STORIES

My marriage: what can we/I learn from this?

From the very beginning, the ex-wife loomed over our marriage like a permanent shadow. I never had the personal strength to put my foot down about it. And honestly, even if I had, I would have been counselled to follow my husband’s lead. That was the expectation — defer, comply, trust. So I deferred, and she took up all the space she wanted.

After the court debacle, we were allowed to see the children — but only with supervised visits. That meant the ex-wife had to be present every single moment. Newly married, and every week I was sitting in my husband’s ex-wife’s living room. That was our reality.

At one point, the ex was briefly engaged and then married to a man I’ll call H. After they split, H sent a long letter that revealed something deeply disturbing. The ex and her brother-in-law — W’s own brother, whom she was now dating and living with — were stealing her mother’s Social Security checks and cashing them. But the most chilling detail in that letter was this: H wrote that she had asked him for a gun. To shoot either W or me. I told W immediately — save that letter. Keep it somewhere safe. In case anything ever happened.

I tried to convince W to use that letter as evidence — to show the courts she was not a fit mother. He didn’t want to make waves. He didn’t want to rock the boat. And that’s the moment I truly understood how much power she still had over him. He was more afraid of upsetting her than he was of protecting us.

Years later, I came back into contact with the ex’s brother-in-law — W’s brother, who had been in the middle of all of it. By that time, the ex had died. I told him what I had always felt: that all through that marriage, he and I were like kids caught in the middle of whatever was still happening between W and his ex. He knew exactly what I meant.

Early on, we tried to make a day of it — bowling with the kids, the ex sitting nearby as required. We were never alone with them. The kids were so afraid of their dad. I can only imagine what she had told them about him over the years. She had no filter and was just plain mean. It took so much coaxing just to get them to ride in the backseat of our car. She followed behind in hers the entire time.

Once she realized she had access to free babysitting, we began to see the kids more often. The visits gradually moved into unsupervised territory. But every single visit came with at least one major outburst from the little girl. When she wanted to be, she was the sweetest child you could imagine. Given ten dollars, she would go out and find ten different things to give to ten different people. Her brother would spend the whole thing on one thing for himself. Looking back at the atmosphere those dear children lived in — it still breaks my heart.

It got so bad at times that we had to nail her bedroom window shut so she wouldn’t run down the street screaming. I sat at the door more than once, holding it shut to back up W’s discipline. Eventually I sat W down and told him plainly: I would defer all discipline to him going forward. I knew how volatile the ex was. I didn’t want to give her any fuel for retaliation.

The poor girl had an ongoing issue with wetting the bed — no wonder, given everything. This continued long past the time I was around. We had a system: when it happened, I would help her carry the bedding to the laundry and have her set the washer herself. She wasn’t doing it on purpose — she was just a deep, deep sleeper and couldn’t get the signal in time. I can see now how it fits. Her father W has sleeping issues too. He walks in his sleep. I learned to become a very light sleeper because of his antics at night. He once woke up in his underwear, gripping a blanket from our bed, standing in the outdoor courtyard of our apartment building. It’s a good thing he turned right. If he had turned left, he would have walked straight into traffic on a very busy road.

When the kids were with us, they were expected to attend meetings. Finding appropriate clothes for them both was always a challenge — we didn’t have much money. Most of W’s paycheck went straight to child support. Sadly, none of that money ever seemed to be used on them. The little girl had a full, gorgeous head of thick red hair. We had to teach them both how to shower, which tells you something about the living conditions they came from. Her hair was always a mission. Her mother never brushed or combed it, and didn’t encourage her to either. The two of us would sit for hours, both of us testing the very edges of our patience.

As far as discipline went, we never raised a hand to either of them. Sitting on the couch for ten minutes, picking up toys — that was the full extent of it. But the little girl was a screamer. And once, during a memory I will never forget, she screamed louder than the radio could go.

We had been visiting their grandfather — just me and the kids. I told them they could play as long as they did it peacefully, and when I said it was time to go, they were to get in the car with no issues. It sounded perfectly reasonable in my head. They played until the inevitable squabble broke out. I pointed to the car, said our goodbyes, and we came around the corner — and the little girl was already sitting in it. I was relieved. Hard part done. I was wrong. She had locked all the doors. This was before key fobs with remote unlock. We talked, we demanded, we reasoned, for several minutes. Grandpa came out with a popsicle. I told him there was no way we were rewarding that behavior. She finally relented. The boy sat in the front with me, she was in the backseat, screaming at a volume that drowned out the radio completely. The poor boy just sat there, staring straight ahead. He had been enduring this kind of thing for years.

She finally screamed that I needed to stop the car — she was going to be sick. So I pulled over on a very rural country road. No traffic anywhere in sight. She was so upset she had wet herself. She climbed out and started marching down the roadside. I crept behind her in the car. And then — can you imagine — who drove by on that super remote stretch of road? The ex. I was never alone. I had to prepare an explanation for why this little girl was walking down the side of the road.

We endured it and never mentioned it again amongst us.