I had a lengthy deposition yesterday regarding my loft floors. I purchased a loft with wood beetles, was forced to use the Developers choice of floor installers to do the replacement and supposedly fumigate the floor to rid it of the beetle infestation.
Now that seems like a very cut and dry topic, with not a lot of room for arguing. That would be a logical "Real World" opinion, but not in the legal arena, where the victims are the ones who sit in the hot seat, not the people responsible for the problems.
The attorney started out pleasant enough before we were being recorded by the court reporter and then when we began, his line of questioning was totally out of line.
He started asking me questions about my former now deceased husband. I answered the first two then he started asking about
my husbands Legal background and I'm sure he was going to delve into our pending divorce at the time of his death.
None of his questions were nice, they were condescending, and I was quite frankly appalled that my attorney's assistant filling in
for him let this line of questioning go on. I was the one who simply said I was not going to answer anymore of his questions, they had nothing to do with my situation. I was in tears 15 minutes into the day.
He said he was just doing his background questions. Really??? Anyone who's lost anyone they love and witnessed their death is
going to get emotional at having to discuss it in detail to a total stranger who is just "doing his job"
The questions asked in depositions are supposed to be answered by a simply Yes or No, but that's how they GET YOU.
Some things cannot be answered that way. If you say Yes your done, if you say No, you can be held for lying.
We have a terrible legal system.
At the end of the day, we accomplished nothing and now it's been extended. There were three other attorney's present who knew nothing about the case and everyone agreed to finish another day.
After they left my attorney told me I could never win in court because I'm Blond, look too young for my age and I own a house in Malibu. That's how the system works. If the jurors don't like you Lose, period. He then told me that today the average juror would resent the fact that I own a loft for a million $ and they wouldn't care that the developers and agents knew of an insect
infestation and sold the lofts to people anyway.
This is the American Legal Justice system. No wonder the world is falling apart, it's still a popularity contest. If they jurors like you you win, think OJ. If you're a pretty woman and you've been cheated and lied to by your husband well too bad for you.
If the good old boys club is dishonest and can pay off a unethical lawyer they win.
That's how it really works, God help the innocent.
October 07, 2011
July 28, 2011
How to Help someone who doesn't understand What they are doing to Themselves by staying in a Toxic Relationship
I spent two different weekends with an acquaintance of mine who has been living with an Alcoholic for over 10 years.
When she met him she had just lost custody of her son to her former husband who just happened to also be a well connected Lawyer. It was all so tragic, She claimed he was
sexually abusing the 4 year old and when she tried to get help through the Doctors and Agencies who supposedly help
families they in turn gave custody to the alleged "child molester" In this world there is no justice for women who complain to
well connected, men. The boy is now 21 and is still not permitted to see her. How can the legal system do that? The father had
a lifetime resrtaining order against her. For What???? Trying to protect her son from him.
It's like a sane person who gets committed to an insane asylum, the more you protest your not crazy, the more they think you
are. What a world.
She was an affluent resident in Malibu and went from that to losing he son, while trying to protect him, to a basically broke,
almost homeless woman. As I watched her life unravel I saw first hand what the inequities between the power of a Husband
and a wife can tragically become.
This is a common occurrence in families DISFUNCTION. Whether it is alcohol related or not. Obviously there was some other
kind of illness going on in their home for it all to fall apart like that. I wondered why someone who had experienced such trauma
would find herself in another situation which is almost as bad in other ways.
Do Normal people continue to go from one terrible relationship to another? I know so many people who do. What kind of help
is there for people. Therapy rarely helps, especially if you don't have the money to spend year after year sitting in some silent Doctor's office hoping that you will get relief and go broke in the process.
At least if you know there is alcohol addition or drug abuse there are 12 step programs available for no cost other than the willingness to show up. Which sounds a LOT easier than it is for many. Admitting you need help is often the last thing anyone
wants to admit.
Back to my friend, this is the second weekend she sought shelter in my house. After talking about her life these past ten years
I realized that No help I was giving her would ever help her. She told me that on and off for the past 10 years she has had to leave to find some serenity and peace because when this man drinks he's abusive and then she goes back again because "He's NICE when he's sober".
Oh WOW, did I relate to that. It's the Jekyll & Hyde personality. It's what kept me in my marriage for so many years. The Nice
side of my husband was awesome, his dark side was horrific. It's also why I refuse to get into another relationship, it seems everyone I'm attracted to has some sort of addiction history. They are either in Recovery or they need to be.
Is this attraction in a person's DNA where time and time again people are drawn to the same type over and over again? I think so. In the world of online interaction every now and then I play a little game with myself if I'm the least bit interested do they have an addiction? 9 out of 10 times YES its really scary to see who I'm drawn to.
How do you break the unconscious pattern in yourself? Do you shut yourself off from the world and never have another relationship? That is the path I've chosen since I've actually married two alcoholics in my life. I am terrified of living thru another bad relationship, the emotional damage is just not worth that sort of companionship. I'm sure there aren't many people willing to live like that, for me it simply works and keeps me happy.
Am I cured of my co-dependant personality? Hardly. Why else did I come so close to being sucked in to letting my friend stay with me for I thought a month, she told my friend a few months. I actually started to have a panic attack at the thought of having to listen to her problems day after day. I found myself in just a day and a half avoiding her company. I was grateful I had to have my car serviced and was gone for several hours. Something inside snapped and I went from really supportive to actually down right wanting her out of my house. I couldn't deal with it all. It simply brought up way too many old feelings, so the answer to the question is NO I'm not cured but I'm terrified that part of me is still there. I can only imagine how stunned my friend was at my sudden change.
They say time heals all things but I'm still waiting to feel completely healed from my life as a co-dependent. I'm not sure there ever will be that time quite frankly, but I do know that as long as I listen to my reactions, I will never allow myself to fall for another addict.
When she met him she had just lost custody of her son to her former husband who just happened to also be a well connected Lawyer. It was all so tragic, She claimed he was
sexually abusing the 4 year old and when she tried to get help through the Doctors and Agencies who supposedly help
families they in turn gave custody to the alleged "child molester" In this world there is no justice for women who complain to
well connected, men. The boy is now 21 and is still not permitted to see her. How can the legal system do that? The father had
a lifetime resrtaining order against her. For What???? Trying to protect her son from him.
It's like a sane person who gets committed to an insane asylum, the more you protest your not crazy, the more they think you
are. What a world.
She was an affluent resident in Malibu and went from that to losing he son, while trying to protect him, to a basically broke,
almost homeless woman. As I watched her life unravel I saw first hand what the inequities between the power of a Husband
and a wife can tragically become.
This is a common occurrence in families DISFUNCTION. Whether it is alcohol related or not. Obviously there was some other
kind of illness going on in their home for it all to fall apart like that. I wondered why someone who had experienced such trauma
would find herself in another situation which is almost as bad in other ways.
Do Normal people continue to go from one terrible relationship to another? I know so many people who do. What kind of help
is there for people. Therapy rarely helps, especially if you don't have the money to spend year after year sitting in some silent Doctor's office hoping that you will get relief and go broke in the process.
At least if you know there is alcohol addition or drug abuse there are 12 step programs available for no cost other than the willingness to show up. Which sounds a LOT easier than it is for many. Admitting you need help is often the last thing anyone
wants to admit.
Back to my friend, this is the second weekend she sought shelter in my house. After talking about her life these past ten years
I realized that No help I was giving her would ever help her. She told me that on and off for the past 10 years she has had to leave to find some serenity and peace because when this man drinks he's abusive and then she goes back again because "He's NICE when he's sober".
Oh WOW, did I relate to that. It's the Jekyll & Hyde personality. It's what kept me in my marriage for so many years. The Nice
side of my husband was awesome, his dark side was horrific. It's also why I refuse to get into another relationship, it seems everyone I'm attracted to has some sort of addiction history. They are either in Recovery or they need to be.
Is this attraction in a person's DNA where time and time again people are drawn to the same type over and over again? I think so. In the world of online interaction every now and then I play a little game with myself if I'm the least bit interested do they have an addiction? 9 out of 10 times YES its really scary to see who I'm drawn to.
How do you break the unconscious pattern in yourself? Do you shut yourself off from the world and never have another relationship? That is the path I've chosen since I've actually married two alcoholics in my life. I am terrified of living thru another bad relationship, the emotional damage is just not worth that sort of companionship. I'm sure there aren't many people willing to live like that, for me it simply works and keeps me happy.
Am I cured of my co-dependant personality? Hardly. Why else did I come so close to being sucked in to letting my friend stay with me for I thought a month, she told my friend a few months. I actually started to have a panic attack at the thought of having to listen to her problems day after day. I found myself in just a day and a half avoiding her company. I was grateful I had to have my car serviced and was gone for several hours. Something inside snapped and I went from really supportive to actually down right wanting her out of my house. I couldn't deal with it all. It simply brought up way too many old feelings, so the answer to the question is NO I'm not cured but I'm terrified that part of me is still there. I can only imagine how stunned my friend was at my sudden change.
They say time heals all things but I'm still waiting to feel completely healed from my life as a co-dependent. I'm not sure there ever will be that time quite frankly, but I do know that as long as I listen to my reactions, I will never allow myself to fall for another addict.
January 30, 2011
Another Year and Still I can't write my story
Well here I am at the end of January 2011 and I still can't seem to motivate myself to start writing about my story.
Maybe it's a sign that I'm too busy living to revisit my past in chronological order who knows, all I know is that I have other things on my mind. So instead of blocking myself thinking I have to pick up where I left off, I will now approach this blog as it is and leave the time line to the editing process, or I may never put another word down again.
The end of 2010 was a combination of finally moving back into my loft after leasing out the Malibu house in September and being totally busy trying to get my life back in order.
So much to do in my own life and then having to watch my son go thru his emotional ups and downs and not being able to really do anything about it.
2010 finally brought a beginning of the end of Matt's relationship, I use the word beginning because quite frankly it's not over till it's over. I'm just praying at some point they both just realize that it's never going to work and avoid hurting each other by giving into what Katie wants more than anything. A marriage. In my opinion at this point she would marry anyone and I think she will not marry for love but for the dream of being married and not having to deal with taking care of herself.
Matt said she doesn't want to be a housewife and I couldn't agree more. She doesn't have a clue what being married is all about and being a housewife is what being a married woman is ultimately in the end. If I were to decode the term housewife in her mind, it means she has no intention of cleaning, cooking, taking care of anything that women do when they marry. She wants a cleaning lady she told me once. WOW I give her more credit than they both know. He always tells me she's smart and I have to agree, she's going thru the motions of getting a degree in Grad school so she doesn't have to find a job that can keep her above the poverty line. Now that's smart. She's hoping someone will feel sorry for her. She's already manipulated a $10,000 check out of him, because they were almost like "Common Law Husband & Wife" REALLY????
He moved her out over 2 years ago and she never quite got it thru her head to actually leave permanently. Just about one year ago this coming week we had our last major fight over her lack of manners. She is the most socially inept young woman I have ever run into. If I was the only one who thought that I would say it's me, but there isn't a person I know that has ever been able to figure out what the hell Matt see's in her. I don't think I know anyone who walks around and reeks of unhappiness they way she does. In fact she was still blaming her father for all her unhappiness as of just a few months ago until she got to see her mother in a whole new light when she started speaking to her father after almost 5 years.
I told Matt he was dating his sister and his father and by that I meant, like his sister she hates her father and like his father she is only happy when she's drunk. I didn't know until a few weeks ago that some of her anti-social behavior was because she was high on weed. I really could care less except for the fact that even on weed she's miserable. So what's the point of getting high if you can't even be happy then.
Two weeks ago she crept back into his life for two days. That's how she does it. She needs something. This time she needed to use his kitchen to bake some cupcake pops. No problem if she cleaned everything up when she was finished, but NO in classic Katie fashion she left a bit of a trail. Dirty batter bowl in the sink, foil, plastic wrap, and an empty paper towel holder all there on the counter. Now to some people my reaction to this could be perceived as an over reaction, but I lost it.
It was Wednesday morning and I went over as I have been doing for the past 6 months to make Matt a shake before his workout. I had left his loft Sunday at 1:30am after helping him clean up after his friends drunken puke fest. So when I saw the little mess, I snapped because quite frankly I am not her maid or his for that matter. I will not go back to that time in my life where I needed to do things to be loved. I help Matt because I want to. The minute I feel taken advantage of, it's over.
He was shocked by my attitude and asked me to leave and took his parking pass back. I had to laugh because that's what caused the initial rift between Katie and me. Although she didn't live there she needed the parking even thou Matt had moved me into his place to sleep on his sofa when I no longer could afford to run the water or pay the utilities in Malibu. The shocking thing to me is that he doesn't see her for what she is. I believe she would like nothing more than to see us not speak to each other like she does to her father. Unfortunately for her, I'm not going any where soon.
When he told me that he's still seeing her I told him flat out he's going to have a lot of trouble because she hates me. I will always be the Elephant in the room. We both agreed it's a problem. We can never go back to a time or place where we can pretend any longer that we can even tolerate one another. I tried the offering the olive branch for his sake at Thanksgiving and she refused to come over. I bought her a gift for Xmas and until today I have not gotten any sort of acknowledgment from her to whether she liked it or not.
So there will be no happy ending for this little family. I can't wait to see how the coming year goes for them.
Matt only wants her now because she is or was seeing someone else. It's his ego. Most men are that predictable I think.
So I face the coming year with the jury trial in April and Matt being in the musicale RENT. Drama and Drama:)
Maybe it's a sign that I'm too busy living to revisit my past in chronological order who knows, all I know is that I have other things on my mind. So instead of blocking myself thinking I have to pick up where I left off, I will now approach this blog as it is and leave the time line to the editing process, or I may never put another word down again.
The end of 2010 was a combination of finally moving back into my loft after leasing out the Malibu house in September and being totally busy trying to get my life back in order.
So much to do in my own life and then having to watch my son go thru his emotional ups and downs and not being able to really do anything about it.
2010 finally brought a beginning of the end of Matt's relationship, I use the word beginning because quite frankly it's not over till it's over. I'm just praying at some point they both just realize that it's never going to work and avoid hurting each other by giving into what Katie wants more than anything. A marriage. In my opinion at this point she would marry anyone and I think she will not marry for love but for the dream of being married and not having to deal with taking care of herself.
Matt said she doesn't want to be a housewife and I couldn't agree more. She doesn't have a clue what being married is all about and being a housewife is what being a married woman is ultimately in the end. If I were to decode the term housewife in her mind, it means she has no intention of cleaning, cooking, taking care of anything that women do when they marry. She wants a cleaning lady she told me once. WOW I give her more credit than they both know. He always tells me she's smart and I have to agree, she's going thru the motions of getting a degree in Grad school so she doesn't have to find a job that can keep her above the poverty line. Now that's smart. She's hoping someone will feel sorry for her. She's already manipulated a $10,000 check out of him, because they were almost like "Common Law Husband & Wife" REALLY????
He moved her out over 2 years ago and she never quite got it thru her head to actually leave permanently. Just about one year ago this coming week we had our last major fight over her lack of manners. She is the most socially inept young woman I have ever run into. If I was the only one who thought that I would say it's me, but there isn't a person I know that has ever been able to figure out what the hell Matt see's in her. I don't think I know anyone who walks around and reeks of unhappiness they way she does. In fact she was still blaming her father for all her unhappiness as of just a few months ago until she got to see her mother in a whole new light when she started speaking to her father after almost 5 years.
I told Matt he was dating his sister and his father and by that I meant, like his sister she hates her father and like his father she is only happy when she's drunk. I didn't know until a few weeks ago that some of her anti-social behavior was because she was high on weed. I really could care less except for the fact that even on weed she's miserable. So what's the point of getting high if you can't even be happy then.
Two weeks ago she crept back into his life for two days. That's how she does it. She needs something. This time she needed to use his kitchen to bake some cupcake pops. No problem if she cleaned everything up when she was finished, but NO in classic Katie fashion she left a bit of a trail. Dirty batter bowl in the sink, foil, plastic wrap, and an empty paper towel holder all there on the counter. Now to some people my reaction to this could be perceived as an over reaction, but I lost it.
It was Wednesday morning and I went over as I have been doing for the past 6 months to make Matt a shake before his workout. I had left his loft Sunday at 1:30am after helping him clean up after his friends drunken puke fest. So when I saw the little mess, I snapped because quite frankly I am not her maid or his for that matter. I will not go back to that time in my life where I needed to do things to be loved. I help Matt because I want to. The minute I feel taken advantage of, it's over.
He was shocked by my attitude and asked me to leave and took his parking pass back. I had to laugh because that's what caused the initial rift between Katie and me. Although she didn't live there she needed the parking even thou Matt had moved me into his place to sleep on his sofa when I no longer could afford to run the water or pay the utilities in Malibu. The shocking thing to me is that he doesn't see her for what she is. I believe she would like nothing more than to see us not speak to each other like she does to her father. Unfortunately for her, I'm not going any where soon.
When he told me that he's still seeing her I told him flat out he's going to have a lot of trouble because she hates me. I will always be the Elephant in the room. We both agreed it's a problem. We can never go back to a time or place where we can pretend any longer that we can even tolerate one another. I tried the offering the olive branch for his sake at Thanksgiving and she refused to come over. I bought her a gift for Xmas and until today I have not gotten any sort of acknowledgment from her to whether she liked it or not.
So there will be no happy ending for this little family. I can't wait to see how the coming year goes for them.
Matt only wants her now because she is or was seeing someone else. It's his ego. Most men are that predictable I think.
So I face the coming year with the jury trial in April and Matt being in the musicale RENT. Drama and Drama:)
September 03, 2010
Interesting Changes
I'm so excited about the new Mobile Media revoluction. Check out izigg. It will change the way you view promoting your business.
August 29, 2010
My Amazing Son Matt
Last night was the final performance of the Musical Drama my son Matt was in. It had a 4 week run and the Cast delivered better every single night.
I was sitting in the audience at most of the performances just in awe of his talents, thinking about how very proud of him I am and how much he looks like his father.
I know that his dad is looking down on him from above thinking the same exact thoughts I have. What a gift he has always been.
We never really knew how talented he was until he was in High School. I am so proud of him for sticking to his dreams and watching them manifest into "his" world.
I can't imagine him being anything else but a talented Singer/Actor/Writer. It simply is
what he was put on the earth to do.
It's so funny because he thinks that I support him in all he does when the Truth is that his support of Me is what keeps me going. Without his love and devotion, not to mention
generous support of me. I would not be able to be half the woman I am today.
I am Grateful for every single moment I have had with him, and I can't imagine a life without him.
I was sitting in the audience at most of the performances just in awe of his talents, thinking about how very proud of him I am and how much he looks like his father.
I know that his dad is looking down on him from above thinking the same exact thoughts I have. What a gift he has always been.
We never really knew how talented he was until he was in High School. I am so proud of him for sticking to his dreams and watching them manifest into "his" world.
I can't imagine him being anything else but a talented Singer/Actor/Writer. It simply is
what he was put on the earth to do.
It's so funny because he thinks that I support him in all he does when the Truth is that his support of Me is what keeps me going. Without his love and devotion, not to mention
generous support of me. I would not be able to be half the woman I am today.
I am Grateful for every single moment I have had with him, and I can't imagine a life without him.
November 10, 2009
Entertaining the Kids from Japan
For me who never ever had a sitter for Matt, the time he was in Japan seemed like a lifetime. I was so happy to be back up in the rental house in Foster City, awaiting his return home.
Part of the exchange program through the Kiwanis club is that Matt went to live in Japan first with a family and then when his time was up we had his host "brother" stay with us.
That was great except that the other two kids from Japan had learned that our family owned the "Sunset Gower Studio" in Hollywood and they wanted to be with us and not their host families. They did not realize that they couldn't just go visit the studio one afternoon they would have to fly from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and stay with us in order to do that.
Luckily we did have enough room for the three of them to stay comfortably, all they needed to do was have their host families agree to pay the round trip airfare to get them here and back again.
Looking back at this now all these years later, it was amazing how simple it all seemed because when the three Japanese exchange students were here without the other host families, a little drama started to unfold. There were two boys and one girl.
Of course not being able to understand Japanese myself and the kids spoke little English, I had not idea that the boys were teasing this girl until one night around midnight she was crying so hard I had to have my son Matt come up to her room and find out what was going on.
It seems the two boys had ganged up on her about her looks, her style or something personal like that. She simply could not be consoled. So I found out thru Matt that she wanted to call home. What could I say, of course I said yes. It was a month later
when I got the phone bill that I realized she had spent nearly an hour on the phone or that would amount to a $2,000 phone bill. Wow, I had no idea she was on the phone that long or how much it would cost. We just had to shrug it off and pay the bill. What else was there to do?
I was just happy that for two of the three weeks it was just Matt and his host family kid. The other two were only here for 4 days and they were hard because the girl was so moody and in the end, even I who love kids felt helpless to make her enjoy herself.
She didn't enjoy any of her stay it seemed. I was thrilled when the day came to fly them all back to the Bay Area. That also included myself and Matt. It was time to start getting ready to go back to school.
The Airport was intense. Flights were being canceled left and right due to bad weather in San Francisco. And I HAD to get those three back in time to catch their plane home to Japan the next day. We were at the airport for hours and I was so grateful that Bob wasn't there, he never did have the patience to travel much and this was intense. There simply was no room for 5 of us.
No being one to give up I called another airline to see if I could fly them into San Jose on the last flight. As miracles go I got us on a flight but we had to run all the way across the airport to another terminal.
Imagine me trying to explain that to three kids who did not understand one word that I said to them.
Matt really saved the day, he got them all together and explained the best he could what was going on. Then we picked up our bags and ran like hell so that we did not miss the last flight out that night.
Lucky for us the parents in the Bay Area were so cool, they must have been worried also because they were responsible for getting those kids home to Japan on time just as I was.
The next morning was a relief, back to SFO to get them all off to Japan, I was exhausted and just happy to be with Matt in our little rental house in Foster City, anxiously awaiting what would turn out to be the beginning of an entirely new Matt.
Part of the exchange program through the Kiwanis club is that Matt went to live in Japan first with a family and then when his time was up we had his host "brother" stay with us.
That was great except that the other two kids from Japan had learned that our family owned the "Sunset Gower Studio" in Hollywood and they wanted to be with us and not their host families. They did not realize that they couldn't just go visit the studio one afternoon they would have to fly from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and stay with us in order to do that.
Luckily we did have enough room for the three of them to stay comfortably, all they needed to do was have their host families agree to pay the round trip airfare to get them here and back again.
Looking back at this now all these years later, it was amazing how simple it all seemed because when the three Japanese exchange students were here without the other host families, a little drama started to unfold. There were two boys and one girl.
Of course not being able to understand Japanese myself and the kids spoke little English, I had not idea that the boys were teasing this girl until one night around midnight she was crying so hard I had to have my son Matt come up to her room and find out what was going on.
It seems the two boys had ganged up on her about her looks, her style or something personal like that. She simply could not be consoled. So I found out thru Matt that she wanted to call home. What could I say, of course I said yes. It was a month later
when I got the phone bill that I realized she had spent nearly an hour on the phone or that would amount to a $2,000 phone bill. Wow, I had no idea she was on the phone that long or how much it would cost. We just had to shrug it off and pay the bill. What else was there to do?
I was just happy that for two of the three weeks it was just Matt and his host family kid. The other two were only here for 4 days and they were hard because the girl was so moody and in the end, even I who love kids felt helpless to make her enjoy herself.
She didn't enjoy any of her stay it seemed. I was thrilled when the day came to fly them all back to the Bay Area. That also included myself and Matt. It was time to start getting ready to go back to school.
The Airport was intense. Flights were being canceled left and right due to bad weather in San Francisco. And I HAD to get those three back in time to catch their plane home to Japan the next day. We were at the airport for hours and I was so grateful that Bob wasn't there, he never did have the patience to travel much and this was intense. There simply was no room for 5 of us.
No being one to give up I called another airline to see if I could fly them into San Jose on the last flight. As miracles go I got us on a flight but we had to run all the way across the airport to another terminal.
Imagine me trying to explain that to three kids who did not understand one word that I said to them.
Matt really saved the day, he got them all together and explained the best he could what was going on. Then we picked up our bags and ran like hell so that we did not miss the last flight out that night.
Lucky for us the parents in the Bay Area were so cool, they must have been worried also because they were responsible for getting those kids home to Japan on time just as I was.
The next morning was a relief, back to SFO to get them all off to Japan, I was exhausted and just happy to be with Matt in our little rental house in Foster City, anxiously awaiting what would turn out to be the beginning of an entirely new Matt.
March 06, 2009
Matt's Off to Japan
Matt was leaving for Japan in just a few hours and already I was freaking out. It simply was a very scary day for me.
As I mentioned I had not spent more than a weekend in the same house with his father since last August, it was now June.
I kept my cool the entire time that we were together in the Airport. Looking back how lucky I was that this was before 9-11.
We actually got to spend the two hours with him at the Airport before his plane took off. The moment he was no longer in site to me, going through the final boarding gate, I fell apart.
I was inconsolable, I could not stop crying and literally did not want to talk to his father if I could help it. First of all, I was not totally prepared for Matt to be flying across the world at 15, he had been our constant companion his entire life. Second,
I did not know what to expect from being alone with his Dad. That was equally as terrifying to me.
We walked away from Matt's gate, and headed to another airline and boarded a plane back to Los Angeles. I wasn't even happy
to be going back to the Malibu house. What would my house be like without the most important aspect of it? Without Matt home, it simply wasn't a home.
It seemed like it took forever to get back to Malibu. Between the hour flight, the hour long limo drive and all of my mixed emotions, I was exhausted when we walked into the door. It was no later than 4pm and I went to bed. I could not speak and I knew if I were awake all hell would break loose. Bob really had no tolerance for not being spoken to unless I wasn't awake.
I must say, he was so kind and understanding, I certainly didn't expect it. I wasn't really thinking about how he was feeling, because he hadn't spent that much time with him the past school year. I on the other hand was with him every day. I felt like someone had ripped my guts out and locked me in a cage.
All I could think about was, "how could I have allowed him to go?" Then logic would set in and I would remember how proud of him I was. I just had to wait it out until he called. I would have to wait for almost 20 hours. It was an eternity I can assure you.
So I slept, or pretended to be asleep until that call came.
It was sometime in the middle of the night when the phone rang. Bob of course was not sleeping, and jumped for the phone.
There was no need to wake me, I was awake, just thanking the Lord above that he had made it.
The moment I heard Matt's voice I felt better. He was so sweet and he was apologizing for taking so long to call home,
What I realized at that moment as he was telling me how he had managed to change trains and translate for the two girls he was with in order to get from the Airport to the city they were going to, that he would be fine. Even at 15 he had the sensibility and the experience to navigate his way around an airport and a train station. At that moment I was so happy that we had traveled with him all those years. He was a very savvy traveler indeed.
He told me that he had been to a special dinner, honoring Him and the two girls at a temple someplace. He said that he had been sining Karaoke and been given sake to drink as a customary welcome. I was so happy. It was so wonderful to hear the joy and excitement in his voice, I was relieved. He hung up and for the first time in oh so many hours, I was ok and talked to
Bob about what Matt had told me. We were both relieved.
I know it's weird because we were only going to be apart for a little over a month but at the time it seemed like those weeks and days would never end. We didn't do anything special while Matt was gone, just hung around the house, went to AA meetings, dinners, movies and I of course made myself very busy fixing up the deck, painting etc. Busy work.
Bob was Bob. He started his day late, had breakfast took a book out to the pool and worked on his tan. Then he would go to the gym and come back shower and we would go out for dinner, movies or whatever.
It never dawned on me at that point just how boring our days really were. Before we left to go up North, I had started a little design company. I was always so busy hand beading beautiful silk velvet throws, but that pretty much ended when we moved.
I actually had to search for things to do. Too much time on my hand was never a good thing. I was great at avoiding conflict.
Bob did not have much sobriety under his belt and was always just on the verge of yet another dry drunk. I lived on egg shells.
He was pretty much on his best behavior, maybe he missed me while we were away, who knows? All I know was that I was grateful for the serenity and did not tempt rocking the boat.
Now that we had moved Matt to a school in Northern California, the only friends we seemed to have left around Malibu were Bob's AA friends. I liked them all alot, but because he had been slipping on and off, he didn't want to hang out with any of them. He always felt he was being judged by them. Who knows why. I never really knew how much drinking or pill use he really was into that first year. All I know is that he wasn't drinking at the moment and I was grateful it didn't come up again.
The end of July came around very fast and it was time to return to Northern California to pick Matt and his host student.
The way the exchange program went was Matt went to stay at a home and then return with the boy he had stayed with.
Of course I was more than ready to get back there.
We went a few days early and cleaned the house and filled the refrigerator with a ton of food for their return. The two girls Matt had traveled with were also coming back with the kids they stayed with. Everyone was once again at the Airport together
waiting. We made plans with the other families to get all the students together again before we took Matt and his friend back to LA. Little did I know that Matt had told everyone that they could all come to Malibu with us and see our Studio.
You have to understand just how excited those kids were to go to Hollywood and then to top it off, they were going to get a private tour of the Sunset Gower Studios by this kid's family. Of course I had no idea that was in the works until they all landed.
When Matt finally came off the plane and into customs it seemed like an hour had passed but there he was. He had lost about
15 pounds. It's not that he was heavy before, but I wasn't ready to see him so thin. He had a strange look on his face as he hugged us and said hello.
He later told me that it was weird hearing our voices and English again. The city he had been in he had little opportunity to either hear anyone speak English or even speak it himself. He was sort of displaced. Culture shock I guess not to mention their hours were all messed up. Matt and Takou were exhausted. When they got home they barely stayed awake for an hour and both crashed. Bob and I were once again left alone in a sense. Only now we were in Foster City, a place that he had never felt comfortable, a place where he was on shaky ground. I could sense the rumblings of discomfort going on in his head. The times were changing, I knew it.
The peaceful Summer so far was coming to a close. I didn't know how he was going to deal with 6 teens in the house at one time, let alone be their tour guide. It was going to be interesting for sure.
As I mentioned I had not spent more than a weekend in the same house with his father since last August, it was now June.
I kept my cool the entire time that we were together in the Airport. Looking back how lucky I was that this was before 9-11.
We actually got to spend the two hours with him at the Airport before his plane took off. The moment he was no longer in site to me, going through the final boarding gate, I fell apart.
I was inconsolable, I could not stop crying and literally did not want to talk to his father if I could help it. First of all, I was not totally prepared for Matt to be flying across the world at 15, he had been our constant companion his entire life. Second,
I did not know what to expect from being alone with his Dad. That was equally as terrifying to me.
We walked away from Matt's gate, and headed to another airline and boarded a plane back to Los Angeles. I wasn't even happy
to be going back to the Malibu house. What would my house be like without the most important aspect of it? Without Matt home, it simply wasn't a home.
It seemed like it took forever to get back to Malibu. Between the hour flight, the hour long limo drive and all of my mixed emotions, I was exhausted when we walked into the door. It was no later than 4pm and I went to bed. I could not speak and I knew if I were awake all hell would break loose. Bob really had no tolerance for not being spoken to unless I wasn't awake.
I must say, he was so kind and understanding, I certainly didn't expect it. I wasn't really thinking about how he was feeling, because he hadn't spent that much time with him the past school year. I on the other hand was with him every day. I felt like someone had ripped my guts out and locked me in a cage.
All I could think about was, "how could I have allowed him to go?" Then logic would set in and I would remember how proud of him I was. I just had to wait it out until he called. I would have to wait for almost 20 hours. It was an eternity I can assure you.
So I slept, or pretended to be asleep until that call came.
It was sometime in the middle of the night when the phone rang. Bob of course was not sleeping, and jumped for the phone.
There was no need to wake me, I was awake, just thanking the Lord above that he had made it.
The moment I heard Matt's voice I felt better. He was so sweet and he was apologizing for taking so long to call home,
What I realized at that moment as he was telling me how he had managed to change trains and translate for the two girls he was with in order to get from the Airport to the city they were going to, that he would be fine. Even at 15 he had the sensibility and the experience to navigate his way around an airport and a train station. At that moment I was so happy that we had traveled with him all those years. He was a very savvy traveler indeed.
He told me that he had been to a special dinner, honoring Him and the two girls at a temple someplace. He said that he had been sining Karaoke and been given sake to drink as a customary welcome. I was so happy. It was so wonderful to hear the joy and excitement in his voice, I was relieved. He hung up and for the first time in oh so many hours, I was ok and talked to
Bob about what Matt had told me. We were both relieved.
I know it's weird because we were only going to be apart for a little over a month but at the time it seemed like those weeks and days would never end. We didn't do anything special while Matt was gone, just hung around the house, went to AA meetings, dinners, movies and I of course made myself very busy fixing up the deck, painting etc. Busy work.
Bob was Bob. He started his day late, had breakfast took a book out to the pool and worked on his tan. Then he would go to the gym and come back shower and we would go out for dinner, movies or whatever.
It never dawned on me at that point just how boring our days really were. Before we left to go up North, I had started a little design company. I was always so busy hand beading beautiful silk velvet throws, but that pretty much ended when we moved.
I actually had to search for things to do. Too much time on my hand was never a good thing. I was great at avoiding conflict.
Bob did not have much sobriety under his belt and was always just on the verge of yet another dry drunk. I lived on egg shells.
He was pretty much on his best behavior, maybe he missed me while we were away, who knows? All I know was that I was grateful for the serenity and did not tempt rocking the boat.
Now that we had moved Matt to a school in Northern California, the only friends we seemed to have left around Malibu were Bob's AA friends. I liked them all alot, but because he had been slipping on and off, he didn't want to hang out with any of them. He always felt he was being judged by them. Who knows why. I never really knew how much drinking or pill use he really was into that first year. All I know is that he wasn't drinking at the moment and I was grateful it didn't come up again.
The end of July came around very fast and it was time to return to Northern California to pick Matt and his host student.
The way the exchange program went was Matt went to stay at a home and then return with the boy he had stayed with.
Of course I was more than ready to get back there.
We went a few days early and cleaned the house and filled the refrigerator with a ton of food for their return. The two girls Matt had traveled with were also coming back with the kids they stayed with. Everyone was once again at the Airport together
waiting. We made plans with the other families to get all the students together again before we took Matt and his friend back to LA. Little did I know that Matt had told everyone that they could all come to Malibu with us and see our Studio.
You have to understand just how excited those kids were to go to Hollywood and then to top it off, they were going to get a private tour of the Sunset Gower Studios by this kid's family. Of course I had no idea that was in the works until they all landed.
When Matt finally came off the plane and into customs it seemed like an hour had passed but there he was. He had lost about
15 pounds. It's not that he was heavy before, but I wasn't ready to see him so thin. He had a strange look on his face as he hugged us and said hello.
He later told me that it was weird hearing our voices and English again. The city he had been in he had little opportunity to either hear anyone speak English or even speak it himself. He was sort of displaced. Culture shock I guess not to mention their hours were all messed up. Matt and Takou were exhausted. When they got home they barely stayed awake for an hour and both crashed. Bob and I were once again left alone in a sense. Only now we were in Foster City, a place that he had never felt comfortable, a place where he was on shaky ground. I could sense the rumblings of discomfort going on in his head. The times were changing, I knew it.
The peaceful Summer so far was coming to a close. I didn't know how he was going to deal with 6 teens in the house at one time, let alone be their tour guide. It was going to be interesting for sure.
May 15, 2008
Domestic Abuse in Affluent Homes
Well today I am veering off the topic of my blog to write a post for Amnesty International. The topic I am choosing to right about is something that I have personal knowledge of. Domestic Abuse in Affluent families.
It does not matter what your financial background is in order to experience the fear of being abused by the person whom you love and trusted not to harm you, but it really happens everyday. Just think about Nicole Simpson and how the police who went to her home to protect her were simply enamored with OJ being a star. Where was the help for her? She lived in a mansion in Brentwood. OJ told the police it was her problem and they were happy to believe him. It's like a good ole boys club. I wonder what the numbers of police men who abuse their wives or children are? I know it happens all over the country.
The world does not understand why affluent women are afraid to leave or have their spouses arrested. These men hire hire priced attorney's to get them off the hook. They can afford to buy their way out. Poor people don't have that luxury.
The problem is it is almost impossible to get help from a family because as I know first hand the old expression was "We do not wash our dirty laundry in public." That's how my former husband was taught and that is what he insisted be the rules in our home.
The first time I was beat up I think I reacted like many women, I simply brushed it off to his being drunk. Actually when I met him he was 28 years old and drunk every night. It is what ended his marriage at such a young age. But I did not know that at the time. His former wife did not bother to confide that little fact to me. She probaby believed someplace in her head, that it was her fault. I whole heartedly believed he was just venting his anger about how much he was losing in the divorce and being separated from his daughter who was two at the time. I thought he would simply sober up on his own and heal from his divorce. I was also newly divorced but with no children so I really felt sorry for him when every Sunday he was literally in tears when he returned his daughter to her mom and his old house. I was smitten by his sensitivity and his love of his child. Little did I know that many people with alcohol problems cry about a lot of things. It's a great way to get sympathy and keep drinking. I sure fell for it. After all he was highly educated, an assistant deputy DA and as good looking as any famous actor in LA and his family owned a movie studio no less. He had it all going for him. I was in love.
It was a wonderful warm Palm Springs night the first time he ever laid a hand on me. As women who have been abused will often acknowledge it will not take much to set a violent tempered person who is drinking into a rage. I simply told him I was tired and I thought since it was 3 am maybe he should get some sleep and stop drinking so we could have a nice early day.
I had been looking forward to sitting out by the hotel pool to get a tan.
WELL, before I knew it, I had two black eyes and was simply in shock. this was the man who I fell head over heals in love with, 5 months before this. I had told all my friends how amazing he was and that I was going to marry him. Well needless to say that ended our Palm Springs birthday get away. We drove home the next morning in silence. Of course there was no remorse, he said it was my fault for upsetting him. I often hear that from the victim. Reverse psychology is quite common I have learned over the years.
I did not tell have the courage to tell any of my close friends what happened, but confided in a woman I had just recently me through him at a club.She told me to pack a bag and stay with her which I did. I was humiliated. How could this happen to ME. I did not come from an abusive household, neither parents drank except one drink on a holiday. I was not emotionally prepared for this. I was the adored only girl in the family. I had nothing to draw from, I was in foreign water to be sure. Back then no one spoke about Domestic Abuse or quite frankly Alcoholism for that matter.
But like so many women, he kept calling me asking me to come back, he was so sorry. It would never happen again.
I'm not going to chronicle the many more incidents themselves but focus on the lack of help for being abused that I got.
When he broke into my apartment in a drunken rage while I was gone, when I called the police they didn't even take it seriously, It was simply an area they didn't get involved with. Domestic Issues. This was back in the late 70's.
I don't think they believed me. Even though a neighbor had called the police, helicopters where hovering over my place and the front door was kicked in. The police didn't care. They said I couldn't prove it was him. The Hell I couldn't. There wasn't a thing missing or broken. He was looking for me because I had a friends, good friend staying in my extra bedroom and he didn't like that. We were not even living together because of his drinking and his temper. He was gunning for me or perhaps the couple who was supposed to stay with me. They were so afraid they left and checked into a hotel. It meant nothing to anyone that I was terrified. That's emotional abuse and it hurts just as much as a slap.
It was my problem to deal with. Not the police or my friends wanted to stick around. There is no sympathy. The victim is just thought to be an idiot for sticking around.
I have learned that there were two definite personalities to my abuser. The kind loving man who I just adored, and the man that could break your nose or you cheek bone like he did mine.
What is it that keeps women like myself in an abusive relationship? Is it that we really believe we deserved to be abused.. I think in the back of my mind I always felt somewhat responsible for setting him off because I always defended myself which just angered him more.
I was not a wishy washy coward but I talked back. That was the biggest problem for him, there should be no reasoning with him when he was angry.
In later years after we got married he wasn't drinking and the anger was still there. It usually ended up with the door taking the brunt of it. But it didn't matter because he had the money to repair whatever he wrecked. The family did not need to be involved.
Then I was expecting our first child. He was sober and angry and he actually kicked me in the stomach. Lucky for me the baby was ok. He took me to his father's house and his housekeeper took care of me while he calmed down.
It was never talked about. The only person who even listened was the housekeeper. She told me to keep calm, and have the baby and no matter what happened this child would always be mine. I have a feeling she knew what I'd been through herself, but even she stayed in an abusive marriage. She managed to live in my father in laws home five days a week to escape.
Here we were from two different worlds and yet we were in the same boat. Feeling like you had to stay in the marriage.
Too many people were involved in our lives and of course I did know what I had gotten myself into when I married him.
Once again, I took full responsibility for what had happened to me.
It was now 1984, I had no place else to go quite frankly. I could never afford to raise a child on my meager hair dressers income. I felt trapped. It was never an option in my mind to go live in the ghetto, where I could afford the rent on my own.
I was spoiled by my life style. I did not want to give it up, plus I married him through sobriety and he had not taken a drink.
I could not break my vows. I did not even say for better or for worse when I married him. I simply said through sobriety.
He didn't pick up a drink for 14 years but his anger did not go away. Our son seemed to calm him down for years. He was very happy to have another family. I felt that he had outgrown his violent side. I was dead wrong. The abuse had turned to verbal abuse. Little by little over the years he tried to break me down with insults. Lucky for me I was strong and never believed these insults to be true. I give my family credit for loving and adoring me so much that my self esteem was always very good. It's what saved me from total melt down. It's also what made him ever angrier most of the time. I would stick up for myself. When the insults were aimed at my family, I stuck up for them also. I actually got good at arguing with a lawyer.
I learned that he would not fight fair and he used everything I loved and picked it apart and threw it in my face. Then of course he would apologize and buy me something nice. I was not above taking the payoff for silence back then. Even though I loved to say to him that "He could not buy me," I was still there wasn't I? He did buy me, I just didn't admit it to myself.
I lived in a beautiful English Tutor in Malibu.
When he finally did pick up that drink, I now had to think about how much my son loved him. He was an amazing father. He never lifted a finger to our son. This only made me feel like it was more my fault. He started going back to the martial arts in sobriety which really helped him to release all that pent up need to hit something. When he got his Black Belt somehow the need to stay sober was not a priority any longer. He had been taking pain pills and back then I had no idea how much closer to drinking he was getting every day.
All the signs were there that the Volcano was going to erupt, but of course, I did not want to admit it. His family thought he was never going to pick up a drink again, and my family didn't know much about his past, because I didn't want them to know.
I hid it from them.
I went to Al-Anon for years and even they don't want to talk about it. They would tell me to focus on me, not the problem.
I simply did not know how to separate the two issues.
I think Abuse is the ultimate trap. If you seek help, your entire life as you knew it will be lost forever. Because there is no permanent cure for Anger. Not even "Anger Management". If you leave, you are guaranteed to live a sub-standard life style because there isn't a court in the world that can give you as much money as you had together as a family, and your children will reap the effects of that choice. If you stay, you believe you deserve whatever happens to you. You feel you sold your soul for a life style and quite frankly you have.
After my husband picked up that first drink, it took me six years to actually leave him. Before I could bat an eye lash, he was in another relationship with a woman who looked like we could be sisters. Ten days was al it took to be replaced. It was one of my biggest fears. I had thought that he loved me enough to get and stay sober again. I was wrong.
His drinking and trying to get sober was hell on him also. His anger got him into fights and one time it ended up resulting in 9 pins in his right arm and almost the use of it. The last time he was facing 3 years in prison for slashing his landlords tires an threatening some workers with a large hunting knife.
It was then that I really believed that I was not his problem, but it took almost 20 years for me to accept that. In the end, his addiction not his anger got the best of him. He was so terrified of going to prison he never picked up another drink, he died falling off a balcony with a belly full of Valium.
I was questioned for murder because I was with him when he died. He was grieving for his girlfriend who had hung herself ten days earlier. That was the ultimate act of Violence. She punished him for his being angry with her for not staying sober one more time and she was totally jealous of our continuing relationship with our son. We always put his feelings first. We were having a more than civil divorce when he died suddenly.
In the end, even though he died because of a fall, I was questioned for murder by the police and the coroner. I guess they knew his history. But knowing how he was, I would have been responsible for his death if another physical incident were involved. Thank god he didn't hit me. They would have never believed me.
Today I feel there really is no way out, you suffer no matter what you choose. If you stay you will suffer, if you leave you and your children and the family will be torn apart.
I believe that violence and addiction are closely related as many do. but I also know that it goes much deeper than that because the abuser doesn't need alcohol to fuel the rage. It's something just in them. And in my experience therapy did not help either of us.
I was simply addicted to him or maybe the abuse. No one has ever given me a clear picture of why I stayed for so long, or why I stayed silent for so long.
.
It does not matter what your financial background is in order to experience the fear of being abused by the person whom you love and trusted not to harm you, but it really happens everyday. Just think about Nicole Simpson and how the police who went to her home to protect her were simply enamored with OJ being a star. Where was the help for her? She lived in a mansion in Brentwood. OJ told the police it was her problem and they were happy to believe him. It's like a good ole boys club. I wonder what the numbers of police men who abuse their wives or children are? I know it happens all over the country.
The world does not understand why affluent women are afraid to leave or have their spouses arrested. These men hire hire priced attorney's to get them off the hook. They can afford to buy their way out. Poor people don't have that luxury.
The problem is it is almost impossible to get help from a family because as I know first hand the old expression was "We do not wash our dirty laundry in public." That's how my former husband was taught and that is what he insisted be the rules in our home.
The first time I was beat up I think I reacted like many women, I simply brushed it off to his being drunk. Actually when I met him he was 28 years old and drunk every night. It is what ended his marriage at such a young age. But I did not know that at the time. His former wife did not bother to confide that little fact to me. She probaby believed someplace in her head, that it was her fault. I whole heartedly believed he was just venting his anger about how much he was losing in the divorce and being separated from his daughter who was two at the time. I thought he would simply sober up on his own and heal from his divorce. I was also newly divorced but with no children so I really felt sorry for him when every Sunday he was literally in tears when he returned his daughter to her mom and his old house. I was smitten by his sensitivity and his love of his child. Little did I know that many people with alcohol problems cry about a lot of things. It's a great way to get sympathy and keep drinking. I sure fell for it. After all he was highly educated, an assistant deputy DA and as good looking as any famous actor in LA and his family owned a movie studio no less. He had it all going for him. I was in love.
It was a wonderful warm Palm Springs night the first time he ever laid a hand on me. As women who have been abused will often acknowledge it will not take much to set a violent tempered person who is drinking into a rage. I simply told him I was tired and I thought since it was 3 am maybe he should get some sleep and stop drinking so we could have a nice early day.
I had been looking forward to sitting out by the hotel pool to get a tan.
WELL, before I knew it, I had two black eyes and was simply in shock. this was the man who I fell head over heals in love with, 5 months before this. I had told all my friends how amazing he was and that I was going to marry him. Well needless to say that ended our Palm Springs birthday get away. We drove home the next morning in silence. Of course there was no remorse, he said it was my fault for upsetting him. I often hear that from the victim. Reverse psychology is quite common I have learned over the years.
I did not tell have the courage to tell any of my close friends what happened, but confided in a woman I had just recently me through him at a club.She told me to pack a bag and stay with her which I did. I was humiliated. How could this happen to ME. I did not come from an abusive household, neither parents drank except one drink on a holiday. I was not emotionally prepared for this. I was the adored only girl in the family. I had nothing to draw from, I was in foreign water to be sure. Back then no one spoke about Domestic Abuse or quite frankly Alcoholism for that matter.
But like so many women, he kept calling me asking me to come back, he was so sorry. It would never happen again.
I'm not going to chronicle the many more incidents themselves but focus on the lack of help for being abused that I got.
When he broke into my apartment in a drunken rage while I was gone, when I called the police they didn't even take it seriously, It was simply an area they didn't get involved with. Domestic Issues. This was back in the late 70's.
I don't think they believed me. Even though a neighbor had called the police, helicopters where hovering over my place and the front door was kicked in. The police didn't care. They said I couldn't prove it was him. The Hell I couldn't. There wasn't a thing missing or broken. He was looking for me because I had a friends, good friend staying in my extra bedroom and he didn't like that. We were not even living together because of his drinking and his temper. He was gunning for me or perhaps the couple who was supposed to stay with me. They were so afraid they left and checked into a hotel. It meant nothing to anyone that I was terrified. That's emotional abuse and it hurts just as much as a slap.
It was my problem to deal with. Not the police or my friends wanted to stick around. There is no sympathy. The victim is just thought to be an idiot for sticking around.
I have learned that there were two definite personalities to my abuser. The kind loving man who I just adored, and the man that could break your nose or you cheek bone like he did mine.
What is it that keeps women like myself in an abusive relationship? Is it that we really believe we deserved to be abused.. I think in the back of my mind I always felt somewhat responsible for setting him off because I always defended myself which just angered him more.
I was not a wishy washy coward but I talked back. That was the biggest problem for him, there should be no reasoning with him when he was angry.
In later years after we got married he wasn't drinking and the anger was still there. It usually ended up with the door taking the brunt of it. But it didn't matter because he had the money to repair whatever he wrecked. The family did not need to be involved.
Then I was expecting our first child. He was sober and angry and he actually kicked me in the stomach. Lucky for me the baby was ok. He took me to his father's house and his housekeeper took care of me while he calmed down.
It was never talked about. The only person who even listened was the housekeeper. She told me to keep calm, and have the baby and no matter what happened this child would always be mine. I have a feeling she knew what I'd been through herself, but even she stayed in an abusive marriage. She managed to live in my father in laws home five days a week to escape.
Here we were from two different worlds and yet we were in the same boat. Feeling like you had to stay in the marriage.
Too many people were involved in our lives and of course I did know what I had gotten myself into when I married him.
Once again, I took full responsibility for what had happened to me.
It was now 1984, I had no place else to go quite frankly. I could never afford to raise a child on my meager hair dressers income. I felt trapped. It was never an option in my mind to go live in the ghetto, where I could afford the rent on my own.
I was spoiled by my life style. I did not want to give it up, plus I married him through sobriety and he had not taken a drink.
I could not break my vows. I did not even say for better or for worse when I married him. I simply said through sobriety.
He didn't pick up a drink for 14 years but his anger did not go away. Our son seemed to calm him down for years. He was very happy to have another family. I felt that he had outgrown his violent side. I was dead wrong. The abuse had turned to verbal abuse. Little by little over the years he tried to break me down with insults. Lucky for me I was strong and never believed these insults to be true. I give my family credit for loving and adoring me so much that my self esteem was always very good. It's what saved me from total melt down. It's also what made him ever angrier most of the time. I would stick up for myself. When the insults were aimed at my family, I stuck up for them also. I actually got good at arguing with a lawyer.
I learned that he would not fight fair and he used everything I loved and picked it apart and threw it in my face. Then of course he would apologize and buy me something nice. I was not above taking the payoff for silence back then. Even though I loved to say to him that "He could not buy me," I was still there wasn't I? He did buy me, I just didn't admit it to myself.
I lived in a beautiful English Tutor in Malibu.
When he finally did pick up that drink, I now had to think about how much my son loved him. He was an amazing father. He never lifted a finger to our son. This only made me feel like it was more my fault. He started going back to the martial arts in sobriety which really helped him to release all that pent up need to hit something. When he got his Black Belt somehow the need to stay sober was not a priority any longer. He had been taking pain pills and back then I had no idea how much closer to drinking he was getting every day.
All the signs were there that the Volcano was going to erupt, but of course, I did not want to admit it. His family thought he was never going to pick up a drink again, and my family didn't know much about his past, because I didn't want them to know.
I hid it from them.
I went to Al-Anon for years and even they don't want to talk about it. They would tell me to focus on me, not the problem.
I simply did not know how to separate the two issues.
I think Abuse is the ultimate trap. If you seek help, your entire life as you knew it will be lost forever. Because there is no permanent cure for Anger. Not even "Anger Management". If you leave, you are guaranteed to live a sub-standard life style because there isn't a court in the world that can give you as much money as you had together as a family, and your children will reap the effects of that choice. If you stay, you believe you deserve whatever happens to you. You feel you sold your soul for a life style and quite frankly you have.
After my husband picked up that first drink, it took me six years to actually leave him. Before I could bat an eye lash, he was in another relationship with a woman who looked like we could be sisters. Ten days was al it took to be replaced. It was one of my biggest fears. I had thought that he loved me enough to get and stay sober again. I was wrong.
His drinking and trying to get sober was hell on him also. His anger got him into fights and one time it ended up resulting in 9 pins in his right arm and almost the use of it. The last time he was facing 3 years in prison for slashing his landlords tires an threatening some workers with a large hunting knife.
It was then that I really believed that I was not his problem, but it took almost 20 years for me to accept that. In the end, his addiction not his anger got the best of him. He was so terrified of going to prison he never picked up another drink, he died falling off a balcony with a belly full of Valium.
I was questioned for murder because I was with him when he died. He was grieving for his girlfriend who had hung herself ten days earlier. That was the ultimate act of Violence. She punished him for his being angry with her for not staying sober one more time and she was totally jealous of our continuing relationship with our son. We always put his feelings first. We were having a more than civil divorce when he died suddenly.
In the end, even though he died because of a fall, I was questioned for murder by the police and the coroner. I guess they knew his history. But knowing how he was, I would have been responsible for his death if another physical incident were involved. Thank god he didn't hit me. They would have never believed me.
Today I feel there really is no way out, you suffer no matter what you choose. If you stay you will suffer, if you leave you and your children and the family will be torn apart.
I believe that violence and addiction are closely related as many do. but I also know that it goes much deeper than that because the abuser doesn't need alcohol to fuel the rage. It's something just in them. And in my experience therapy did not help either of us.
I was simply addicted to him or maybe the abuse. No one has ever given me a clear picture of why I stayed for so long, or why I stayed silent for so long.
.
February 05, 2008
Matt's Accomplishments
In spite of a terrible living situation for me Matt's first year at Menlo. He thrived.
In order to compensate for the fact that living in the Bay area was a far cry from what Matt thought it was going to be, he had visions of living in luxury like every other time we had gone to San Francisco in the past, his Grandfather had always arranged amazing luxurious accommodations. The family owned the Hyatt on Sunset along with the Sunset Gower Studios, and his grandfather always managed to get us suites to stay in. His grandfather used to call Matt, "The Little Prince," and in his own way that was how he was treated by everyone in our family. Once his Grandfather even got us the Presidential suite at the Hyatt on Union square. Now that is something to behold.
So when his dad and I rented a track house in a little middle class neighborhood in Foster City, with dirty orange carpets no less, he definetly was not a happy camper. To make up for the his dissappointment, I tried to make this place as much like home as I could, We even got him a piano so that he could continue to play it. (That' another Post for the future.)
It seemed to Matt that every dream he had of moving was not at all his new reality. To make up for our location,I took him to San Francisco every friday after school so that he did not feel like we totally ignored what he loved about San Francisco, Japan Town and the best Video store in town. He had started to amass quite a collection of Japanese animation at the time, which really helped his speaking the language with absolutely no accent to a Japanese person.
Till this day Matt is able to navigate the city of San Francisco better than most people who live on the Peninsula. I used to live and work there before I moved to LA and I knew that city like the back of my hand.
Of course by going to Japan Town every weekend the first stop was always the video store where we left with tons of Japanese Animation and classice Kourasawa films. This only enhanced his already vast knowledge of Japan and understanding the language.
He was so immersed into the entire culture even before going to high school and he actually had learned to understand it from watching animation in Japanese with English subtitles ever since grade school.
I could never get him to wake up in the morning for school and one day while flipping through the morning TV shows I stumbled upon a cartoon series that had "talking cats'.
Little did I know that "Sailor Moon" would be the catalyst to an entire new world for him. It was the beginning of his love of everythig Japanese.
Although he had studied the Martial Arts and gotten a black belt at ten years old, this sealed the deal, so to speak.
After winning the respect of his Japanese teacher, she put him up as a competitor in the much respected Japanese language contest. This in itself was unheard of.
It was not a competition that caucasians were entered in to. Not only did he compete he went on to take third place.
Now that in itself is a mystery. He was so much more proficient that the other two winners, but the award of first place was NEVER given to a non asian. The judges begrgingly had to give the award to him, asian or not. He was simply better than then all.
This lead to his being put up for a Rotary scholorship for a home study in Japan.
Not surprizing Matt won the Scholorship. He was fifteen years old and had barely ever had a sitter. Now he was off to Japan with two girls who did not speak the language. I was so proud of him and at the same time beyond nervous at him going away for a few months. This was the kid that barely survived his one trip to summer camp literally 25 miles down the road in Malibu.
But Matt was thriving at his new school. He was in his element and soaring to new heights. Who was I to stop him? It was the whole reason we moved up North in the fist place, so that Matt could be in a school that taught Japanese. I literally never dreamed that he would be so great at it.
My life on the other hand had become tragic. I would take Matt to school and come home and go back to sleep for a few hours.
I was really good at hiding it from Matt because I never wanted him to know what a wreck I really was. In the beginning his Dad would still come to visit us a couple of times a month, but we were pretty much on our own.
So I enrolled Matt into a Kendo class because he had always wanted to study the art of the Samurai. It was a good diversion for me also.
I really liked the instructors at the school and it was great physical training for Matt. He loved the uniform also, very cool, it looked like an ancient warrior outfit and the shinai were wood not real swords so he wasn't really going to hurt himself.
The first class would have had me running out the door and never come back. They did over 200 repetitions for the first warm up exercise of their swords over their heads. He couldn't move his arms the rest of the week. But he went back week after week.
To give you a little example of how scattered my head was, one night we just got home and the phone rang as I was taking his equipment out of the trunk. I ran into the house to get it and it was his Dad calling to see how the class had gone. I totally spaced out and left his big bag with all his equipment behind my car. The next morning late for school again, I backed out of the garage, right on top of his gear and crushed his crush proof helmet.
I was so mortified by my stupidity, but all I could do was laugh. Matt did not speak to me for several days he was so upset with me. One for ruining his equipment and two for laughing about it. I really think I must have been more affected by the anti-depressants my new doctor had given me then I ever remembered. What in the world would make me laugh at such a thing? It wasn't funny to see my son so upset. I stopped taking the anti-depressants. Talk about being in the clouds. I needed to be grounded. There was a lot going on in our world and the only thing positive about it was Matt's accomplishments and his new found activity.
The first year of school was coming to an end which meant Matt was off on his Japanese adventure and I was going back to Malibu to our home. I was nervous about both. I had not lived alone with his father while he was in and out of sobriety since before we got married. I did not know how I was going to handle it. I did not know if he would stay sober or be taking his pills or drinking. I was a nervous wreck. Matt had always given me the excuse to leave the room when I got nervous.
Now What?
In order to compensate for the fact that living in the Bay area was a far cry from what Matt thought it was going to be, he had visions of living in luxury like every other time we had gone to San Francisco in the past, his Grandfather had always arranged amazing luxurious accommodations. The family owned the Hyatt on Sunset along with the Sunset Gower Studios, and his grandfather always managed to get us suites to stay in. His grandfather used to call Matt, "The Little Prince," and in his own way that was how he was treated by everyone in our family. Once his Grandfather even got us the Presidential suite at the Hyatt on Union square. Now that is something to behold.
So when his dad and I rented a track house in a little middle class neighborhood in Foster City, with dirty orange carpets no less, he definetly was not a happy camper. To make up for the his dissappointment, I tried to make this place as much like home as I could, We even got him a piano so that he could continue to play it. (That' another Post for the future.)
It seemed to Matt that every dream he had of moving was not at all his new reality. To make up for our location,I took him to San Francisco every friday after school so that he did not feel like we totally ignored what he loved about San Francisco, Japan Town and the best Video store in town. He had started to amass quite a collection of Japanese animation at the time, which really helped his speaking the language with absolutely no accent to a Japanese person.
Till this day Matt is able to navigate the city of San Francisco better than most people who live on the Peninsula. I used to live and work there before I moved to LA and I knew that city like the back of my hand.
Of course by going to Japan Town every weekend the first stop was always the video store where we left with tons of Japanese Animation and classice Kourasawa films. This only enhanced his already vast knowledge of Japan and understanding the language.
He was so immersed into the entire culture even before going to high school and he actually had learned to understand it from watching animation in Japanese with English subtitles ever since grade school.
I could never get him to wake up in the morning for school and one day while flipping through the morning TV shows I stumbled upon a cartoon series that had "talking cats'.
Little did I know that "Sailor Moon" would be the catalyst to an entire new world for him. It was the beginning of his love of everythig Japanese.
Although he had studied the Martial Arts and gotten a black belt at ten years old, this sealed the deal, so to speak.
After winning the respect of his Japanese teacher, she put him up as a competitor in the much respected Japanese language contest. This in itself was unheard of.
It was not a competition that caucasians were entered in to. Not only did he compete he went on to take third place.
Now that in itself is a mystery. He was so much more proficient that the other two winners, but the award of first place was NEVER given to a non asian. The judges begrgingly had to give the award to him, asian or not. He was simply better than then all.
This lead to his being put up for a Rotary scholorship for a home study in Japan.
Not surprizing Matt won the Scholorship. He was fifteen years old and had barely ever had a sitter. Now he was off to Japan with two girls who did not speak the language. I was so proud of him and at the same time beyond nervous at him going away for a few months. This was the kid that barely survived his one trip to summer camp literally 25 miles down the road in Malibu.
But Matt was thriving at his new school. He was in his element and soaring to new heights. Who was I to stop him? It was the whole reason we moved up North in the fist place, so that Matt could be in a school that taught Japanese. I literally never dreamed that he would be so great at it.
My life on the other hand had become tragic. I would take Matt to school and come home and go back to sleep for a few hours.
I was really good at hiding it from Matt because I never wanted him to know what a wreck I really was. In the beginning his Dad would still come to visit us a couple of times a month, but we were pretty much on our own.
So I enrolled Matt into a Kendo class because he had always wanted to study the art of the Samurai. It was a good diversion for me also.
I really liked the instructors at the school and it was great physical training for Matt. He loved the uniform also, very cool, it looked like an ancient warrior outfit and the shinai were wood not real swords so he wasn't really going to hurt himself.
The first class would have had me running out the door and never come back. They did over 200 repetitions for the first warm up exercise of their swords over their heads. He couldn't move his arms the rest of the week. But he went back week after week.
To give you a little example of how scattered my head was, one night we just got home and the phone rang as I was taking his equipment out of the trunk. I ran into the house to get it and it was his Dad calling to see how the class had gone. I totally spaced out and left his big bag with all his equipment behind my car. The next morning late for school again, I backed out of the garage, right on top of his gear and crushed his crush proof helmet.
I was so mortified by my stupidity, but all I could do was laugh. Matt did not speak to me for several days he was so upset with me. One for ruining his equipment and two for laughing about it. I really think I must have been more affected by the anti-depressants my new doctor had given me then I ever remembered. What in the world would make me laugh at such a thing? It wasn't funny to see my son so upset. I stopped taking the anti-depressants. Talk about being in the clouds. I needed to be grounded. There was a lot going on in our world and the only thing positive about it was Matt's accomplishments and his new found activity.
The first year of school was coming to an end which meant Matt was off on his Japanese adventure and I was going back to Malibu to our home. I was nervous about both. I had not lived alone with his father while he was in and out of sobriety since before we got married. I did not know how I was going to handle it. I did not know if he would stay sober or be taking his pills or drinking. I was a nervous wreck. Matt had always given me the excuse to leave the room when I got nervous.
Now What?
January 13, 2008
STEPH'S FIRST YEAR AT MENLO
While Matt was adjusting to his new life up North so was I. Funny how the little things that I used to take for granted were so difficult to find.
I couldn't seem to find my way in the sea of complicated "Rich Wife's" of the Silicon Valley. Now that should be a movie or a reality show because I have never seen such a bunch of uptight women in my life.
Fist of all the fact that a woman marries money does not in my opinion warrant any type of respect. I was used to hanging out in the PTA with my idol, Pat Benetar. Now that was someone I could really admire and respect.
I found that up in Northern California you seemed to be the sum and substance of you frickin zip code. Even the head master at the school looked at me funny when I told him we were living in Foster City. Ohhhhhh forgive me if it doesn't fit into the profile of the elite. I took great pleasure in NOT telling people anything about our house in Malibu. I wanted them to get to know me for me, it didn't seem important to throw that into the mix or tell them that our family owned the Sunset Gower Studios because I had a really funny experience with telling that fact to a piano salesman up there.
Our best friend Bill who was Bob's closest friend from the days they actually went to Menlo as boarding students and then off to Stanford together called Bob one day because something had come up about me in a staff meeting. Seems that one of the Spanish teacher's at the school was married to the man who came over to tune the new piano we bought for Matt.
She was sitting next to Bill at the meeting and when Matt came up, she leaned over and whispered in his ear that her husband had heard him play the piano brilliantly and it was too bad that his Mother was a Porn Producer.
Bill pulled her out of the meeting and wanted to know where she heard that one from. She told him her husband had told her.
Little did she know that we were best friends. Bill called Bob without telling me to have a meeting with the man who was spreading these rumors around.
Bob flew up and had the meeting with Bill and the guy. The objective was to have him apologize and take back the statements his wife was spreading. Being a Latin man with such a large ego, he simply refused. He felt that there was no damage caused because the story had not leaked into the school yet.
Bob was furious. He tried to reason with the man and asked him how he would feel if his wife's reputation was being ruined by a ridiculous fantasy that the piano salesman had made up.
It seems that because, not to boast, but I am quite stunning to look at for the area compared to many of the woman I've seen up there myself. The salesman had never heard of our Studio and simply assumed I had to be into the porn industry because I can be somewhat Sexy at times. But how sexy could I have been in my sweats offering the piano tuner a glass of water and asking him if he had any kids and did they play the piano?
Lecherous men would have ruined my son's reputation at school and this guy could have cared less. He refused to apologize and walked away from the meeting.
Bill went to the Head Master and told him what had been said about me. Just so it would not get around the school.
My reputation was left intake but my feelings for the place were now on high alert.
I was stunned quite frankly, I had never met this woman and she was more than willing to gossip about me and my son. How dare she.
This wasn't the first time I had dealings with a woman up at the school. When I first started I had gone to a meeting to get involved with the Fund raising committee. I had so many years of experience with that in Malibu I thought I could just walk in and get started helping. Boy was I wrong. The woman who's committee I was with only wanted the title and she delegated most of the work to me. Now I didn't have a problem helping, but I had only been in the area for four weeks and I simply could not do everything she asked me to do. I asked her why she wasn't doing any of the stuff herself. She was livid that I would question her. Seems she had more important things to do like run for some position on the city council. This title was just a feather in her cap and she didn't have time for the work involved.
She didn't know who I was or how little I was about to eat shit from her. I busted her to the Chairman of the committee and resigned. I told her she would have to do the work herself, I wasn't her personal slave.
That was the end of my formal involvement at the higher levels of school activities.
I realized that I was too blond, too hot and too popular with the kids to be accepted at this place. I was just happy to sit in the circle after school waiting to pick up my son with the top down on my car, holding court. Matt would come out of class and sometimes pick me up and twirl me around, His friends loved us. We were a breath of fresh air to that stuffy little world of the elite. Thank God we didn't fit in. No matter how much plaid I wore, I was never going to be a Prep Mom. I didn't have the pedigree or the right mailing address. So now we were both free to be ourselves. We were different and happy to be so.
We had to find a way to be happy there and NOT fit in. We didn't like what we saw up there.
I used to call the area one big makeover disaster. I never saw so many people who needed a makeover as bad as up there. I didn't even try to have any friends up there beside Bill, Nancy and Angie. It was a lot easier to hide the fact that we really were a dysfunctional family just trying to get our son a great education. I can only imagine what the talk would have been if the school community really knew the truth.
I couldn't seem to find my way in the sea of complicated "Rich Wife's" of the Silicon Valley. Now that should be a movie or a reality show because I have never seen such a bunch of uptight women in my life.
Fist of all the fact that a woman marries money does not in my opinion warrant any type of respect. I was used to hanging out in the PTA with my idol, Pat Benetar. Now that was someone I could really admire and respect.
I found that up in Northern California you seemed to be the sum and substance of you frickin zip code. Even the head master at the school looked at me funny when I told him we were living in Foster City. Ohhhhhh forgive me if it doesn't fit into the profile of the elite. I took great pleasure in NOT telling people anything about our house in Malibu. I wanted them to get to know me for me, it didn't seem important to throw that into the mix or tell them that our family owned the Sunset Gower Studios because I had a really funny experience with telling that fact to a piano salesman up there.
Our best friend Bill who was Bob's closest friend from the days they actually went to Menlo as boarding students and then off to Stanford together called Bob one day because something had come up about me in a staff meeting. Seems that one of the Spanish teacher's at the school was married to the man who came over to tune the new piano we bought for Matt.
She was sitting next to Bill at the meeting and when Matt came up, she leaned over and whispered in his ear that her husband had heard him play the piano brilliantly and it was too bad that his Mother was a Porn Producer.
Bill pulled her out of the meeting and wanted to know where she heard that one from. She told him her husband had told her.
Little did she know that we were best friends. Bill called Bob without telling me to have a meeting with the man who was spreading these rumors around.
Bob flew up and had the meeting with Bill and the guy. The objective was to have him apologize and take back the statements his wife was spreading. Being a Latin man with such a large ego, he simply refused. He felt that there was no damage caused because the story had not leaked into the school yet.
Bob was furious. He tried to reason with the man and asked him how he would feel if his wife's reputation was being ruined by a ridiculous fantasy that the piano salesman had made up.
It seems that because, not to boast, but I am quite stunning to look at for the area compared to many of the woman I've seen up there myself. The salesman had never heard of our Studio and simply assumed I had to be into the porn industry because I can be somewhat Sexy at times. But how sexy could I have been in my sweats offering the piano tuner a glass of water and asking him if he had any kids and did they play the piano?
Lecherous men would have ruined my son's reputation at school and this guy could have cared less. He refused to apologize and walked away from the meeting.
Bill went to the Head Master and told him what had been said about me. Just so it would not get around the school.
My reputation was left intake but my feelings for the place were now on high alert.
I was stunned quite frankly, I had never met this woman and she was more than willing to gossip about me and my son. How dare she.
This wasn't the first time I had dealings with a woman up at the school. When I first started I had gone to a meeting to get involved with the Fund raising committee. I had so many years of experience with that in Malibu I thought I could just walk in and get started helping. Boy was I wrong. The woman who's committee I was with only wanted the title and she delegated most of the work to me. Now I didn't have a problem helping, but I had only been in the area for four weeks and I simply could not do everything she asked me to do. I asked her why she wasn't doing any of the stuff herself. She was livid that I would question her. Seems she had more important things to do like run for some position on the city council. This title was just a feather in her cap and she didn't have time for the work involved.
She didn't know who I was or how little I was about to eat shit from her. I busted her to the Chairman of the committee and resigned. I told her she would have to do the work herself, I wasn't her personal slave.
That was the end of my formal involvement at the higher levels of school activities.
I realized that I was too blond, too hot and too popular with the kids to be accepted at this place. I was just happy to sit in the circle after school waiting to pick up my son with the top down on my car, holding court. Matt would come out of class and sometimes pick me up and twirl me around, His friends loved us. We were a breath of fresh air to that stuffy little world of the elite. Thank God we didn't fit in. No matter how much plaid I wore, I was never going to be a Prep Mom. I didn't have the pedigree or the right mailing address. So now we were both free to be ourselves. We were different and happy to be so.
We had to find a way to be happy there and NOT fit in. We didn't like what we saw up there.
I used to call the area one big makeover disaster. I never saw so many people who needed a makeover as bad as up there. I didn't even try to have any friends up there beside Bill, Nancy and Angie. It was a lot easier to hide the fact that we really were a dysfunctional family just trying to get our son a great education. I can only imagine what the talk would have been if the school community really knew the truth.
Matt's First Year at Menlo
It was a difficult first year for Matt. He had really thought we would be living in the heart of San Francisco in some amazing high rise condo with City views. Instead we were in a middle class neighborhood in "Foster Shitty" as I used to call it.
Far cry from our home in Malibu. We planted ourselves in the middle of a tract house section of the Peninsula side of the City.
Matt of course had left all his friends behind and didn't really fit into the prep school attitude, which turned out to be one of the best things for him.
First thing he told me was that there was no way in hell that he was going to cut his hair, wear khaki pants and brown shoes to school. I didn't care, I just wanted him to be himself. So off he would go with his black leather jackets and his shades on everyday.
On the weekends I made an effort to go up to the city every weekend. We would find ourselves in Japan town having dinner, buying Japanese videos, going to the movies and sometimes going to JapanBowl and bowling. It's gone now, but it was really cool.
I just immersed him in his passion for all things Japanese he did love that part of it.
He was starting to be noticed in school by his peers for being really cool and different. He just has that very cool vibe to him.
He became friends with this amazing upperclassman student in his Japanese Class. Nicole would have a very lasting effect on him. She was the first person to actually recognize his humor and encouraged him to try out for Drama. It's a good thing he was so smitten with her because that was the beginning of him actually finding his passion.
One day Matt came home and asked me to cut his hair short, I was pretty surprised by his request. I asked him how short and he said "really short". I found out later that Nicole, who had this beautiful long red hair halfway down her back had cut it all off. He would follow suit. She inspired him it seems. They became friends, but in high school the age difference is too great for a freshman to date an upperclassman and that is all it would ever be.
His school was so different from Malibu, There was a lot going on socially there because it wasn't isolated like he was used to and little by little he started doing stuff with some of his friends. He also started to take Kendo, a martial art that he was always interested in. I will never forget the first class he attended. The instructor had them do over one hundred strokes with their "shenei swords" Made out of bamboo, it was long and not too heavy, but after all those strokes, he couldn't move his arm for a week. He loved it and stuck it out for a year.
He didn't forget his best friend from Malibu and invited her to go to the Prom with him even. I knew he missed our house but he did seem to be thriving more than he ever did in Malibu. He was no longer isolated at home in front of his computer screen.
The thing that impressed me most about this school was the fact that they actually took an interest in every child in the school and would have staff meetings to discuss how a kid was doing.
One of the first things that came to my attention about how Bad his education at Malibu High was the day I got a call from the Math department. Seems the advanced Math that was taught to him in Malibu simply did not prepare him for the math class he was placed in. I told the school that I would not allow Matt to be punished and put back into a lower math class for the inadequacies of his former school The math teacher there who had a Phd. From Stanford tutored him for six months and he was now up to speed in the class. I didn't have to pay for her services, that's how concerned they were about his progress.
Matt's Japanese teacher also really took to him. She was so blown away with the fact that he came into her class with no formal training and understood the language and could speak it. At first he didn't want to let her know just how much he understood without her help. He was a little bit shy about it, but she did encourage him and even entered him in the Japanese contest up North which he placed in the top three. The only Caucasian to do so. She submitted him for the rotary club's exchange program and he was chosen. He got to go to Japan for six weeks and live with a family there. It was a remarkable year for us all.
Bob and I were so proud of him and not even our drama could interfere with all Matt's accomplishments. At the end of his first year of school Matt was given several awards which were a very big deal at this school.
The Love of Learning Award
The Japanese Language Award etc.
With all these accolades there was another bit of drama that was going on in the background for me that year. I had never been involved in a private school before. Matt had only gone to public schools where the parents, especially in Malibu were really cool. After all, there are plenty of celebrities and wealthy people all around town, I wasn't impressed by the Silicon Valley money nor the uptight attitude of some of the parents. Boy was I ever in for a surprise.
Far cry from our home in Malibu. We planted ourselves in the middle of a tract house section of the Peninsula side of the City.
Matt of course had left all his friends behind and didn't really fit into the prep school attitude, which turned out to be one of the best things for him.
First thing he told me was that there was no way in hell that he was going to cut his hair, wear khaki pants and brown shoes to school. I didn't care, I just wanted him to be himself. So off he would go with his black leather jackets and his shades on everyday.
On the weekends I made an effort to go up to the city every weekend. We would find ourselves in Japan town having dinner, buying Japanese videos, going to the movies and sometimes going to JapanBowl and bowling. It's gone now, but it was really cool.
I just immersed him in his passion for all things Japanese he did love that part of it.
He was starting to be noticed in school by his peers for being really cool and different. He just has that very cool vibe to him.
He became friends with this amazing upperclassman student in his Japanese Class. Nicole would have a very lasting effect on him. She was the first person to actually recognize his humor and encouraged him to try out for Drama. It's a good thing he was so smitten with her because that was the beginning of him actually finding his passion.
One day Matt came home and asked me to cut his hair short, I was pretty surprised by his request. I asked him how short and he said "really short". I found out later that Nicole, who had this beautiful long red hair halfway down her back had cut it all off. He would follow suit. She inspired him it seems. They became friends, but in high school the age difference is too great for a freshman to date an upperclassman and that is all it would ever be.
His school was so different from Malibu, There was a lot going on socially there because it wasn't isolated like he was used to and little by little he started doing stuff with some of his friends. He also started to take Kendo, a martial art that he was always interested in. I will never forget the first class he attended. The instructor had them do over one hundred strokes with their "shenei swords" Made out of bamboo, it was long and not too heavy, but after all those strokes, he couldn't move his arm for a week. He loved it and stuck it out for a year.
He didn't forget his best friend from Malibu and invited her to go to the Prom with him even. I knew he missed our house but he did seem to be thriving more than he ever did in Malibu. He was no longer isolated at home in front of his computer screen.
The thing that impressed me most about this school was the fact that they actually took an interest in every child in the school and would have staff meetings to discuss how a kid was doing.
One of the first things that came to my attention about how Bad his education at Malibu High was the day I got a call from the Math department. Seems the advanced Math that was taught to him in Malibu simply did not prepare him for the math class he was placed in. I told the school that I would not allow Matt to be punished and put back into a lower math class for the inadequacies of his former school The math teacher there who had a Phd. From Stanford tutored him for six months and he was now up to speed in the class. I didn't have to pay for her services, that's how concerned they were about his progress.
Matt's Japanese teacher also really took to him. She was so blown away with the fact that he came into her class with no formal training and understood the language and could speak it. At first he didn't want to let her know just how much he understood without her help. He was a little bit shy about it, but she did encourage him and even entered him in the Japanese contest up North which he placed in the top three. The only Caucasian to do so. She submitted him for the rotary club's exchange program and he was chosen. He got to go to Japan for six weeks and live with a family there. It was a remarkable year for us all.
Bob and I were so proud of him and not even our drama could interfere with all Matt's accomplishments. At the end of his first year of school Matt was given several awards which were a very big deal at this school.
The Love of Learning Award
The Japanese Language Award etc.
With all these accolades there was another bit of drama that was going on in the background for me that year. I had never been involved in a private school before. Matt had only gone to public schools where the parents, especially in Malibu were really cool. After all, there are plenty of celebrities and wealthy people all around town, I wasn't impressed by the Silicon Valley money nor the uptight attitude of some of the parents. Boy was I ever in for a surprise.
The Passage of Time
As I re-read my posts even I have to admit there is so much repetitive stuff in it I get confused as to when the events took place and how we managed to survive them.
To make things clear, I was again in the middle of a five year cycle of drinking, getting sober, rehabs and sporadic episodes of drug induced anger and temporary insanity on my part.
I was simply going crazy living in the eye of Bob's storm. I desperately wanted an escape from the madness of our daily lives since Bob's relapse. The only relief any of us had was the fact that Matt and I now lived apart from Bob and that was a really good thing because Matt could have never excelled in school if Bob was living with us full time. He just needed too much attention and the focus was always on him and his issues. But it was not possible for me to be there for him like that any longer. I made a choice when we came back from Paris that I could no longer enable him like before. He was going to have to grow up and I was not going to be his Mom, I was going to put my mothering skills to use where they needed to be, on our son.
Even when he did come to stay it always ended up the same, he just couldn't be there because his demons were just too great during those years. He needed to be alone and do whatever it was his alcoholism was driving him to do. It was better not to know first hand what he was up too, the only clues I had were on the Credit Card bills. It really was a terrible time in my life.
The funny thing is that even during those four years apart, I never really felt apart from him until the end. I always felt he would get through it and stay sober like the first time.
It certainly was wishful thinking on my part, but the bottom line was that there really wasn't much I could do, I had to stay focused on being a stable Mom for our son. He needed me to be there for him, not spend all my time worrying about what Bob was up to.
It wasn't easy for any of us but what choice did we have. At a certain point in ones life you have to make choices and I need to provide our son with a stable home life, it was what he needed and deserved.
It was amazing how well we did seem to get along without Bob there. There was no chaos or arguing about anything. In the past there was so much tension in the house whether it was because Matt was up too late or actually anything that Bob wanted to focus on besides wanting a pill or a drink.
I do have to say we tried going to AA meetings up North, but even I had to admit that Bob was just not ever going to fit in with that crowd. There is just way to much differences in our lifestyle in Southern California and Northern California.
Bob found himself in a world that was foreign to him. Guys in those meetings were working 9-5 jobs and Bob didn't work.
In Malibu it seemed none of the people in the meetings had normal working hours. LA is so different. Bob was a fish out of water I have to admit.
I have so many different opinions about AA myself, sometimes it is more important to just have someone you can relate to instead of an entire room where you feel uncomfortable. Besides quite frankly AA didn't work for him, his GF in the end or Henry, who you will hear about later.
The years were passing by for Matt's high school experience up North and he was for the first time coming into his own.
I was so proud of his achievements.
He became a star up there literally on stage and in the Japanese classroom.
I knew that we had made the right choice for his life. Bob probably would be doing the same thing wherever he was.
Matt was thriving, that was the most important thing to me.
To make things clear, I was again in the middle of a five year cycle of drinking, getting sober, rehabs and sporadic episodes of drug induced anger and temporary insanity on my part.
I was simply going crazy living in the eye of Bob's storm. I desperately wanted an escape from the madness of our daily lives since Bob's relapse. The only relief any of us had was the fact that Matt and I now lived apart from Bob and that was a really good thing because Matt could have never excelled in school if Bob was living with us full time. He just needed too much attention and the focus was always on him and his issues. But it was not possible for me to be there for him like that any longer. I made a choice when we came back from Paris that I could no longer enable him like before. He was going to have to grow up and I was not going to be his Mom, I was going to put my mothering skills to use where they needed to be, on our son.
Even when he did come to stay it always ended up the same, he just couldn't be there because his demons were just too great during those years. He needed to be alone and do whatever it was his alcoholism was driving him to do. It was better not to know first hand what he was up too, the only clues I had were on the Credit Card bills. It really was a terrible time in my life.
The funny thing is that even during those four years apart, I never really felt apart from him until the end. I always felt he would get through it and stay sober like the first time.
It certainly was wishful thinking on my part, but the bottom line was that there really wasn't much I could do, I had to stay focused on being a stable Mom for our son. He needed me to be there for him, not spend all my time worrying about what Bob was up to.
It wasn't easy for any of us but what choice did we have. At a certain point in ones life you have to make choices and I need to provide our son with a stable home life, it was what he needed and deserved.
It was amazing how well we did seem to get along without Bob there. There was no chaos or arguing about anything. In the past there was so much tension in the house whether it was because Matt was up too late or actually anything that Bob wanted to focus on besides wanting a pill or a drink.
I do have to say we tried going to AA meetings up North, but even I had to admit that Bob was just not ever going to fit in with that crowd. There is just way to much differences in our lifestyle in Southern California and Northern California.
Bob found himself in a world that was foreign to him. Guys in those meetings were working 9-5 jobs and Bob didn't work.
In Malibu it seemed none of the people in the meetings had normal working hours. LA is so different. Bob was a fish out of water I have to admit.
I have so many different opinions about AA myself, sometimes it is more important to just have someone you can relate to instead of an entire room where you feel uncomfortable. Besides quite frankly AA didn't work for him, his GF in the end or Henry, who you will hear about later.
The years were passing by for Matt's high school experience up North and he was for the first time coming into his own.
I was so proud of his achievements.
He became a star up there literally on stage and in the Japanese classroom.
I knew that we had made the right choice for his life. Bob probably would be doing the same thing wherever he was.
Matt was thriving, that was the most important thing to me.
October 28, 2007
Nothing was getting easy
My last post was about my court hearing well a very shocking event took place instead of that court hearing, I have another blog on myspace www.myspace.com/stephaniepick if you are interested. I have found that I need to keep two separate blogs going because there is so much to write about my present that it starts to get confusing even to me to mix them up. So I'm heading back to my past again.
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Life was not really getting back to normal there was no trust left in the marriage and no matter how many band aids we tried to put on the problems they just were not going away.
Bob's temper was always short and I simply focused on keeping the peace if I could, I was simply too tired to fight.
I found myself keeping a filled overnight bag in my car for those moments when he would follow me around from room to room just trying to argue. We argued about everything it seemed now.
Here I was raising our son, taking care of him, the house, all the bills, etc. while he was going to one meeting a day. That was it. Now his sobriety was important, don't get me wrong, but our life wasn't the same.
I no longer believed that all this isolation was going to keep him sober and I was right, it didn't. But along with that knowledge I was also not willing to be the submissive wive. There no longer was a reason too. Now when he was out of control I simply walked out of the door into my car and drove off. I would not tolerate it ever again.
We were all in foreign waters believe me.
Then one day the focus became the Internet of all things. I guess Bob just needed something to be mad about so he started getting at Matt for being on his computer.
Little did Bob know that it was the one escape from our nightmare that his son could retreat from without getting into any trouble. Bob viewed it as a fantasy world and never really understood that there were real people behind those names. Only in the end did he sort of get it when he himself signed up on myspace. He never told me I logged into my blog and found his profile as one of my readers. He got it, but he was spying on me. I wasn't doing anything but he had wondered.
One day he was screaming so loud I had locked myself into the bathroom and would not come out. I could not deal with his temper. I guess several of the neighbors heard him and came over. They told him if he didn't stop they were going to call the Police. I think it must have scarred him because when I heard them, I unlocked the door and bolted to my car. He did not follow.
We were living in hell and didn't even know it. It was the beginning of the Valium Years as I like to refer to them. Dangerous drug in my opinion. You simply never know when they are taking it, and at the time I did not know how addicted to it he had become and would always be. It was his new drug of choice for a long time.
How Bob got around taking any kind of pills were his real history of back and knee problems. There is no law against taking these pills especially when you have legitimate physical issues. He started having multiple surgeries on his knees, then it was a terrible hemorrhoid operation that went wrong for him.
He had been completely honest with the Doctor about his past history with pills and I must say this was the first and only doctor in all the years of living with Bob, that he could not get pills out of. The doctor gave him a few pain pills and only two Valium. Bob wanted more Percocette and a bottle of Valium. The doctor would not give them to him.
I will never forget our next nightmare. It was Labor Day weekend and in Malibu there is an annual Chili Cook off that we always went to with our son. It had a carnival and always was a great way to end the Summer. There was literally nothing more I could do to help Bob. He had to take it easy and was just laying in Bed, so I told him I was going to take Matt to the carnival for a while.
This is normal in any family. It was not a life threatening surgery and anyone will tell you, it is painful and uncomfortable. But there was no reason to sit there and wait on him hand and foot all day. I took Matt out to have some fun.
When we got back home all hell broke loose. He was crazy, screaming at me about how I was neglecting him and whatever else he was spewing out. It was another nightmare day with Bob on pills.
It's funny as I write this stuff that I actually realize just how much damage all these events left on my brain. I was always trying to protect myself from his outrageous theory's about what was real and what was not. You would have thought I committed an act of violence against him by leaving the house for two hours. It was insanity. That is the only way to explain any of this. Pill induced insanity.
When I spoke with his brother even he said that Bob could not be given Percocette.
This stuff went right to his brain and made him crazy.
I really don't know if he was in any sort of drug withdrawal from Valium at the time, but I do know looking back at this event it seems like it now. He made me drive him down to the doctor's office to get more of them and when he only gave him two I thought he was going to go out of his skin. It's how it affected him when I knew he was in withdrawal.
Bob had become really good at getting Valium and he had several doctors all over town that were prescribing different things for him. He simply knew how to work the system. This doctor must have had a feeling that he didn't want to be another one of Bob's pill pushers. I wish I could say that about all his other doctors.
They just gave him whatever he wanted because he was so nice to them. Little did they know how not so nice he was when he needed more of them. In the beginning even I didn't know what it was.
I used to blame everything on "dry drunks". The behavior was so erratic I will never really know for sure.
These next several years seem to blend in together. Separate vacations arguments about everything from his father to his daughter and everything in between.
The worst part of all this insanity was that I had promised our son that I would not divorce his father. I kept my word, but at times it was the hardest promise I had ever had to keep.
Nothing was easy. If we needed help with a homework project it would turn into a lecture. One that neither Matt nor I had any interest in let alone the time.
He never understood time management when it came to homework, bath and bedtime. To him we were his captive audience at times.
One of the nastiest unwarranted fights we ever had was when I was writing out our monthly bills as I always did and he decided to come into Matt's room and supervise. I have no idea what he was really mad at, but it turned so ugly and so nasty that I almost left him forever right then and there.
He started criticizing my family for no reason and then he ended it by telling Matt all these horrible made up stories about me. Can you imagine my poor son sitting there having to listen to his dad spewing hatred toward his mother? None of which was true, but he either wanted a drink or a pill. That's how it always started.
Pick a terrible unforgivable fight so that he could justify drinking or using.
The three of us were living in hell, yet there seemed no escape.
I couldn't even pray, I felt that God had abandoned me and I was angry. For all the years and times I had saved this man's life, and given him such a good life, this is how he repaid me. It did not matter that when he calmed down he would send me flowers or buy me something nice. I started refusing all gifts. I did not want to be bought like so many women I know. I simply did not have it in me to turn the other cheek for a diamond ring.
Over the years living in Malibu you hear of these stories of women who stick it out all because of their security. They don't love their husbands at all, I see it all the time. That was one hell of a price I did not want to pay. If it had not been for my promise to our son to not get a divorce, who knows how our lives would have ended up.
Perhaps had I had the courage to leave earlier, maybe he would never have met the "girlfriend". We will never know.
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Life was not really getting back to normal there was no trust left in the marriage and no matter how many band aids we tried to put on the problems they just were not going away.
Bob's temper was always short and I simply focused on keeping the peace if I could, I was simply too tired to fight.
I found myself keeping a filled overnight bag in my car for those moments when he would follow me around from room to room just trying to argue. We argued about everything it seemed now.
Here I was raising our son, taking care of him, the house, all the bills, etc. while he was going to one meeting a day. That was it. Now his sobriety was important, don't get me wrong, but our life wasn't the same.
I no longer believed that all this isolation was going to keep him sober and I was right, it didn't. But along with that knowledge I was also not willing to be the submissive wive. There no longer was a reason too. Now when he was out of control I simply walked out of the door into my car and drove off. I would not tolerate it ever again.
We were all in foreign waters believe me.
Then one day the focus became the Internet of all things. I guess Bob just needed something to be mad about so he started getting at Matt for being on his computer.
Little did Bob know that it was the one escape from our nightmare that his son could retreat from without getting into any trouble. Bob viewed it as a fantasy world and never really understood that there were real people behind those names. Only in the end did he sort of get it when he himself signed up on myspace. He never told me I logged into my blog and found his profile as one of my readers. He got it, but he was spying on me. I wasn't doing anything but he had wondered.
One day he was screaming so loud I had locked myself into the bathroom and would not come out. I could not deal with his temper. I guess several of the neighbors heard him and came over. They told him if he didn't stop they were going to call the Police. I think it must have scarred him because when I heard them, I unlocked the door and bolted to my car. He did not follow.
We were living in hell and didn't even know it. It was the beginning of the Valium Years as I like to refer to them. Dangerous drug in my opinion. You simply never know when they are taking it, and at the time I did not know how addicted to it he had become and would always be. It was his new drug of choice for a long time.
How Bob got around taking any kind of pills were his real history of back and knee problems. There is no law against taking these pills especially when you have legitimate physical issues. He started having multiple surgeries on his knees, then it was a terrible hemorrhoid operation that went wrong for him.
He had been completely honest with the Doctor about his past history with pills and I must say this was the first and only doctor in all the years of living with Bob, that he could not get pills out of. The doctor gave him a few pain pills and only two Valium. Bob wanted more Percocette and a bottle of Valium. The doctor would not give them to him.
I will never forget our next nightmare. It was Labor Day weekend and in Malibu there is an annual Chili Cook off that we always went to with our son. It had a carnival and always was a great way to end the Summer. There was literally nothing more I could do to help Bob. He had to take it easy and was just laying in Bed, so I told him I was going to take Matt to the carnival for a while.
This is normal in any family. It was not a life threatening surgery and anyone will tell you, it is painful and uncomfortable. But there was no reason to sit there and wait on him hand and foot all day. I took Matt out to have some fun.
When we got back home all hell broke loose. He was crazy, screaming at me about how I was neglecting him and whatever else he was spewing out. It was another nightmare day with Bob on pills.
It's funny as I write this stuff that I actually realize just how much damage all these events left on my brain. I was always trying to protect myself from his outrageous theory's about what was real and what was not. You would have thought I committed an act of violence against him by leaving the house for two hours. It was insanity. That is the only way to explain any of this. Pill induced insanity.
When I spoke with his brother even he said that Bob could not be given Percocette.
This stuff went right to his brain and made him crazy.
I really don't know if he was in any sort of drug withdrawal from Valium at the time, but I do know looking back at this event it seems like it now. He made me drive him down to the doctor's office to get more of them and when he only gave him two I thought he was going to go out of his skin. It's how it affected him when I knew he was in withdrawal.
Bob had become really good at getting Valium and he had several doctors all over town that were prescribing different things for him. He simply knew how to work the system. This doctor must have had a feeling that he didn't want to be another one of Bob's pill pushers. I wish I could say that about all his other doctors.
They just gave him whatever he wanted because he was so nice to them. Little did they know how not so nice he was when he needed more of them. In the beginning even I didn't know what it was.
I used to blame everything on "dry drunks". The behavior was so erratic I will never really know for sure.
These next several years seem to blend in together. Separate vacations arguments about everything from his father to his daughter and everything in between.
The worst part of all this insanity was that I had promised our son that I would not divorce his father. I kept my word, but at times it was the hardest promise I had ever had to keep.
Nothing was easy. If we needed help with a homework project it would turn into a lecture. One that neither Matt nor I had any interest in let alone the time.
He never understood time management when it came to homework, bath and bedtime. To him we were his captive audience at times.
One of the nastiest unwarranted fights we ever had was when I was writing out our monthly bills as I always did and he decided to come into Matt's room and supervise. I have no idea what he was really mad at, but it turned so ugly and so nasty that I almost left him forever right then and there.
He started criticizing my family for no reason and then he ended it by telling Matt all these horrible made up stories about me. Can you imagine my poor son sitting there having to listen to his dad spewing hatred toward his mother? None of which was true, but he either wanted a drink or a pill. That's how it always started.
Pick a terrible unforgivable fight so that he could justify drinking or using.
The three of us were living in hell, yet there seemed no escape.
I couldn't even pray, I felt that God had abandoned me and I was angry. For all the years and times I had saved this man's life, and given him such a good life, this is how he repaid me. It did not matter that when he calmed down he would send me flowers or buy me something nice. I started refusing all gifts. I did not want to be bought like so many women I know. I simply did not have it in me to turn the other cheek for a diamond ring.
Over the years living in Malibu you hear of these stories of women who stick it out all because of their security. They don't love their husbands at all, I see it all the time. That was one hell of a price I did not want to pay. If it had not been for my promise to our son to not get a divorce, who knows how our lives would have ended up.
Perhaps had I had the courage to leave earlier, maybe he would never have met the "girlfriend". We will never know.
October 20, 2007
Imagine your family turning their backs on you
I am in the middle of another very difficult time for me. In three days I have to go to court to finalize my divorce. It is two and a half years since my former husband passed away and I have been in the probate courts ever since then. It will also be his birthday on October 27th four days after this divorce proceeding.
I am really getting a divorce from his daughter and now I guess the rest of the small family.
Now everyone knows that Death and Divorce are right up there on the stress charts as the highest stress producing events in a persons life, along with moving.
Well I have been grieving for the past two and a half years, have been dealing with probate and a divorce and I am moving. At times even I don't know how I have made it this far.
So I wrote to my former Mother in Law to see if she would like me to return a coffee table that was orignially hers, but ended up in my husbands house when his father died. Of course I am happy to return it to her and a few emails passed back and forth regarding the table.
Since she was the only one in the family left besides my son who I can discuss these things with, I sent her an email pouring my heart out about the upcoming divorce and Bob's birthday.
What I got in return was an email asking me to measure the table so that her handiman could pick it up. Nothing else. I have to say, that really upset me. Here I am pouring my guts out about my life, my feelings and all she wanted was the damn table.
This correspondence is exactly the evidence that I needed to remind myself that it is not my imagination, because sometimes I think I am being over sensitive when I feel like they just let me go, turned their back on me. Well they have.
I did not respond to her email for fear that I would say something harsh because I'm angry about the lack of concern and the way my situation ended. After a twenty year marriage, I got all the bills, half my house and $25,000 to pay off the legal bills. Another words, the left my son holding the bag on my debt, because if I loose my house so does he. Everything I have is his and at his age he should not have to bear the burden of his father's debts, especially when there was enough money to pay off half the mortgage, that was all I asked for. Because we bought a home and for years he refinanced it to pay his taxes and pay for the education of the kids.
The executor, his daughter, managed to just have the court negate that fact.
So yes I am angry and shocked, my I am not the only one, there are many people who know my family in Hollywood, because it was a very prominent family here in LA. So I didn't answer her email I simply waited to see what she would have to say in regards to me pouring my heart out to her.
I got another email regarding the table.
Well this time I couldn't help but reply with my feelings laid out. So this is what I wrote to her. These are word for word, copied and pasted below.
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I'm so sorry but I don't have a measuring tape, but I personally brought it over here in the back of my Lexus SUV from the Rambla Vista house so I know it will fit in a small SUV. You mentioned your handyman and if he has a truck it will fit just fine.
Sorry I didn't get back to you. I pretty much have been dreading next week Tuesday so much that I sent Marisa an email asking her to tell her lawyer to be nice. I don't want a repeat of the last court date and this time it will be just Matt and me in court plus I signed everything over to her over a year and a half ago That is all except the watches which Matt has not me. I'm hoping that doesn't come up. It is very traumatic because this is a divorce from her really not Bernie, he's gone.
You may have already heard about that, but I also told her to visit her father's grave and beg his forgiveness for putting Matt in such a terrible position. If I go down, he goes down with me. It's all on his shoulders now.
This is a very small town and his new investment people are simply shocked by this entire outcome after a long term marriage. All I asked for was help with the mortgage now I will never live here again because she simply refused to do the right thing.
Although I know you don't want to hear any of this either, I apologize for laying it on you. But it doesn't matter about the trust from Saul it still won't help with the mortgage So the only way to save Matt from the burden of losing his house is to move out of it.
Marisa has simply tarnished the family name. All these high power people in Town just adored Saul and I wasn't there but Matt told her my situation and she wants to meet me for lunch, she seems to think maybe she can help me even though I told her I have no money to invest. It was simply refreshing to know that I am not the only one that thinks this was so legally unfair. It's simply not OK to punish Matt because I have a Trust from Saul. So does Marisa and Matt. Bob's debt was Bob's debt. Even you don't understand the severity of the burden on him.
And I must say it's interesting that you can simply ignore any of this which I mentioned before but be so concerned about your table.
What a fascinating family.
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This is what she wrote back
STEPH,
I AM SORRY THAT YOU FEEL THE WAY YOU DO!! I DO NOT KNOW THE LEGAL DETAILS RE; THIS AND DO NOT FEEL THAT IT IS MY BUSINESS!! I ALSO DO NOT HAVE THE $$ TO HELP!! NO ONE IS SADDER THAT THE FAMILY IS SPLIT! I ADORE SAUL AND ALWAYS WILL. I TRIED TO HELP FOR AWHILE TO NO AVAIL AND SO, HAVE WITHDRAWN TOTALLY. I STILL CRY DAILY FOR THE LOSS OF MY LOVE AND CANNOT DEAL WITH THE RE-HASH OF THIS DRAMA!!
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Well that just set me off. This is exactly what I have been talking about on my myspace blog. I have a cold family that only cares about themselves. My reply
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I totally understand, but that's exactly the attitude that allows people to get away with bad things. Just think of all the boy scouts, alter boys, etc., that could have been helped if someone had just taken the time to speak out.
Silence is as bad doing the deed itself.
I have had to deal with my loss, my divorce and helping Matt and myself through our grief without the family. So why the hell would I want to deal with the family two and a half years later. No one cared and still don't and that is the sad fact not fiction.
I do feel your pain, I miss Saul as much as anyone because none of what has happened to me and subsequently to Matt if he were still with us. He was the glue that bound us all together. Marisa would have never had the guts to do what she did, but everyone just kept quiet.
I may have told you a saw a psychic and there he was right there with Bob. I didn't even say anything to this person, I went in to find out if I was ever going to get out of all this debt. It was quite healing. Bob kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I sat there stunned and crying. It was surreal. So even if the family has turned their back on me, my beloved Bob and Saul have not. It gets me through my life believe me.
So if you like you can just have someone pick up your table and I will not speak to you again, because it's my life and if you don't want to hear it I will respect that.
By the way, this is not a ReHash. I am living it. I go to court on Tuesday and people are calling me to discuss my life. People who are stunned that my beloved family turned their backs and a blind eye to my situation.
You have a way of trying to diminish things just because you don't want to hear them. Is Bob's birthday drama?
I really feel sorry for all of you.
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So there is the story of my family's attitude toward me. Lack of concern.
I am really getting a divorce from his daughter and now I guess the rest of the small family.
Now everyone knows that Death and Divorce are right up there on the stress charts as the highest stress producing events in a persons life, along with moving.
Well I have been grieving for the past two and a half years, have been dealing with probate and a divorce and I am moving. At times even I don't know how I have made it this far.
So I wrote to my former Mother in Law to see if she would like me to return a coffee table that was orignially hers, but ended up in my husbands house when his father died. Of course I am happy to return it to her and a few emails passed back and forth regarding the table.
Since she was the only one in the family left besides my son who I can discuss these things with, I sent her an email pouring my heart out about the upcoming divorce and Bob's birthday.
What I got in return was an email asking me to measure the table so that her handiman could pick it up. Nothing else. I have to say, that really upset me. Here I am pouring my guts out about my life, my feelings and all she wanted was the damn table.
This correspondence is exactly the evidence that I needed to remind myself that it is not my imagination, because sometimes I think I am being over sensitive when I feel like they just let me go, turned their back on me. Well they have.
I did not respond to her email for fear that I would say something harsh because I'm angry about the lack of concern and the way my situation ended. After a twenty year marriage, I got all the bills, half my house and $25,000 to pay off the legal bills. Another words, the left my son holding the bag on my debt, because if I loose my house so does he. Everything I have is his and at his age he should not have to bear the burden of his father's debts, especially when there was enough money to pay off half the mortgage, that was all I asked for. Because we bought a home and for years he refinanced it to pay his taxes and pay for the education of the kids.
The executor, his daughter, managed to just have the court negate that fact.
So yes I am angry and shocked, my I am not the only one, there are many people who know my family in Hollywood, because it was a very prominent family here in LA. So I didn't answer her email I simply waited to see what she would have to say in regards to me pouring my heart out to her.
I got another email regarding the table.
Well this time I couldn't help but reply with my feelings laid out. So this is what I wrote to her. These are word for word, copied and pasted below.
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I'm so sorry but I don't have a measuring tape, but I personally brought it over here in the back of my Lexus SUV from the Rambla Vista house so I know it will fit in a small SUV. You mentioned your handyman and if he has a truck it will fit just fine.
Sorry I didn't get back to you. I pretty much have been dreading next week Tuesday so much that I sent Marisa an email asking her to tell her lawyer to be nice. I don't want a repeat of the last court date and this time it will be just Matt and me in court plus I signed everything over to her over a year and a half ago That is all except the watches which Matt has not me. I'm hoping that doesn't come up. It is very traumatic because this is a divorce from her really not Bernie, he's gone.
You may have already heard about that, but I also told her to visit her father's grave and beg his forgiveness for putting Matt in such a terrible position. If I go down, he goes down with me. It's all on his shoulders now.
This is a very small town and his new investment people are simply shocked by this entire outcome after a long term marriage. All I asked for was help with the mortgage now I will never live here again because she simply refused to do the right thing.
Although I know you don't want to hear any of this either, I apologize for laying it on you. But it doesn't matter about the trust from Saul it still won't help with the mortgage So the only way to save Matt from the burden of losing his house is to move out of it.
Marisa has simply tarnished the family name. All these high power people in Town just adored Saul and I wasn't there but Matt told her my situation and she wants to meet me for lunch, she seems to think maybe she can help me even though I told her I have no money to invest. It was simply refreshing to know that I am not the only one that thinks this was so legally unfair. It's simply not OK to punish Matt because I have a Trust from Saul. So does Marisa and Matt. Bob's debt was Bob's debt. Even you don't understand the severity of the burden on him.
And I must say it's interesting that you can simply ignore any of this which I mentioned before but be so concerned about your table.
What a fascinating family.
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This is what she wrote back
STEPH,
I AM SORRY THAT YOU FEEL THE WAY YOU DO!! I DO NOT KNOW THE LEGAL DETAILS RE; THIS AND DO NOT FEEL THAT IT IS MY BUSINESS!! I ALSO DO NOT HAVE THE $$ TO HELP!! NO ONE IS SADDER THAT THE FAMILY IS SPLIT! I ADORE SAUL AND ALWAYS WILL. I TRIED TO HELP FOR AWHILE TO NO AVAIL AND SO, HAVE WITHDRAWN TOTALLY. I STILL CRY DAILY FOR THE LOSS OF MY LOVE AND CANNOT DEAL WITH THE RE-HASH OF THIS DRAMA!!
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Well that just set me off. This is exactly what I have been talking about on my myspace blog. I have a cold family that only cares about themselves. My reply
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I totally understand, but that's exactly the attitude that allows people to get away with bad things. Just think of all the boy scouts, alter boys, etc., that could have been helped if someone had just taken the time to speak out.
Silence is as bad doing the deed itself.
I have had to deal with my loss, my divorce and helping Matt and myself through our grief without the family. So why the hell would I want to deal with the family two and a half years later. No one cared and still don't and that is the sad fact not fiction.
I do feel your pain, I miss Saul as much as anyone because none of what has happened to me and subsequently to Matt if he were still with us. He was the glue that bound us all together. Marisa would have never had the guts to do what she did, but everyone just kept quiet.
I may have told you a saw a psychic and there he was right there with Bob. I didn't even say anything to this person, I went in to find out if I was ever going to get out of all this debt. It was quite healing. Bob kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I sat there stunned and crying. It was surreal. So even if the family has turned their back on me, my beloved Bob and Saul have not. It gets me through my life believe me.
So if you like you can just have someone pick up your table and I will not speak to you again, because it's my life and if you don't want to hear it I will respect that.
By the way, this is not a ReHash. I am living it. I go to court on Tuesday and people are calling me to discuss my life. People who are stunned that my beloved family turned their backs and a blind eye to my situation.
You have a way of trying to diminish things just because you don't want to hear them. Is Bob's birthday drama?
I really feel sorry for all of you.
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So there is the story of my family's attitude toward me. Lack of concern.
October 08, 2007
Indecission
What is it that makes me want to avoid writing the rest of my story some days. I will write things on my myspace blog? I guess that this is a painful journey some days and this month is extremely difficult.
I will be going to court to finalize a bogus divorce proceeding. What I mean by that is this. The court needs me to once again, verify that I have indeed given up my debtor's claim against the estate of my former husband. And yes the answer is I did drop my claim against the estate.
I did it because I will not waste any more money fighting a battle that should have never been fought in the first place. If the executor has no conscience about leaving me with all the debt of putting her and my son through school so be it. The entire family knows that I didn't spend all the debt of frivolous things.But all I get from the family these days is Silence. We helped but her through Stanford, helped with her living expenses while in New York and at Johns Hopkins even when her father was not legally obligated to do so any longer. And believe me there were times when he had to think twice because she was so cruel to him. But even after she called me and her friends wishing him dead he simply could not cut her off financially.
The other really difficult event is that it is Bob's birthday at the end of that same week, so it is with a very heavy heart that I finalize that chapter of my life. My former husband would have never argued the fact that for years he kept refinancing our home to give the two kids a great college education and the rest went to pay taxes most of the time. He would tell me that it was his job to worry about money and my job to basically do everything else around the house. So I did.
The other really difficult event is that it is Bob's birthday at the end of that same week, so it is with a very heavy heart that I finalize that chapter of my life. My former husband would have never argued the fact that for years he kept refinancing our home to give the two kids a great college education and the rest went to pay taxes most of the time. He would tell me that it was his job to worry about money and my job to basically do everything else around the house. So I did.
And in the end after the marriage had ended, Bob started a new business and he refinanced our house again and when he found himself in trouble with the law, he refinanced it once again to purchase a home. What was once a home purchased for $725,000 in the end ballooned up to over $1,400.000. That is the simple fact of Bob's way of supporting his family, and no one wants to address who is responsible for that debt.
The Estate had no difficulty establishing that I was not entitled to any of Bob's inheritance, why am I entitled to carry the burden of the debt?
Once could argue that I have the option of selling the home. Of course I do, but I will not, because my son's father gave him half of the house and I will not loose it for him. As my father Saul would have said, "It is his Life Insurance Policy". I couldn't agree more. When my time on this earth are done, I will leave my son more than he could have imagined. It is my duty to the only male grandchild of my hero. He will carry on the name and the dignity of his Grandfather.
In my opinion there is no justice when a wife of almost twenty years now has a title of debtor attached to her claim. Just because a person passed away, did all my rights as his wife vanish before my very eyes. In my case Yes. It seems an executor can pretty much disclaim a debt at their discretion with the help of an attorney. His daughter had no interest in paying off his debt and I had no interest in paying an attorney for the privilege of lessening the remainder of what was left after the government gets their part because my X simply did not bother to put everything in Trust. The executor has spent more money than I did securaing this final divorce, isn't that incredible. And she really didn't want to honor the agreement I had with her dad, that he would cover the cost of the divorce, after all it was his and his girlfriends idea to file for it in the first place. It was the least he could do. So that's that.
The Estate had no difficulty establishing that I was not entitled to any of Bob's inheritance, why am I entitled to carry the burden of the debt?
Once could argue that I have the option of selling the home. Of course I do, but I will not, because my son's father gave him half of the house and I will not loose it for him. As my father Saul would have said, "It is his Life Insurance Policy". I couldn't agree more. When my time on this earth are done, I will leave my son more than he could have imagined. It is my duty to the only male grandchild of my hero. He will carry on the name and the dignity of his Grandfather.
In my opinion there is no justice when a wife of almost twenty years now has a title of debtor attached to her claim. Just because a person passed away, did all my rights as his wife vanish before my very eyes. In my case Yes. It seems an executor can pretty much disclaim a debt at their discretion with the help of an attorney. His daughter had no interest in paying off his debt and I had no interest in paying an attorney for the privilege of lessening the remainder of what was left after the government gets their part because my X simply did not bother to put everything in Trust. The executor has spent more money than I did securaing this final divorce, isn't that incredible. And she really didn't want to honor the agreement I had with her dad, that he would cover the cost of the divorce, after all it was his and his girlfriends idea to file for it in the first place. It was the least he could do. So that's that.
I didn't marry him for money and I guess I don't see the need to squander money to do the right thing.
I will find a way to keep the house for our son and I still feel grateful for my life.
Money doesn't always make a person happy and it remains to be seen how much of what is being given to his daughter will grow into a future for her as she dreamed. Her lifestyle is too expensive. A Beverly Hills girl trying to live the life of her Mom. Expensive vacations she has been to Europe three times already since her father passed away and may even be there as I write this because it is her three year wedding anniversary. She loves expensive dinners, shoes,clothes etc. I used to get annoyed with her because everything she ever bought had to have a designer label attached to it. The only thing that may save her is her wonderful husband who happens to be from the Midwest. Time will tell, the poor guy is working his butt off to keep up with the Jones's over there.
Unfortunately for her, if she ever does have any children of her own, I will not be there to help her with any of the stuff that I would have. Let her other family do that, but that's also questionable, because even she would say that her father and I got her everything she really wanted, her Mom got her the necessities. PJ's, underwear and things.
Now that I have gotten that off my chest, perhaps I can get back to my story.
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