When the Fog Lifts . . . It's Amazing How Clear Everything Is

A couple of weeks ago, in a session with the Healer, I tentatively mentioned a dream I had the night before. Tentatively, because I was afraid of dream analysis and didn't want to hear something like "how long have you been harboring those latent ***insert something horrific or embarrassing*** tendencies?"

Anyway, the dream had me swimming in a huge pool, which happened to be in the middle of my house. I was so happy, swimming by myself. Then vileman came home from work and stood alongside the pool. The temperature in the pool got colder and any joy I felt quickly turned to anxiety. Worse of all, vileman jumped into the pool and tried to swim with me. I refused to turn my back on him, because I didn't trust him and was afraid he was going to try and drown me.

Okay, settle down and quit laughing.

I know what you are thinking and the Healer told me it wasn't a s*xual or m*sterbation dream. Instead it was a very illuminating summary of my life with vileman.

***

It has been very hard for me to want to post lately. Yet, I have so many thoughts that need to be put out here and then let go of. So here goes . . .

I had no tangible proof.

Gut instinct and a few hints of odd behavior told me something wasn't right.

My first suspicions occurred around late August 2004. We were in the process of moving to another city and were a few days away from closing on the house we had sold. There were men in and out of the house: repair men and inspectors.

I got the call from a woman who said someone from our phone number (a land line) had called her daughter's cell phone. I told her it couldn't have been anyone here because my son was only seven and didn't use the phone. Vileman was standing next to me and it is so clear now how sheepish he looked. The woman on the phone seemed very concerned about her daughter receiving a call from our number and I explained that we were moving and had many people in and out of the house, and that perhaps maybe one of them had used our phone and accidentally called her daughter's cell phone number. She wasn't buying that.

After she hung up and the vileman left the room, something told me to call her back and ask how old her daughter was. The lady refused to answer any of my questions and was uncooperative. She probably was just as scared as I was to know the truth.

I knew at that moment that I might be married to a vile person and would have to wait it out and be on guard until I had enough evidence to leave him.

Over the last six months, I have acknowledged and understand that the kids and I provided a family-man cover for him. We were, in Hollywood terms, his beard.

Grooming.

People like vileman are expert groomers.

At one of my son's ballgames, I watched from the bleachers as vileman went into the dugout and one by one touched each player on the shoulder, bent low to their ears and said something to them. It gave me the creeps. He wasn't their coach nor the assistant coach and really had no business being the in the dugout.

When we got home I told him I thought it was very inappropriate for him to do that. The verbal abuse was spewed at me "you are so paranoid!" "How could you think those awful thoughts about me!?!" "You are the sick one to think those things!" "You need to get a life because you are going crazy!" and so on and so on.

A couple of years later, I found out from the Healer that what I had witnessed was vileman practicing his grooming techniques.

*Grooming is the gradual process of invading a person's physical space, emotional space and intelligence. The groomer uses a selection process and desensitises the victim with more and more intrusive behavior. (*The Healer's definition - I was taking notes that day.)

My suspicions went into hyper-alert with my own children (they are fine by the way - my son swears he was never touched. I may never know the truth . . . did he or didn't he . . . but they both are in good mental and physical shape right now) and I hated to have kids play over because I had to be watchful. Remember, I had no proof that he was vile . . . but I couldn't let my guard down.

The first few weeks after I had a noticeable weight loss, vileman paid a little more attention to me, which made me, want to gain my weight back. The attention didn't last long and by December of 2006, he had lost all interest in me. Vileman never touched me again.

The last few months, he was spiraling out of control, he would call me with weird stories about why he wouldn't be home from work on time. I knew he was cheating on me and per the discovery from my lawyer, I was right. Vileman had begun to participate in dangerous and anonymous s*xual encounters. He admitted to having several hook-ups with couples but did not know their real names or remember where they lived.

My assumption is that he semi-told the truth to avoid perjuring himself, had our divorce went to trial. I know that there had to be a lot more "hook-ups" than he admitted. But I digress back to the true vileness.

I knew he was lying to me and I just couldn't stand sleeping next to him at night. I once had a nightmare of him rolling the area rug in the family room around my bludgeoned body.

I found myself sleeping in the family room on the couch or on the futon in the spare bedroom. (I took neither of these items with me during my move.)

Over the last few years, I doubt I ever got more than six hours of sleep and that would have been a good nights rest. My average was probably less than four hours.

Vileman had a bad habit of calling people that I knew (I usually found out later) and I would have to hold back on telling him about any new friends or people I had met. For example years ago when I worked, I found out that my boss was having a fling with another co-worker at work and mentioned it to vileman. He called both of them (I found out months and months later). And there is no telling how many of my friends he called over the years behind my back. It dawned on me recently that he did that to keep me from developing any outside friendships, which would make me depend on him more and make it harder for me to want to leave him . . . there's that fog lifting thing again.

I survived. My children survived.

You might read this and think why did you stay married to him? I had to. It assured me that the children were safe with me in the house. Had we divorced before he got caught, he would have gotten joint custody of the kids. I am at peace that I made the right decision to stay in that marriage and wait it out.

It is sad for my children that he may go to prison, but they don't need a man like him in their life. Nor does the public need another vile person on the streets.

I have more to write about vileman: his psychopath attributes and seeing him for (I hope) the last time. I promise they will not be novella length.

Saying Goodbye to all the Old Hiding and Numbing Places

On Sunday night, I sat in my hotel room, located between two places where I ran up credit card debt of several thousand dollars over the time frame beginning around the fall of 2006 and abruptly ending mid June, 2008. Super Target is a hop, skip and a jump north and the mall is several hundred feet south of me.

Good bye old, destructive friends.

Actually, I said a semi-goodbye to "non-necessity" spending last June. For old times sake, I stopped at the Super Target before checking into my hotel room. I splurged on Method household cleaning products and picked up some Italian soda to bring back for the kids. (We don't have a Super Target at home.)

I was back in town (from the previous life) to close on my house Monday morning. Eight months after being on the market, it finally found a buyer. I am so relieved that I will not be saddled with a mortgage if and when the vileman goes to prison.

His portion of the equity will not fully pay off the $$$$ owed me for back child support and lawyer fees, but it is about a 40% start. My very good lawyer put a lien on the house payable to me since vileman's payments for legal reimbursement would not start until August 2009 . . . and I knew I would never see any money.

As I tried to watch Celebrity Apprentice (my guilty pleasure) I thought about all the ways I coped while living with vileman and how I have managed to say goodbye to both the destructive and non-destructive habits.

The mommie juice.
It was on its way to becoming a problem. I wrote one of you saying, that my tolerance was getting higher and higher of the cheap red wine and two glasses a night was not enough to give me that numb feeling. My solution to the problem was to get bigger red wine glasses. One glass probably held 16 ounces! When vileman walked through that door every day at 5:15 pm, I headed straight for the wine box. It was my unhealthy coping mechanism.

Once I was out of that environment, I noticed I didn't think about the mommie juice nor did I need the mommie juice any longer. In fact, it should have been renamed "vileman elixir".

The super-sized wine goblets went to one of the day-laborers who I hired to help me load my u-haul moving truck.

The Treadmill
When I was in a get fit mood, I would avoid vileman by walking on the treadmill after he got home from work. I made sure dinner was on the table for my family and instead of eating with them, I would disappear into the spare bedroom with my iPod and walk and walk and walk. Never walking anywhere, just walking in the same place. Stuck. I chose not to take the treadmill with me and vileman either kept it or gave it away. Either way, I don't care.

The Shopping
November of 2006 showed a weight-loss of 32 pounds. I had cut out salty foods, alcohol, snacking and sweets, adhering to the Dash diet. I was moving my body and not sitting in front of the television. As the numbers on the scale and blood pressure machine lowered, my credit card balance went up. The girl and I went went shopping twice a month. The stuff I bought wasn't hoarded and left in shopping bags. It was almost all used (except for most of my stuff) and everyone in the family benefited. A little too much.

Two weeks ago, I went through all my workout clothes, many still had tags on them (hey, at least they were out of the bags!). It was crazy going through all the yoga pants and tops! I was able to give my older sister some of the tanks but I still had way too many. Too many tee's that are too tight. Too many shorts. Too many workout bras. Too many.

A big portion went to Goodwill.
***

Monday morning, before heading to the title company, I walked through the empty house for the last time and said goodbye to that fancy faux prison and all my old hiding places.

The Pantry
Though I worked out at the Y several times a week and walked on the treadmill at night, I still managed to stand in the pantry and consume hundreds of calories during the day; it usually started around 1:30 with a little handful of this or that and lasted until 4:30 in the afternoon. I can visualize me eating a handful of something then closing the pantry door, returning quickly for another dose of numbing. A revolving door would have made it perfect.

The Master Bathroom.
That house had an awesome master bath! Huge bathtub where I spent many hours soaking in that tub at night, avoiding vileman. On the nights that I walked on the treadmill, I would retreat to my bedroom afterwards and close the door, turn on the TV and put a facial mask on for 20 minutes before showering. I could easily spend an additional hour in there, putting off any face time with vileman.


When I walked down the hallway to the back bedrooms to say goodbye to the small fourth bedroom that had housed my treadmill, a stench reminiscent of an overflowing port-o-potty on a hot August day permeated the air. Seems someone had taken a poop in the half bath several days earlier and failed to flush the commode.

It reeked.

It stunk.

It couldn't have been a more perfect ending in closing this chapter of my life.

Battered and Bruised

But in a good way.

My dad and I headed south to my old house Thursday morning; rented a U-Haul truck and moved all my furniture back here on Friday afternoon. I put all of it in a storage unit.

I got rid of another van load of give-away stuff. I figured if I hadn't needed it over the past nine months, I could live without it.

Yippie!

I have one more milestone to pass and that date will occur hopefully on April 6th.

Yippie!

A busy Monday awaits and will have to write more later.

Have a super great day!

Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

Been very active around here with no relief in sight as this week starts the really,really busy season of after-school sports. Friday is the only day off with no activities other than their school. I can't wait to finally say T.G.I.F!

Early last week, I sunk to a new low when I sparred with vileman via email. You can not reason with a psychopath.

For nine months I would ignore all the emails he would send; gaining strength each time I opened one, read it and walked away without replying. Ignoring his emails and not letting the contents of the email upset me was the true test of control.

Unfortunately, I lost that control and hit the send button on a snarky reply. Though I regret my email, it isn't because I felt guilty about telling vileman what I think of him; I regret that he knows he finally got to me. Aarrgh!

I'm stronger than that! So, I am back to reading, letting it roll off my back and duck waddling away from the computer.

Summer/Winter Break with Steak

This is spring break week but you would never guess it. No spring like weather here. The first half of the week was in the mid 80's and yesterday a cold front came through bringing rain, rain and more rain.

After taking 5 year old to the after-hours clinic on Sunday afternoon (she has a cold with cough), the 12 year old and I headed to the old house. Vileman was working out-of-town until Wednesday, so the 12 year old and I stayed until Tuesday afternoon packing up all our items for storage.

We arrived Sunday night at 8:30 and I immediately went to work while the boy watched television. I was so pumped about packing, that I didn't stop until 4:00 am.

By Tuesday, almost everything was boxed and labeled. I didn't have time to get to the stuff in the garage, nor go through all the Christmas decorations, but it will just have to wait until the next opportunity, probably when I go back at the end of the month with a U-haul truck to pick up everything for storage.

Tuesday before lunch, 12 and I loaded up the mini-van (thank goodness for stow and go seats) with all the donated stuff to drop off at Purple Heart. We had a van full and it felt so good to just donate that stuff and not try to have a garage sale.

After our lunch, we loaded up the van with a few items to take home with us. When packing up the cooler with some water, I peeked in vileman's freezer (technically my refrigerator/freezer) and saw he had two, thick T-bone steaks. Mmmm. 12 year old loves steak.

I threw them in the cooler and left a note in the freezer for vileman saying "thanks for the steaks".

The 12 year old and I thought that was so funny.

Rambling Nonsense

It has been a whirlwind, non-stop week and I am so glad it is over. I know 12 year old is glad it is over. He had to get up extra early all week and didn't get to sleep in this morning because his sister had a soccer game.

He showed his goat at the county FFA show on Thursday and the smell of chicken poop, rabbit poop, pig poop, lamb poop, goat poop and steer poop still lingers in my nose . . . and on the bottom of my crocs.

Currently, the 5 year old is watching Hannah Montana, while I am on the computer. Why do I find myself paying more attention to the TV than to the computer? I have never actually watched the show, yet I can't stop sneaking peeks at it. That Billy Ray Cyrus had some of the worst hair when he had his achy-breaky heart but his hair looks pretty cool now.

I'm hoping 5 year old isn't getting too sick, as she is running a fever today. There is nothing like spending 4 to 6 hours at the after-hours clinic on a Sunday afternoon. I just hate sitting in the waiting room with all those sick people who didn't get the flu shot. (We did.)

Can't stop watching the TV.

I don't seem to have the desire to write today so I will end this rambling nonsense and try again tomorrow.

Hope you all are having a great weekend.

Darn You Big Red!

When vileman travels out of state, I always see it as an opportunity to get some of our belongings. This weekend he was traveling, so on Sunday morning, the 12 year old and I drove back to the Bastille to pick up some items we will be needing in the near future and to pack up 12 year old's room. We headed out at 5:45 am and arrived around 9:30. The boy immediately headed back to his old room and started gathering up his trophies, books and posters.

The last time he went back to the old digs was in late July and he refused to go into the house. My heart ached, as I watched him get out of the car and run through the yard, to visit the next door neighbors. He never once glanced toward the house.

I suppose time really does heal.

About an hour after we had arrived, my swimming buddy, her hubby and the Irish twins showed up and with in a few minutes the next door neighbors (the former model and her very tall husband) knocked on the door.

The grown-ups sat in the family room talking "grown-up" talk while the 12 year old, the Irish twins, and the next door neighbor boy all played in the front yard.

We talked a bit about vileman and his troubles, keeping it light with gallows humor.

It felt so good to laugh.

After loading up my minivan, the 12 year old and I headed over to swimming buddy's house to eat sandwiches. For a beverage, I chose a can of Big Red . . . not thinking it would have any caffeine in it. I wanted the sugar for a quick pick-me up before we got back in the car for the almost four hour drive. After slurping it down, I looked at the can and noticed it did, indeed contain caffeine.

Arrgh!

Had I known I was going to accidentally "cheat" on my caffeine freedom, I would have preferred to accidentally pull into a Starbucks and accidentally order a venti of caffeine goodness.