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.
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.
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