The un-ravelling…..

In July 2020, I was celebrating my 28th wedding anniversary. I posted our wedding photo on Facebook with a note about how I not only loved my husband but I liked him as well.

It was just after this that I started to suspect he was meeting someone on the days he was rushing out after work, and I strongly suspected it was Sonya, his boss. After he realized I suspected, his demeanour toward me changed. I would tell him I was going up for a shower and he would look at me, almost as if he was wondering if I was inviting him to join me in an attempt to trick him. Or when I would tell him I was going to bed, he would glare as if I was challenging him.

Now. The most obvious question is, “Ann, why didn’t you just confront him?” And that is a valid question. But remember, I had been married to this man for a long time. And this is not the first time I suspected he was cheating. The last time I did confront him and went through a barrage of insults. I was imagining it. I am so negative. How could I even think that of him? It was all because of my issues that I would even consider such a thing. I was broken due to the sexual assault I suffered as a kid and I was taking it out on him. How dare I? And then he would walk away, shaking his head saying he couldn’t take my crazy anymore.

After hearing this for so long, I did start to wonder if I was just imagining everything. And then of course he would be so attentive for a while just to show me how wrong I was about him. This time though, he knew I knew what he was. A liar and a cheater. And the longer I didn’t confront him, the harsher he became. There is one more aspect that needs to be considered. This is a man who was previously a police officer. He once told me he could have me killed for less than $5,000 because he knew “druggie dirt bags” as he so affectionately referred to them, and they would easily kill me for hardly any money. And no one would believe them over him because they were “druggie dirt bags” and he was a Police Officer. This was all said very calmly earlier in our marriage. Just a bit of information I should keep in mind. It was after that I began to let people know that I would never just leave without telling anyone. And that I would never leave my children. And if I ever went missing, he killed me and buried me in a shallow grave because he is too lazy to dig a deep one. I would say this jokingly, but I wanted it to be known, and I wanted him to know I had said this to people.

When people would ask me if I was afraid for him at work, I would remind them that we don’t live in a particularly dangerous area. And say I was more concerned he would die in bed and I would have to get him dressed in his uniform and drive him to the station to prop him up against a car and then go home and wait for the call. The reason being his life insurance would pay out 3X the amount if he died on the job. People would laugh and say they knew I was joking because he was such a great guy.

When he started working in the fraud department, I joked that he would never die at work now. The most dangerous tool he had was a stapler. He was safe other than possibly having a heart attack. His reply was he was not going alone. He would drive home and choke me out before he died because I was not getting “his money”. This surprised me because I had always worked and there were many years where I made as much as, or more than, he did. And, he always talked about it being “our money” and that we were “partners” and a “team”. I have since come to learn that we were only partners and a team when it suited him. It was something he said to lull me into believing we were equals. All the while, he was stashing money away. I would never have suspected him of that…but I now have proof. And he is going to have to answer for it.

If you are curious as to why I am saying I was joking and he was not, you would have to know us personally. I am rarely serious. I am loud and gregarious. He is quiet. Always serious. I thought of him as stable and strong in the beginning. Then I began to see him as negative and moody. Now I just think of him as incredibly selfish and mean.

He sees me now as “crazy”. That is his favourite term. Every time a cops marriage would break up he would tell me how horrible the wife was and that she was “crazy” and that she wanted half the guys pension. He was adamant that the pension should not be part of the marital assets because “he earned” that money. He didn’t feel the same way about the wife’s pension. And surprisingly he never made the same comments when a female cop broke up with her husband. Apparently the same pension ownership did not apply in these cases.

This brings me to his views on women. Something I never thought I would question, but over time there were signs that I missed when I should have questioned him. But that is for another day….and another post.