Spring

It is difficult to write truthfully about Spring without giving the impression that I am more bitter toward her than I am. Certainly I am bitter, I don't know how anyone in my place could not be, but I am far, far more bitter with the justice system than toward her.


Spring, and she was the one who initially asked me out, and I dated for many years until she pressured me to marry her just before her 30th birthday. I have always suspected that her mother was behind this, not wanting her daughter to end up single for life. I was somewhat surprised that Spring wanted to get married as she had shown little inclination along those lines. Moreover, I knew that she was not in love with me. Why? Well, first off she could never utter the words (in fact early in our relationship she told me point blank that she would never love me) and secondly, I simply never felt like she did. So, you may ask, why did I continue to go out with her let alone agree to marry her? I suppose the correct answer is that I was a dumb guy. And a dreamer, And a romantic. I always believed that if I loved her, if I treated her well, if I did all the things a person was supposed to do that she would come around. The last thing to do was to marry her. Maybe that would prove my love enough for her to love me. It didn't.

There were good times, although sadly her actions relating to the divorce make it impossible for me to now feel they were good times. In hindsight, when I now think of the fun we had it just makes me feel used.

I suppose the fact that I have been in a really good and healthy relationship for the last few years now also gives me something to compare against. I never realized just how bad of a deal I had with Spring while I was with her.

Early in our relationship Spring had a tendency toward violence. I am sure she doesn't view it that way; violent people rarely believe they are violent. I would say something witty, Spring would hit me. I would say something she didn't like, she would hit me. No doubt in her mind it was all very fun. A few years back I went to an ENT doctor who tried to run a scope down my left nostril but couldn't. He said I had a shifted septum and asked me if I had a sports injury when I was younger. I told him no but didn't tell him I knew exactly what happened. It was a summer day in the yard at my parents' house. I make a joke and Spring wound up an slugged me in the face. Eventually I succeeded in getting her to stop hitting, and was quite, if quietly, proud of getting Spring to not be so violent. Later on, when our first child was about a year old she confided to me that she had been worried how she would act with a crying baby and was relived, even proud, it had not pushed her to violence. Luckily both children were always pretty easy going.

Other areas I felt where I had a positive influence on Spring were getting her to quit driving with an open bottle (actually a Styrofoam cup full of beer in her case), getting her to wear her seat belt while driving and getting her to not drink while pregnant. I also helped her to graduate from college. She often said if it were not for my encouragement and support, let alone money, she would never have done so.

Sadly there were many areas where my influence did not work so well. One is that I was never able to break her habit of lying. She lied about little things and she lied about big things. She lied additively. Often I couldn't even fathom why she was lying. During the divorce, Spring told the most amazing lies. She accused me of all sort of things and simply made up events. In many cases, because they were in sworn affidavits, her statements constituted criminal perjury. She claimed I was violent and abusive which was utterly untrue and ridiculous. But sadly an effective strategy in Court. Unfortunately, these lies were crafted in such as way as to be almost impossible for me to prove they were untrue. I begged the Court to talk to the children as they would have completely refuted many of Spring's statements but Spring's lawyer always objected.

Another area I failed in was in getting Spring to have any sense of responsibility. Her salary went to her own entertainment while mine paid for everything else including her entertainment when we were together. Her monthly credit card bills often averaged six charges a day, few if any of which were related to the family. She contributed less than nothing financially to the family.

And it wasn't as if she busy being a homemaker. She was incredibly messy (I can remember one time when she peeled a beer bottle label, balled it up and flicked it across the room. Another time she made a sandwich and just swept the crumbs off the counter onto the floor.) As for the children, even the custody evaluator said she was not the primary parent. Spring was very much a lassie-fair mother.

In truth, if Spring had been passionate about art or writing or volunteering or taking care of the children, her actions would have bothered me far less. Supporting and helping her fulfill her dreams was a romantic notion to me and one I would have gladly done. I could have excused her lack of focus on money and family if she had a focus on something. But Spring wasn't passionate about anything. Her oft stated motto was, “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” and that is exactly how she lived her life. She just assumed, and in this she was right, that she didn't need to be responsible because others would always take care of her.

It pains me to look back at some of Spring's behaviors and realize with the wisdom of hindsight what I should have known then. One such behavior that stands out now is that Spring almost never agreed with me. He father, an avid Bill Clinton hater, would fantasize, quite seriously, about assassinating him when he was president. (he would go so far as to specify the rifle he would use), her nephew would claim that, "Everything you need to know is in the Bible",  her brother was convinced that the Trilateral Commission controlled the world's governments, and her mother became convinced that aliens landed in Roswell (and called me closed minded in front of my children when I said otherwise), yet Spring never corrected or countered them. However, with me she invariably took the opposite position of anything I said. Once when I stated that men and women were equally qualified to be president of the U.S. she actually argued against me. When we were out with friends she would disagree so much that eventually we quit going out with anyone other than her, very few, friends.   Why didn't I I leaver her back then? I really do not know. I suppose in part it was because I thought she was a bit of a free-spirit but would eventually settle down and become less abrasive. It didn't happen. 

One of the marriage counselors told Spring her behavior was passive-aggressive. Although I had not thought in those terms I knew that something was wrong with the way she acted. In addition to the lying she would do things seemingly just to irritate me. Although I am in no way a neat freak (I am actually kind of messy), I dislike grossness. Bathrooms that have not been cleaned in weeks and food crumbs on the floor, along with the mice they bring, are not good in my view. It seemed that Spring would almost purposefully leave food laying round and not clean the bathroom just to bug me. And because I was not the type to yell at her about these things. I think it just bugged her all the more. One theory I have about Spring is that the type of guy she really wanted was one who would not take any crap from her. One that would tell her what to do. It didn't matter if that was to work and pay the bills or stay home and take care of the kids. Her vision of a “real” man was aggressive and in charge. And here I was – a guy who liked to read and learn and run and be with the children. A guy who would just passively pick up after her.

Alcohol. Spring's drinking was always an area of concern. As Spring wasn't the type that reacted well to criticism, even gentle criticism, I only raised the issue with her a few times. A few years before we were married I had a told her I thought she should cut back on the drinking and finish college and when she was pregnant I said that I really, really did want her to drink.

All the marriage counselors focused heavily her drinking. One stated that her pattern of behavior, including lying, was very typical of an alcoholic. Certainly Spring could drink a lot. Culturally she came from a family that drank a lot. Her father had died of liver cancer, although Spring always claimed it was unrelated to his heavy drinking, and several of her relatives were self-avowed reformed alcoholics. However, because she had given up drinking while she was pregnant, I thought she was in control of it. One time during a period we were in counseling (and the her drinking had by then been brought up by the counselor) she proceeded to drink at least ten drinks on the Saturday before Easter. At least that is how many I counted. Was that a sign of alcoholism or was she making a statement? I really do not know.

I do not know why Spring decided to divorce me. My guess is that she came somehow to realize she could through perjury and fraud take nearly everything from me. That totally pandered to her controlling nature. I never saw her work so hard on anything as she did the divorce. She loved being bad although again I doubt she realizes this.

At one point early on in the divorce process, Spring did tell me she wanted to be with someone else. My impression at the time was that she had met someone else or or at least had her eye on someone but I now think she was just speaking of the future. Oddly the kids have stated that she has never, as far as they know, been on a single date since she left.

The night before Thanksgiving two years ago, Spring went a bar where a band was playing. The band included my first cousin's husband, a guy I went to grade school with and a guy I have know since high school. The audience was packed with my relatives and friends. Spring proceeded to get completely drunk and made a fool out of herself. The next day she told the kids she wasn't going to her brother's for Thanksgiving because she was sick due to virus she picked up at work. She doesn't just lie to me. It boggles my mind what could have possessed her to act that way at bar full of people the kids and I knew and then lie to the kids about it. How could they not find out? Prior to that day, Spring had always taken the boys to her brother's for a noon Thanksgiving meal and then they came to my house as I host all my siblings with their families. (I also host Christmas and Easter)

Last year, Spring did nothing for Thanksgiving. This year the kids didn't even bother going to her house on Easter.  

No comments:

Post a Comment