In The Beginning.......

Welcome to my blog!  Why a blog? Because some of my friends have told me I am a good writer, and since the recent events in my life sound like a Lifetime movie I should take the time to write it out. So here goes.

Please be aware I am going to write in a style that I am calling "faction" - a combination of fact and fiction. The events are real, but as for the things that can provide a link to a real place or person, I will create those as I go and you will never know if those specifics are indeed fact or fiction. You may wonder why I am going to this extent. The reason is that what I am writing will call out a lot of people who may not want the world to know what skunks they really are. Additionally, the true antagonist in this little story is litigious and I don't want to deal with his drama should he find out I'm writing about it. 

My desire is to write this in a way that is entertaining and upbeat - after all, I'm looking to recover from a relationship disaster of Titanic scale, but I am sure I will end up going to the dark side at some point - I mean how can you not talk of things sad and tragic when a relationship begins and ends with lies and deceit? I will endeavor to keep the ride as sane as possible, but be advised you may have to hang on for a bump or three. 

"I don't miss him. I miss who I thought he was" - Author Unknown

So... why that quote?  This was the quote I used on the day we divorced, which coincidentally was also our 10th wedding anniversary. Karma and synchronicity are amazing things. As I was going through all of this drama and emotion, I found a certain measure of solace in music and quotes from classical literature. Yes, I posted it on my Facebook page, and yes it was a very oblique dig at him without ever mentioning him or the situation. So what? I never mentioned his name and nothing was ever made public about what was going on or what he had done to cause it all. But putting all that aside, this quote is included here because of its importance to me. I know there can never be reconciliation, but...here goes nothing...I still love him. Not the guy he is now, but the guy he told me he was. Hence, the quote. So, bear this in mind as you begin to read this. I'll probably add more quotes and music as I go, simply because sometimes the quotes and music expressed my feelings better than I could.  

And there you have it. The first bump. Everyone still with me? I mentally pictured the screams of all my family and friends as they read I still love him but I assure you, I know that no matter how much I still love him, I can't go back - he is just too damaged and the damage he has caused me is inexcusable. Even worse, I cannot trust him.  

"Trust is like china. Once broken, it is never the same again." - Author Unknown

I've often quoted this, but don't know where it came from and can't find it on the Internet.  But it does give you an idea of how I feel about trust and betrayal.

With that said, I freely admit I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this because I've never been much of a diarist, but I really feel the need to share this for a variety of reasons. I can't let go because I have no closure. I woke up one morning and realized I was living with someone I never really knew. Even creepier, I had been sleeping with a stranger. It left me with a feeling that I can't really describe. Fear, embarrassment, loathing? Maybe it’s a combination of those and many other feelings. I may never be able to adequately describe it, nor do I know if I can ever get over it. 

I think I deserve an apology, but I know will never get one and in lieu of that, I am hoping that by writing about it I can do the human equivalent of wiping the hard drive clean. But on a grander scale, if just one person reads this and recognizes the signs and symptoms of a person with a personality disorder in their own relationship, they will be able to GET OUT before they get sucked into this maelstrom of craziness.

I want to take a few moments and thank all the people who have been there for me when I needed them most. I won't name names because frankly, I don't know how everyone feels about having their name plastered across the Internet. But I want to thank the awesome people in my life - my family, my longtime friends at HN as well as my friends at SW who made it possible to survive the past year. You know who you are and I want you to know how much all of you helped me make it through the worst time. I am already seeing signs that better things are on the horizon and I am thrilled to know you'll be here to share those as well! I LOVE YOU ALL!  

So.... where do I begin? To start with, I'm going to such lengths to disguise people and places, not to protect the innocent - because frankly, he is far from innocent. I just don't want to deal with the drama should he discover that I'm blogging about this. He truly doesn't believe that he has done anything wrong. He continues to try and convince anyone who will listen to him that he is the victim in all of this. Of course, I'm just one in a string of victims, so you can draw your own conclusions. I am number 3, and number 4 was moving into the house within a week of the divorce being final.

Also, be aware I know everything that he did to me is because he probably has a personality disorder. Several in fact. While the diagnosis was based solely on my observations, I've been deemed "sane" and the counselor I spoke with (as well as other people I know who are in the field) all agree he has a "problem". I even have consensus on the diagnosis without any of them talking to him or each other.

I'm the kind of person who wants everyone to be happy and has an innate need to fix anything and everything that is wrong for everyone I meet. It's even worse when it involves someone I truly care about and it's been hard to walk away from all of this - after all, he has a problem and a part of me still wishes I could fix him. But I've learned a lot about personality disorders in the past year. I realize they can be just as profound as any other mental illness, but a person with a personality disorder can function just the same as you and I and more often or not, they will deny anything could possibly be wrong with them. Believing that they are right and everyone else is wrong is part of their disorder. They might improve with therapy, but they must first admit they have a problem. Talk about a dichotomy!

My ex has been diagnosed (in absentia) with several personality disorders. The first is Anti-Social Personality Disorder or ASPD. In the old days of psychology, it wasn't called ASPD; it was known as Sociopath. Also known as Social Psychopathology, there are varying levels of ASPD, all the way up to the Queen Mother of all sociopaths - the serial killer. In all fairness, according to the reading I have done very few sociopaths turn into serial killers and I have never suspected him of being overtly criminal, especially to that extent. I will say his judgment is questionable and heaven help you the cashier who makes a mistake in his favor because he will NEVER tell them otherwise. I just couldn't make him understand that was the same as stealing. He also suffers from Narcissism. In reality, he revels in his own self-perceived perfection and anyone in his general vicinity is the one who suffers because of it.  Put them all together and it makes for one big barrel of crazy. 

I have read and been told psychotherapy can help but it is a tricky thing, especially with the combination of ASPD and Narcissism. The person not only has to admit they have a problem, but has to want to actually change. It's a long process and certainly has no guarantee of bring about any changes. He actually gets pleasure out manipulation and revels in the control he gets by lying, which in and of itself is a real adrenalin rush for his personality type. The narcissist in him believes he is perfect inside and out, so it is virtually impossible for him to even admit he has a problem.

As I write I'm not going to take the time to list all the symptoms; but for anyone with a real interest in knowing more details, a laypersons description of both can be found on Wikipedia (shameless plug, but it's free!). I will however, point out the things that should have been my red flags when it came to dealing with him as an ASPD/Narcissist - and there were plenty. 

As for me, I have coined a phrase for myself: Asshole Magnet or AM.  It seems all I do is attract the most manipulative and needy men around. I've been told that perhaps it's because I am just too nice. I believe in people, take what they say at face value and don't question the validity or truth in what they say. It is hard for me to believe that people would lie on purpose just to get their jollies and have no regard for the hurt or damage they cause as a result. For the record, as a self-diagnosed AM, I have been married 3 times, all ending in divorce.

In my own defense, the first marriage was very short lived, and we parted as friends. Despite the fact we had a 14-month-old child, he wanted to move back home to be with his parents (less responsibility, so he said). In reality, he left me because he had found another woman he wanted to schtup, but because of his strict religious upbringing, he couldn't do it without being married to her. So, he divorced me and married her.  Divorced her and married number three and so forth, and so forth until he reached number five. When she realized he was had already started looking for number six, she filed for divorce and took him to the cleaners to get even. In turn, he took the cowards way out and killed himself.  So I guess you could call him my first asshole, or AH1. 

AH2 came along about 5 years later. When we met he had a great job selling advertising. He fell madly in love with me and couldn't wait to get married. His reasoning was that we were adults; both divorced, and didn't need to wait if we were in love. I thought I loved him, his argument kind of made sense so I went with my heart instead of my head. Yet, it was he, who at the wedding when asked "do you take this woman" he said, "Yeah, I guess so." I should have called it off then, but he apologized right away and said he was just nervous and thought it was funny. Yeah. Ha freaking ha. 

I got my first indication of his troubled side a week after the wedding. He was hundreds of miles away on a business trip, when he called me.  He was obviously drunk but launched into a litany of complaints about how horrible his job was, how much he hated his boss, and then in great detail explained how he was going to spend the rest of the evening cutting his wrists. The only way to talk him out of his "suicide" was to tell him if his job was so untenable, to quit and find another one. After all, no job is worth your life, right?  e HH

Thus began a habitual pattern of job instability/unemployment - he had 17 jobs in the first five years of marriage. He was an alcoholic and then when he developed hypertension, he switched from booze to pills. He then discovered he could go to different doctors and get the same pills, get them filled at different pharmacies and he could have virtually unlimited supplies of all the tranquilizers, etc. he wanted.

In the first five years I was the breadwinner. In addition to working full-time to provide a steady income and health insurance, I became pregnant and had our son, so I not only took care of a husband incapable of holding a job, but I had a newborn, my daughter, and his four children from a previous marriage who moved in with us after he was given custody. However, his continued substance abuse created a vicious cycle. He was unable to work because he was either high or sleeping it off. I had to control the money pretty tight, which included curtailing of all discretionary spending - including expensive hobbies he claimed to need because they "calmed" him. 

He continued to spiral out of control and was eventually able to convince the doctors his blood pressure was out of control because he was so stressed out, yet could not get anyone to approve him. Finally, during the heat of an argument about him wasting time and money on a very expensive hobby instead of looking for a job, he hit me. Hard. I saw stars and it knocked me to the ground. So I took my two kids and left. 

Several months went by and I was surprised by a called from his psychologist, who wanted to talk to me and discuss my thoughts on what had happened and why. In the months we had been separated he had somehow managed to convince the doctor's to put him on disability and was in the process of requesting permanent disability through Social Security based on his "mental state". 

I agreed to meet with the psychiatrist, but in reality, it was a well-orchestrated ambush - a meeting set up at the psychologist’s office with AH2 present, pleading his case and wanting to reconcile. They psychologist explained they had determined that AH2 had a "breakdown" due to stress, but before I made any decisions I needed to hear him out. 

AH2 launched into his reasons for his breakdown - a deep, dark secret buried in the depths of his tortured psyche which he had kept hidden for all our marriage. It was why he drank and took pills. It was why he couldn't hold a job. It was the reason for everything bad in his life. He told me he had dropped out of high school and had enlisted in the Marines to serve during the Viet Nam war. He went thorough incredible details of death and carnage, how his family despised him for being a "baby killer". He cried... yes, cried, when he related the story of how he was spit on in the airport when his tour was over and he returned home. I listened in stunned silence, all the while the shrink was nodding along in silent agreement. 

They both assured me he was developing coping skills and was getting better. He swore he would never hit me again and I was carrying around a lot of guilt because I had two children without a father. I could be there for my daughter, but I wanted my son to have two parents and I really believed he needed his dad. So despite my misgivings and the objection of my family, I reconciled with him. 

As we began to work through the problems and issues, he told me stories of everything that happened to him while he was in Viet Nam; of how he saved a fellow soldier and being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and how he had turned it down because he was so ashamed of what he had done while in Viet Nam. Over time the stories became more and more incredible and I actually began to have doubts about what he was telling me. 

One day, I was going through boxes in the garage and ran across one full of his high school memorabilia. High school yearbooks for all 4 years that had his picture in ALL OF THEM!  There were graduation cards, pictures from graduation, etc. I was sick. I went to the library and looked up the list of recipients of the CMOH and his name wasn't there. Just to be certain, I contacted the Marine HQ in Quantico and asked them for confirmation of his service and received a letter back saying that he had never served.  

Once I received the letter from Quantico, I confronted him with it and the box from the garage and without reservation, he admitted to the lies. He just looked at me, smiled and said, "I'm pretty fucked up, huh?"  When I let him know that I was done with him and would be leaving, I expected a fight, but instead he offered me a deal. He wouldn't contest the divorce and wouldn't ask for any type of custody of our son if I would give him the house, the furnishings, the bank accounts including my 401K, and the cars. So I did. Without question. Not only had I found he was a liar, but what kind of creep would trade their own child for material crap? Certainly not the kind of man I want raising my child, so I threw what I could into a U-Haul, and left with my kids, financially ruined and without a penny to my name.  

As an aside, this all transpired around the time that Forest Gump had been in the theater.  I didn't want to see it because he told me he had seen it when we had been separated, and it was a war movie. After I moved away for good, I saw the movie and realized that the stories he had told me about his experiences in Viet Nam were all out of the damn movie!  No wonder he didn't want me to see it!

I moved back home and started over. Thank God for family! I got a great job working for a company in Southern California. I was recovering financially, was able to buy a new car off the lot, had a nice place to live in one of the safest cities in the United States, the kids were in great schools and I was making friends with some truly incredible people. I give a lot of credit to those people for bringing me back to life. We hung out after work, vacationed together, even spent holidays at each other's homes.  

It was about 5 years after the divorce from AH2 that I realized that life was really going good and I began to think I was ready to try out dating again. Crazy, huh?  I've already been through two disastrous marriages, and I'm thinking about getting involved again? The problem is I enjoy being married and having a complete family.  I don't like being the 3rd wheel or feel like I'm intruding (no one EVER said anything like that, but was always a constant in my mind). I had met several men in various chat rooms back when AOL chat was a big thing and enjoyed the adult conversation, but had yet to take the next step and meet someone in person. I began looking at the options and trying to decide what to do next. 

But "next" kind of happened all on its own. I went shopping at the mall one evening after work and as I was the stereotypical poster child for "girl in high heels carrying too many bags to the car" when a chivalrous gentleman came to my rescue. To be honest, he scared the crap out of me when he approached me, but the parking lot was full of cars and people and I was dropping bags on the ground. He just stepped up and started helping before I could say no. He was a little older but still quite attractive and after helping me to the car, he asked for my phone number. I was a bit hesitant, but back in the old days I had both a home phone and a cell, so I gave him my cell number and he was gone. However, within 24 hours he had called me and invited me to meet him for coffee. 

I was divorced, he was divorced and we hit it off, but because of his work - an airline pilot for one of the international carriers - he was away for 5 days at a time - one week to Hawaii and then one week to Paris, but that was OK because when we were together he was very attentive and made me feel special. It was all good, we talked daily and I was starting to really enjoy Pilot's company. He called me daily to talk and to keep me abreast of his schedule, just as he did when he arrived in New York in preparation for his bi-monthly flight to Paris. It was September 10, 2011 - my dad's birthday and it had been a great day, ending with a great conversation with Pilot.

Next morning, as I always did, I turned on the morning news as I got ready for work - KTLA and Juan Amezcua was my favorite morning news because they were always clowning around - but he got my attention when he mentioned New York and a plane crash. There weren't many details on KTLA as a local station, so I switched over to the network morning show and Katie Couric was narrating the video of the first plane hitting the tower. It made me a bit edgy, but I wasn't as concerned when the news said the accident involved a private plane.  

I was on the way to work, listening to the morning talk show on KFI when the second plane hit. Now I was scared. They were confirming not only had a second plane had gone into the other tower, but that both planes were commercial jets. I was not only afraid of what in the hell was going around us, but afraid for Pilot as well. I knew his flight to Paris was scheduled to leave New York that morning. I knew he was flying out of JFK. I tried his cell and got no answer, but I convinced myself it was OK and he would call me soon to let me know he was OK.  

24 hours came and went with no word; I started watching for the passenger lists. I didn't see his name, but still hadn't heard from him. I attempted to contact his cell daily but cell service into New York was spotty at best. The anxiety grew each day without word from Pilot, but the lid was tightly clamped down by the FBI and CIA and information was being released on a need to know basis. I had no choice but to wait it out.

He was AWOL for most of that week and when Pilot finally called me, I was overwhelmed with relief. He said he had been on the runway when it all started and his flight was immediately grounded. After they deplaned, the FBI took all the flight crews who were at the airport to a hotel and questioned them extensively, then were confined to the hotel until the Feds decided on how to proceed. 

Pilot arrived back in Los Angeles just a few days later and came straight to my apartment. We had dinner, shared several bottles of wine, but spent hours talking about the events that had transpired and what he had been through.  He said the FBI even wanted to know about me because he had a picture of me in his wallet and they wouldn't let him call me until I had been cleared. We talked into the early morning and after drinking so much wine, it wasn't smart for him to drive, so I offered him the couch. 

I woke early the next morning and he was still sleeping so I went into the bathroom to grab a shower. Not known for my grace and agility, I accidentally knocked his shaving kit over into the sink. What a clatter!  When it didn't wake him, I started cleaning up the mess I had created. As I was trying to fit everything back in to the bag, I noticed the last name on a bottle of pills was different than the name he gave me. I was confused until it dawned on me. He was lying about something, and I was damn well going to find out before breakfast.

He woke with a bit of a hangover, but at that point I didn't care. I handed him the bottle of pills and he immediately got defensive and accused me of snooping. I explained how I came to be in possession of the bottle to which he told me that his last name was Polish, but because it was so hard to pronounce, he used the English translation. He sat there and waited for my response and didn't quite know what to make of it when I walked over to the computer and turned it on. "What are you doing?" he asked. I explained that it was easy enough to confirm what he had just told me and then I would be fine. He got even angrier because I didn't believe him. I told him that it would have been simple enough for him to have told me all of this in the beginning, but he didn't. We went back in forth for a bit until he gave in and told me that he had lied, but had reasons for it. The reason?  You guessed it. Pilot was married!

I must have just stared at him and I guess he thought my silence was his opportunity to make his excuses and the words began spilling out - I mean he never even came up for air! Yes he was married, but in name only. They had an "open" relationship but it was that way because he couldn't divorce her because he had five million dollars in an offshore account and he didn't want to have to share it with her so he stayed married to her but she did love him and she knew he had girlfriends and she was OK with that because she had boyfriends and he was sorry he didn't tell me before but he was afraid I would be mad but he would start paying my bills and my rent and taking care of me so that when he came to town I would be available to him. He admitted that while I was worrying for his safety, he had left New York as soon as the planes started moving again, had already been home to his wife and she thought he was at work when in reality he was sleeping on my couch! 

I guess I continued to stand and stare at him because I my brain hit the brakes at the "available" part. I was mentally putting together the fact that this jerk had not only admitted he was a liar, he was adulterer and he had just asked me to be his mistress!  He finally broke the silence and asked what I was thinking. All I could say was, "No. It's time for you to go. Don't call me again." He at least had the decency to shut his mouth and be out of my apartment in just a few minutes.

Note: Pilot has not been assigned an "AH" number, since I didn’t marry him. However, should I ever create my own personal AH Hall of Fame he absolutely will have a place of honor in that hallowed hall of losers.

While I was thoroughly PO'd at the Pilot, I was strangely undeterred - in fact, I think calling him out and then throwing him out really boosted my confidence level - but I also realized that parking lots just aren't the best way to meet someone and I didn't think hanging out at a bar produced a better results. With that in mind I decided to sign up with an online dating website and it did not take long before I started getting responses from all sorts of different men.  

The Hollywood writer lied about his age. The Political Advisor was so in love with George McGovern that there wasn't room for a relationship with anyone else. The Professor - Dr. of Philosophy and a dead ringer for either TweedleDee or TweedleDum - was looking for a submissive!!! YIKES!!!  Most were absolute jerks, but I looked at it like it was Relationships 101 and I laid my ground rules in writing. If I found out you lied to me about anything at all - even if only your shoe size - you were gone. I really thought I was getting better at this and was going to be able to find a good relationship with a trustworthy companion, but I began to lose hope.

It was with all these experiences under my belt that I received the email that would introduce me to the man who would eventually make them all look like amateurs.