Today I'm thankful for finally understanding how naïve love can make me be.
The stalking started in 1992. Typically, my ex's family would follow me around, spread rumors, get me fired and evicted from apartments.
I was lucky, I did have one boss who ignored the bullshit. I also was able to buy a home which kept me from losing a place to sleep. Unfortunately, Michael's sister had a way of starting crap with the neighbors which took several years to unravel. There was always drama until I explained to my neighbors that the fat chick who threatened them was my sister-in-law.
She always told them that she was MY sister and that I had her and the police watching them. You should have heard my poor paranoid alcoholic neighbor freak out. This guy had a right to be paranoid, his wife was cheating on him. She and a colleague drove a delivery truck. They'd back it right up the driveway and have sex in it. The husband would be home. I'd be home and their antics were easily visible from my bedroom window.
That neighbor taught me that people who are paranoid are not necessarily wrong. I should have caught on when he called the police and told them that I was a nice person but had a nasty, fat sister who threatened him; she always seemed to have a police officer by her side. It took about three years for everyone to get to the bottom of what was going on. My sister-in-law's best friend was the police sergeant; he wound up being fired soon after for falsifying records.
It was a hot mess.
It was 2011 when my ex's former boss at the city told me that my ex was fired for leaving work during office hours to follow me around. This woman had lied about me in public internet forums so I didn't believe her at the time.
I scoffed.
The stalking got worse. My ex blamed everyone else. He blamed his family. He blamed people I used to date back in the 80's. He blamed everyone except himself.
It was 2012 before an Aurora detective explained that my then estranged spouse had been stalking me all along.
It got worse before it got better. 2015 was the scariest year for the stalking. I had chronic break-ins and people coming to the house all hours of the day and night to rough me up.
When a judge finally ordered my ex to move out in December of 2016, it seemed to stop.
My ex agreed to move out in October of 2013. I started interviewing eviction lawyers in 2014 after my ex refused to move out.
One lawyer, who I regret not hiring, told me it sounded like my ex had a chemical dependency problem.
I scoffed.
In fact, I scoffed just like I did when his former boss told me he followed me around.
Two weeks ago, my ex sent me an email claiming to be in rehab so he doesn't care what happens to the kids, doesn't want to see them and can't pay child support. He wouldn't say why he was there only that he had to stay away from people for three months which means that he cannot work. He stated that he may not be allowed to work for as long as 18 months. He said it was the Colorado State Child Support Enforcements idea for him to get into the program that will NOT allow him to see and/or support his own kids.
That is bizarre. If this is true, I think we need to get rid of a public servant in charge of that program. I didn't believe it at first. I had to read it in a court filing from legal briefs written by lawyers for the Colorado Child Support Enforcement program. My ex approached them to abate his child support.
My ex also told me that he would not update his address for the court. He also stated that the lawyers with the Child Support Enforcement office knew where he was and it was okay for him to do what he was doing.
Um......okay. I tried to warn him about starting legal issues and hiding from the court.
He didn't listen.
He claimed rehab was more important.
I didn't believe that he could possibly be in rehab. He claimed was in a rehabilitation program for homeless people.
I inadvertently supported him for well over a year (gave him my mini-van- I'm still paying on it- and paid insurance through February). He had a job and a subsidized apartment when he was evicted. He took a lot of expensive tools and the new flat screen TV (so he had things). He NEVER paid child support, so that wasn't making him poor. He could have easily survived if his job paid as little as $10 an hour. Even if he lost his job, he had a means to get another. He left with assets and some of his bills paid.
He didn't spend time with the kids. Due to that fact, he could have easily taken a second job because he didn't have to work his schedule around the kids' schedules like I do.
I would hope he didn't need to do that. He IS an accountant and good paying work seems easy to come by. In a pinch, he could work two jobs. It beats homelessness.
He claims to be homeless now. The last time I saw him he was angry that I took in a teenager kicked out of her home for being gay. He seemed to expect to be able to come back into my home.
He never worked on the issues. He never dealt with stalking. He can't live here.
In the past I've spent a lot of time with homeless veterans and children. I understand they are homeless due to trauma. I dislike people who put themselves in dire straights to get out of their legal obligations.
What my ex is doing....well....it feels like a game. They way he writes to me in emails makes it sound like he's digging in his heels to get something out of me.
I don't like it.
This will be the first year I will not donate to the Denver Rescue Mission. I've donated steadily since 1987. They seem to be enabling my ex at the request of the Child Support Enforcement Division.
This has opened my eyes to the truth of some homeless people. Perhaps I should be less generous during those years I'm not struggling.
I guess I could donate to veteran charities instead.
My ex is playing games. They are enabling him.
How many other single mothers endure this?
I don't want to be guilty of supporting this bad behavior.
******
I did a Google search and it seems like rehab is the new tactic the left of center father's rights activists (FRAs) use to avoid paying child support. Most FRAs want fairness. Some want to help men continue to abuse their former spouses.
Some FRAs are suggesting that men go to rehab and then go to court to request to have their support abated.
That's a little bit too weird.
Doesn't one have to have a problem to go to rehab?
My ex didn't seem to ever have a chemical dependency problem.
I remembered what that lawyer said to me years ago.
My ex couldn't hold a job to save his life.
He lied about everything.
He couldn't remember the stuff he said.
He didn't seem to sleep much.
Money kept going missing.
I realized.....the lawyer was probably right.
I'm just stupid and naïve.
I don't know.
There are far too many games.
This entire relationship from start to finish seems to be a bunch of games.
I'm sad.
My ex claims to be homeless but with the stalking, I can't let him live here.
He says his family won't let him stay with them
-but-
why would they stalk me if they didn't care for him?
They were stalking me as late as May 2016.
Things are NOT adding up.
I don't have time to figure it out.
******
He was told by a therapist that he was a narcissist.
Here is the deal - NARCISSISTS LIE!
They create drama.
All of the dramas are about them - their wants, their needs and their desires.
No one else counts.
Everything is a drama.
I don't get it.
At first, all of the dramas seemed to be about his family; his mother and sister.
It turned out that he lied to his mother and sister and then they harassed me.
Then the drama became about his boss at the city. I'm beginning to think he lied to her and she harassed me due to that. Healthy professionals don't act like that.
The drama turned to him. He would scream and yell while blaming his upbringing. We lived in terror of his temper.
I thought divorce would stop the games.
It didn't.
I should know better than to believe him.
********
There is too much month at the end of my money.
I'm looking for yet another job.
The job I have is giving me an inconsistent schedule which makes it hard for me to supplement my income seeing hypnosis clients.
I'm almost to the point of driving for GrubHub or something.
I'm selling health insurance for $16 an hour. I'm NOT getting commissions. In the past I made about $1,000 a month in commissions in addition to a $15.50 an hour wage.
I thought the pay for this job was too low. I just took the job out of boredom. I still have several months of unemployment left because I didn't use much of it. I guess I'm lucky.
I sat with a colleague struggling to sell plans.
She confided in me that everyone else is only getting paid $12 an hour and no commissions.
Sigh.....
What is the world coming to?
Companies are getting greedy. If one is educated and in this situation, wouldn't he or she look for another job?
Maybe people like my colleagues and ex are lazy and take the path of least resistance? Maybe they don't know how to stand up for themselves? Maybe they devalue their work?
I don't know.
I gave her the names of other agencies that start around $40,000. I'm at this company because I know many of the people running it as this is the company that bought out my former employer. I've worked with these people before.
It's a temporary job and feels like a family reunion even though I'm only going to work there for 54 days.
Sigh.....
I had an interviewer ask me if I were entertaining other offers. I told her about this company and she mentioned her experience with them. I probably should have taken her advice and refused the offer.
The job is close enough to home that I can take the bus if my old car breaks down. When you're poor, transportation is huge. If you don't have back-up transportation, you may quickly find yourself jobless. It was worth the low wage to know I could make it to work under most circumstances.
I realized that working two jobs and sleeping three hours a day was a bad thing to do to myself.
I can't fathom how I smacked my face with a glass window on Thursday morning. The cuts are healing okay. I will have three scars under my left eye. The bruises are still there but it's nothing huge rimmed brown glasses can't hide.
The scars may make it hard for me to get a job in sales (outside of a call center environment). Beauty is more valued than homeliness.
Sigh.....
I must have been tired. I can't afford to let myself get that tired again.
I've decided to look for another job with a more defined schedule so I can work my hypnosis clients in easier. The changing schedule leads to sleep deprivation which leads to me eating glass for breakfast.
There is another lesson I learned from my job.
Horrible employers refuse to carry health insurance on their employees but demand doctor's notes for every little thing. If you want a chair that isn't broken, they expect a doctor's note. If you break your face on a car window, they want a doctor's note. If you want to have your inhaler at your desk, you need a doctor's note.
If all of their employees are on Medicaid, do you want to take a guess at who is paying for all of those doctor's notes?
I'm disgusted.
I'm working on getting out of there as fast as I can.
Do you know what is weird? They've auto signed us all up for a 401K plan. They don't offer health benefits but they sure as heck can take 10% of our paychecks and buy their own stock with it without getting our consent first.
I can't wait to get the heck out of there.
I'm still getting calls for interviews. The trick is getting time off to go to the interviews.
I'm not sure how I'm feeling about forced overtime.
I need the money.
I also need sleep.
I really need sleep.
******
Some things have to change.
I can't count on help with the kids.
The financial abuse game previously consisted of harassing my bosses to get me fired, taking my car so I couldn't go to interviews and having his family block me in my driveway when I had somewhere to be has morphed.
It is now a game of wasting my money in court
and
failure to live up to our divorce agreement.
Somehow he has convinced the Colorado Child Support Enforcement unit that he is only capable of making $12 an hour. They ignore copies of the paystubs I sent to them. In return, they file court filings shaming me for caring for my kid in college.
Um......okay. I'll keep their nasty answer and re-read it if I'm ever on a campaign for Congress.
I KNOW whose budget needs to be cut.
I may share it with my representative, too.
Who in the heck shames a single mother for helping her kid through college? If our daughter goes to college, she'll be less likely to wind up on state assistance (especially if we keep her student loans LOW and we do that by supporting her).
It's an investment thing.
Child Support Enforcement is supposed to invest in the kids rather than enable a liar.
Perhaps the Colorado Child Support Enforcement lawyers are too young to understand the game?
I don't know.
My ex must owe me around $64,000 now. Much of that money is due to funds he stole from the retirement accounts after the divorce and the legal fees from having to remove him from my home.
I'll never see that money.
Sigh -
Marital problems just continue after the divorce.
It's weird.
The only thing that tends to improve is hindsight.
I truly wish I had listened to my lawyer friends earlier.
They told me to change my passwords, hide my computer and keep Michael from my employers. They told me he had a mental and addiction issue. They told me that he was going to steal the 401K.
I didn't listen.
He hacked my accounts and had his family stalk me.
He terrorized me and stole my money.
If a lawyer gives you insight, LISTEN.
They've truly seen it all.
I was told to doubt the rehab story due to all the lies.
I don't know what to think.
Maybe he is truly in rehab?
Maybe it is just an excuse not to cooperate with the court?
I don't know.
I studied drug and alcohol counseling for many years. He sounds like he's in a 90 day inpatient rehab program for hard core drug addicts.
Wouldn't I have seen signs of this when he was living here?
I didn't find any needles or anything when cleaning out his mess.
Maybe I'm just stupid. I could never have fathomed that he put his family up to stalking me, either.
I'll never know if he's telling the truth. He's protected by HIPPA.
Maybe that is why men lie about this? We can't verify it as truth.
I shouldn't care any more. I can't afford to care any more.
Maybe the game is to cause me to spend all my available credit on legal fees (since the State of Colorado Child Support Enforcement Division wouldn't talk to me unless I hired a lawyer). Maybe they need to impoverish custodial mothers to justify the existence of their department?
I don't know.
I hate the big government NOW more than EVER.
If you know me, you know that's saying a lot!
May you never have to count on another human being. May you also find everything you need to survive easily and effortlessly.
I have an obnoxious Irish spirit and a very long memory.
I'll see them on the other side of Hades.
Love ya,
S.
The stalking started in 1992. Typically, my ex's family would follow me around, spread rumors, get me fired and evicted from apartments.
I was lucky, I did have one boss who ignored the bullshit. I also was able to buy a home which kept me from losing a place to sleep. Unfortunately, Michael's sister had a way of starting crap with the neighbors which took several years to unravel. There was always drama until I explained to my neighbors that the fat chick who threatened them was my sister-in-law.
She always told them that she was MY sister and that I had her and the police watching them. You should have heard my poor paranoid alcoholic neighbor freak out. This guy had a right to be paranoid, his wife was cheating on him. She and a colleague drove a delivery truck. They'd back it right up the driveway and have sex in it. The husband would be home. I'd be home and their antics were easily visible from my bedroom window.
That neighbor taught me that people who are paranoid are not necessarily wrong. I should have caught on when he called the police and told them that I was a nice person but had a nasty, fat sister who threatened him; she always seemed to have a police officer by her side. It took about three years for everyone to get to the bottom of what was going on. My sister-in-law's best friend was the police sergeant; he wound up being fired soon after for falsifying records.
It was a hot mess.
It was 2011 when my ex's former boss at the city told me that my ex was fired for leaving work during office hours to follow me around. This woman had lied about me in public internet forums so I didn't believe her at the time.
I scoffed.
The stalking got worse. My ex blamed everyone else. He blamed his family. He blamed people I used to date back in the 80's. He blamed everyone except himself.
It was 2012 before an Aurora detective explained that my then estranged spouse had been stalking me all along.
It got worse before it got better. 2015 was the scariest year for the stalking. I had chronic break-ins and people coming to the house all hours of the day and night to rough me up.
When a judge finally ordered my ex to move out in December of 2016, it seemed to stop.
My ex agreed to move out in October of 2013. I started interviewing eviction lawyers in 2014 after my ex refused to move out.
One lawyer, who I regret not hiring, told me it sounded like my ex had a chemical dependency problem.
I scoffed.
In fact, I scoffed just like I did when his former boss told me he followed me around.
Two weeks ago, my ex sent me an email claiming to be in rehab so he doesn't care what happens to the kids, doesn't want to see them and can't pay child support. He wouldn't say why he was there only that he had to stay away from people for three months which means that he cannot work. He stated that he may not be allowed to work for as long as 18 months. He said it was the Colorado State Child Support Enforcements idea for him to get into the program that will NOT allow him to see and/or support his own kids.
That is bizarre. If this is true, I think we need to get rid of a public servant in charge of that program. I didn't believe it at first. I had to read it in a court filing from legal briefs written by lawyers for the Colorado Child Support Enforcement program. My ex approached them to abate his child support.
My ex also told me that he would not update his address for the court. He also stated that the lawyers with the Child Support Enforcement office knew where he was and it was okay for him to do what he was doing.
Um......okay. I tried to warn him about starting legal issues and hiding from the court.
He didn't listen.
He claimed rehab was more important.
I didn't believe that he could possibly be in rehab. He claimed was in a rehabilitation program for homeless people.
I inadvertently supported him for well over a year (gave him my mini-van- I'm still paying on it- and paid insurance through February). He had a job and a subsidized apartment when he was evicted. He took a lot of expensive tools and the new flat screen TV (so he had things). He NEVER paid child support, so that wasn't making him poor. He could have easily survived if his job paid as little as $10 an hour. Even if he lost his job, he had a means to get another. He left with assets and some of his bills paid.
He didn't spend time with the kids. Due to that fact, he could have easily taken a second job because he didn't have to work his schedule around the kids' schedules like I do.
I would hope he didn't need to do that. He IS an accountant and good paying work seems easy to come by. In a pinch, he could work two jobs. It beats homelessness.
He claims to be homeless now. The last time I saw him he was angry that I took in a teenager kicked out of her home for being gay. He seemed to expect to be able to come back into my home.
He never worked on the issues. He never dealt with stalking. He can't live here.
In the past I've spent a lot of time with homeless veterans and children. I understand they are homeless due to trauma. I dislike people who put themselves in dire straights to get out of their legal obligations.
What my ex is doing....well....it feels like a game. They way he writes to me in emails makes it sound like he's digging in his heels to get something out of me.
I don't like it.
This will be the first year I will not donate to the Denver Rescue Mission. I've donated steadily since 1987. They seem to be enabling my ex at the request of the Child Support Enforcement Division.
This has opened my eyes to the truth of some homeless people. Perhaps I should be less generous during those years I'm not struggling.
I guess I could donate to veteran charities instead.
My ex is playing games. They are enabling him.
How many other single mothers endure this?
I don't want to be guilty of supporting this bad behavior.
******
I did a Google search and it seems like rehab is the new tactic the left of center father's rights activists (FRAs) use to avoid paying child support. Most FRAs want fairness. Some want to help men continue to abuse their former spouses.
Some FRAs are suggesting that men go to rehab and then go to court to request to have their support abated.
That's a little bit too weird.
Doesn't one have to have a problem to go to rehab?
My ex didn't seem to ever have a chemical dependency problem.
I remembered what that lawyer said to me years ago.
My ex couldn't hold a job to save his life.
He lied about everything.
He couldn't remember the stuff he said.
He didn't seem to sleep much.
Money kept going missing.
I realized.....the lawyer was probably right.
I'm just stupid and naïve.
I don't know.
There are far too many games.
This entire relationship from start to finish seems to be a bunch of games.
I'm sad.
My ex claims to be homeless but with the stalking, I can't let him live here.
He says his family won't let him stay with them
-but-
why would they stalk me if they didn't care for him?
They were stalking me as late as May 2016.
Things are NOT adding up.
I don't have time to figure it out.
******
He was told by a therapist that he was a narcissist.
Here is the deal - NARCISSISTS LIE!
They create drama.
All of the dramas are about them - their wants, their needs and their desires.
No one else counts.
Everything is a drama.
I don't get it.
At first, all of the dramas seemed to be about his family; his mother and sister.
It turned out that he lied to his mother and sister and then they harassed me.
Then the drama became about his boss at the city. I'm beginning to think he lied to her and she harassed me due to that. Healthy professionals don't act like that.
The drama turned to him. He would scream and yell while blaming his upbringing. We lived in terror of his temper.
I thought divorce would stop the games.
It didn't.
I should know better than to believe him.
********
There is too much month at the end of my money.
I'm looking for yet another job.
The job I have is giving me an inconsistent schedule which makes it hard for me to supplement my income seeing hypnosis clients.
I'm almost to the point of driving for GrubHub or something.
I'm selling health insurance for $16 an hour. I'm NOT getting commissions. In the past I made about $1,000 a month in commissions in addition to a $15.50 an hour wage.
I thought the pay for this job was too low. I just took the job out of boredom. I still have several months of unemployment left because I didn't use much of it. I guess I'm lucky.
I sat with a colleague struggling to sell plans.
She confided in me that everyone else is only getting paid $12 an hour and no commissions.
Sigh.....
What is the world coming to?
Companies are getting greedy. If one is educated and in this situation, wouldn't he or she look for another job?
Maybe people like my colleagues and ex are lazy and take the path of least resistance? Maybe they don't know how to stand up for themselves? Maybe they devalue their work?
I don't know.
I gave her the names of other agencies that start around $40,000. I'm at this company because I know many of the people running it as this is the company that bought out my former employer. I've worked with these people before.
It's a temporary job and feels like a family reunion even though I'm only going to work there for 54 days.
Sigh.....
I had an interviewer ask me if I were entertaining other offers. I told her about this company and she mentioned her experience with them. I probably should have taken her advice and refused the offer.
The job is close enough to home that I can take the bus if my old car breaks down. When you're poor, transportation is huge. If you don't have back-up transportation, you may quickly find yourself jobless. It was worth the low wage to know I could make it to work under most circumstances.
I realized that working two jobs and sleeping three hours a day was a bad thing to do to myself.
I can't fathom how I smacked my face with a glass window on Thursday morning. The cuts are healing okay. I will have three scars under my left eye. The bruises are still there but it's nothing huge rimmed brown glasses can't hide.
The scars may make it hard for me to get a job in sales (outside of a call center environment). Beauty is more valued than homeliness.
Sigh.....
I must have been tired. I can't afford to let myself get that tired again.
I've decided to look for another job with a more defined schedule so I can work my hypnosis clients in easier. The changing schedule leads to sleep deprivation which leads to me eating glass for breakfast.
There is another lesson I learned from my job.
Horrible employers refuse to carry health insurance on their employees but demand doctor's notes for every little thing. If you want a chair that isn't broken, they expect a doctor's note. If you break your face on a car window, they want a doctor's note. If you want to have your inhaler at your desk, you need a doctor's note.
If all of their employees are on Medicaid, do you want to take a guess at who is paying for all of those doctor's notes?
I'm disgusted.
I'm working on getting out of there as fast as I can.
Do you know what is weird? They've auto signed us all up for a 401K plan. They don't offer health benefits but they sure as heck can take 10% of our paychecks and buy their own stock with it without getting our consent first.
I can't wait to get the heck out of there.
I'm still getting calls for interviews. The trick is getting time off to go to the interviews.
I'm not sure how I'm feeling about forced overtime.
I need the money.
I also need sleep.
I really need sleep.
******
Some things have to change.
I can't count on help with the kids.
The financial abuse game previously consisted of harassing my bosses to get me fired, taking my car so I couldn't go to interviews and having his family block me in my driveway when I had somewhere to be has morphed.
It is now a game of wasting my money in court
and
failure to live up to our divorce agreement.
Somehow he has convinced the Colorado Child Support Enforcement unit that he is only capable of making $12 an hour. They ignore copies of the paystubs I sent to them. In return, they file court filings shaming me for caring for my kid in college.
Um......okay. I'll keep their nasty answer and re-read it if I'm ever on a campaign for Congress.
I KNOW whose budget needs to be cut.
I may share it with my representative, too.
Who in the heck shames a single mother for helping her kid through college? If our daughter goes to college, she'll be less likely to wind up on state assistance (especially if we keep her student loans LOW and we do that by supporting her).
It's an investment thing.
Child Support Enforcement is supposed to invest in the kids rather than enable a liar.
Perhaps the Colorado Child Support Enforcement lawyers are too young to understand the game?
I don't know.
My ex must owe me around $64,000 now. Much of that money is due to funds he stole from the retirement accounts after the divorce and the legal fees from having to remove him from my home.
I'll never see that money.
Sigh -
Marital problems just continue after the divorce.
It's weird.
The only thing that tends to improve is hindsight.
I truly wish I had listened to my lawyer friends earlier.
They told me to change my passwords, hide my computer and keep Michael from my employers. They told me he had a mental and addiction issue. They told me that he was going to steal the 401K.
I didn't listen.
He hacked my accounts and had his family stalk me.
He terrorized me and stole my money.
If a lawyer gives you insight, LISTEN.
They've truly seen it all.
I was told to doubt the rehab story due to all the lies.
I don't know what to think.
Maybe he is truly in rehab?
Maybe it is just an excuse not to cooperate with the court?
I don't know.
I studied drug and alcohol counseling for many years. He sounds like he's in a 90 day inpatient rehab program for hard core drug addicts.
Wouldn't I have seen signs of this when he was living here?
I didn't find any needles or anything when cleaning out his mess.
Maybe I'm just stupid. I could never have fathomed that he put his family up to stalking me, either.
I'll never know if he's telling the truth. He's protected by HIPPA.
Maybe that is why men lie about this? We can't verify it as truth.
I shouldn't care any more. I can't afford to care any more.
Maybe the game is to cause me to spend all my available credit on legal fees (since the State of Colorado Child Support Enforcement Division wouldn't talk to me unless I hired a lawyer). Maybe they need to impoverish custodial mothers to justify the existence of their department?
I don't know.
I hate the big government NOW more than EVER.
If you know me, you know that's saying a lot!
May you never have to count on another human being. May you also find everything you need to survive easily and effortlessly.
I have an obnoxious Irish spirit and a very long memory.
I'll see them on the other side of Hades.
Love ya,
S.