Preface to my story

         BEFORE I SET IN TO tell my story, I wanted to preface this by saying If anyone actually reads this, I hope it'll be helpful to those men who are thinking about staying home to take care of their children.

This BLOG will primarily be directed toward those men who are contemplating entering into what is still a somewhat unconventional marriage, that of being a "Mr. Mom" otherwise known as a stay at home father where I will use myself and my experiences as an example (and warning) of what could happen to you if you don't take precautions.

AS THE NATION MATURES I believe more and more women will at least reach parity with men in their earning power and more & more men will be faced with the decision I faced over 20 years ago; this was before they made the movie "Mr. Mom"' and before the term or the lifestyle became prevalent. I think this can be a good thing IF all people are treated equally. Well, if you live in the real world I do, you'll know this last part just isn't so.

If you're a man who is considering staying home to care for your children you NEED to be aware of the things that will put you at a disadvantage in society. Some of it may be obvious like people not respecting your choice or being suspect of your motives. But what I want to do here more than anything is go through my 20 year marriage where I raised four children (2 & 2) from birth to fledgling and clue you into the difficulties I faced that eventually ended my marriage.

I do this in the hope that you'll be able to avoid the mistakes I made and hopefully one day the courts will recognize that Men can be abused too.

First, it's a hard choice because like I said you won't be respected for the decision you've made.
For myself I saw this as a sacrifice I was making "for my family". Where only I (and sometimes my wife) felt that way. You have to remember, as a man in society you're still expected to be the bread winner.

In my case I married into the most liberal sort of family possible (that's not to say I am) but even with their progressive sensitivities, my staying home to care for our children was always seen by them as suspect. I guess we all have our hypocrisy's but it's something you need to know, prepare for and guard against.

Second, you need to know that the states have been given billions of dollars by way of the Violence Against Women Act that looks upon you as a brute who is more likely than not to abuse your wife.

As a result you'll have no civil rights because of the "special nature" of our family courts.

In itself I personally think protecting women from abuse is a very good thing. Unfortunately however, as a result of this law a well funded industry has grown up to protect your wife from you, NOT the other way around. Therefore you will be at a terrible disadvantage and you must NEVER forget that.

You also need to understand that you're on your own in doing this and no one, not the state, not the Feds, not CPS and most especially not the courts will do anything to protect your rights as a father or protect you from abuse.
It's a hard thing to face, but you have to know that you're the one who will be assumed to be the abuser, not your wife if you ever find yourself in an abusive relationship.

What I just said may seem incredibly cynical especially if you're just starting out but every word is absolutely true and there are thousands and thousands of Fathers today who will attest to it because they lost everything, including their children when their marriage ended.

A divorce attorney once told me it's just easier (and more importantly faster) to win a case by alleging abuse against men. They know that saving time is what courts value most in our overburdened family court system.... Not justice.
He finally added "it's nothing personal, it's just business" ..... as if that made it OK.

THE GOOD NEWS:
I think there's a way to protect yourself, not necessarily from the abuse industry, but I think you can protect yourself in other ways by taking some precautions and taking care of yourself first during your marriage.
That may seem selfish, especially if you consider the life you've entered into, but what women have come to realize is that by doing this it can protect them and even make them better mothers... by INSISTING on taking care of themselves first. You my friend need to do the same.

Yes, I'm a man, I'm a father of four, I'm a professional who was disabled and I'm the one who was abused in our marriage. That's not to say I got physically beat up, though she did occasionally hit me, it was the other things that hurt far far more.

Lose your children through the courts so you will be denied contact and it could very well end your life.... Literally.

The Problems Of Just Starting Out

FIRST AND FOREMOST:
You have to know that you'll be looked upon differently by society. You'll be a man doing a "woman's job" and people will question everything from your sexuality to you trying to "live off your wife". So if you aren't sure enough of who you are and your new place in the world you shouldn't start this. So if you do and you aren't squared away you'll likely fail and the consequences can be tragic.

I can't tell you how many times someone has told me that some day I was going to make someone a good wife.
It's the crap like that She'll notice and it's the crap like that that'll test you and who you think you are.

More importantly though, those little comments won't be lost on your wife. You have to remember the knight in shining armor crap your going to have to live with and prepare for.

You'll also have to remember she won't want you to be an embarrassment to her either.... Like anyone, she'll want to be proud of her spouse. She may even defend you by telling people what an accomplished person you are and what a sacrifice you're making by staying at home, but eventually those comments will wear on her...

Unfortunately you can also depend on her friends, her family, her co-workers and just about every one else asking her why she's letting you "live off her". Eventually those comments will breed doubts and even contempt if you don't do something about it first.

Look at this from her perspective. She's been hearing things like this for a long time and she's been doing her best to defend you. Every once in a while though she'll be tired too from a long day at work, and maybe she'll come home and find you taking a nap or Gawd forbid watching T.V.?
What'll happen then? I'll tell you what, she'll start to imagine you spending all day watching T.V. and she'll do the natural thing, she'll start to resent your "easy life".

What she may have forgotten or maybe not even understand from the beginning was how you may have been up since 6 am getting the kids ready for school.... after also being up half the night with a sick baby or maybe just the sleep deprivation of having to get up every two to three hours for bottle feeding and diaper changing.... While she quietly slept so she could function at work.

This isn't usually an intentional or malevolent thing, I think it's just human nature.... Which in many ways makes it harder to guard against.

Now this may all seem incredibly cynical, and you may say "that will never happen to me" because you love one another. after all and at this point you would probably trust her with your life.
Well you guessed it Bud because that's exactly what you're doing. Maybe not now, but eventually as you become settled into your new life, you're likely to start making the mistake of becoming more and more dependent on Her.

BUT PEOPLE CHANGE and NOTHING IS FOREVER not even your love if you're not careful.

Your going to change as you go through this, and I can guarantee you she's going to change too. Some things are going to be for the better but some may not, and that's what you have to be prepared for because it eventuality happens to everyone.

You have to remember that almost half of all marriages in America end in failure and you don't want yours to be one of those so listen up my friend.

The Risks And Rewards of Staying Home to Take Care of Your Children

NOW THAT I'VE SCARED the hell out of you let me also say that the rewards for taking care of your children at home can be immense.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that men can't be just as nurturing or love a child every bit as much as a woman can. I for one see nothing wrongs with this... But here again when you walk into a room with that baby in your arms people may look at you funny for all the reasons I've gone over before.... But don't worry about it, F'em.

The best part for me at least was having my kids all grew up with me on the go. Where ever we went, people were always coming up to us to say how well behaved our children were.

For us this was just normal... They went every where; hiking, biking, to church, out to dinner.... wherever. We simply explained to the children that other people were here to enjoy themselves too and being loud etc. would disturb them.
Never underestimate the ability of a four year old to want to make friends and please the people around them.
We simply asked them to behave and reminded them as needed... and it worked every time. It also didn't hurt that they knew about rule number one: When Daddy says no, HE MEANS IT :-)

As for the "Terrible Two's"..... Those are very real too. At that age they're just so busy taking everything in around them & they just forget more often. They just needed more reminders to behave... and about rule number one. It was all just part of the process and for us... it worked out somehow.

Now, lets go over the traps & pitfalls you'll face.

As I spoke of earlier, it's just human nature that'll make things difficult.

First, lets remember the "mommy resentment": At first she'll be the center of attention when she performed that miracle of creating another little human.

But as that eight week pregnancy-leave deadline gets closer & closer she'll get more and more pissy (at you) for "taking her baby away" from her.

I found one of the best ways to deal with this is to do a lot of baby care reading together, and while you're about it make like she's the expert because of her female-ness (even if she's not... the expert), and ask her lots and lots of questions.
Make her feel NEEDED as a mother... even if you know all the answers too. Remember, she's going to need to feel like she's needed as a mother, not just the family "bread winner".

Don't over do it of course but at this point she'll need a lot of ego boosting just to help her keep it together. Remember, what you're planning to do is crush all her childhood dreams "for the sake of the family".

Also you may need to take into consideration that her hormones have been and are flooding her with hard wired messages about what's going on. At first it may even be a little funny.

We used to laugh at Suzanne "letting down" with the sound of a baby crying on T.V.

That may be the funny side, the not so funny side can be strange, malicious, even hateful. Things will go on in her head now that would surprise and maybe even scare you a little.

In my opinion YOU HAVE TO MAKE HER FEEL SAFE talk about these things, her doubts, her suspicions... All the thing that may eat at your marriage that she won't want to talk about.

Postpartum depression is very real and can be the root of her problems initially, but just hang tough & be supportive. It'll pass.... eventually.

What worked for me was for me to make it clear that I understood these thoughts and suspicions to be normal & to be expected when you're living in a way that society isn't comfortable with. Tell her to expect that people will talk you down for staying home and that you're expecting these thoughts and resentments from her too, and that YOU WON'T BE UPSET with her for having them because IT'S NORMAL.

Like anything else in a healthy marriage, I think the key is COMMUNICATION.

I'll give you a little example that I'll never forget: It's been a long time so I don't remember exactly why we didn't bathe our newborn Matthew in the little baby bath that we usually did with the other children, but for some season I took Matthew into the shower with me with Suzanne hovering very close by fussing over everything....

The mother hen analogy would definitely fit in this circumstance.... or maybe a Ping-Pong ball would be more apt.

In any case, Matthew and I were taking a nice quiet peaceful showers together but as I held him in my arms I accidently dropped a bar of soap.

When I did all hell broke lose on the other side of the shower door. Here I was having this moment with my new Son while his mother was having a breakdown screaming bloody murder because she was sure that the bar of soap was Matthew & she was too afraid to see what had happened by opening the door.

Mind you, I had no idea what was going on in her head at the time. I had no idea what her fears were. Here I was, just taking a nice shower with Matthew while she was coming out of her skin waiting for that sound.... and I had no idea.

This is the sort of thing that I really want to get across. I think Men and Women are very different in in this way. Men have no problem saying what's on their mind... Some times too much so. While women on the other hand have so much crap running around in their head as to why, why-not, should she, shouldn't she, what-if, what-if..... FRIGGIN' WHAT IF!!!!

Forever and ever what-if....

Well what if women actually said what they're thinking... If you actually have a committed, trusting relationship, what could go wrong?! It's frustrating to say the least. IMO (again).

You know, some times I think Women are a lot like horses.....
They can be strong, steadfast, faithful & loving and sometimes you may have to quietly coax them along..... but scare them or bully them and you can be in a WORLD OF HURT my friend!

Believe it or not, this little thing actually resulted in Suzanne attacking me later that day while she was in the middle of her breakdown. All because I hadn't paid more attention to what was going on in her head & had driven her to the edge of sanity.... during a postpartum moment.

Some background: my former wife is a very very competent critical care nurse who can handle blood and guts with the best of them in an emergency... but let her see someone she cares about poke themselves in the finger and she'll faint dead away. OK, maybe a little exaggeration.... but close!

The Decision, The Commitment, The Risks and the Sacrifice of Staying Home as A Man.

FOR MYSELF, I was a Stanford trained Paramedic and the woman I fell in love with and subsequently married was a Vermont Farmer's Daughter who had gone to Nursing School in New Hampshire.

Now at the time as it is today, the two professions require the same degree of education and experience but it seems our society values us very differently. The reason I say this is that this was the background that came to influence our decisions when it came to our starting a family.

Simply put, Nurses make twice what Paramedics do in this country, so we needed to make a decision. Namely, were we going to live with one standard of living if I primarily supported the family, or were we going to live with another if she did.... "Strike one"

At the time the decision seemed to be a simple one, especially given that I had sustained a very serious injury a number of years before. As such I told Suzanne that I expected to be in a wheel chair sometime within the next twenty years or so.... "Strike two"

I say it seemed to be a simple decision because at the time I just didn't have any reference with regard to what life could be like twenty years on. I simply didn't know or expect the things that would complicate my life and eventually end my marriage..... So don't be like me & keep reading.

In the early 90's when we set out to start a family there was a lot of media coverage about day care abuse and the like, so that pretty much set us against daycare for the duration.... "Strike three" and I was destined to be a "Mr. Mom" working around my wife's schedule.

I never expected to stay at home father as I would think most of you may not too, but I have to tell you, babies and children are more than full day's job. And while I tried to go back to school a number of times my wife's job (that we all depended on) always had to come first.

This meant her work schedule, job transfers, promotions, her education, her advancement were all things we had to consider when it came to me working or going back to school. Now this doesn't even take into account the children's schooling and the seemingly ever present little emergencies that are attendant to raising a family.... like doctor's appointments etc.

I'll give you a real example from my life. One day my Daughter Michelle developed a fever while in third grade. I had planned to go to class that day to take a mid-term exam in A&P, but with Michelle home someone had to stay with her so I called Suzanne.

The conversation went almost exactly like this; "of course Honey I'll come home if I have to", but she added "if I do it's going to cost us my wages for the day". "You know" she said, "It'll cost us about $500.00 if I do". "You tell me what you want me to do Honey and I'll do it" she finally said.

OK, so what would you have done?

Well I stayed home to care for Michelle thinking that I could always make up the test. But with working part time evenings & weekends and one thing and another the opportunity never came and I had to drop the class.
Things like this happened time after time and I was never able to get back to school in any meaningful way.

What should I have done? I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN CARE OF MYSELF TOO, and not sacrificed my well being for my family's. And if you think about it (as I have over and over again) we were making a lot of money at the time & easily afforded it.

The real problem as I think about it now was I didn't want to look selfish in my wife's eyes, even though I'm not sure that would have crossed her mind then.

So you say you're going to go back to school while doing this? I wish you good luck if you don't go in understanding what you're up against :-/

OK here I'm going to give you a hint that may well save your marriage in a few years.
At first life will be great when that first baby comes and you start your new life. She'll be grateful to you for staying home and letting her continue on with her career. Just remember a couple of things.....

One, since she was a little girl playing with her "babies" she has always looked forward to being a mother. And what she thought of as being a mother then was staying at home, with a strong successful man to take care of her, bring home the bacon and slaying the occasional dragon for her too.

Yes I know, she's a modern successful woman with the challenge of a great career in front of her, and she probably actually wants you to stay at home during the day as she said when you both agreed to it..... But they say many of these things are hard wired and those sweet memories will die hard my friend.

That's why even though she may not be aware of it, on some level she will resent you for taking her place as a mother SO WATCH OUT!

Two, a woman is always going to be a woman and if she's like most she probably sees you on some level as her knight in shining armor, or she wouldn't have married you in the first place..... Right?

The hint?

PLAN AHEAD! Make plans to go back to school to get your degree or your master's or your contractor's license or start that business or whatever it is that make you who you are.... or where when she married you.
You have to make plans to do something to improve yourself and keep her interested... and stick to it or soon your shining armor will start to rust.

Remember she'll be spending all day with men who are attractive, maybe exciting, maybe powerful..... and at least accessible if not openly available and on the hunt.

So don't depend on that little gold band around your finger keeping her tied to you... because it won't.

Remember, from her perspective there will become nothing worse than coming home to a tired, worn out & dumpy husband who's day was full of nothing but diaper changes, cleaning house & potty training. You just won't be as interesting to her after a while no matter what she may say to you to make you feel better... Unless you do something about it.

On top of everything remember you'll be responsible for (and she'll probably come to expect) the little things like dinner (on time?) when she gets home, a clean house and maybe even a romp in the sack once in a while too. So don't take her or your relationship for granted OR YOU WILL LOSE HER!

The Abuse Dynamic.... And How to Avoid It

IN MY OPINION people are people and it's just human nature that makes us hurt one another.

If you ask anyone who knows, spousal abuse is about exploitation and control in an unequal power dynamic. So if you're a man who will stay at home taking care of your children, you will eventually be at the same disadvantage... just like women who do the same.
Remember, women in the home are abused at a rate that is statistically much higher than their sisters in the workplace. This will be your risk too.

An expert in the field once told me that (absent violence) if you have two people abusing one another than you just have a couple of jerks abusing one another... No harm, no foul.

HOWEVER, if one person can't fight back because of a disadvantage or disability, or a lack of power because only one of them controls the money. Or if one has a career while the other's been in the home taking care of children and has no means of support? THAN YOU HAVE SPOUSAL ABUSE.

Or at least that's been the definition... if you were a woman.

It really shouldn't matter if you're a man or a woman. Abuse in the home is about control and exploitation, not as much about how.

As an abuse victim myself I've sat in with a group of abused women telling my story and had them tell me what I went through was exactly like what they went through. IT'S ABOUT CONTROL and being made to feel powerless & trapped while even feeling like it was your fault that you're being abused.

It may sound perverse to anyone who's never been abused, but it's a very real thing in human nature.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that because you're a real he man or because you're physically stronger than your wife or because you KNOW SHE LOVES YOU or that you think she would never do something like that.... Because IT CAN happen to you if you don't take precautions against it throughout your marriage; It can happen to anyone under the right circumstances.

In the end I hope you'll be able to raise your children with a little bit of a man's perspective on the world the way I hope I was able to do. Take them fishing, take them hunting.... Take them to a show.... Whatever, Just try to show them what integrity is from a good & committed Man's perspective. I say this because I personally think it's something that's been missing in our young men & women for a long time.

My kids are mostly all grown up now and most people think they (all four) turned out very well.... despite everything.

YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING YOUR SELF INTO!

How it was done

What I want to do with this post is to have it be an example of what can happen to you if you're not careful.

I've been hesitating to write this post for a long time because I don't want to just sound like I'm another bitter person complaining about my marriage. I'm not....
What I do want to do is help change what I see as an unfair system towards Men, specifically the abused Men out there....... Here goes.

First and foremost: You have to understand that as a man you're most vulnerable to the abuser's most effective tool: The judicial restraining order.

If you become the subject of a restraining order you're just about done. In my opinion the only real way to fight this as a man is to file first. If you don't there's virtually nothing short of tens of thousands in attorney's fees that will help.

Second: What you also have to realize is that since the beginning of the "Violence against Women Act" went into effect it has pumped BILLIONS of dollars into an industry that is hostile toward men and has become very sophisticated in how to fight these battles to a Woman's advantage.
How to do what I'm about to describe is available from any Woman's center in this country.

Third: There is a lot of money to be made from divorce; tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars that can and will strip a family of everything it may have taken decades for you to save. In my case over $130,000 was spent by my wife on a case that was essentially one sided and never even went to trial. This money represented my children's college fund and it's now gone.

Fourth: All's fare in Love and War..... and in court too:
What I didn't know & what an attorney later told me was that Perjury just doesn't matter in court.... Judges EXPECT people to lie and they essentially rely upon the "adversarial system" in their court room to hash out the truth. So if she lies about you in a courtroom where you're not in attendance..... Too bad.

With regard to the restraining order, the rules work both ways... and this can help to level the "playing field". Please see my note at the end of this post.

In my state (California) there are so many "abuse" laws that virtually anything qualifies as "abuse" and the level of proof is so low that simple "fear of abuse" is all it takes to have you lose your Children, your home and everything you've worked so hard to save over the years; your home, your savings, your checking, your retirement.... everything is likely to be given to her if she can paint you as an "abusive and violent man" who hits his wife, or worse "abuses his children".

The fact that you've never done anything to anyone just won't matter until it's too late. So If you're tagged like this.... you're toast.

In my case as a classic example:

My Wife (Ex-Wife) had been planning this for at least a year. I know this because of how long the records showed how she had been paying her attorney with "community property" funds.

Her first move was to change our mailing address with the Post Office so I would never find out about what she was doing.

The next thing she did was to start transferring all of our liquid assets into new accounts in her name only. In our case that was close to 200K, a substantial "war chest" that was never declared to the court. (and you'll never know because the Post Office is now diverting all your mail to her office or the home of one of her friends)

The next thing was to stop paying on our bills and two property Mortgages. So after about a year our homes went into default and then foreclosure... and I never suspected a thing until after she emptied our checking account at the last minute and left with the children.
It was only after I went to use the ATM to get gas that I found this out from my bank when I called.

I has Blind Sided & devastated; I was the one who was disabled and had been being abused by her. I never ever thought I could be caught up in something like this.

In my opinion however, the worst thing that was done to me was to portray me as a "Wife-Beater".
I had never laid a hand on my wife.... Ever. The thought never crossed my mind but that just didn't matter.

In my case my kids denied everything she said to CPS and the psychologist....  in the final investigation. But that didn't matter because by then the Judge was convinced of what his opinion was of me..... A worthless, sponging, violent, wife beating, child abusing man....

How it was done:
In my case Suzanne is a Surgical nurse. When she's on call she may also have to recover the Patient too, and some times patients wake up violently. She works in a V.A. Hospital and so this happens occasionally.
In this one case, a few weeks before she was about to leave, a patient hit her in the face and she came home with this classic "Shiner" on her left eye. When I first saw it I saw red and I think the first thing I said was "who hit you".... like any husband. But when she told me how it happened I felt bad for her and kind of babied her and her black eye. The strange thing was she got really mad at me when I did. Here's why.

As soon as she got the black eye she went to an "abuse psychologist" that was recommended by her attorney. The Psychologist "documented" how she got the injury blaming me for hitting her.
And that's all it took... I was toast from that moment on.

But she didn't stop there: She then requested an Emergency meeting with our county CPS (Child Protective Services).

A note on CPS: These people can be your most devastating and effective adversary because they're secretive and more importantly they're autonomous, THEY ANSWER TO NO ONE. By statute in most states they have no obligation to notify you that you're being investigated or that you've been accused of anything.

In California the entire preliminary and even the final investigation itself will be kept secret until the accusations (assumptions) show up in court FOR THE JUDGE'S EYES ONLY.

If you're lucky enough to be there or have been notified that there's a case pending against you, you won't be allowed to know the specifics of what you've been accused of! The Judge MAY tell you the basic accusation (if you're there), but you won't be allowed to see the "evidence" against you, and you SURE AS Hell won't be allowed to see the case file.

In my case, when I finally found out about the CPS investigation IN COURT, the only thing the judge said was "There are some very serious charges here"...That's it. That's as much as I was allowed to know about what I was accused of.

How's about that for what you thought was "Due Process"?

In my state, according to the State Attorney General's Office, CPS is supposedly required to use the same standard of investigation as any Law Enforcement agency, but they don't.
In many counties (like mine) most "investigators" are just on the job trained civil servants  who have no specific background, training or education in Law Enforcement or even social work. Never the less, their word carries a tremendous amount of weight before any Judge.

From the CPS record (that I wasn't supposed to see), the interview went something like this:
Suzanne: I'm "afraid of my husband" and I'm "afraid he's going to hurt the children".
She says with her black eye.

What do you think happened next? If you guessed an Emergency Restraining order you would be right!

An Emergency restraining order doesn't require notice. A judge can issue it on the spot and with the psychologist's report and the CPS preliminary report that's all it took.

I guess you have to admire the sophistication of the plan, but that's the problem: This same plan has been carried out in almost this exact way against THOUSANDS of innocent men across the country.... It's become just another Lawyer's common tactic, It's Cookbook...... It's WRONG!

So now that a judge has said so, you're officially a "violent wife-beater who abuses his children"... without ever lifting a finger against anyone or even knowing that this was going on behind your back.
Try and fight that label in court. Remember, it's a matter of Law now and any subsequent judge will ALWAYS accept another Judge's opinion first.

Blind Sided? You bet and the game was over before I even knew it had begun.

A note on "Filing first":

In my opinion the only defense a man has against what I've just described is to file for the restraining order FIRST.

Remember, virtually ANYTHING qualifies as abuse and you won't have to be too specific when you fill out the form to qualify. A no notice Emergency Restraining order does require a slightly higher standard. You'll just have to provide some form of documentation such as a medical professional's or psychologist's report of injuries or a police report of domestic disturbance... Virtually anything you can get a Judge to sign off on, and that is very very easy.

You can do this yourself, in fact it's easy (too easy) and may be better than having an attorney asking too many questions.

I know this may seem underhanded, especially if the "abuse" you may be thinking of is thin. But what you have to realize is that her attorney is likely to use this as a first strategy. The first question any attorney will ask is "has he been abusive". If she responds by saying "I don't know" or "what's abuse".... you're off to the races my friend.

So you have to ask yourself, have you EVER been hit by your wife (what man hasn't). That's all it takes. It doesn't matter when why where or how, the judge won't ask.

Again IMO, the only way this "tactic" is going to stop is when Men start doing what women have been doing for years.

A Note on judges and the restraining order:
When was the last time you remember your local T.V. news station broadcasting from in front of some courthouse where some judge refused to issue a restraining order where someone got hurt?
It doesn't happen too often any more, but it used too.... Remember?

The reason for that is because no judge in his right mind is going to refuse to issue a restraining order any more... For two reasons.

The first reason? The laws have changed giving him/her an excuse.

The second reason? I can guarantee you that the news team will be back come election time to remind the voters how that judge got someone hurt or killed. As far as I know, short of corruption it's about the only way to turn a judge out of office. So what would you do if you were the judge hearing your Wife's (OR YOUR) emergency petition?????

Who's To Blame?

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I'd like to say is I don't really blame Suzanne for what happened. She's had problems with anxiety disorders for years and I knew it, and to some degree I tried to protect her from embarrassment, I tried to protect the children from her anxiety disorder and mood swings, the only person I didn't try to protect was myself simply because I loved her and thought she would always love me.... Big mistake!

The story I'm about to relay may seem far fetched, and almost impossible. But it came from my oldest Daughter who was involved in what happened. There really is no accounting for what fear may do to shake a persons hold on reality.

It all started when I was up late one night watching TV about a man in Texas who got away with killing his wife and her lover upon finding then "in the act".

What I couldn't believe is that in this modern age a man could still get away with something like this. So I went to the Internet to check it out. Sure enough it had happened, it just hadn't happened as they portrayed in modern times. It actually happened in the 20's and resulted in case law that changed Texas law so that the "heat of the moment" defense could no longer be used as a mitigating factor in murder cases.

OK, so having my question satisfied I went to bed leaving the web page that I had been looking at on. And that would have been the end of it and my marriage may possibly have survived except for the fact that my oldest Daughter got up early the next morning to work on a school paper and when she woke the computer up she found that I had been looking up a web page about a man killing his wife!

This frightened my Daughter and at first she says she went to her brothers and sister who all found this serious enough to tell Mommy about.

From that moment on I couldn't do anything around the house without it being seen and talked about through that filter of "planning to hurt my wife", maybe even planning a family murder suicide.

For two years my wife became more and more nervous until she became convinced that because of my disability and increasing illness, I was planning some sort of murder suicide. Nothing more, it was all a figment of her imagination. As a result Suzanne had the children watch me closely so they could escape in time. You wouldn't believe the elaborate means they used to convince themselves that this was coming. It's so sad now, but who do you blame for paranoia and mental illness?

After I moved out of the house she took off every wall plate to search the wiring because she was sure I had installed some sort of listening or spying device in the home. When she found nothing she started to tear the walls apart looking for a bug. Finally she had the children prepare by putting knives and other weapons close to every door, presumably in case I tried to get into the house.

It was all crazy and it scared the hell out of my children to the point that it poisoned them against me but what could I do? The court had said I was dangerous simply because Suzanne had submitted a letter to the court from her psychologist saying I was dangerous. The problem is I didn't know this man from Adam or had ever met him. It was a total fiction based on nothing but Suzanne's sessions with him.

When everything was said and done, when I finally found out about their suspicions I was totally in disbelief but there was nothing I could do about it because by then they had been CONVINCED by this psychologist who put it in writing that I was dangerous.

I showed this letter around to every psychologist I ever saw and without exception I was told that what he had done was not only Libelous but it was also a professional ethics violation. Does it matter? No not until I can get a judge to rule that I was never a threat to anyone.

Thank you all

It's only been about six months since I started writing this thing and already over thirteen hundred people have read what I have to say & many of those have subscribed.

That's unbelievable.

I know it's nothing like the mega blogs but for me it's gratifying that ANYONE would be interested in what I have to say.

In any case, thanks to every one of you who have stopped by to take a look.

                                                                                                                    Al

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