Tag Archives: Bill

Bill, love, marriage

Every day is a gift with my Bill…

I just wrote a piece for my travel blog, that details our Christmas morning. So far, it’s been a nice holiday. I asked for a new vacuum cleaner, and Bill delivered a cordless Dyson. I hope it will be less cumbersome and annoying to use than the canister vacuum I’ve had for the past seven years. I just tried it out, although it’s not yet quite fully charged. All I gotta say about that is that our carpets are pretty disgusting. A new vacuum was definitely needed and appreciated, even though one of my former bosses once told me that no one should get appliances for Christmas. She criticized me for giving my mom a new hand mixer. That boss and I didn’t get along, as you might have imagined. I’m one of those people that other folks tend to love or hate. 😉

I’m better at Christmas shopping than Bill is, because I know what he likes and needs, and he’s easy to please. I’m a lot harder to shop for, because I have a tendency to get what I want when I want it. The vacuum cleaner was an outlier. I’ve been eyeing the Dyson cordless vacuums for ages, but never pulled the trigger. One of the reasons I hate vacuuming is because it feels futile. The vacuums never seem to do a good job– even other Dysons I’ve had have not been very useful. But downgrading isn’t the answer, either. I used a Dirt Devil when we first got back to Germany, and it lasted about a year before it started dropping parts. Our dogs shed a lot, and Noyzi, in particular, leaves tons of hair. So I needed something lightweight and portable. We’ll see how long I like the new vacuum, but I suspect we’ll get a couple of good cleanings from it.

As usual, I bought a lot more stuff for Bill than he did for me… although he did get some higher dollar items for me. And a few of the things he got were kind of surprising. Like, he bought me a weighted blanket, even though I just bought two new duvets for the bed. But maybe the blanket will turn out to be something I didn’t know I needed. And he bought me three shawls in different colors, but with the same patterns and in colors I probably wouldn’t necessarily choose. I do wear a lot of shawls on the rare occasions when we go out. He also got me a new chair for my office, which has heating and massage capabilities. I do need a new chair! I wear mine out pretty regularly.

As I watched Bill put the new cover on the weighted blanket, it occurred to me… every day is a gift with Bill. I smiled, and blurted “You don’t really have to buy me anything for Christmas. You have already given me the best life.”

It doesn’t matter what we’re doing or where we are. Some places are better than others are, of course. I remember when we lived in our first slummy apartment in Fredericksburg, Virginia on Christmas day, back in 2002. It was just weeks after our wedding, and we were pretty broke. We still had a nice celebration, with a tree and cheap ornaments from Rose’s, which was a discount store in the nearby strip mall. We had a nice meal and listened to music on the cheap CD player I owned that I had to weigh down with a jewelry box, because the lid wouldn’t stay down on its own.

The following year was full of challenges, as we lost our first rescue dog, CuCullain (C.C.) to a rare mycobacterial infection, my car got broken into, and Ex went on the warpath to try to get me under her thumb. We moved to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, into a Craftsman house that was meant to be “temporary” and came from a kit from Sears. I actually loved that house, even though it had its maintenance issues. We were there for three years, until we moved into a “brand new” house a mile away, where I mostly lived alone while Bill was in Iraq. We left that house after about eight months, as Bill finally rotated out of Virginia and into Germany. We had Flea and MacGregor, rescue beagles from BREW, a beagle rescue in northern Virginia.

Then, in 2007, we moved to a town near Stuttgart, Germany the first time as a couple, and we both fell in love with living here. We hoped to get three years, which is standard, but had to come back to the States a year early. We moved into a huge rental house in Fayetteville, Georgia, where we lost Flea to cancer, and added Zane to our family. Bill learned to brew beer. We spent two Christmases there, out in the woods with a family of deer, some black snakes, at least one armadillo, and chimney swifts who chirped incessantly for a month. I remember one of those Christmases was when I experienced my very first “White Christmas”.

Then, the post in Georgia where Bill worked closed down, so we had to move again. In 2011, we moved to North Carolina, where we had two more Christmases in different woods– one of those years, we visited my sister, who lives in Chapel Hill, not that far from Sanford, the town where we were living. We lost our sweet beagle, MacGregor, and adopted Arran, who is still with us.

In 2013, we moved to Converse, Texas, a San Antonio suburb, where I assumed we’d end up staying… but no jobs were forthcoming in 2014, when Bill retired. We moved back to another town near Stuttgart, where we spent four years, and now we live near Wiesbaden, and have been here for four years. Half our stuff is in storage in America. It’s hard to feel rooted, since Germany isn’t our official place of origin. And yet, as long as Bill is with me, I’m home and happy. And I can’t believe we’ve been in Germany for eight years. We lost Zane in 2019, but now we have our first non beagle rescue, Noyzi the Kosovar street dog!

We have worked together to make a great life, and we have succeeded, in spite of all the kvetching I do on my blog posts. I really do feel so fortunate for all we have, and the incredible man with whom I get to share my life. But honestly, we could be in a tent somewhere, and I think I’d be happy on some level, just because I’m with the right person… and he’s with me. I am amazed by all of the great stuff we’ve managed to do together, in spite of the pettiest of annoyances. And today, I was just reminded of that and just feeling so grateful… even to Ex, who divorced Bill. If she hadn’t done that, who knows where I would be? We make each other laugh, teach each other new things, and make life better for each other every day. I need to remember this feeling for when the going gets tough, as I know it will.

I know 2023 will have its challenges. I expect we’ll be losing Arran in 2023, because he has cancer. But we are lucky to live in a country where we can enjoy him for a little bit longer without going bankrupt. And there’s always the threat of something bad happening… but as long as I’ve got “my Bill”, it all seems bearable. No matter where we are, it “feels like home…” Today, I’m feeling really grateful, and I just wanted to share.

I recorded this a couple of years ago. It has 25 hits as of this writing, but I’m reminded of it today… even though it’s from Randy Newman’s Faust, and the character who sang it wasn’t one for true love. Ironically, it’s become quite a wedding staple. The lyrics are lovely, in spite of the character who sang it in Faust. The video contains photos of some of the incredible places we’ve been.

I might redo this song… maybe even today. Why not?

Younger daughter sent a video the other day while she was holding her newest baby. He was obviously hungry and was trying to get to her boobs, but he was so cute and good natured about it. I feel very grateful that she shares him with us, as well as her other two adorable kids. It’s so nice to have her and her husband back in our lives. It just goes to show that, in the long run, love always wins.

I hope you’re having a good holiday, if you celebrate. If you don’t, I hope you have a good day. Now, back to the festivities.

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divorce, family, love, marriage

The not so wicked stepmonster…

Last night, I did something I have never done before in 20 years of marriage. It feels kind of momentous, especially since I have technically been a stepmom the whole time I’ve been married.

I sent my younger step daughter a birthday card. If memory serves, she’s turning 29 today… although Bill thinks he might have been celebrating the wrong birthday for all these years. I know for a fact that he told me her birthday was on the 6th, but then last night, he said he remembered the day of her birth was on a Wednesday, which he thinks was the 8th. Now, that was a Wednesday in 1993, so I don’t know if he actually remembers the date properly. In any case, I tend to have a better memory about these things than he does, even though I wasn’t in his life when she was born.

I actually sent her an e-card from Jacquie Lawson, rather than a physical card. I like them, because they’re creative, interactive, and cool, and they’re easy to choose and send. Bill’s late Aunt Betsy used to send them to me, so I subscribed to the service, too. And then, as I was about to schedule the card to be sent, I asked Bill if he thought maybe younger daughter might like a gift card. He said she would, so I looked to see what was available.

At first, I thought maybe it would be good to send her one for Cold Stone Creamery, since I know she likes ice cream and she has little kids… Then I remembered we just sent her a box of macaroons from France, and that might be sweetness overload. Then I wondered about movie passes, but I wasn’t sure if she has AMC Theaters near her… Then I thought about getting a gift card to a restaurant, but then I remembered that she mentioned having car problems recently, which could make a date night problematic. I finally settled on a $100 Target gift card. I figured she could use it on anything she wants. If she has a pressing need, and is short on cash, she can use it for that. Or, if she just wants to splurge on something, she can use it for that purpose.

One thing I remember about being 29 is that I was always broke, mainly because I was in graduate school. And I didn’t even have kids, while younger daughter has three! Some of the best gifts I got during that time in my life were in the form of money… so I could pay bills. I remember one year, my sister sent me $100 or so, and I used it to pay my health insurance premium. It was a huge load off my mind and truly appreciated.

Maybe it seems odd for me to feel wonderment about sending my husband’s younger daughter a birthday card and a gift card. But you have to realize, I have never had a chance to be in her life, and for a long time, I never expected I would ever know her. For years, I was very angry with her for the way Bill was treated. And then, once they did finally reconnect, I didn’t want to intrude, as Bill gingerly tried to reconcile with his long lost child. They had a lot to discuss between themselves, and I felt that I shouldn’t get in the middle of that. One thing that I’ve often heard from stepchildren is that they often feel like stepparents, especially stepmothers, interfere and intrude too much. So I wanted to give them space to bond and heal.

I’ve only met my husband’s daughters in person once, and that was in 2003. At the time of our one meeting, Bill and I had only been married for about seven months. After that meeting, Ex determined that I was too much of a “bad influence”, and refused to cooperate with visitation requests. For the next fifteen years, I felt like there were these “ghost children” in the midst. Then, in 2017, Bill started talking to his daughter again. I started trusting her sometime in 2018, when I could plainly see that she wasn’t her mother reincarnated. In fact, she appears to be the complete opposite of her mother, thank God.

Last night I was feeling generous… and then Bill reminded me of how, when he finally got to see her in the flesh back in March 2020, she sent me a beautiful and sincere “Thank You” note for loving Bill. This year, she sent us a lovely card congratulating us on our 20th wedding anniversary. And it’s very obvious to me that in spite of what Ex claimed, back when Bill tried to assert his parental rights, younger daughter never forgot who her real dad is… nor did she ever regard him as a mere sperm donor (don’t even get me started on that). I do think she was afraid to talk to him for a long time. Ex had told her a lot of lies about Bill, but I also think maybe younger daughter worried that he’d be angry with her. She had no way of knowing that her father is one of the most even-keeled, reasonable, decent men there is. All she had to go on were her own memories of Bill, and the ridiculous stories her mother told her.

I don’t expect that younger daughter will ever see me as anyone more than Bill’s wife… but I can, at least, be better than #3 has been, and show a sincere interest in her. I can be a better, saner example than her mother has been. Aside from that, I like to shop, and I’m damned good at it. 😉

Hopefully, I got the birthdate right. Bill has already sent her a gift, which she accidentally opened sooner than she was supposed to… a Le Creuset Dutch Oven, as well as a couple of other kitchen implements. I’m sure she’ll be surprised to get something from me. 😉 But I can be full of surprises, you know…

By the way, the featured photo was taken on my birthday last June… We were in Antwerp, Belgium. I’d probably pick a different dessert for younger daughter, as I believe I had a Colonel– that’s citrus flavored sorbet with vodka poured all over it. I suspect that would not be something she would ever order. But I know Bill would look as happy as he does in that photo, if he could be in Utah to help his daughter celebrate in person.

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Duggars, holidays, mental health, religion, sex, silliness

Repost: I’m grateful for orgasms…

I am reposting this article I wrote for my original blog back on November 22, 2013. It’s not that I don’t have another topic in mind for today. I just saw this in my Facebook memories and realized that yes, nine years later, I am STILL very grateful for orgasms. And I just wanted to spread the news.

As it’s November and the month of Thanksgiving, there have been a number of Facebook posts recently about gratitude.  Many people post something they are grateful for every day in November.  In the spirit of gratitude, I too have been posting things I am thankful for.  I try to keep my thanks upbeat and light-hearted, though.  I figure there are enough schmaltzy posts about being grateful for good health and happiness or a supportive family.  I like to give other things their due.

So I am grateful for odd things like clean underwear, modern plumbing, and Jagger’s swagger.  And yesterday, I was grateful for orgasms.  I posted that thought and was amazed by how many “likes” it got.  Some people thought it was funny.  Some thought it was shocking.  Some people, who know me, thought it was typical.  But yes, a lot of people apparently appreciate the ability to have an orgasm.  And you know, it’s something that many of us probably take for granted.  I’m aware that a lot of people thought my post on Facebook was funny, but when you think about it, the ability to have and enjoy an orgasm is really a much more serious subject than meets the eye.

Back in the late 1990s, I took Prozac for awhile.  It wasn’t the best drug for me and pretty much killed my ability to have an orgasm, not that I had a sex life at the time.  I just remember that even when I was in the mood for a little self abuse, it took forever.  It was very frustrating.  I remember thinking of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Welcome To The Monkey House“, a story about overpopulation and indecency and how people of the future were ordered to take a drug that took all pleasure out of sex.  In the story, a druggist had taken his family to the zoo and was appalled when they saw monkeys masturbating.  He came up with “ethical birth control”,  a drug which didn’t actually render anyone sterile, but just made sex unappealing.  Because the world was overpopulated, everyone was required to take the druggist’s birth control pill. 

The story was also about how people were encouraged to visit “ethical suicide parlors”, where beautiful, tall, virginal women would help people voluntarily kill themselves as an effort to keep the world population of 17 billion people stable.  There was a group of rebels who refused to take the birth control and therefore were able to enjoy sex.  And indeed, they did enjoy it frequently.  One of the characters kidnaps a “suicide hostess” who is very much in favor of the laws.  The characters force the woman to allow the birth control to wear off… which, of course, gives her the ability to know what she had been missing.

I have always liked the story, but after taking Prozac, it became very profound to me.  It’s been years since I read it, but I do remember Vonnegut describing what the ethical birth control did to people and how it made them feel… kind of numb in the sexual regions.  And that’s how Prozac made me feel, too.

But at least I had the ability to stop taking the drug.  I eventually switched to Wellbutrin, which was a much better antidepressant for me.  My nether regions came back to life and my depression finally lifted.  I was able to make decisions.  Later that year, I met Bill online and the rest is history.  You might say Wellbutrin actually helped me finally get a sex life, though it took a few years.

I am very grateful not to have been raised in a belief system that thinks of sex as a dirty thing.  It’s bad enough that we have a number of religions that discourage masturbation and subject members to humiliating interviews about their “habits” and refer to masturbation as “self abuse”.  There are also belief systems that promote the idea that enjoying sex is a sin and that it should only be done for the purpose of procreation. 

There are a number of religions that forbid members from admiring others, even to the point of forcing young men to look away when a pretty woman walks by or worse, forcing young women to wear shapeless garments that obscure their figures and veils that cover their hair and face.  This is all done in the name of avoiding lust or, heaven forbid, immorality caused by an orgasm.  An early episode of the fundamentalist Christian Duggar family’s reality show featured someone shouting “Nike!” when a pretty but “inappropriately dressed” young woman walked by.  It was a code to get the boys to lower their eyes, lest they be “defrauded”– that is, driven to lust by the tempting appearance of a beautiful woman.  Can’t have those young men having boners, can we?  Not until their wedding nights to women who are hand-picked by daddy… and may or may not be all that attractive or interesting. (ETA in 2022– oh, how innocent we were about the Duggar family in 2013!)

There are also a lot of women who, unfortunately, can’t have orgasms because they have been subjected to female circumcision.  Female circumcision is a horrible misogynistic custom practiced in certain countries around the world.  It’s considered a rite of passage in some places, perhaps even celebrated to some extent before a poor girl between the ages of birth and puberty is forcibly held down as her genitals are brutally mutilated by other women or even the local male barber, who may be a local health practitioner.  It involves removing part or all of the clitoris and sewing up the labia, which makes the eventual enjoyment of sex very difficult.  This procedure can be done with or without anesthesia.  It can cause significant health problems and gynecological difficulties.  It can also cause death.

Women who have had their clitorises amputated can’t experience orgasms.  They may or may not know what they are missing, which seems like a small problem in the grand scheme of things.  Just the idea of trying to recover from such a brutal operation, as routine for them as having wisdom teeth extracted is for many Americans, is hard to fathom.  It really is food for thought if you happen to be lucky enough to be a woman living in a place where female genital mutilation is not common.

So yes, during this season of Thanksgiving, I am very grateful for orgasms… the ability to have them at will, and for the sweet man who still inspires me to have them.  Orgasms are one of life’s most wonderful gifts.  May you enjoy your orgasms as much as I do mine…

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love, marriage, music, musings, nostalgia

“The secret o’ life is enjoying the passage of time…”

Yesterday afternoon, I was feeling kind of inspired, so I decided to record a song in honor of our 20th wedding anniversary, which happens tomorrow. I spent some time looking through the songs I had available and tried a few before I noticed an old chestnut by James Taylor. Back in 1977, James released his album, JT. He was still married to Carly Simon at the time, and they had two young children– three year old Sarah Maria, “Sally”, and newborn Ben. James was transitioning to a new record label, moving on from Warner to Columbia Records. Just a few years after JT was released, James and Carly divorced. However, that album has some really nice songs on it. For the longest time, one of my favorites from that particular release is a song called “Terra Nova”, which includes beautiful vocals from Carly. Years later, Ben and Sally would sing the coda from “Terra Nova” on one of Ben’s songs.

Maybe James and Carly’s marriage didn’t work out, but they sure sounded nice together.

That album also included an actual song for Carly… a love song James wrote called, “There We Are”. Maybe I could have done this one, but I don’t think it has quite the same ageless quality. Also, ultimately, James and Carly didn’t stay married. And I would have had to do it in the original key, which probably would have been hard.

What a sweet song. The sentiment is lovely, but the marriage didn’t survive.

I remember when I first bought JT on compact disc, back around 1991 or so, and listened to the whole thing. I realized that my sister, Becky, had this album on tape and played it when we were living in England. I heard the deep cut, “If I Keep My Heart Out of Sight” as a five year old in 1977, and remembered James’s lyric, “All I can say is I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” I remember hearing this when I was about 18 or 19 and being kind of shocked by the deep memory. It had been so long since I’d heard the song, and I didn’t realize what a good song it was. The early 90s are when I really got into James’s music, and he helped me get through some very tough times.

A song that was buried in my consciousness for many years.

But one song I never really liked, at least when I first heard it, was “Secret O’ Life”. I don’t know why I didn’t like it. I think maybe when I was 19, I thought it was boring… the lyrics are pleasant, but at least at the time, they seemed kind of banal. It wasn’t until I heard James sing it live that I realized what a good song it is. I still never thought I would have sung it myself, and yet yesterday, that is precisely what I did, after dropping the pitch three steps. And even funnier… this time, I actually videoed myself as I was singing, which I don’t do very often. I can’t be arsed to put on makeup or a bra… and as you can see, I didn’t do that yesterday, either.

That thumbnail is horrifying! I usually make that face in the throes of ecstasy.

Here are the lyrics, written by James Taylor:

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
Any fool can do it, there ain’t nothing to it.
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill.
But since we’re on our way down, we might as well enjoy the ride.

The secret of love is in opening up your heart.
It’s okay to feel afraid, but don’t let that stand in your way.
Cause anyone knows that love is the only road.
And since we’re only here for a while, might as well show some style. Give us a smile.

Isn’t it a lovely ride? Sliding down, gliding down,
try not to try too hard, it’s just a lovely ride.

Now the thing about time is that time isn’t really real.
It’s just your point of view, how does it feel for you?
Einstein said he could never understand it all.
Planets spinning through space, the smile upon your face, welcome to the human race.

Some kind of lovely ride. I’ll be sliding down, I’ll be gliding down.
Try not to try too hard, it’s just a lovely ride.

Isn’t it a lovely ride? Sliding down, gliding down,
try not to try too hard, it’s just a lovely ride.

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

Maybe it’s not obviously a love song… or an anniversary song. It just seemed perfect, for some reason. After 20 years, Bill and I are very comfortable with each other. And I feel like we’ve had a “lovely ride”, for the most part… and we’ve definitely done some things in style, even if we don’t usually dress in style.

I also thought this was a good song for us this year, because it looks like James might be able to do his concert in Frankfurt, after all. As I write this, James is in Stockholm, preparing for tonight’s show. He shared a video that I think he took himself, as he walked through downtown Stockholm. I heard the trace of a cough and he seemed a little tired, but that’s to be expected. COVID has that effect on people. I’ve never been to downtown Stockholm. I’ve only been to the dock.

It looks like we’ll see him this weekend. Or, I still maintain hope… especially since this might be the last time we get to see him. Or, maybe it won’t be. I know James loves to perform and will probably keep doing it until he physically can’t do it anymore, but things are getting weirder and weirder, and none of us are getting any younger. So, I’m glad I had a chance to try “Secret O’ Life”, and enjoy the passage of time with Bill. May we have twenty or more years together!

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LDS, music, narcissists

Introducing “Bill” to his daughter…

Happy Halloween, everybody. My morning got off to a rough start, but after a bowl of oatmeal and some fresh coffee, I’m feeling somewhat better. Daylight Savings Time ended on Saturday, so our dogs are a little confused. Arran got up at 3:40am, thinking it was an hour later, and he demanded his breakfast. And because Bill is a good guy, he gave in to Arran’s demands. I’m a little tired and out of sorts this morning.

Bill got a message from his younger daughter. I had sent her child a birthday gift, and it was delivered to the wrong apartment. There are a bunch of single guys in the apartment, and younger daughter went over in her church dress and knocked on the door. They ignored her. I guess they figured she was going to ask them to go to church, as they live in Mormon mecca. I hope she’ll leave them a note and tell them that the package they got (and for which we have a photo) contains a present for a child. She doesn’t care if they go to church. She just wants her package.

Bill sent her a link to my video of the song, “Bill”, which she had never heard before. She apparently loved it, probably because the video has tons of pictures in it of her dad. For so many years, she was denied contact with him, so she never got to see the warm, funny, and sweet side of him that makes me love him so much. She also had questions about how I made the video and others like it. And that just struck me as kind of sad, because she’s a young woman in her 20s, and she should be teaching ME about stuff like this. Unfortunately, she grew up very sheltered. She’s very bright, but her education is apparently not as good as it could have been. At least when it comes to basic computing skills. I was thinking that if Bill and I could have been involved with her life when she was growing up, we could have taught her some of these things, along with some other stuff. But that was too threatening for her mother to contemplate.

I’ll bet she’d love Ron Block’s music, even though he’s not LDS.

I’m glad she liked the song, especially since she has a music calling in church. She said that she listened to a couple of the other videos, including my version of “There Is A Reason”, a song written by Ron Block and made famous by Alison Krauss and Union Station. To date, I think it’s my most popular video. It even gets ads! She wonders how I made the video, having never been exposed to Garageband and iMovie, and she doesn’t know the songs, but likes them. If I had known her when she was growing up, imagine how much broader her experiences could have been. She might have made different choices.

That’s not to say I think she’s made bad choices, per se. She has a beautiful family and is completely on her own now. But I can see that she never learned things that most young people get exposed to when they’re growing up, because she was basically trained to be her mother’s minion instead of a person in her own right… with her own hopes, dreams, and desires to fulfill. She got away from her mother, anyway, thanks to people in the LDS church who helped her. But she never had the chance to get exposed to other things– other experiences and beliefs that she never considered. She’s been all over the United States, thanks to Ex’s love of road trips, but she’s never been to Europe or anywhere else outside of North America. If Bill had been in her life when she was growing up, she would have had those experiences. She might be living a completely different life– for better or worse.

Last week, I posted about how Ex has been hinting that maybe her marriage is not working so well lately. She had tweeted to actors on a certain TV show that their on screen relationship might literally save her marriage:

A screenshot from my last post about Ex… Something’s got her perturbed.

Today, after hearing younger daughter express amazement at my simple and quite amateur videos with music and pictures of her dad, I went looking to see what Ex might be up to… and this is what I found:

Note the wording… On the other hand, maybe she is learning to “love herself”, which may not be a bad thing, if she manages to do it in a non-narcissistic way. But experience has taught us that the kind of “loving herself” she’s writing of will probably be the toxic kind.

She’s “unlearned” that someone besides her kids would someday love her. If I take off the “un”, I get “I’ve learned that someone would someday love me.” What does that tell us? Apparently, #3 might have expressed in some way that he doesn’t love her. Add that to what she wrote a few days earlier, when she tweeted to actors about how their relationship could “literally save [her] marriage.” This doesn’t sound good. But then, from what I’ve seen, Ex isn’t very good at returning love. Love is supposed to be reciprocal. It’s hard to keep pouring love and positive regard into someone who is incapable of returning it. It’s like investing in a losing stock. After awhile, it seems crazy to keep sending good money after bad, and you move on to another investment, right? I don’t know what Ex’s relationship with #3 is, but if it’s anything like what it was with Bill, it’s probably very unfulfilling and frustrating for #3.

The irony is, I think I’m actually living the lifestyle that Ex wanted. I got it because I truly love Bill back, appreciate him, and want him in my life because I have regard for him. She just wants men in her life to use– to help her with the children, take orders from her, and support her lifestyle. And this is not necessarily the lifestyle I had planned for myself, because I had planned to have a career and kids of my own. Things didn’t work out that way.

Also… I have it on good authority that her kids don’t necessarily unconditionally love her, either. At least two of them moved across the country and don’t have much to say to her anymore. And this is because she was abusive to them, and denied them an upbringing that prepared them for adulthood. Both of those kids were plunged into adulthood in a baptism by fire, and both were assisted by other benevolent adults who cared more about them than she did. Like it or not, everyone grows up, and the vast majority of people, sooner or later, move out on their own. It’s up to parents to teach their kids how to function. It sounds as if she failed to do that, and the kids were left to figure things out for themselves.

But kids are resourceful. Ex introduced her children to the LDS church, and for years, it served as a parental alienation tool. My husband left the church; therefore, he wasn’t “good enough” to be their father anymore. She replaced him with #3, and demanded that they call him dad, whether or not they actually felt that connection. They were required to forget about Bill, who was the father of two of them, and had served as substitute dad to her oldest son, as his father was out of the picture even sooner than Bill was. Ex took photos of him away from them, wouldn’t let them talk to him on the phone, threw away his gifts to them, and told them lies. The end result was that at age 18, former stepson visited us with his girlfriend, now wife. For awhile, they had a connection, until Ex manipulated former stepson into trying to put one over on Bill by using him for money. We discovered what he was up to, and there was a falling out that, 13 years later, still hasn’t been rectified.

And then, younger daughter finally broke down the barrier. Her curiosity got the better of her, and at age 23 (in 2017), she finally talked to her father. She gradually found out that she was told many lies. Five years later, she is now being exposed to a lot of stuff that is probably blowing her mind. A lot of it is actually good stuff… but even the good stuff will probably eventually make her sad, because she’s going to realize that she was cheated and used. Her childhood was wasted being a support to her mother, instead of her mother helping her learn how to function as an adult, facilitating new experiences, and encouraging her to get a good education. Now, she’s a married mom of three, and while I know she loves being a mom and is a very good one, she might soon realize that these are the years she could have spread her wings and done something really exciting… and just for her.

I can tell that younger daughter is a very bright and capable young woman. I hope and expect that she will eventually get the chance to see the world and try new things when her children are older. I’m glad she loved the videos– the music and the photos of her dad. Maybe I can teach her some things, if she’ll let me.

As for Ex, I think if #3 is finally done with her, she totally deserves it. However, I worry that if he leaves her, she will end up in a crisis. #3 doesn’t have the resources Bill has. #3 is older than Bill was when he and Ex divorced, and he’s not in the best health. He can’t bounce back financially the way Bill did. Moreover, Ex’s youngest daughter is already an adult, and her youngest child is disabled and will likely never be on his own. Now, I don’t care if Ex is in a crisis, but I do worry about the vulnerable people in her sphere that she will try to exploit. She’s already shown us earlier this year that she’s capable of stooping pretty low, preying on Bill’s stepmother. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hit up Bill’s stepmother or other people in his family for money. So I hope Bill’s family is aware. But maybe this is much ado about nothing.

Anyway… I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Maybe I’ll play my Halloween mix, since this is the one day of the year it would be most appropriate.

Edited to add: Got tossed in Facebook jail again today, for sharing the video of the claymation guy who says “You can look at my butt.” Apparently, Facebook deems that “sexually suggestive” and “nudity” content. It’s a fucking cartoon, and contains lovely sentiments of acceptance and kindness, even if it is kind of weird and creepy for some. Anyway, it’s too bad Facebook no longer employs human beings, and it’s even worse that they allow some of the most vile insults and rudeness, but a video starring a claymation type dude being kind, comforting, and positive gets me banned from posting in my groups. And because I run two groups, that makes Facebook less useful and functional for me. I think these ridiculous and draconian censorship policies are going to cause their demise sometime very soon. They’ll be the new MySpace.

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