the pattern wrong). When they added the value of all these items, it came out to more than the value of the empty house. Apparently, she was just as delusional as he was.

Of course, by this time, most of my things had already been packed and moved out of the house. Most of the stuff that remained was either his — like the stereo equipment and his dad’s old bookcase — or the jointly owned furniture items or the items I needed to live comfortably.

Somewhere along the line, they said I could keep the bedroom set but neither sofa and nothing from the condo. They demanded that I leave behind the ceiling fans and curtain rods in the house. Like I was going to remove six southwestern style ceiling fans and take them to my future home in the Pacific northwest.

My lawyer and I pretty much ignored them, although my Facebook friends and I had a good laugh at their expense.

More Packing

I started taking down curtains, beginning with the ones I’d made not long after moving into the house. The curtains and curtain rods were mine. I would have left them behind if my husband’s girlfriend/mommy hadn’t made an issue of them. I dropped off most of the curtain rods at the local thrift shop. Hell, it wasn’t as if I wanted them.

By this time — April — I had pretty much run out of things to pack. I was eating off paper plates. I’d brought a countertop microwave and pots and pans down from our vacation property so I could still prepare meals.

I had a string of house guests to keep me company. We ate out a lot.

Hot Tub
When I couldn’t sell the hot tub, I gave it away. I certainly wasn’t going to leave it behind. (I’ll get a new one when I settle down.)

I gave away the hot tub. Its new owner picked it up while I was out on a day trip with friends.

I brought my helicopter back from California, where it had been parked on a frost contract. I did a bunch of flights for my big survey client — the one who had finally made my company profitable back in 2008. It was work I wouldn’t have had if my husband had settled sooner and I’d left.

I guess I need to thank my husband and his girlfriend/mommy for that extra revenue, too.

Finally! An Agreement!

I tried one more time to settle the personal property after our May 7 court date. I still had the list of items I wanted and the items I was willing to leave behind. We removed any mention of the vehicles and condo and RV in an effort to keep things simple. And because my lawyer was on vacation, his very capable assistant handled the communication with my husband’s lawyer.

I was shocked when they suddenly seemed to agree to my proposal.

The letter his lawyer drafted up said I could have the items from his condo that I wanted if I left the house by June 1. I asked about the other items on the list. I was told that they were agreeing to the entire list. We went back and forth a little. My lawyer came back from vacation. He dealt directly with my husband’s lawyer. The adjusted the language in the agreement to include a reference to the list so there would be no misunderstanding. I told them I needed until June 2 to finishing packing up and leave.

Meanwhile, my husband refused to allow me to be present when the items were picked up at his condo. More harassment. They had to do everything in their power to make everything difficult for me. I began to suspect that they’d damaged the items intentionally. I demanded photos. They sent them. Everything looked okay.

I still couldn’t understand why they were suddenly being so agreeable. Had their lawyer finally talked some sense into them? Or were they just that eager to get into the house I couldn’t wait to leave?

The Final Move

I made arrangements to send movers and a friend to act as my representative. In all honesty, I was glad I wouldn’t have to make that long round-trip drive to Phoenix — 90 minutes each way! My friend lived in the area and it would only take an hour or so out of her day. It would have killed half of mine. And frankly, I was pretty sick of driving between Wickenburg and Phoenix.

The pickup was set for May 30.

Bedroom
I took everything you see in this picture — except the ceiling fan. Seriously: the ceiling fans? What the hell did they think I was going to do with them?

A friend helped me move the jointly owned items I wanted from the house — the items on the list that he’d agreed to: our bedroom set, the chair in the bedroom, the lamps in the bedroom, the leather sofa in the TV room (AKA, mezzanine). We put it all into storage where the movers would pick everything up at once.

The furniture pickup went as planned. My friend inspected everything before it was packed. The movers brought it to my storage place and unloaded it. The furniture move was remarkably affordable and easy to take care of.

The movers made some comments about my husband’s girlfriend/mommy that got us all laughing. One of them said her clothes were too tight for someone her age. The other one said he thought my husband was gay.

Whoa.

I went back to the house to finish packing up the few things I had left: mostly clothes and scattered odds and ends.

And of course, the rest of the curtains and curtain rods.

Some truth:

The long distance movers did not come until September. Because my wasband’s girlfriend/mommy was reading my blog and relying on everything I wrote, I occasionally used it as a tool to misinform them. I did not want them knowing that my possessions were still in my Wickenburg hangar. After all the betrayals and lies, I honestly thought they were capable of breaking in and stealing what was mine. Best to let them think it was out of reach.

The long distance movers will pick everything up this morning. (I guess I’m not the only one who works weekends.) They’ll load it into their truck, close the doors, and head north. I’ll turn over the hangar I’ve been renting for 11 years to my landlord, who has already parked a bunch of vans in the area formerly occupied by my husband’s plane.

I expect my possessions to arrive in Washington by the end of the week. A nice, secure, climate-controlled storage unit is waiting for them in a friend’s storage facility. With luck, I’ll be able to start unpacking in my new home by the end of the year.

I’m glad to be out of my Wickenburg house — more glad than anyone could possibly imagine. Although it was comfortable, it was full of reminders of a life with a man I love — a man who not only now hates me but is anxious to install his girlfriend/mommy in my place. It had become a prison, of sorts. The only thing that made it tolerable was the steady stream of house guests and trips I made to visit friends and family members. Even when I was ready to leave, to go to work in Washington again, I couldn’t let it go because it was such a valuable bargaining chip.

A chip that paid off in the end — by enabling me to settle the personal property out of court and get what few jointly owned items I wanted.

Unfortunately for my husband and his girlfriend/mommy, there’s a lot less in that house than there would have been if he settled in September when he claimed he wanted to. Their stubborn greed cost them thousands — money they’ll have to spend to replace the items I packed while waiting for them to stop harassing me and reach a reasonable settlement.

The Divorce Book

Posted on by
20

An opportunity to earn back the money spent on my divorce…and refresh my writing career.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook or are a close friend, you probably know by now that I was contacted by an acquisition editor for a publisher on Friday afternoon. She told me that they’re interested in me writing a book about my divorce ordeal based on my blog posts and tweets.

Holy cow! That’s what I tweeted only minutes after getting that call. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then — indeed, it’s difficult to think of anything else.

I thought I’d take some time to blog about how all this came up and what I think about it. Blogging helps me organize my thoughts and this whole thing definitely needs to be organized in my mind. Ironically, if I decide to move forward with this project, this blog post will become part of the book.

About the Blog Posts

The Divorce-Related Blog Posts (so far):

I started blogging about my divorce back in July 2012. My husband had called me on June 30 (yes, my birthday) to ask for a divorce and, in all honesty, I didn’t think he was very serious about it. I thought that once we’d talked in person and I’d had a chance to show or tell him about how I thought we could move forward together, he’d realize that what we had was too good to throw away. I while I waited for him to come see me — I was stuck on contract in Washington state — I wrote “29 Years Ago Today,” a narrative history of our relationship since the day we met on July 10, 1983. I wrote that as a tribute to our relationship, as a reminder to him of what we’d been through and what we had.

We met in mid July. I did a lot of crying and he did some, too. He claimed he still cared about me. He assured me that there wasn’t another woman. But when I took him to see the 10 acres of view property that I hoped we’d build a summer home on, I could see in his eyes that there was something else he was more interested in. Something that wasn’t in Washington. Yet I believed him. I trusted him. When he told me he wanted a fair and equitable divorce, I believed him. When he said he wanted to stay friends, I believed him.

I was a fool to believe him.

But how could I blame myself for trusting the man I’d trusted with my life for 29 years? Especially when one of my close friends was assuring me that my marriage could be fixed if I worked hard on it when I got home? I didn’t know that this friend was one of several friends and family members my husband had called to tell that he still loved me and worried about me. My friend thought that meant he wanted reconciliation and he pushed me to believe it was possible.

I was a fool to believe him, too.

Although I’d told my husband that I didn’t want to talk about the divorce until I got home, he pressed me several times after our meeting about a settlement. I was trying to finish a book and my state of mind was making work nearly impossible. (I finished the book two months late — the first time I’d ever missed a deadline on that title — and lost out on $5,000 of advance money.) I couldn’t understand why he was in such a hurry when he’d told me we could wait. I responded angrily and he cut communication not long afterward, going completely dark. I blogged about that on August 8 in “How I’m Doing.”

I later found out that behind the scenes, the woman my husband had been sleeping with since June was already pulling his strings, emailing him lists of divorce lawyers to call with instructions to call as many as he could so I couldn’t call the same ones. When I emailed him in August, telling him when I’d be coming home, he began plotting with his lawyer to get exclusive use of the house, effectively leaving me homeless when I returned. When I learned about his girlfriend and saw the lingerie photos she’d sent him as part of her seduction routine and realized that he planned to keep me out of my own home, I reacted by (finally) filing for divorce. I discovered that he had already gone through my personal files and given copies of my tax returns and investment statements to his lawyer. Clearly, he didn’t care about me at all and was planning to use my delay to maximize the amount of cash he could claim under community property laws. After all, I make 80% to 90% of my income during the summer; every time he forwarded my mail with a check from a client, he was likely thinking about how half of that check would soon be his.

From that point forward, my blog posts were explorations of my feelings about what was going on, trying, for the most part, to remain upbeat and positive. “Freedom without Guilt” discussed one positive aspect of cutting ties with my husband: I was finally free to do what I wanted without having to deal with his attempts to make me feel guilty for making the most of my life. “My Experience with Aging, Weight, and Medifast” talked mostly about dieting and didn’t really discuss the divorce at all. By that point, I’d lost 28 pounds. (I wound up losing a total of about 45 pounds by mid October.) But the post is remarkable because I posted my own version of a lingerie photo, which, admittedly, was pretty lame. (I’m not stupid enough to put a photo of myself in lingerie online — or to email it to a married man.) In all honesty, I think I still believed that if my husband and I could sit down and talk again, we’d be able to patch things up. (It was — and is — very hard to let go.)

“Early Morning Helicopter Flight: Wenatchee, WA to Hillsboro, OR” briefly mentioned how I wished I could share the joy I felt from an amazing dawn flight over the Cascade mountains with my husband. It was hard to believe that I’d never go flying with him again. “Boating without Mike” talked about a boat ride Penny and I went on at the end of August. It was my last ride in the boat for the season; I sucked up some milfoil (weeds) as I returned to the dock and the engine wasn’t running quite right. I was lucky to get it back on the trailer. (I’m not looking forward to getting that fixed when I get back.) In that blog post, I listed many of the boat trips I’d been on with my husband over the years. It was one of many reminiscent posts, things I wrote that I hoped he would read — possibly to jog his memory about everything we had that was so good. To shake some sense into him.

But as I learned more and more about what was going on at home, I began getting angry — which is actually good for me. “The Pain of Betrayal” introduced readers to my feelings about discovering my husband’s lies without actually mentioning his affair. Thinking that my husband had left me for a younger woman — the woman in the lingerie photos — and knowing quite a bit about her financial situation, I wrote “Gold Digger.” At the same time, I was overcome with pity for my husband’s decision to turn his back on the amazing lifestyle we could have had together. I wrote “Pity for the Foolish” to express my personal joy at watching a beautiful sunrise from my doorstep and my remorse that my husband had trapped himself in the “box” he couldn’t think outside of.

By this time, I’d realized that a lack of communication — mostly on the part of my husband — had caused all of our marital problems and the breakup. “Communication Breakdown” presented my thoughts in a hypothetical situation. It was the closest I could get (at that point) to letting the world know that my husband left me for another woman. Most of my friends were able to read between the lines and understood what I was saying.

I explored the topic of my problems with self-esteem during my final months with my husband and the breakdown of our marriage, still not mentioning his affair, in “On Broken Marriages, Self-Esteem, Divorce, and Victoria’s Secret.” My emotions were all over the map. I was home at this point — after having had to break in while he was away because he’d changed the locks — living in the home I’d shared and built with my husband over the past 15 years. I kept expecting him to walk in the door and life to go on as usual. As I did things alone that I used to do with him — soak in the hot tub, enjoy breakfast on the back patio, look for satellites and shooting stars from the lounge chairs on the upstairs patio — I felt his absence sorely. I thought a lot about him doing the same things with his replacement for me. It hurt me deeply and I couldn’t understand why it didn’t hurt him. But, at the same time, I simply could not get over the change in my appearance because of the weight loss. The master bathroom in my house has big mirrors along one wall. Ever time I stepped out of the shower and saw my new, youthful figure, I was amazed. Seriously amazed. (It took months for me to get used to the sight of my new, slim body.) A new wardrobe, Victoria’s secret, and a later makeup consultation at a Clinque counter completed my transformation from dowdy, middle-aged woman to the new attractive, active person I’d become. So I was amazingly upbeat, despite my feelings about being home alone. Any damage my husband had caused to my self esteem was completely repaired, just by my own actions and being free of his disapproving attitude. The blog post also, again, voiced my pity for my husband, who I was convinced was going through some sort of midlife crisis, possibly triggered by hormonal changes — a sort of male menopause. I mentioned his irrational behavior, but at that point I still didn’t know what was driving it. I thought it was a purely psychological problem. I’d learn the truth a while later.

“How to Tell if the Person You’re Dating is After Your Money,” was an exploration of what I hoped my husband had considered when developing his relationship with the other woman — again, without mentioning the affair. I’m not sure why I was still keeping it under wraps.

On October 3, my husband and I testified in court at a temporary orders hearing. That’s where he made some outrageous claims about me, under oath, in an attempt to get me kicked out of our house and the hangar I’d been leasing for my business for more than 10 years. Seeing and hearing him on the stand was profoundly painful to me. He was not the man I knew; he was some cold monster who tried to do everything in his power — including lying and stretching the truth beyond all recognition — to hurt me both emotionally and financially. He was living with his girlfriend (and our dog) in Scottsdale and had a condo in Phoenix, but he still wanted to keep me out of my own home. I was reeling with pain and anger during the proceedings and relieved beyond belief when the judge found in my favor and allowed me to stay in my only home.

I wrote “The Man I Fell in Love with is Gone” the next day. It was my attempt to convince myself that my husband was as good as dead to me. My loss was affecting me emotionally in very negative ways and I’d soon begin seeing a grief counselor to help me get through it. I found it extremely affective to imagine that he was dead and that I was mourning that death. The post refers to his desire to seek revenge for “imagined offenses” — indeed, at the court proceedings he made a wild claim about me preventing him from buying the company he worked for 12 or 13 years before. (I had no idea what he was talking about at the time and my testimony put my understanding of the matter on record; I now think this delusion is what he’s using to try to justify his recent treatment of me.) This was also the first post where I openly stated that my husband left me for another woman and that he planned to put that woman in my place in our home.

“Saving the Cape Honeysuckle” was a reminiscence of planting these bushes in the back flower beds before I’d left for my fifth season in Washington state and my desire to maintain the few bushes that were still alive. He’d neglected the house over the summer, leaving behind an overgrown vegetable garden that was mostly dead because the irrigation system had been shut down.

I didn’t blog much about the divorce for a while, but I did write “Grief Counseling: A Note to Friends.” This was my attempt to communicate to close friends that I needed their understanding and support. I cried an awful lot in those days — I still do — and it was making some people uncomfortable. I needed them to understand that my grief was something that wouldn’t just go away and that I needed their support.

“The Woman Scorned Playlist,” shared two embedded music videos with songs that applied to my situation. I had just heard Adele’s Rolling in the Deep for the first time and I couldn’t believe how the song so perfectly voiced my anger and sorrow. Like Adele, I felt that my husband had thrown away our life together when we “could have had it all.” I still can’t even think about that song without crying. Hit ‘Em Up Style is a lighter song that makes me laugh — except one line: “There goes the house we made a home.” (Damn! I’m crying again right now.)

I was going through some old papers while packing and discarding my things when I came upon a birthday card my husband had made me in June 1998 when he was 42 and I was 37. I included a photo of the card and my thoughts about it in “What Happened to this Guy?”

“Life Lessons” talked primarily about a blog post I’d read about things people learn too late in life. In it, I talked about how some of these lessons applied in my life, including the differences between me and my husband.

On November 30, I saw my husband again. We had to swap trucks and although we didn’t talk, he left copies of email messages I’d written as long as four years before in the truck for me to find. “Communication Breakdown, Part II” discussed my anger and frustration about how he’d chosen to communicate with me and my thoughts about it. I still couldn’t understand why he now apparently hated me. What had I done to him to deserve such hatred? This post marked a turning point in the way I talked about my situation. From that point forward, I had no qualms about talking opening about his girlfriend in my blog posts. I was beginning to see the big picture: she was calling all the shots for his divorce. She had begun communicating directly with his lawyer, providing him with inaccurate information about me, my actions (based on her paranoia-driven misunderstanding of my tweets), and my possessions. She was telling his lawyer what actions to take against me. (How I know this is not something I can share because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but I have two good sources that I trust.)

It was around this time where it became impossible to pretend my husband was dead. When I refused to accept his absurd and financially damaging settlement proposal and he refused to consider my counter proposal, he and his girlfriend went on the offensive and began a campaign of harassment that continues to this day. My lawyer received a stream of demanding letters — some of them quite threatening — and outrageous claims from his. Then he changed lawyers and they went on a new campaign of terror, beginning with an expedited hearing in front of the judge (by phone) that wrongly accused me of disposing of and destroying his personal property. All this was based upon tweets I’d shared about scanning and shredding my own personal documents and giving away two fish tanks I’d purchased prior to marriage.

This is when they made the first big mistake in their strategy. While they apparently thought they could “wear me down” by subjecting me to a constant stream of harassment, all they really did was make me angry. When we failed to reach any agreement at mediation — for some reason, it was “all or nothing” for him — I hunkered down and prepared for our appearance before a judge, originally scheduled for January. Their lawyer subsequently had the court date pushed back to April — I think they mistakenly believed that their harassment campaign would succeed if I thought it would go on until April. I still have trouble believing that my husband could make such a mistake — where did he think I would go if I gave into his absurd demands? I had no other home and was in no hurry to leave the one I was able to live in for free. But perhaps he wasn’t the one doing the thinking about this.

In the meantime, I did see my husband again and did get a chance to speak with him alone. It was when I was permitted to retrieve some (but not all) of my possessions in the condo he had gotten exclusive use of in Temporary Orders. That’s when he accused me of not allowing him to buy out that company he used to work for and owned a piece of in the late 1990s. He was absolutely convinced that I had prevented him from making this important decision for his life — a decision I honestly knew nothing about. How could I not remember this when it was a life-changing decision? The reason is easy: I had never been part of the decision-making process. My recollection is that he was not given the opportunity to buy the company, that the other buyer was a done deal and he was forced to sell his share. Whether that was true or it was just something he told me at the time was unclear at that point. I realized then that he was truly delusional and was basing his hated of me on something that had never happened. I sobbed for the entire the two hours it took to gather and pack my possessions in the condo. He was justifying his infidelity and his treatment of me with a lie. I touched upon all of this is “What is Truth?.”

I went to Florida to stay with my family for the Christmas holiday. It was great to be away from home for an extended period of time. I got melancholy, though, and wrote “THIS is What Life is All About.” The post mentioned that July flight to Oregon and my sorrow (and pity) for my husband’s decision to live inside the box he’d built for himself when there was so much more to life. “I Love My Life” was a similar post, rejoicing about the lifestyle I’d built for myself, recounting how I’d gotten where I was in my career, and lamenting about my husband’s broken promises and failure to get with the program that would make his life just as good.

In January, I found an old journal from 1991-1993. In “Found: Journal from the Past,” I blogged about one of the entries that hinted at the problems I was already having with my future husband. The journal will be a gold mine for future blog entries about my life back then. I even prepared for the series, although I set the book aside for a while.

“Lost in the Desert” was mostly about a search job I’d done with my helicopter. In it, I lamented about how my client had lost a husband who loved her and I was being tortured by a husband that hated me. Why couldn’t my husband be the one lost in the desert?

The shit hit the fan at the end of January after I made a very brief visit to my husband’s condo and found both him and his girlfriend there. I spent less than a minute trying to talk to him about a telephonic court appearance he’d missed earlier in the day that had cost him more than $3,000 in legal fees payable to my lawyer. When I discovered he knew nothing about it, I left. But that was enough to trigger a fresh assault of harassment against me. My husband complained to the Phoenix police that I was harassing him. (Keep in mind that I hadn’t seen him in nearly two months or attempted to communicate with him for over a month.) That sent a Wickenburg police officer to my door the next day. My evidence clearly showed that there was no harassment and they dropped the case. They even apologized for bothering me. But the next day, my husband and his girlfriend had the nerve to show up in Wickenburg at a restaurant where I was meeting friends for dinner. Turns out, they’d come to town to bring an Injunction Against Harassment that his girlfriend had managed to obtain at the beginning of January. They’d sat on it for three weeks and then decided to spring it on me when his harassment complaint failed. I was served a while later. The officer told me that she’d tried to get the court to force me to stop tweeting and blogging about her — I think my “Get your own life” and “#DowdyBitch” tweets had gotten under her skin — but this is America and speech is protected. What she did manage to get was a court order for me to destroy the photos. Another mistake. She should have let sleeping dogs lie. Not only did I decide to fight the injunction, but I brought the photos to court. And even though they showed up with their lawyer, I won. That must have been a pretty costly experiment with the justice system for them.

Her birth date on the injunction is where I learned the truth about her age — she was 64 years old. That’s 8 years older than my husband and 13 years older than me. Hell, it’s only 6 years younger than my mother! Suddenly, it all made sense. My husband, a weak and confused man going through a midlife crisis, had been captured by a desperate old woman who would do or say anything to avoid spending the rest of her sorry life alone. My husband hadn’t left me for a younger, sexier woman. He’d left me for a dowdy old witch who had become his mommy. What did that say about him?

I pitied him even more.

For a month, I didn’t blog about the divorce. I shared the recipe for “Aunt Rose’s Dolmades” in a protected blog post. I found the recipe on a faded index card while packing and I wanted to put it in a safe place. What could be safer than the Internet? I protected it because I simply didn’t want my husband and his girlfriend to have it. (Petty, yes. But I think I deserve to indulge in pettiness once in a while. I look forward to making the recipe for my next life partner.)

The whole time, my husband’s weakness and the fact that he’d thrown away everything we had to spend the rest of his life with a vindictive old woman was nagging at me. I finally did something I didn’t want to do: I talked to my husband’s brother. I wanted to know if I was the only one who saw what was going on. I wanted to know if the family really thought this woman was better for him than I was. For 90 minutes, I sobbed to him about the situation. I got some confirmation of what I believed to be true. And my brother-in-law promised to talk to my husband, to ask him to meet with me and a mediator to resolve our problems. He called back a while later to report that he’d made the call. Unfortunately, my husband said he needed a few days to think about it. That meant he needed a few days to ask his mommy and a handful of friends who had likely encouraged him to leave me. It came as no surprise when the answer came back as no.

My husband was afraid to meet with me without his mommy to hold his hand. Although I didn’t think it was possible, I pitied him even more.

That marked the beginning of a new stage in my blog posts — from that point on, I would blog frankly about everything, sharing all of my thoughts and feelings about the situation and the parties involved. The posts would be painful to write but they would make my position clear. “Wanted: A Strong Man,” discussed my husband’s weaknesses in no uncertain terms. “My Desert Dogs” lamented about my dog Charlie, in my husband’s possession, living in a walled-in yard in Scottsdale and being boarded every time my husband and his girlfriend traveled. “On Marital Infidelity” talked about how my father’s and husband’s affairs had affected me and my family.

“On Right, Wrong, and High Horses,” was my response to a comment on the marital infidelity post that had been signed with my niece’s email address. I was shocked that my niece should make such a semi-literate and harsh comment — I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in years and I thought she was better educated than the comment indicated — and I was harsh. But when she responded with a well-written and rightly outraged comment, the truth came out. Her father had posted the comment with her email address. Yes: he’d dragged his daughter into the matter without even letting her know. I revised the post to correct the attribution of the initial comment and apologize to her. The rest of the text still applies. (I need to write a new blog post about the dysfunctional family I’m leaving behind in the divorce. Boy, have I got a lot to say about that.)

“Suicide, Revisited” talked about my August 2010 post, “Suicide,” and my new understanding of what might drive someone to take his own life. I admitted that the shock and grief I’d experienced over the past eight months had helped me connect the dots between misery, the desire for relief, and suicide. (Again, I need to remind readers that I am not suicidal; I just understand suicide better now.)

“Lingering at the Crossroads” presented several quotes from a book I’d just finished reading and discussed how they applied to my divorce situation. I realized that my husband had been at the crossroads of our relationship back in the summer of 2011 — without me. I lamented that he took his problems to a stranger instead of me. I also talked about my own crossroads.

“On Becoming Homeless” recounted my history as a home owner and my successful efforts to pay my current home off by the age of 50. I talked about financial stability and the freedom a person has when there’s no mortgage (or rent) to pay. And I talked about how I would be losing my home and possibly the financial security I’d worked for my entire life. Along the way, I reminisced about time spent working with my husband to turn our house into our home and the time we’d spent together there. I still can’t understand how it could be so easy for him to replace me with another woman there.

Although I haven’t blogged about it (yet), just last week, his lawyer claimed that they wanted to try mediation again. When I agreed, provided that we meet with our lawyers in the same room, they backed down.

He’s afraid to sit in the same room with me, even with his lawyer present. How can a man be so spineless?

Is he going to be able to face me in court? His mommy won’t be holding his hand when he’s sitting on the stand.

How can I not pity a man like that?

About the Call

The call came early yesterday afternoon. I was on my way home from a morning hike with a Meetup.com group. The caller was an acquisition editor with a publisher I’d heard of but never worked with. When I realized that the call had the potential to change my life, I pulled over to give the caller my full attention.

It was the “On Becoming Homeless” and “Wanted: A Strong Man” posts that triggered the call. The woman who called me, Jean, had been speaking with another editor I’d worked with in the past who was still a good friend. That editor had mentioned my divorce and blog posts. She said the post about losing my home to another woman was particularly moving. That got Jean to my blog. She read a bunch of posts. She shared them with others at their weekly acquisitions meeting. They liked my writing style, they loved my frankness. But what blew them away was the fact that my husband had left me for an older woman and that he’d stepped aside and was letting her direct his side of the divorce. She even used the word bizarre in our discussion — although she might have picked it up from one of my posts. And she said that based on what she’s read, this has got to be one of the “ugliest” non-celebrity divorces she’s ever heard about. (And she doesn’t even know all of the sordid details.)

The long and the short of it is that they’re interested in me doing a book about my divorce with the blog posts as a sort of base. I suspect it will be a lot like what I’ve written above, with more details of the behind-the-scenes events intermingled with the blog posts and even — their idea — my tweets. (Jean was pretty amused by the fact that his girlfriend/mommy reads my tweets and submits pages of them as “evidence” in court.)

I have to admit that I had my doubts about the idea. Although a Facebook friend of mine had suggested a book (in a private message) less than a month ago, I didn’t really give it serious thought. But these people have. Very serious thought. They did preliminary market research based on what’s selling now — memoirs are big, online dating is becoming a hot topic, women overcoming life-changing problems has a strong niche market — and ran numbers.

They even brought their legal department into a meeting to discuss the legal aspects of my “tell all” account. Their conclusion? I can not only tell all — including names — but show all — including photos. And with the power of their legal department behind me, I wouldn’t have to worry about any lawsuits or legal action against me. They’ve handled — and deflected — challenges to other authors’ books like this.

She talked a little about promotional opportunities. Unlike my computer book publishers, this publisher has a very active publicity department that arranges author appearances on talk shows and at book signings. They even have a travel budget. A lot of their authors have appeared on NPR and they’re sure they could get me on there, too. She suggested a segment of how online dating is being used by men to cheat on their wives.

It was pretty clear, by the end of our 23-minute conversation, that they not only think the book could sell, but they think it could sell well. We’re not talking millions here, but even the advance she suggested would help cover some of my legal expenses for the divorce — expenses that have already drained my savings and are starting to eat away at my business reserves. This would help me get on firmer financial ground to help me keep my business alive and rebuild my life elsewhere.

Next Steps

To say that my mind is reeling from that 23-minute conversation is a complete understatement. There’s so much to think about here. But I still don’t have all the information I need to make a decision. That’ll likely come on Monday, when we have a conference call that includes the acquisitions editor, her boss, and the publisher’s general counsel.

At this point, however, I’m torn. While my friends are telling me unanimously to go for it — and are even speculating about who’d play me in the movie adaptation they’re optimistically predicting — I’m not quite as enthusiastic.

Yes, I definitely want (or need) the money the project will generate. Even if the book flops, the advance would be like manna from heaven. And if the book did well, the benefits would go beyond financial reward. The project has the possibility of reenergizing my writing career, giving me an opportunity to branch away from computer books and start writing about something more interesting — and more marketable in today’s Googlized world.

But, at the same time, I am concerned about my husband and the potential heartache he might suffer from the publication and success of a book that clearly identifies his shortcomings, bad decisions, and betrayals. Each of these blog posts get a few dozen hits a day — a book could have thousands of readers. Right before we split, he’d finally gotten his dream job and I assume he still has it. How would this book affect him and his future with that company? Or any other job he might want or get? I’m sure a lot of people would start snickering behind his back. Although I need to leave this marriage with what’s rightfully mine, I don’t want to cause him any more financial hardship than he’s already earned through his (and his girlfriend/mommy’s) own actions. As I’ve said again and again in the blog posts referenced above, I still love the stupid bastard. I feel sorry for him. I don’t hold him entirely to blame for what he’s done to us and to me.

But I have no such feelings about the desperate old woman who seduced my husband, fed his delusions about my intentions and our past together, and spearheaded their efforts to make my life miserable since July. Revealing her by name and sharing her absurd lingerie photos with the world would make me very happy indeed. The kind of revenge I’d only dreamed about now seems well within my grasp.

In the end, I have to do what’s best for me. As so many people have reminded me (again and again), my husband brought all this upon himself by failing to communicate with me as part of our marriage counseling efforts — efforts that he initiated! — and then using online dating to actively search for my replacement. He brought this woman into our lives, he allowed her to make decisions that would affect us, he allowed her to start the campaign of harassment that has made this so painful and costly to both of us. My friends keep telling me to stop worrying about him, to stop letting my pity keep me from doing what’s best for me.

And they’re right.

So I’ll listen in on that conference call on Monday and get all my questions answered. And I’ll talk to my lawyer to see what he thinks. I’ll also talk to him about our latest efforts at settling out of court to see whether he thinks there’s any possibility of my husband taking control of his side and resolving this fairly without a courtroom experience that’ll be painful and costly for both of us.

And then I’ll make my decision.

One thing’s for sure: I’m about ready for a new book project. This is one topic that is consuming me, practically screaming for me to write about every single day. It’ll be painful yet extremely satisfying to complete.