Let's Talk About Family

[Fishwhenican]

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I find it very refreshing that you are honest and admit there were signs which you ignored because you were lonely and miserable. It would be great if more people were as honest as you instead of putting the blame soley on the self-centered girl. By that I don't mean that you were equally as errant, I mean that you realize you were not using sound judgment when you married her.

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Ya, I pretty much admit I was out of my freakin mind when people now ask me why I married her. It's the only way I can explain it when I look a what she became. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Funny thing is, She has managed to get married twice since we split up. So it is not just me that somehow fell for this piece of work. Second husband was a bunch older than her and had a buttload of money. But, he was an ass so they were just made for each other. She was going to to divorce him but on the day she had an appointment with a lawyer he dropped dead from a heart attack. My son and I figure the third one is just a freeloader trying to get the money she ended up with from Husband #2. He'll prolly end up in an insane asylum after a few years.

[katyseagull]

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One of the times I went to jail was because she called the cops on me. I'm not going into details, sorry. It was all for the best in the long run.

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[ChipWrecked]

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I always wanted to say to him "well jesus christ, what did you expect when you married her? Hello? Couldn't you see she had a bad temper and that she was overly critical? What part of you thought this was a good plan?" Of course I could never say that to him but I sure wanted to. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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I could tell you which part, but you already know.

It's the answer to your question originally, too.

[opla]

Both my parents were the oddballs of their families. I never really grew up knowing any of my relatives or seeing them besides my Father's Mother who passed away about ten years ago now.

My Mom has some serious problems, she's been in some sort of therapy for as long as I can remember. Last year she was married twice making it 4 divorces not including my dad. The last time I went to her house, she was yelling/cursing at me because I ate a burrito out of the fridge. I haven't spoken to her since. I have a half sister that lives with an ex-stepdad that I don't see too often but I try to keep in contact via email/phone.

My dad just got divorced and is pretty depressed as of late. He's been through alot in his life (not that most people haven't, he just doesn't know how to deal with it) including diabetes, stroke, car accident, alcoholism, list goes on. I talk to or see him a few times a month, but the conversations are usually hit or miss, sometimes he's in a great mood or he's severely pissed off and I don't really know what to say to him. There's obviously more than the story I'm giving here, it's not like I don't talk to him if he's in a bad mood, I love my Father to death, it's just hard to see him like this sometimes.

Other than that, I've never had a family or the typical holiday get togethers. I envy that in people and wish/hope someday I could have something like that.

[katyseagull]

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My Mom has some serious problems, she's been in some sort of therapy for as long as I can remember. Last year she was married twice making it 4 divorces not including my dad. The last time I went to her house, she was yelling/cursing at me because I ate a burrito out of the fridge. I haven't spoken to her since. I have a half sister that lives with an ex-stepdad that I don't see too often but I try to keep in contact via email/phone.

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[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I'm sorry Opla. Is your half-sister your only sibling? I wonder why your mom is so messed up. It must have been very hard for you, what with her marrying so many times. My dad married a bunch of times but I don't want to say how many! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

The world is very messy and people can be problematic. I'm sure your dad appreciates your phone calls and your visits. But I know what you mean, it's really hard to know what to say to someone when they are pissed off and having a rough time.

[opla]

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My Mom has some serious problems, she's been in some sort of therapy for as long as I can remember. Last year she was married twice making it 4 divorces not including my dad. The last time I went to her house, she was yelling/cursing at me because I ate a burrito out of the fridge. I haven't spoken to her since. I have a half sister that lives with an ex-stepdad that I don't see too often but I try to keep in contact via email/phone.

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[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I'm sorry Opla. Is your half-sister your only sibling? I wonder why your mom is so messed up. It must have been very hard for you, what with her marrying so many times. My dad married a bunch of times but I don't want to say how many! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

The world is very messy and people can be problematic. I'm sure your dad appreciates your phone calls and your visits. But I know what you mean, it's really hard to know what to say to someone when they are pissed off and having a rough time.

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Yeah, she's my only sibling. My parents did try to have another child but there were complications around the six month of pregnancy.

Oddly enough, her divorces weren't so hard on me as I only really liked one of her husbands that she married when I was like 4 years old and she left him when I was 10 because he had a huge gambling problem. What she was going through was hard obviously. I couldn't even begin to bore this message board with the story of mom so we should probably just leave it at that.

The world can be problematic as you put it, but I just try to listen to what people have to say as sometimes that's all they really needed. Having good people in your life and respecting that/not taking for granted is key in my opinion. I'll say I've been extremely fortunate in life with my close friends.

[One Outer]

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I have an ex-wife that's absolutely batshit nuts outside of being a mother. That she's halfway good at, but in every other respect she's crazy.

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Ok I've always wondered how this happens. I don't mean any disrespect truly. But how do you manage to marry a batshit nuts woman? Did she not reveal herself early on? Did she turn this way from hormones after she had kids? Don't take this as me giving you a hard time, I'm just trying to figure out men. How do so many men end up marrying crazy bitchy women? I mean are they sweet when they start out or were there ominous signs? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] (And if we were to get her take on it would she say you were batshit crazy too?)

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I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner. I certainly didn't mean to abandon the thread.

Others have already chimed in as to why guys often end up with crazy women and I don't think I really have a lot to add except for my own experience. Bear with me, as this is an deeply personal story and I didn't really expect to share it but I think sharing has value, at least if someone reads it and takes something away.

I met my ex-wife when I was 16. We both worked at the movie theater in the small town where I went to high school. She was 19. As a 16 year old guy, having a hot 19 year old girl interested in you is a dream come true. I felt like the luckiest guy on earth. As such, you tend to not see things or, not in my case but it happens, look past them because you think there's more good than bad.

We were monogamous, and she told me that she was infertile according to her doctor. She got tested for diseases, I was virgin so it didn't matter and our relationship developed. Seven months after we started having sex she told me she was pregnant. That was January or February 2000.

I freaked out, my mom stayed calm and I tried to figure out what to do. We decided on an abortion, but when she got to the clinic she couldn't go through with it. She had our son in September the day before my senior year of high school started.

Before she had the baby she had offered to "let me out" in a way. She said that I could walk away and she would never ask me for anything because it was her decision to have the baby and I shouldn't be tied to that because I disagreed. I didn't think that was right. I certainly didn't want to abandon a child. And even though I didn't really want to I stayed with her.

During my senior year of high school we got an apartment in a rent controlled building in my little Minnesota town. I went to school during the day and after I turned 18 in November I worked night at a Super American gas station. So I would go to work at 11 PM, get off at 7 AM, go to school all day and sleep from like 4-10, then I got up to go to work again.

After I graduated we got married. Again, it seemed like the right thing to do. I asked her on Christmas day 2000. After the summer I started attending college at a really good school here in Minnesota. That was in fall of 2001. I'm going to graduate in 3 weeks. It's been a long road.

In 2002, she became pregnant again. She was taking the pill. We had another son. He was born in May 2003.

All throughout college I have worked full time, mostly as the assistant manager of a fast food restaurant. I wasn't at home very much, but my ex was starting to get to me. She made horrible money decisions and started yelling at me for a host of reasons. I couldn't handle it and I cheated on her a couple of times. I became severely depressed after she found out about my transgressions and moved into a dorm room on campus for my senior year.

I was really, really screwed up and had big time money problems. I later dropped out of school completely to work full time selling cars the money problems were so bad. She had screwed us over really hard with her spending habits, and everything was in my name because she had awful credit before we got married. I wasn't able to concentrate on school or do much of anything else, really. To make this part shorter, I ended up spending three semesters worth of tuition without getting a single credit. And I screwed up my GPA because if I had dropped all of my classes one of those semesters I wouldnt' have had a place to live. So I had two F's.

Living in a dorm the only way I could see my kids was if I went over to her place. One day I went to see them and we fought. I don't even remember what it was about. She became completely unhinged, attacked me physically and I tried to restrain her. Then I tried to get out of the situation. When I tried to open the door she held a knife to my neck and wouldn't let me leave. So I didn't, but soon afterward the police showed up because a neighbor had called them about the noise. They carted us both off to jail for the weekend. That had to be one of the worst experiences of my life. It was terrifying.

As an aside, eventually the charge (fifth degree domestic assault) against me was dropped. On the first day I was supposed to appear in court the county prosecutor pulled me aside before the hearing even started. He told me that there was no case against me for the charge. Normally, according to the guy, when the police pick someone up they give the files over to the prosecutors office and then they charge the person. Because I was picked up on a Friday night and the police wanted to hold me for the weekend they just filed the charges themselves and got way overzealous. He told me that at best he could charge me for public disturbance or something like that but he doubted that even that would stick. He personally apologized to me for having to go through all this and offered to drop the charge if I would testify against my wife. I gladly accepted, but ended up not even testifying because she copped a plea. She was eventually convicted of 5 offenses, including felony assault. She's on probation and has to see shrink. We were officially divorced in spring 2005.

It was after this that I started putting stuff together in my head. At the time I hadn't questioned the pregnancies at all, but in retrospect it didn't make any sense. She was supposed to be infertile but got pregnant anyway? The pill failed? If they were both true it was a fantastic coincidence.

I talked it over with my new girlfriend at the time and we concluded that something was fishy there. I confronted my ex about it and she admitted that she had gotten pregnant both times on purpose. The first time was to trap me. She was a farm girl, and my family is pretty well-off, at least in her eyes. The second pregnancy was supposed to be to get me to drop out of college. She wanted me to work more and be at home more often.

Honestly, the idea that someone might do something like that had never crossed my mind before. At 16 (and even until she admitted it) I didn't even have a conception that someone would do such a thing. Maybe I was naive, but I can hardly fault myself for it. I was 16 and I thought she loved me. That is what started the whole thing.

Things aren't so bad now though. Like I said, I'm about to graduate. I went back to school last semester with 9 four credit classes left to go. I made the Dean's List. I was really proud of that. I'm still with the new girlfriend from when I finally figured out what was going on with my ex. We have a nice apartment in a nice part of town. She has a good job. The kids come over every other weekend. The bills get paid, even if it's not always on time. Things are looking up. And I will always be very cautious about the people I get involved with. Current girlfriend is an absolute doll and would never screw me over.

So that's my story of how I ended up married to a crazy broad. BTW, if anyone is in the Twin Cities and wants to hire a really smart and mature recent graduate pm me. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

Good story, thanks for sharing it.

The part about never even being able to conceive someone else's bad behavior rang a lot of bells. Mostly as you grow older you hear the same story so many times that it starts to sink in. Yet it's always much harder to believe it could be happening to you.

[Fishwhenican]

That is a rough story. Sorry you had to go through that. In the long run it will make you stronger and it sounds like you are coming out if it OK.

I can relate to the being physically attacked. when my Ex and I were separated she came into the store where I was working and physically attacked me! We were at a point where she was doing everything she could to not let me see my son (Hadn't seen him in like 2 months) and we were supposed to be figuring out how the assets and debts would be split which was supposed to be 50/50 but we were WAY far apart on that. She basically wanted all the assetts and for me to have all the debt. My lawyer would actually laugh when we would get proposals from her lawyer.

Anyway, I am working one afternoon and she come into the store. Says she wants money for taxes and my response is that the house is going to behers and that taxes and all of that were to be figured out in the settlement and I wasn't going to just fork over a bunch of cash because she wanted it. She gets really aggressive and tells me that I AM going to give her the money and I AM going to give it to her NOW! I tell her the conversation is over and she can leave my work or I'm calling the cops and having her arrested and charged with tresspassing. She doesn't leave and threatens me again so I pick up the phone and dial 911. She comes behind the counter and puts her finger on the phone to hang it up. I say, Humm This phone has redial and hit the redial button. She loses it and comes behind the counter hitting me and kicking me while I try to just keep her from hurting me. I was raised that no matter what you do not hit a woman and I knew if I hit back I was the one going to jail. She gets done stomps out and the phone rings. It is the police asking if I had just called and i say yep, need to report an assault.

We the cops show up and I am kind of feeling a bit wierd. I mean usually it is a gal betting beat up by the guy and all. I tell the cop this and he takes me aside and tells me that I would be really suprised hom often it is the woman beating the man. So, It happens

[One Outer]

That's also pretty rough. I don't know if this is true elsewhere, but I was told that in Minnesota BOTH people have to go to jail if the police are going to arrest one of them on a domestic violence call. It was hysterical how I was treated; they took me straight to jail and put me in general population, like I stole car or something. Her? They took her to the hospital and had her checked out, rape kit and everything. Then they took her to jail and gave her a private cell. I couldn't believe it.

On the upshot, my divorce was smooth. We both wanted it over with. I even got everything I wanted without spending a dime on lawyers. We just talked it over ourselves and had her lawyer draw up a settlement. Then again, it's not like we had much to divide up.