“Book worm? Other than being forced to read books at school for homework I don’t think she’s even read one comic book or magazine in her life. No books. Just partying and spending money. She’s a party girl alright. Did you know that she always dated two or more boys at the same time in high school and college?”
“No.”
“Oh yeah. Done the same thing when she was married those three times. I guess I’ve told you too much. But you guys ain’t married. . are you?”
“No. But we’ve talked about it.”
“Keep it at the talk level honey.”
“Why?”
“She once told me she couldn’t wait to get married so she could start dating again.”
“That’s funny.”
“It sure wasn’t funny for her first or second or third husband. See. . she married Husband Number One because he was a rich Daddy’s Boy who partied hard and could get her away from her parent’s control without her having to leave home and get a job. The problem was that his parents absolutely hated her. They had to pay her off when her husband decided to get a divorce after his parents showed him that she had lied about having to get married to him because she was pregnant when it of course turned out that she wasn’t knocked up.
“Then before she’s divorced from Husband Number One she jumps into bed with future Husband Number Two who’s as smart as a drunk donkey. She gets him started in business with her parents’ money in a business that eventually failed. She soon gets pregnant and after she has their baby Thor she goes nuts and starts dating other high school flames and generally sleeping with anything in pants. I remember one week when she bragged about sleeping with nine men during a long weekend in addition to her future Husband Number Two.”
“She told me she was divorced when she met her second husband.”
“No. No. She was still married to the Rich Daddy’s Boy. Later on she was dating several men while that dumb donkey of Husband Number Two was out busy busting his tail trying to make her parents’ business work.”
“And the baby?”
“She couldn’t stand the baby after a couple of weeks. Couldn’t stand being tied down to a kid. The Mommy thing got boring for her real fast. She dumped the baby with her parents since she wasn’t working. When they got tired she dumped the kid on her husband’s parents.”
He now realizes he was blind blind blind to her pattern of getting bored and frustrated with a child. He’s angry and disgusted at how he never caught on to how she always abandoned anything and anyone after she got bored and frustrated with anything or anyone she could not perfectly control. Like her first swimming competition. Like her teaching career. Like her bodybuilding. Like her husbands. Like her son.
The sixth big lie. That means he burns off her left thumb with a blowtorch.
“I’ve always worked. No welfare for me. I always worked to put food on the table for me and my son. When I couldn’t get permanent full-time employment at any of the schools I swallowed my pride and went to work in restaurants.”
Was that another hook into him who always feared getting stuck with a parasitic woman who’d latch unto him just for his incredible income?
Of course it was. One summer she had a bad cold and asked him to take her son Thor to spend the weekend visiting Husband Number Three the boy’s adoptive father. By that time he was wising up to her. He decided to have a talk with the boy’s father because one of his friends a manager at Genentech gave him what turned out to be priceless advice:
“The best way to get a handle on your wife is to talk to and be friendly with your wife’s ex-husband or ex- husbands.”
At the drop-off point he invited the boy’s father for lunch while the boy played at a park next to the restaurant. It didn’t take long for the truth to come out even before the waitress served them the traditional open- faced sandwiches.
Thor’s father looked straight at him as if reading his mind and said, “Ah. The joys of fatherhood.”
“Ja. That is true.”
“Problem is that sometimes the joy gets forced on you.”
“That’s true too.”
“Look at me. Three years after we got married I finally fell for the daddy trap that she had carefully prepared and laid out for me months if not years before. I should’ve seen it coming from the first year of our marriage when she released her second husband from financial maintenance for their son.
“My mother warned me over and over to be careful. She told me over and over that it was a trap. . a set- up.
“I stupidly thought she had released her second husband from his financial obligations because the man was a deadbeat who spent most of his time unemployed and drinking after she left him. I should have seen it coming when she got the ex-husband to release all of his parental rights to the boy in exchange for being released from the child support.”
“What could you do?”
“Leave her. Kick her lazy lying cheating butt out of the house. Instead I stayed and she worked up a big production for me every day about the boy growing up all alone in the world without a father. Then at night she would love my brains out. She knows how to work a man. I stupidly caved in and adopted the boy. The loving stopped of course.
“I adopted the boy despite the fact that my parents warned me a million times not to do it. They begged me. They showed me how much of my income would disappear into child support if she was to ever divorce me down the road.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That she’d never divorce me. Ja. . I knew that she loved me working and bringing her money while she did nothing at home other than sleeping with other men and partying with her girlfriends. Two months after I adopt the boy she divorces me and tells the court that I’m ‘
“The pot calling the kettle black.”
“Ja. Ain’t that something? She dumps the kid on me during the divorce. . I think that’s when she started dating you. Then after she moves in with you she takes the kid back. . which means that I had to start paying her child support again.”
“I’m sorry. This is all so much to think about. I didn’t know about this situation with her. We should talk more from now on.”
“Ja ja. By the way. . it kills me that she always brings him back here to me with no change of clothes. I now have to buy him clothes for the weekend. Just what the heck do you guys do with all the money that I have to pay every month now that she has custody and I only have visitation.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the big fat check I send your wife every month for my son’s support!”
“That’s her department. I don’t see any of it,” he said. “How much do you pay her?”
When he heard the enormous sum his rage almost exploded that day at the restaurant and the drive back home. But to his credit he did not say anything at all to her about how he had discovered that she was hiding and secretly pocketing all that child support money while she made
“So,” said the ex-husband, “do you see why I’m angry that she sent the boy here today with no extra clothes for the weekend? Not even pyjamas. . now I have to buy him more clothes.”
“Ja. I see your point.”
“Do you? You know. . I once went to see her. . and begged her to
“What does your wife do?
“She smiles and says yes. .that she’ll gladly go to her lawyer and ask him to lower the monthly payment. . then. . an hour later the police are at my office asking about me ‘
