Monday, October 24, 2011
Just want to be clear
In my last blog I wrote about my first divorce and the things I saw, or perceived. I just want to make myself clear that what I wrote was based on my perception of how things happened. I'm not going to say that it was all fact but how I saw things. There are always two sides to every story, and I'm sure that my ex has her idea of what happened also. One thing we can both agree on is that we were way too young to have been married, the other thing we can agree on is that we have got the best daughter in the world, and I will say that her mother did a great job raising her. I just wish she would have allowed me to be a bigger part of her upbringing, or at the very least made it easier for me to be.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Day one.
Well, this is day one of the S.F.C.A.U.C.S. I wish there could have been an easier name than that, but it sums up what I want this to stand for. Single Fathers Coalition Against the Unfair Court System.
My goal here is to create a place for single fathers like myself who have been treated unfairly by the court system in regards to their child custody rights. I know there are many men out there just like me that have been through the ringer by ex-wives getting away with sick and sadistic methods of continuing control over our lives well beyond the end of the marriage. The thing that upsets me the most about this is they use the one thing they know will hurt us most and that is our children. I want to put an end to this and make the court step up in the area of defense for the fathers and to protect our rights as such.
For this first blog I will give my background in the area to hopefully convince you that I am right in doing this. I was married for the first time about two weeks after I graduated high school, about two weeks after that I and my wife were on our way to Alabama for Army basic training and advanced individual training at the then U.S. Army Military Police School. At the end of October 1994 I finished my training and moved on to our first duty station in the Republic of Panama. My wife followed about two weeks after I arrived in country because she had gone home because her father had been hospitalized. Things seemed great at first, we got ourselves an apartment in Panama City, we were making good money and were able to buy what we wanted on top of the things we needed. For almost the first three months we were there we were guarding the Cuban refugees that had been picked up trying to get into Florida. After the camps closed up we celebrated in our new apartment and that is when our daughter was conceived.
We found a house to move into after about six months in the apartment and things seemed to be getting better for a while. While my wife was pregnant she was moved to an admin. position in the company. One night my platoon came in from training a day early, when I got home, my wife and daughter were no where to be found, but my car was in the drive. I searched the house and found beer bottles in the trash and there were condoms missing from our bedside table. Neither I nor my wife drank, or so I thought. After about an hour of calling around trying to find out where she was, I finally got in touch with a friend from my platoon. He said my daughter was over there and that my wife had gone out clubbing, but wouldn't tell me with who. I waited for my wife to get home, because I knew there was a good explanation for everything. I didn't mind that she had gone out, but I was wondering about the beer and the condoms. I had my suspicions but I wanted to be a good husband and didn't want to jump to conclusions either. When she got home she got out of the front seat of the car, and I know she was surprised to see me home early by the look on her face. She then tried to make me out to be some bad guy because I went and picked up my daughter from our friends where she was planning on leaving her overnight. When I asked who she had been with she said some friends from our company but didn't give names at first. When I questioned her about the beer and condoms she said that Al and his girlfriend had drank them before they went to the club and he needed some condoms for later. Again I tried to be the good husband and believe her, but something just didn't fit.
Eventually we moved on post after our daughter was born in November of 95. We were both back to working regular road police duties by then and were planning to go on leave so that our families could see our daughter. For some reason my leave request didn't go through but her's did so we agreed that she would take our daughter to see her family when she went and I would take her to my family when my leave went through. She was suppose to take two weeks of leave in the U.S., but after about a week one of my platoon buddies said he saw her coming out of someone's quarters with this Al guy. I thought that can't be right she's still in the states. After the second person came and told me the same thing the next day I decided to have a look for myself. Long story short she tried to tell me that she had just got back the night before and that she had these friends pick her up because she wanted to surprise me by coming home early. It wasn't till way later that those "friends" of her's told me that they were giving her and Al a place to basically shack up so I wouldn't know.
After my leave finally got approved my wife came into our bedroom early one morning. I was sleeping because I had worked the overnight shift the night before. She woke me to tell me that she wanted to talk because she wasn't going to let me take my daughter on leave when I went. Of course I was mad instantly, but I was also half asleep. I told her I didn't want to talk about it and that we would talk when I woke up. But she plopped down on the bed and started shaking me and telling me that we had to talk about it now so I put my foot against her thigh and pushed her off the bed and told her I wouldn't talk about it now and that it could wait till I woke up. Ten minutes later I got a phone call from my team sergeant, he told me to get up, get dressed and get to the company commander's office now. I did as I was told and after reporting the commander told me that my wife was filing battery charges against me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I explained everything that had happened, I knew I didn't touch her hard enough to do anything serious to her. Then it came to me, she was anemic, if I had done what she said, she would have a bruise where I had "kicked" her. (I didn't even have my leg cocked to kick) So the commander had a female sergeant take a look at the place where she said I kicked her and there was no bruise, case closed right? Not by a long shot. We were forced to see a military councilor for our marriage. After we both told him our sides of the story, he said "Well this is a simple fix." Then he looked at my wife and said "You need to stop seeing Al as of right now." She threw a fit and started yelling and cussing and screaming about how the army can't tell her who her friends can and cannot be etc. Then can you guess what they made her do? Nothing... But they made me go to anger management courses. Can you believe that? Never once did I raise my voice, get excited or anything of the sort, but I had to go to anger management. I'm glad I did, because it helped me a lot in my second divorce, but that is another story, and this one is not quite over yet.
She had eventually told me she wanted a divorce but adamantly denied having anything to do with Al emotionally or sexually, but was seen during all this time up in his barracks room for extended periods and seen with him all over the place. She got herself thrown out of the army by failing physical fitness tests and once she got back to the states she applied for our divorce. Her lawyer sent me a copy of the decree he had drawn up to look over and sign, but when I applied for the leave I never got to take again the army wouldn't let me take it to go and finalize the divorce, and on top of that the army lawyers wouldn't help me understand the divorce decree. I finally got the lawyer to write up a decree I thought would work, so I signed the paper and sent them back after I made copies. The finalized divorce decree is not the one I signed, there were a lot of changes made to what I had agreed on. When I questioned the court about it they asked what lawyer she used. When I told them they said that was not the first time he had done that and that there was nothing I could do about it because the judge had already signed off on the papers. I could have sworn that in some of the law classes I took in college that that would be considered falsification of a document. Oh well, I guess I must have been in the wrong again.
Here it is 15 years later, yes I have had some issues in paying child support in the past, especially recently with the way the economy has been. My daughter will be 16 this November, I haven't seen her since she was 4. Her mother has done anything and everything to make it as difficult or down right impossible for me to see or contact my daughter for the past 12 years. Phone numbers get cancelled, then when child support stops because of a layoff or something I get a phone call telling me the new number and that stays on till I start making regular phone contact then the number gets cancelled again. Now, I finally am starting to build a relationship back with my daughter by text because she has her own phone, but how do you make up for 12 years of being absent. They moved to Texas quite a few years ago so its not like I can just take a couple of days and go see her. Oh yeah, and about two weeks after our divorce was finalized she married Al, and now she is divorced from him and married to another guy. I hope either she has grown up, or he is smart enough to catch her before she dose something again.
I'll tell you about my second divorce next time, my fingers are tired and I just told you the basics. If you have any comments, or have been through something similar, please share your story. I want this a place where men can come and get help and healing to some of these problems and to make a difference.
My goal here is to create a place for single fathers like myself who have been treated unfairly by the court system in regards to their child custody rights. I know there are many men out there just like me that have been through the ringer by ex-wives getting away with sick and sadistic methods of continuing control over our lives well beyond the end of the marriage. The thing that upsets me the most about this is they use the one thing they know will hurt us most and that is our children. I want to put an end to this and make the court step up in the area of defense for the fathers and to protect our rights as such.
For this first blog I will give my background in the area to hopefully convince you that I am right in doing this. I was married for the first time about two weeks after I graduated high school, about two weeks after that I and my wife were on our way to Alabama for Army basic training and advanced individual training at the then U.S. Army Military Police School. At the end of October 1994 I finished my training and moved on to our first duty station in the Republic of Panama. My wife followed about two weeks after I arrived in country because she had gone home because her father had been hospitalized. Things seemed great at first, we got ourselves an apartment in Panama City, we were making good money and were able to buy what we wanted on top of the things we needed. For almost the first three months we were there we were guarding the Cuban refugees that had been picked up trying to get into Florida. After the camps closed up we celebrated in our new apartment and that is when our daughter was conceived.
We found a house to move into after about six months in the apartment and things seemed to be getting better for a while. While my wife was pregnant she was moved to an admin. position in the company. One night my platoon came in from training a day early, when I got home, my wife and daughter were no where to be found, but my car was in the drive. I searched the house and found beer bottles in the trash and there were condoms missing from our bedside table. Neither I nor my wife drank, or so I thought. After about an hour of calling around trying to find out where she was, I finally got in touch with a friend from my platoon. He said my daughter was over there and that my wife had gone out clubbing, but wouldn't tell me with who. I waited for my wife to get home, because I knew there was a good explanation for everything. I didn't mind that she had gone out, but I was wondering about the beer and the condoms. I had my suspicions but I wanted to be a good husband and didn't want to jump to conclusions either. When she got home she got out of the front seat of the car, and I know she was surprised to see me home early by the look on her face. She then tried to make me out to be some bad guy because I went and picked up my daughter from our friends where she was planning on leaving her overnight. When I asked who she had been with she said some friends from our company but didn't give names at first. When I questioned her about the beer and condoms she said that Al and his girlfriend had drank them before they went to the club and he needed some condoms for later. Again I tried to be the good husband and believe her, but something just didn't fit.
Eventually we moved on post after our daughter was born in November of 95. We were both back to working regular road police duties by then and were planning to go on leave so that our families could see our daughter. For some reason my leave request didn't go through but her's did so we agreed that she would take our daughter to see her family when she went and I would take her to my family when my leave went through. She was suppose to take two weeks of leave in the U.S., but after about a week one of my platoon buddies said he saw her coming out of someone's quarters with this Al guy. I thought that can't be right she's still in the states. After the second person came and told me the same thing the next day I decided to have a look for myself. Long story short she tried to tell me that she had just got back the night before and that she had these friends pick her up because she wanted to surprise me by coming home early. It wasn't till way later that those "friends" of her's told me that they were giving her and Al a place to basically shack up so I wouldn't know.
After my leave finally got approved my wife came into our bedroom early one morning. I was sleeping because I had worked the overnight shift the night before. She woke me to tell me that she wanted to talk because she wasn't going to let me take my daughter on leave when I went. Of course I was mad instantly, but I was also half asleep. I told her I didn't want to talk about it and that we would talk when I woke up. But she plopped down on the bed and started shaking me and telling me that we had to talk about it now so I put my foot against her thigh and pushed her off the bed and told her I wouldn't talk about it now and that it could wait till I woke up. Ten minutes later I got a phone call from my team sergeant, he told me to get up, get dressed and get to the company commander's office now. I did as I was told and after reporting the commander told me that my wife was filing battery charges against me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I explained everything that had happened, I knew I didn't touch her hard enough to do anything serious to her. Then it came to me, she was anemic, if I had done what she said, she would have a bruise where I had "kicked" her. (I didn't even have my leg cocked to kick) So the commander had a female sergeant take a look at the place where she said I kicked her and there was no bruise, case closed right? Not by a long shot. We were forced to see a military councilor for our marriage. After we both told him our sides of the story, he said "Well this is a simple fix." Then he looked at my wife and said "You need to stop seeing Al as of right now." She threw a fit and started yelling and cussing and screaming about how the army can't tell her who her friends can and cannot be etc. Then can you guess what they made her do? Nothing... But they made me go to anger management courses. Can you believe that? Never once did I raise my voice, get excited or anything of the sort, but I had to go to anger management. I'm glad I did, because it helped me a lot in my second divorce, but that is another story, and this one is not quite over yet.
She had eventually told me she wanted a divorce but adamantly denied having anything to do with Al emotionally or sexually, but was seen during all this time up in his barracks room for extended periods and seen with him all over the place. She got herself thrown out of the army by failing physical fitness tests and once she got back to the states she applied for our divorce. Her lawyer sent me a copy of the decree he had drawn up to look over and sign, but when I applied for the leave I never got to take again the army wouldn't let me take it to go and finalize the divorce, and on top of that the army lawyers wouldn't help me understand the divorce decree. I finally got the lawyer to write up a decree I thought would work, so I signed the paper and sent them back after I made copies. The finalized divorce decree is not the one I signed, there were a lot of changes made to what I had agreed on. When I questioned the court about it they asked what lawyer she used. When I told them they said that was not the first time he had done that and that there was nothing I could do about it because the judge had already signed off on the papers. I could have sworn that in some of the law classes I took in college that that would be considered falsification of a document. Oh well, I guess I must have been in the wrong again.
Here it is 15 years later, yes I have had some issues in paying child support in the past, especially recently with the way the economy has been. My daughter will be 16 this November, I haven't seen her since she was 4. Her mother has done anything and everything to make it as difficult or down right impossible for me to see or contact my daughter for the past 12 years. Phone numbers get cancelled, then when child support stops because of a layoff or something I get a phone call telling me the new number and that stays on till I start making regular phone contact then the number gets cancelled again. Now, I finally am starting to build a relationship back with my daughter by text because she has her own phone, but how do you make up for 12 years of being absent. They moved to Texas quite a few years ago so its not like I can just take a couple of days and go see her. Oh yeah, and about two weeks after our divorce was finalized she married Al, and now she is divorced from him and married to another guy. I hope either she has grown up, or he is smart enough to catch her before she dose something again.
I'll tell you about my second divorce next time, my fingers are tired and I just told you the basics. If you have any comments, or have been through something similar, please share your story. I want this a place where men can come and get help and healing to some of these problems and to make a difference.
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