I don’t know why, but I’ve been having some pretty serious and annoying Internet issues this morning. Lately, our Internet connection has been very fragile, even before I got the new computer. I’m still trying to move files and unload some of the resource hogs from my old computer, so it might still be useful for awhile. But the freakin’ Internet connection really blows.
It’s hard to tell why the Internet is sucking so much, especially today. I have noticed that lately, the Fiberglass Internet Vodaphone guys have been trolling the neighborhood, trying to get people to sign up for their service. Since installing it involves excavation (I think), that will be up to the landlord.
Fortunately, my new computer is willing to accept my phone as a hotspot. I’m sure my old one would, too, but for some reason, I could never successfully get it to do that in the past. It’s possible this is a system issue, and not something with our house or our particular connection. Whatever is going on, it’s very annoying.
I’ve been trying to read a book my friend, Mary Beth, suggested… It’s a true crime book that I’m finding very triggering. The woman involved is like an extreme version of Ex. She does cruel, narcissistic things that are like Ex, but magnified a lot more. It amazes me how many truly abusive and perverse people are out in the world, free to wreak havoc until they finally get caught going too far.
What’s scary is, these folks, by and large, appear to be “normal” to those who don’t know them. Anyone who sounds the alarm is branded as crazy, bitter, jealous, a liar, etc. It really is crazymaking. Things don’t usually improve until people start to compare notes. That’s what has been happening in our situation. Bill and his daughter have been talking to each other and realizing that their experiences were similar. They also confirm to each other than being out of that environment is much better than being in it.
In the book I’m reading, it’s pretty clear that people knew the crazy abusive woman was crazy and abusive, but they were children… and they felt totally powerless to take any action. I’m sure they feared for their lives.
I have been reading for a week or so, and thought I was further into the book than I actually am, apparently. I think I will try to do a lot of reading today, so I can review the book and move on to the next one… maybe one that doesn’t have to do with true crime.
As for my computer/Internet woes, I’m sure they will pass in a day or so. I’m getting closer to having everything set up the right way. I’m kind of missing the times when we didn’t have to worry about such things to get through the day, but just about everything is connected to the Internet now. Even our freakin’ lights are connected to an app.
Maybe it’s time to get a new router… I don’t know. Anyway, I think I’ll take advantage of the downtime and read more of this book, so I can post a review. It’ll also give me a chance to rest my hands and the backs of my thighs, which are still aching from Wednesday’s big office makeover.
Edited to add: I managed to fix the Internet issue. Just needed to unplug from the router instead of the wall. But I’m still thinking I’ll try to do some reading… before someone on the Internet pisses me off and makes me feel like ranting.
I’m happy to report that I finally got my new computer going yesterday. The new VESA monitor arm arrived in the afternoon. Although the Invision 450 arm was significantly less expensive than the Ergotron model I bought last week, it was a much better purchase. I did have to put more parts together, but they were very sturdy and the process was straightforward. I didn’t have to use any YouTube videos to figure out anything. In fact, the Invision had very clear instructions and diagrams that were obviously written by someone fluent in English. So, I am very pleased with that purchase, and I’m enjoying my new computer.
Naturally, the new computer needs to be broken in, which means transferring a lot of files and upgrading equipment. I finally retired some nice Bose speakers I’ve been using for about nine years. This morning, I should be getting another Minipod to use with the one I bought a few weeks ago. That will give me a nice stereo sound in my office. Edited to add: I just figured out how to use the old Bose speakers, too… so my sound system is gonna be bangin’!
Since a lot of my music is from CDs that can’t be easily moved to the new computer, I think I might repurpose my old computer for just media tasks. I ordered a new table to put in my office so I can set up the old computer for that use. I think, once everything is set up, it’ll be very nice. However, all of this change doesn’t come without significant ass pain and inconvenience. Like they say in the LDS church… “I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be ‘worth it’… “. Or something along those lines.
Yesterday, I wrote about the “truth bombs” I delivered to younger daughter. I ended up sending her three emails. The first was a brief explanation about why her dad and I never had our own children. The second was to tell her the dogs are fine. And the third was an apology for not acknowledging younger daughter’s own struggles with having children of her own. I got so caught up explaining about the vasectomy and the reversal that I forgot to acknowledge her pain. So my third email was to do that, and to let her know how happy Bill and I both are to be talking to her after all these years of no contact.
Last night, we watched a video of younger daughter sautéing mushrooms in butter. She wanted to know if we like mushrooms. Bill loves them and told her so. I hate them, and told her so. Apparently, younger daughter’s husband, father-in-law, and two older kids don’t like them, either. Her baby likes mushrooms. We explained about my issues with mycophobia, which is a literal phobia of mushrooms.
Then, after he responded to the video about mushrooms, Bill made another video about what I had sent younger daughter in the first email. He explained in a lot more detail about why he had chosen to have a vasectomy. Younger daughter was surprisingly empathic about everything. She spoke about how her mother didn’t take care of her children. That was left up to Bill’s daughters, who had to look after the youngest two children or else they would be neglected.
Younger daughter said that when her mother stopped working, she would stay up until 5:00am and then sleep until noon. And that meant no adults were conscious to take care of the youngest kids. Of course, some of the stories Bill told were surprising to her, too. Like, I don’t think she knew about the time Ex traded in the family car and bought two more– a VW Euro Van for herself and a Miata for Bill. She did things like that a lot– spending money they didn’t have on things they didn’t really need. It meant financial ruin, and that was the state Bill was in when we met. It took years to recover from it.
In the course of the conversation about childbirth and Ex’s tendency to wig out from the pain, younger daughter said that Ex had epidurals for her youngest two and there was no trauma involved with their births. Why she didn’t do that for the three eldest kids, I don’t know. The two eldest were born in military hospitals, but younger daughter wasn’t. I can’t understand why she wouldn’t have had epidurals for all of their births, especially given her history reacting to pain. But… I have a feeling that was probably about attention seeking.
One thing younger daughter mentioned was that Ex would do things like “swoon”. Like, one time, Ex just randomly fell over, like she had fainted. But it didn’t appear to be an actual collapse. Other times, when she would try to speak to her mother in the mornings, Ex would open her eyes, then close them again… as if she was asleep. Younger daughter knew she was faking it, but the message was that she should go away and fend for herself.
Then she said something along the lines of, “I don’t know why she would have such a big family if she didn’t even really want to be a mom to us.”
I can tell her the answer to that question. If Ex is a narcissist, as I strongly suspect she is, she doesn’t see other people as individuals, worthy of regard. They are mere tools to her… extensions of herself. That’s why everyone in her sphere is Facebook friends with other people she knows. Her children with Bill are “friends” with Ex’s first husband, people in Bill’s family, and people in #3’s family. They aren’t “friends” with me or Bill, though, because we’ve been “painted black”. Ex won’t get anything from us, so we’re “bad”.
Younger daughter would probably happily be friends with Bill and me, if it didn’t mean huge drama with her mom. Bill has to be punished severely for not obeying her whims… for taking care of himself and his needs, rather than catering to hers. I don’t know why #1 still speaks to Ex. She denied him contact with his son for about twenty years. But I see that he and #3 are “friends” on social media.
I also think that of all of the people in Ex’s life, Bill was the most devastating to lose. He has more earning power than the other two husbands combined. He has the most stable family. He’s the best educated, and frankly, the best looking. He probably treated her the best, too. She pushed him too far, so he had to get away from her. She probably sees me as the mean girl who stole her favorite toy. She probably thinks of Bill as her property that was cruelly taken from her, rather than discarded. So, because her ego is injured, she paints us as “black”… evil people who didn’t appreciate Ex’s specialness.
I’m sure she blames Bill for a lot of her problems, including being married to #3. If he had just realized her divorce proposal was “high drama” that she didn’t actually mean. If he had only not agreed to her demand for a divorce and simply acquiesced to her, just as he’d always done in the past… If Bill had only continued to be loyal to her, even though she was cheating on him with #3, right down to moving him into the money pit house that she had to have because it looked like one she’d seen in a snow globe.
Bill was paying for that house, and had probably paid for the bed she and #3 were fucking in, while she was still married to Bill. That didn’t matter, though… and the fact that he still had a scintilla of self respect after almost ten years with her was more than she could take. She couldn’t admit that she was being dramatic and work toward a compromise… change some of her habits and be a better partner. No… she had to “save face”. Lucky for me.
I came along at a time when Bill was being cast out. She was trying to teach him a lesson… force him to “rock bottom”. I ruined everything for her. Or, at least that’s how she sees it. She thought he would come crawling back to her. Instead, he fell into my arms, emotionally battered, mentally bruised, physically scarred, and financially beaten. I’ve seen Ex on Twitter, apparently showing empathy to women in bad relationships. She never lets on what a sadistic partner she is, and how anyone in her sphere is basically in her own private cult. She’s always a victim.
One thing I’ve noticed when I listen to younger daughter speak is that she never refers to Ex as simply “Mom”. She calls her “my mother”. This morning, when she was responding to Bill’s video, she said “It’s sad you can’t have a family because of ‘your wife’.” At first, I thought she was talking about me, but it was soon clear that she was referring to her mother in that way. She doesn’t want to acknowledge Ex as her mother. She’s trying very hard to distance herself from her mother. I’m sure there are many layers of pain there on younger daughter’s side… things that we haven’t even scratched the surface of yet. We may never get there.
I know that younger daughter knows Bill is telling the truth, too… as outrageous as the stories are at times. She knows he’s being truthful, because she’s seen the craziness firsthand. She’s experienced it in person. As a child, she found it easier to ignore, because it was just life to her. Just as I’ve come to realize, so has she– when you become an adult, your eyes open to the truth. You start to realize the truth about people that you might have, at one time, had great love, respect, and admiration for. You start to realize that they’re just as frail and human as you, yourself, are… and some are more damaged and dysfunctional than you ever knew.
I used to think Ex was just a mean, nasty person. Now, I think that besides being mean, she’s also truly very mentally ill, and she’s done some things that may very well eventually land her in a place where she will be exposed to other mentally ill people. It’s because of enablers like her children and husbands that she’s never had to face the consequences of her actions. I think her day is coming, though. Bill isn’t the only one who’s had enough.
I’m just curious. At what age do most people consider their offspring “grown” and “raised”? I know my own parents could not wait for me to be an adult. I started cleaning stalls to help pay for my pony when I was twelve years old. I also used to provide my own transportation, riding my bike the few miles back and forth to work in the barn and take care of the pony I started leasing when I was twelve. Two years later, my parents bought for me the pony I was leasing. I later found out my mom wanted to buy the pony to keep me too busy to get pregnant. (Long story… there was never a risk of my getting pregnant, but we lived in a rural county in southern Virginia, and I have an older sister who dated a lot as a teen).
Me and Rusty, back when I was a teen, and my mom couldn’t wait for me to be grown and flown. Rusty was the cause of my very first work experience.
Starting from when I was fourteen, my mom pressured me to find a part time job, which, at that age, was mostly illegal in my state without a work permit. I got my first paying job three months before my sixteenth birthday. When I was eighteen, I went to college, and yes, my parents helped me financially, but I was free to make my own decisions, for the most part. I was considered an adult and treated accordingly. My parents encouraged me to move out of the house. I did have to make a couple of boomerangs back to my parents’ house as a young adult, but finally left for good when it was time to attend graduate school and become the overeducated housewife I was so clearly meant to be. 😉
Contrast my experience with some very recent tweets by Ex, who has five offspring, ranging from 34 to 15 years of age. Apparently, even though four out of five of her kids are literally legal adults, she’s claiming she’s still “raising” three autistic “children”, and they are keeping her from fulfilling her own dreams for herself. Evidently, these “children” require her to grin and bear her lot in life, with “joy” in her heart, even though she “want[s] to LIVE”. But she had her first “autistic child” with Bill in 1991. The other two, she chose to have with #3, even though she had lamented to Bill how difficult pregnancy was for her. She must have known that raising children is an expensive challenge, even when autism isn’t in the mix. It’s not her children’s fault that she’s not able to “LIVE” in the manner to which she thinks she’s entitled.
These three below posts were tweeted within hours of each other. Notice how Ex refers to raising three “autistic children” and seems to blame them for her inability to fulfill her “dream” of visiting Scotland. I am aware that Bill did his part to prevent her from being so burdened by those last two “autistic children”, as he willingly had a vasectomy to spare her the fate she’s dealing with now. But then she divorced him and remarried, and had two kids with her latest husband, #3.
Evidently, those two kids have autism, too… although we have never heard from anyone that Ex’s youngest daughter with #3 is so dysfunctional that she needs to be regarded as “childlike”. We HAVE heard that she’s kind of spoiled and unhelpful. Bill’s younger daughter has said that she and older daughter did pretty much all of the housework and cooking when she was still living in the house with Ex. Youngest daughter supposedly wasn’t one to voluntarily help out, and Ex allegedly never required that of her. As we all know, doing everything for one’s kids is one way to keep them from being independent. But we haven’t heard that youngest daughter by #3 is unable to function on her own, strictly because she has autism.
If I felt particularly charitable toward her, I might be able to give Ex a pass for claiming to still be “raising” her youngest daughter, who somewhat recently turned 19. However, she makes it sound like they are literally “children”, even though none of them could reasonably still be called children based on their ages. I happen to know for a fact that the eldest “autistic child” is 31 years old. She has a college degree, goes on dates, has worked for a florist, taught arts and crafts classes, makes jewelry and other artistic creations, and does most of the heavy lifting raising Ex’s youngest “child”, who will be 16 in a few months.
Now, from what we’ve heard, the youngest will probably not be able to live on his own, but older daughter and youngest daughter by #3, are not so debilitated. In fact, Bill’s younger daughter– one of the “grown” ones at age 28– has told us that older daughter is very productive on many levels, and always has been. She certainly doesn’t require “raising” by her mother anymore.
Ex’s youngest daughter reportedly goes to college, and, according to Ex’s recent Twitter pleas to Mark Hamill and others, has aspirations to be an actor. I don’t know how realistic that goal is. We were told, when younger daughter and ex stepson were much younger, that they wanted to be actors, too. I think that may actually be Ex’s goal for them, and not their own goals. Even now, she often tweets about how she’d like her daughter (not sure which one) to marry Keanu Reeves. Below is a quote from Ex’s Instagram in 2021, after she posted a photo of her youngest daughter dressed for the prom:
My baby girl going off to Prom. Cannot believe she is 18. She’s off to college in a couple of months. Wow, just wow. ❤️❤️❤️👩🎓🥰
Does that sound like someone who is still being “raised” by her hapless 55 year old mom? Even if college hasn’t worked out for her and she’s moved back home, she was still functional enough to consider going, wasn’t she? It does not sound like she still needs to be “raised”. She could probably get a job, go to school, or– perish the thought– find someone with whom to have a romantic relationship. Prom, by the way, was an experience denied to Bill’s daughters. They were forced to drop out of high school and get GEDs, so Ex could sponge off their student loans.
One thing I have noticed about Ex is that she is very fixated on celebrities, particularly authors and actors who write and perform in romantic fantasies or science fiction. She is a big Star Wars fan, for instance. She likes novels that are based in fantasy, and seems to go a bit “Annie Wilkes” on some of the stuff she reads. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying works of fiction and fantasy. That is what keeps life bearable for some people. Being able to escape to a fantasy world is a blessing when your reality is a living hell. I don’t know what Ex’s life is like now, but I have heard that her childhood was legitimately nightmarish. I got this information from Bill, who actually knew her adoptive parents and her rapey stepfather. However, since she’s an adult, if her life is not good now, that’s her own fault.
Ex made some unfortunate choices, based on selfishness, lack of discipline, and a dearth of common sense. So now, she has to envy people who go to Scotland, and complain about how expensive it is to “raise three autistic children”… two of whom are legal adults and probably fully capable of not living with her anymore, draining her energy and resources. Of course, Ex doesn’t want her kids to move out. They provide supply to her, do her chores, and give her a reason for being. She might be willing to let her youngest daughter go her own way, but older daughter is the “stay at home” daughter. Ex counts on older daughter to take care of her youngest kid, the one with truly debilitating autism, and will no doubt expect older daughter to wipe her ass for her when she’s old and decrepit. Ex has somehow convinced older daughter that she’s incapable of living on her own.
I have only met Bill’s daughters in person one time. I distinctly remember the very first thing that girl– then almost twelve years old– said to me. She actually APOLOGIZED to me for her “strange” personality. She tried to explain to me that she has trouble meeting new people. When I told her that it was okay, and we didn’t have to get to know each other in one day, she immediately relaxed and asked me if I thought it was strange that she had a crush on Harry Potter! I can’t help but think she was taught to think of herself as defective and weird, and unable to get along in the world. And when I compare that impression with what reportedly happened when younger daughter decided to leave home at 18, I realize that all of those kids got the message that they can’t function on their own. But the reality is, Ex can’t function on her own. She has parentified the children, and convinced at least one of them that she needs them… and that they will forever need her.
Isn’t it interesting that Ex refers to her three “autistic children”, but then mentions her two “grown” children? I guess she means the ones who supposedly don’t have autism? Does autism make someone forever a “child”? I honestly don’t know. I don’t have much experience with the disorder, or know too many people who have it or are raising children with it. Ex says that raising autistic children is “expensive”. Well, so is raising “normal” children. God knows, Bill and I had some lean early days, when he was sending her half his paycheck and #3 was staying at home, playing video games. Now, #3 works, and Ex stays home to “raise” her last kid, as she tweets, comes up with unsuccessful crowdfunding campaigns, complains about being broke, and moans about not being able to find or buy signed books by actors she admires. It’s crazy. She certainly had the time and experience to know that raising kids is expensive before she made the choice to have two more.
I have noticed that there are some things with which I agree with Ex. For instance, she has posted about how she doesn’t think Supreme Court Justices should have lifetime appointments. I agree with that. And she has posted some rather “woke” platitudes about kindness, education, not being racist, and politics. I do know that she wasn’t always so liberal. Her opinions seem to change with the winds… or perhaps as she finds people to emulate, to whom she can falsely attribute her own characteristics. On the surface, I might like and agree with her. But again… looking beneath the surface, there’s a hotbed of lies, nonsense, neediness, entitlement, and craziness. Exposure to her is one reason why reading Tom Bower’s book about Meghan Markle set off so many alarm bells for me. If even half of what he’s written about her behavior is true, she is definitely very difficult. These types of people seem to follow a playbook. I don’t even know if they are aware of what they do. But if you’ve been around them, you can easily spot them. It’s like narcissistic radar. And these folks thrive in secrecy, counting on people not to spill tea about them. If more people were emboldened to tell the truth, maybe there would be less abuse.
Well… I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I don’t pity the ex. I pity her children… who are not actually children, but having them be children, even when they are clearly mostly competent adults, suits Ex’s narrative. I hope that the ones who are capable of going out on their own will eventually achieve it. They deserve to live their own lives. And Ex… well… I think she just needs to get a life, and quit using her ADULT children to promote her own selfish agendas. But unlike Ex, I know that my opinion and a nickel will get us nowhere.
This is another very personal and possibly distasteful rant. The title should give you a hint. If you don’t want to read negativity, you might want to move on to your next Internet station.
Onions have layers. When you cut into an onion, there are rings that easily peel off to a deeper layer. If the onion is good, you have a savory herb that can enhance the flavors in your favorite dishes. That is, of course, if you like onions. Not everyone does. Onions can also be rotten, though, and when they rot, they STINK to high heaven. They turn all mushy and moldy, and they make a big mess. Lately, I feel like there’s a big stinking, rotten onion in my life.
If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you might have noticed that I sometimes write about my husband’s ex wife. I write about her for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that writing about this stuff helps me process some of the layers of shit she creates by being such a toxic person. Every time I think I’ve discovered the grossest and rottenest layer of yuck when it comes to her, another layer appears. Such is the case right now.
I’ve been married to Bill for almost 20 years. I have never met his ex wife in person. And yet, I feel like I constantly uncover layers of stinking rot from his first marriage. Now… it’s okay that there’s rot, because Bill is worth it. He’s the ripest peach in the bushel. But I am continually shocked by the stench of rotten that comes from his ex wife. We know about it because Bill finally has contact with one of his two daughters, both of whom were estranged from him for many years.
I remember being frequently outraged by Ex’s antics back in the early 00s. I was furious at her sense of entitlement, the totally cruel and disrespectful way she treated Bill, and the assumption that I would be dancing to her tune. This is a woman who expects people to treat her with kid gloves, because if they don’t, she’ll make them pay dearly. She has a very twisted way of taking any confrontation someone directs at her, and turning it into some kind of sick punishment. Her punishments always cause collateral damage.
In 2006, Ex sent Bill adoption papers, demanding that he give up his parental rights so that his daughters could be adopted by their current stepfather (Ex’s third husband). She got their daughters to send him hateful letters disowning them. They arrived just in time for Bill’s birthday. Bill refused to give the girls up, but when they turned 18, Ex got them to legally change their surnames to their stepfather’s last name. Younger daughter later confessed that the letters were dictated and forced, and she had finally succumbed to extreme pressure to change her name. She went along with it, knowing that she would be getting married and changing her name, anyway.
In 2009, I accidentally discovered that Bill’s ex stepson, who had been using Bill’s last name, was going to change his name to what it was originally. Bill never heard about these plans, even though he was paying the then 21 year old $850 a child support. Ex had apparently talked him into reclaiming his original last name, because we pointed out to her that she has a habit of denying the fathers of her children access to their dads. Her response was to reunite former stepson with his father, who hadn’t spoken to him in many years, and never paid child support beyond the boy’s early childhood years.
She had expected Bill to be very angry and hurt. But Bill felt that his former stepson should never have been distanced from his father. I felt that his father should have been paying child support, instead of Bill… but Bill made more money than “dad” did. In any case, when Bill wasn’t upset at the reunification, a further step was taken, and former stepson filed paperwork to change his last name. And that was fine… except he never said a word about it to Bill, and he kept demanding money from him.
Again, I think Ex was expecting Bill to be very hurt… and he was. But instead of begging for a relationship with former stepson, Bill told him that this decision meant he was an adult, and no longer needed Bill’s “child support”. He stopped paying him, and sure enough, that meant the end of their relationship. I was very angry with former stepson. I felt this action was very telling about his character. It was a pretty terrible time of “onion rot”.
A few years later, Bill was having some medical issues that required seeing a urologist. The doctor noticed signs of abuse in an intimate area and asked him about it. Bill let me know that his former wife had sexually assaulted him in a way that, had he been a woman and reported it, she absolutely would have been arrested and gone to jail. I was devastated by that revelation. It was probably the worst and stinkiest of the onion rot. It took a long time to process it and stop being outraged. It had taken him fifteen years to tell me, and I was absolutely livid when he told me about it. I wanted to kill her. I didn’t think it could get worse.
And now… dear friends, we have discovered another deep layer of rot in Ex’s stinking onion. I don’t want to get too far into specific and sensitive details, except that it involves another sexual violation, and Ex’s completely inappropriate response to it that focuses only on her, and not on the actual victims. Years later, when it seemed like the outrage over the violation had passed, she randomly brought it up again… probably to keep the people involved in line, and shame them into doing her bidding. Of course, Bill was never told about any of this. He wasn’t able to help, because she wouldn’t include him. She probably figured I would call CPS. I sure the fuck wish I had. It was absolutely warranted. But sadly, I didn’t, because I didn’t know. I only had suspicions of what might be happening.
Ex is the kind of person who makes other people work for her, especially her children. We already knew that she basically used her eldest children as indentured servants of sorts, as well as sources of college loan money, which she makes them repay. Meanwhile, any time her money was needed to pay for something her children needed or wanted, she would either use it as a carrot on a stick, or she would complain about having to spend the money. We’re talking about things like equipment to correct medical problems. Younger daughter once told us that she had to use her birthday money to buy diapers for her little sister, because her mother didn’t have any money to buy them. This, even though Bill was sending her $2550 a month, which was a significant portion of his income at the time.
We discovered the other day that Ex also used one of her daughters to fix her relationship with #3. One time, #3 had a fight with Ex, and he decided he’d had enough of her abuse. He packed a bag and called a friend to come get him. One of the children was very upset about the fight. Ex asked her what she thought she ought to do. The child begged her to give #3 another chance. Ex told her to go out and beg her stepfather not to go. The funny thing is, the kid is not on good terms with #3 now.
Ex also had a bad habit of berating her children when they didn’t know things. She’d tell them to go figure it out for themselves. Younger daughter learned to become very self-sufficient, resourceful, and resilient. But when she turned 18 and decided to go her own way, Ex’s response was to become pathetic and “attempt” suicide. More onion rot. That must have been very confusing, given how Ex treated her children like they were impositions to her. They were obviously useful to her, though. She didn’t want them, yet she did. They can be used, as long as they stay under her power and don’t make any waves.
It’s tragic that this woman is a mother of five, and they have to live with the fact that whenever something bad happens, as they always do in anyone’s life experiences, she’s going to weaponize it. These children have grown up with a mother they can’t count on or trust. She uses them for her own means, and employs shame to keep them in line. The only cure is to cut her out of their lives, as they might a rotten onion. But she’s their mother… and that’s hard to do.
Good people who are close to her invariably feel responsible for the fact that she does what she does. She’s surrounded by hyper-responsible people who have been conditioned to take care of her endless wants and needs. Meanwhile, she hangs out on Twitter, and acts like she’s the biggest fucking humanitarian in the world. See these recent tweets:
I dare say my week will be filled with physical therapy & Gardening in my flower beds, this takes a lot of time and patience to create new beds. Re-watching @MenInKiltsSTARZ … because anything that takes me to my homeland is a treasured moment. (Scotland is NOT your homeland, Ex.)
The teen years are difficult. It does get better… but by then you must learn to let them fly on their own and your heart will cry with sadness, joy, and pride! (Please. She doesn’t let her children “fly”. Older daughter is 31 and still lives with her.)
…the only place I’ve found where I can get a signed copy of your book won’t ship to the USA. I’m of Highlander descent myself (Frasers du Lovat) and I await your journey there with great anticipation. Could you (or anyone) PLEASE help me get a signed copy? (What about that fence for your son, Ex?)
I think Ex uses Twitter to get supply, because they people who respond to her are strangers. They can only judge her by what they see. It’s a very superficial connection, and most of the people don’t confront her with the truth about what a reprehensible person she is.
Lately, I’ve been watching H.G. Tudor’s interpretation of Tom Bower’s brand new book, Revenge, which is mostly about Meghan Markle. H.G. Tudor claims to be a narcissistic sociopath. I’m not sure if he is or not, as being a narcissistic sociopath would not make him the best narrator about facts. I will state, however, that I’ve found his analysis of Markle is very interesting and astute. I’ve heard a lot that reminds me of Ex’s behaviors, especially when he speaks of Markle attributing other people’s interests, characteristics, and abilities. There is no doubt in my mind that my husband’s former wife is a textbook narcissist. It’s like she follows the playbook.
I love Bill with all my heart, so I will certainly stay with him, in spite of the rotting onion. He’s the very best kind of person, and worth all of the stench that comes from his time with his former wife. I don’t know how it is that people like Ex are able to find the best people. I will keep writing about her, because people like her thrive on people who don’t want to expose the rot. I made it clear early on, that I don’t dance to her tune, and I’m not going to keep her secrets.
Recently, I started paying a lot more attention to Twitter than I used to. I never liked using Twitter before, because I don’t like having character limits on my posts. Also, I just never got into it. When Trump was president, he was constantly on Twitter, and I didn’t want to be exposed to his constant stream of shit. I actually blocked Donald Trump on Twitter before he got banned.
But lately, I have slowly been warming up to Twitter and posting more tweets. Most of my tweets are autogenerated by Untappd– a beer tracking app, but I have been making a point of sharing links to blog posts. I’ve also been following the musician, Anthony D’Amato, whom Bill and I had the pleasure of seeing open for Keb’ Mo’ last month. He’s very intelligent, witty, and shares my perspective on a number of issues. I like his music. He’s also pretty responsive.
I probably got more into Twitter in March, when USAA got me extremely pissed. I would go on Twitter to read comments from other outraged customers who have been let down by them lately. Bill and I are trying to divest ourselves from USAA, but it’s proving to be difficult for a lot of reasons. But we did manage to move our car loan and open another checking account at a different bank. As that gets more established, we will be moving more of our stuff out of Texas… USAA is based in Texas, of course, but Texas is also at the root of the abortion access crisis we’re facing now, thanks to the ridiculous decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. I spent the weekend reading a lot of reactions to this decision, and I am truly frightened for the future. I am pretty sure women will DIE because of this nonsense.
This morning, I got an email from Twitter with a digest of people it thinks I want to follow (but I don’t actually follow). In the email, there was a link to someone named Matt Oswalt. I don’t even know who the hell Matt Oswalt is. I should probably find out, since his tweet that appeared in this morning’s Twitter email is the inspiration for today’s blog post. According to his handle, Matt Oswalt is a comedian, and further research shows that he’s the brother of Patton Oswalt, who is also a comedian. And look at that! They’re from Virginia! Okay… now I feel caught up on things.
Cool.
So, this morning I saw the below tweet from Matt Oswalt.
Keep in mind, I didn’t know who or what Matt Oswalt was when I first saw the above tweet. I started reading the responses from people. Some of the comments were pretty funny. Some were outraged. A lot of people were engaging in a conversation that I’ve had with a few strangers myself, lately. Like, for instance, it shouldn’t be up to women who are unintentionally pregnant and unable to access abortion to provide babies for infertile people. Pregnancy and parenting are different issues. Giving a baby up for adoption is an extremely difficult and complicated decision. But, aside from that, there’s something really creepy about this couple…
Eeew.
And this one…
No thanks.
I mean, they could be wonderful people. They sure smile big and pretty. But they also look like the kind of people who would send their kid to a church where girls are routinely taught that having sex before marriage makes them akin to a shattered vase, a chewed piece of gum, a wilted rose, or a licked cupcake. Or maybe they’d “lovingly” kick the kid out of the house if he turned out to be gay, or preferred to be an atheist.
I can understand why a lot of women don’t want to give up their babies, even if they are ill equipped to raise them. Adoption may be a very loving and mature thing to do, or it could be a disaster. At least if a woman has an abortion, she knows what became of her baby. If she does it early enough, there’s no chance to bond. But going through nine months of pregnancy, feeling the fetus grow and kick, watching her body change irreversibly, and putting her life on the line has a way of creating a bond. And when the baby is born, those hormones kick into full force. The prospect of handing one’s baby over to a woman with a vacuous stare and the personality of mashed potatoes and her hungry looking husband is not very appealing. Like anything else, adoption is a crapshoot.
I know some adoptees, because when I was born, abortion wasn’t available everywhere. A number of people in my generation were adopted. Some adoptees had really good experiences and were raised by excellent people. Others had terrible experiences and felt rejected by their birth parents. The psychological injury that resulted from that rejection led to significant character disorders.
For instance, Bill’s former wife was adopted, and her childhood was a disaster. She didn’t know her adoptive father until she was seven years old, because he was a Merchant Marine and went to sea a lot. According to Bill, Ex’s adoptive father was comparably decent compared to her adoptive mother. That doesn’t mean he was a really great guy– he was married several times, and once reportedly got his marriage annulled from a woman he’d been married to for two days because he didn’t like the way she smelled. But at least he provided for his kids, and wasn’t extremely abusive to them. I guess he was just guilty of abandoning and neglecting them– or, at least he was guilty of abandoning Ex.
Ex’s mother divorced Ex’s father when Ex was very young. Ex’s mom then married a wealthy but evil man, with whom she later had a couple of bio children. For the first few years of her life, Ex reportedly believed her stepfather was her dad, because her adoptive dad wasn’t in her life. Ex was horrifically abused by her stepfather, and her mother turned a blind eye to it because it meant her husband left her bio kids alone. The end result of that upbringing was, in part, a woman who exploits her children and uses them as weapons against their own family members. That upbringing resulted in a woman who tweets celebrities, begging for money and narcissistic supply. She was rejected by her bio parents, and abused by her adoptive parents, and the reality of that is crushing. It’s the house of horrors that built Ex.
Here’s another example of an adoptee who went off the rails. In 2007, Bill went to war in Iraq with a narcissistic man who was adopted. Bill’s boss hated his adoptive mother. Actually, he seemed to hate all women, as he would openly deride and disrespect them. He would not let female doctors or dentists examine him, and he would be openly disdainful toward female officers. I have a female childhood friend who recently retired as an Air Force colonel. She is extremely well respected in the Army and Air Force, especially in special operations and military intelligence. She once had to report to Bill’s former boss, and he was openly rude to her, simply because she does not possess a penis. This man did not think women had any place in the military, and he behaved accordingly.
A few years after they deployed together, this colonel who had been Bill’s boss was very publicly fired for abusing his troops in Iraq. He had been on track to be a general officer, but too many people reported his egregiously horrible and dangerous leadership. He was relieved of duty and sent back to the States where he was forced to retire as a colonel, instead of the brigadier general he had been slated to become within weeks. There was a huge, embarrassing article about it in the Army Times. A quick Google search still shows plenty of mentions about what an absolutely terrible boss he is and how he disgraced himself in a war zone, abusing his troops and putting them in danger.
I remember Bill would call me from Iraq and talk about his boss… a man who delighted in abusing people. My blood would boil as I heard my husband talk about how his boss reminded him of Ex, and how my husband was in a war zone, which was stressful enough, and having to endure psychological abuse from his superior. I took comfort in knowing that I had warned his boss not to get my husband killed, because I would be coming after his ass if he did. I had said that in a joking manner, but Bill told me his boss took what I said very seriously. He was clearly not used to being spoken to in such a way by a woman, and since I wasn’t his underling, there was nothing he could do about it. He probably figured that if I had the nerve to say such a thing to him, I would follow up on my threats if he didn’t bring Bill home to me. Also… the colonel the narcissistic boss was replacing was killed in a helicopter crash a week before he and Bill arrived in Iraq, and his narcissism would not allow a similar fate to befall him or Bill. So he did take care of Bill, and made a point of not putting him in very dangerous situations. But that care came at a cost. He often mentioned my comment to Bill, and harassed him about it.
I remember asking Bill in 2007 why he wouldn’t report his boss. Bill said that if he reported him, he would be the one who would be punished. In Bill’s situation, it was just him and the colonel, not a brigade of troops, as the colonel was commanding when he got fired. So if Bill had complained, he would have looked weak and whiny. But… if Bill had complained, he would have done his part to try to stop an abuser from staying in charge. It might not have worked in the short term, but they would have had some precedence– a record of his abuse toward an officer in a war zone. Maybe things would have turned out better. Unfortunately, the military still has a long way to go in dealing with abusers.
I’m not at all saying that all adoptees turn out the way Ex and Bill’s former boss did, or even that being adopted was what caused them to be the way they are. I’m saying that adoption is a crapshoot, and sometimes adopted children have hellish childhoods that can turn them into terrible people. A lot of people like to talk about how adopted children are lucky because they were “chosen”, and of anyone, they should be the most in favor of the “pro-life” argument. But I have read comments from people who were adopted and wound up very conflicted, confused, and damaged by the experience. It’s not always a happy ending for those kids.
I do know a number of adoptees who grew up healthy, strong, and mentally balanced– including Bill’s half sister, who was adopted by his father and stepmother. It’s just that in both of the cases I presented in this post, it seems that being adopted had wounded the adoptees in some way. They didn’t feel the unconditional love and acceptance that all humans need to develop normal empathy. If their bio parents had raised them, they might have still turned out to be narcissists. Plenty of non adopted people are narcissistic. But in both of these cases, the adoptees reported not being loved and accepted when they were very young. Ex was used as a source of sadistic pleasure for her stepfather, in exchange for leaving his bio children alone. I’m not sure why the colonel hated his mother– Bill just told me that he had no regard for her, but he worshiped his father. And, in fact, the colonel was fired after having gone home to the States for his mother’s funeral. He probably hates her even more, now.
Adoption causes a lot of issues that the pro-life crowd wants to ignore. Aside from that, people who want to adopt usually want babies… preferably healthy white ones with no intellectual, physical, or psychological defects. Considering that we don’t offer universal healthcare in the United States, it stands to reason that a lot of women who will be forced to gestate won’t have access to the best prenatal care. Or, maybe the woman who is being forced to birth might deliberately neglect herself, hoping for a miscarriage… until the laws are made that force pregnant people to “take care of themselves” or risk being imprisoned, where pregnant people are also treated very poorly (and I’ve noticed lots of conservative men cheering about the prospect of jailing women over pregnancy– why are Americans so in love with the idea of warehousing humans in prisons?).
I mentioned recently that the foster care system in the United States is full of children who desperately need families. As red states gleefully ban abortion, some people are delighted at the prospect of a bumper crop of babies to adopt, as poor women with no means to travel to less misogynistic places will be forced to gestate. But many of those women still won’t choose adoption, so a lot of those babies will be raised in terrible circumstances that will trap them in abuse and poverty.
Yup…
The adoption thing isn’t the only issue to come up after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision on Friday. Women’s lives are already in jeopardy in red states, because now doctors are feeling that they have to be especially careful in dealing with pregnant women in crisis. Last night, I saw this Tik Tok video from a nurse with a platform. Another nurse had written to her, explaining how a woman had come into the hospital with an ectopic pregnancy just after the ruling was overturned and a trigger law went into effect. The doctor would not treat her until he had spoken with a lawyer about how to get around the law and not lose his license. By the time she got surgery, nine hours had passed, and she had 600 ccs of blood in her abdomen. She had almost bled out and died, when a week prior, the doctor would not have hesitated to immediately do the necessary surgery to save her life.
It’s terrifying to be a woman who can get pregnant these days.
Meanwhile, we have moronic Republican representatives like Mary Miller of Illinois, praising Donald Trump for the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “historic victory for white life”. Her exact words were “President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday…” What a stupid woman. But she’s probably only echoing what a lot of very ignorant people in the United States are thinking… until they or their loved ones are the ones whose lives are in danger because of this situation.
“I got a text message today saying I should seek to control men’s ejaculations and not women’s pregnancies,” Lisonbee told reporters during a news conference, adding that the message suggested: “that I clearly don’t trust women enough to make choices to control their own body.”
“And my response is I do trust women enough to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen,” she said.
She should be deeply ashamed of herself. What an asinine and CRUEL comment. She’s a traitor to women.
Well, anyway… I am pissed off about this. I am one of many people who are pissed off about this. I’m not sure what I can do, other than to keep writing, tweeting, and voting. We are indeed living in “interesting times”.
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