When I was going through my divorce, child support payments were always a problem.  If my ex got paid on the last working day of the month and it was a Friday, but the last actual last day of the month was a Sunday, he would wait until late afternoon or evening on Sunday to bring me a check.

Considering I was earning one quarter of what he was and taking care of three children who needed food and clothing, along with paying the heat and electricity meant he didn’t really care if we struggled as long as he was in control and winning.

He was warned by my lawyer when child support was due but refused to follow the court-ordered rules.  The court then ordered that child support payments were to be taken out of his paycheck and paid to me by his employer.  We were both employed by a school district.  Now everyone would know we were divorcing and it would leak out that his pay was being garnished for child support.

He showed up at the house when the kids were not there and demanded I remove the court-ordered garnishment.  I told him no.  He looked at me and told me to remove it, or someone across the bay was going to die.  My parents, my sister, and my nephew’s family all lived on the other side of the bay.  I reported the threat to my lawyer and told my family that he had threatened them.

I didn’t know until months later that my nephew had given my dad a gun and that my dad kept that gun under his pillow at night.  My nephew also kept a gun ready. 

Did I take this threat seriously?  Yes!  My ex had told me once that he could kill me and dispose of my body in the sloughs, and no one would ever find me.  He had also removed all the bullets from a handgun in front of me and told me to hide them in case he did something while he was on meds for surgery.  But sitting in his top dresser was the box with the remaining bullets, so I knew this was a warning.

 When my first marriage ended after 26 years, I felt like I had been run over by a steamroller, dealing with him acting like the victim and being a narcissist. 

My daughter likes to call romance books smut books.  Some romance books are mild, some very steamy, some are real eye openers.  Reading a few of these, I realized how selfish my ex had been.  Did I experience an orgasm, no!  Did I experience a loving touch, no!  Did I experience a caring husband, no!  What I got was him getting off with no regard for me, and yet he called me asexual and told this to our neighbor who babysat our son while screwing her while our son napped.

How do I know this? She told me after I filed for divorce and said I should never marry again because I was cold, and that is why my ex went to her.  Her husband divorced her several years later, although I don’t know if he ever knew of their affair.

It was a whole new world reading a book and learning all the ways a man could love a woman and in turn, being loved that opened her to loving a man fully. 

I was five foot seven inches but fat if I weighed one hundred fifteen pounds. Yet I was too skinny, and he laughed at me.  Being pregnant was hard because I gained fifty-one pounds with each of my babies.  With the first child, I was only five pounds over my one hundred ten-pound weight he thought was normal thirty days after giving birth.  With my second child, it took me about two months to get back to that unrealistic weight he thought I should weigh.  After my third child, it was almost six months before I lost the fifty-one pounds, and the whole time he told me I was fat and ugly.  Hard to want to have sex with someone who degrades you constantly.

I don’t even think it would have helped if he had read a romance/smut book, as  he was too egocentric, egotistical, and self-serving.

I married for a second time about a year and a half after I filed for divorce from my ex.  Not telling secrets, but this marriage is about love, respect, and being there for each other in every way, and no, I am not asexual.

Sometimes you do have to kiss a frog to find the prince.  The only reason I would subject myself to this if I had a do-over is because of the three amazing children I have.  They are funny, loving, and committed to their spouses, and I am blessed.

 My son-in-law Kevin invited me to Seattle to surprise my son Michael at his dance recital.  I drove down Friday and traffic wasn’t too bad.  The few stops on the freeway allowed me to see the Blue Angles flying overhead in formation and doing stunts.  I arrived at their condo the same time as Keven’s mother Jo-Ann arrived, so we had time to visit before Kevin arrived home.  Jo-Ann, Kevin, and I headed out to dinner before Michael’s performance.  Michael came out to the lobby before the performance began and was pleasantly surprised, I was there and kept hugging me.  His group dance was fun, and I was so proud of him doing something he had been wanting to do.  Another accomplishment. 

Another surprise was that Clara, the owner of Argyle Salon in Bellingham saw me and came to say hello.  Her daughter was also performing in a more advanced dance group that night.  Her daughter is beautiful and talented and made the performance even more special.

 Middle school Valentine's dance, and my oldest son was excited to go.  He didn’t want his dad to chaperone, but he did anyway.  I was sick and asked my ex to stay home with our other two children and me.  He refused to.  I was in so much pain but couldn’t leave my kids alone, and this was the age before cell phones, although I doubt my ex would have come home if I had been able to call.

When my son and ex finally returned home.  I asked him to take me to the emergency room, and he refused.  He said he would stay home with the kids and I could drive myself.

 I thought maybe I had a kidney infection since my mom and one of my sisters had kidney stones.  The first thing I was told was I needed to be checked for STD’s.  I told them I was married, and they said it was procedure.  No kidney infection, no STD, no reason found for the extreme pain.  I was sent home and told to check with my primary doctor.

 What I discovered in hidden notes between my ex, who was a schoolteacher, and his principal was that they were having an affair.  One of her notes said I would rather fuck you than dance with you.  But she had danced with him the night I was sick in plain view of other teachers, parents, and students, and no one knew what they were doing.

 The person who is supposed to love you picks up their handgun, removes the bullets, and then hands them to you and says put them somewhere safe so I won't find them and do something bad.   You understand the threat.  The box with the remaining bullets is sitting in a drawer a few feet away.  This is intimidation meant to control you and scare you into doing what they want or else.

 Being in an abusive relationship is like a fly caught in a spider’s web.  It is even more distressing when there are children involved, whom you are trying to protect.  When the spider is hiding behind a mask, and everyone thinks they are the good guy, and no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.  Physical violence, mental abuse, threats against not just you, but if you don’t behave a certain way, your children will be in harm's way.  Who do you trust to open up to?  When the dam burst, and the 911 call is made, one of the officers responding tells you to just do what your abuser tells you to do, and everything will be ok.  Now what?  I was beaten but not broken.  I fought back.  I lost many court battles because I didn’t look like a victim, and the ex played the part.  I would rather be the survivor and learn to live again without being controlled. Seeing my children free from the narcissist parent.  I lost material things and money, but I had my children.  Even more surprising was when coworkers started to find out I was getting a divorce, they told me they never liked my ex but kept quiet because of me and my children. 

Not everyone will find a way out of an abusive relationship.  Don’t judge because you don’t know how hard it is to survive inside the nightmare.  The threats, the violence, and the mind games weigh heavily on those going through it.  

 After I married, moved away from my parents, and was settled into our new home, my mother gave me several divisions of her favorite daylily.  I have nurtured and babied those few daylilies.  I have divided them and given them to nieces who have successfully grown them in their gardens.  I don’t know the variety of this daylily, so I told my husband I am just going to call it Clella’s Jewel after my mom.  I have had my plants for twenty-seven years, and they always bring me joy.

I have also planted black hollyhock seeds that came from my mother’s garden.  They are biennial, and this year one came up and bloomed.  My mom and I always loved hollyhocks, and once in a while, we would have one that grew more like a small tree than a flower stalk.

The geraniums remind me of my grandma Chloe.  When we first moved to California, my grandparents were renting a small cottage.  There were three cottages on each side of the walkway, ending with a gazebo with a channel of water surrounding it and geraniums planted around it.  They have that certain unique fragrance, and they always remind me of my grandmother.

I have a Liquidambar tree planted in the backyard that was a gift in remembrance of my father.  The Rose of Sharron shares the name of my oldest sister.  My dogwood tree reminds me of faith, and the Magnolia tree is for my husband’s love of New Orleans. 

These are only a few of my favorites.