More Divorce Events

A lot has happened in the past two months. Papers got served, my family, wrenched from me. My soon to be Ex has hooked up with her old boyfriend. I have a new house in a great neighborhood for raising kids.

The paper service was humiliating. The papers were delivered by a young female sheriff's deputy, accompanied by my wife's boss, and boss' boss, our priest, and our priest's wife. A couple people stood around nervously, while several more whisked the crying children, plus some clothing and toiletries, into cars. I read the pages of the court order in shock at the lying and exaggerating that was put down in them. I was indeed enraged. And very very hurt.

It would have been easy to start up verbal and physical fights and get myself arrested, while perhaps inflicting some injury to my wife and her supporters. This is the wrong thing to do. Now that I am in this position, I understand why some individuals would be driven to do such things. But I am more restrained than that. I avoided confrontation as the rest of the court order was carried out and my family disappeared to an "undisclosed" location. I exiled myself to my fathers house once we sold our old place and while I waited to close on a new place, which is right in town, in a quiet neighborhood with parks, walking distance from the YMCA, schools, and entertainments of all sorts.

During my exileto my father's, I intermittently cycled the 17 mile route to my job to work off frustrations and maintain my sanity. The electric car I purchased, initially as a compromise with my wife to end my excessive cycling, about which she complained in the court order, came in handy, allowing me to see my kids a few hours a week. I was lucky my dad took me in during this time, which lasted about a month.

I am now settling in to my new place. Shortly, I will see more and more of the kids, ultimately having them half the time. My wife's place is about 5 miles away. Not too far. Hopefully this negates the need for anyone to pay anyone "child support".

I have verified through witnesses that my wife is back together with her old flame, with whom she had an affair early in our marriage. I now realize I was a fool to trust this woman. She lacks character and integrity, and is selfish, arrogant, and overly class-conscious. This makes her, in my opinion, a perfect fit for the job in finance she now holds, helping her company withhold proper tax payments to our government by hiding money in offshore tax havens. Deceiving, obfuscating, and lying come naturally to her. Ethics is a foreign word to her vocabulary. Her own father set the standard by lying successfully about his birthday in order to obtain retirement benefits a year early in his native country. I regret to admit that this poor excuse for a human being has full rights to the custody of our children.

So the unfounded allegations against me in the court order and divorce decree were merely a smokescreen used to get me out of the picture so the wife's quivering vagina could hurry up and gobble up the next penis coming for it. I have second hand reports of my kid(s) spending overnights at our (now her, I left that church) priest's house so she could go out, ostensibly to spend time with the boyfriend. This man is now 60 years old, old enough to be her father, and certainly richer than me as he also chose finance as a career (I chose healthcare which is significantly less lucrative than the finance jobs this pair holds). Kids report that he is a "nice guy" "knows lots of riddles".

I am particularly dismayed, incensed that my former priest would actually aid and abet this willful dissolution of a marriage for the sole purpose of the wife being able to resume her affair. This man is morbidly obese, has had unsuccessful bariatric surgery, and harbors prejudice toward outdoor oriented cycling folk like me. He firmly believes cycling with the kids is dangerous. My wife exploited that belief, it seems. I really don't know the reasons behind his actions. I may stop by for a visit and question his motives, belief, what he thinks he knows, etc.

Knowledge is power. Hopefully I can translate this knowledge into a significant financial penalty on my wife for her selfish, and brutal dissection of what once was a happy family, despite all my efforts at reconciliation. I had to go through divorce as a child. I vowed I'd never let it happen to my children, and yet it has. This is one of the main roots of my despair. Any money I win in our divorce battle will be closely held, to be bequeathed to my children, and some to worthy charities. It won't undo the damage my wife is bring upon us, but perhaps it will help.

Cycling and Divorce

I hinted earlier in this blog that my wife and I were having problems stemming in part from my cycling. I am an avid cyclist. Period. She worked for many years, at times seeming enthusiastic, at her cycling. About a year ago all that changed. Why? Outside influences? Probably. Spontaneous sea-change in her outlook on life? Possibly.

I reacted badly to this. If I could have just cheerfully soldiered on with her switching to the ol' wheelchair with doors for her short travels, perhaps things would be different today.

There are other issues of course known (my desire for a simple comforable modest life, hers for a more glamorous indulgent lifestyle for instance), and unknown (another man discreetly waiting in the wings, who knows? she had an affair years earlier).

This divorce is the worst pain I have ever felt. Worse than the struggles I was involved in when my parents had their own ugly split. It is daggers in my gut and mustard gas in my lungs. Worry deprives me of sleep.

My once reasonable wife goes on what seems to be anguished crying jags which turn out to be calculated efforts on me to let my guard down. Then she lays into me verbally with some of the most comtemptuous vitriol I have ever heard spoken against me. I have to admire her cleverness in her put downs. She speaks in elliptical sentences, which imply I am an irresponsible, indigent bum incapable of raising my own children. She is deceptive and manipulative.

My God this Hurts!!!

I am going to sit Shiva on this marriage for a good long time before I even THINK about mixing it up with another female. "Never trust a creature which bleeds but doesn't die." Is that statement Bad Taste? Yes, but I understand where it is coming from.

Mayhem

No sooner do I post about how generally courteous drivers (and their passengers) have been, then I have 4 run-ins with assholes in 24 hours while out cycling.

Idiot #1 license # EXN-6150 red SUV/mini-van just flat out RUNS a red light making a left turn while I am cycling in the opposite direction.

Idiot(s) #2 Gray Pontiac Grand Prix (memorized, then forgot the plate number) full of hare-brained highschool college folk open their windows and scream scream sceam at me as they go by.

Idiot #3 Dark hatchback (this is at night) left turns in front of me, causing me to stop to avoid a collision. Drunk passenger yells at me. By this time, I would not be surprised if there was a forming conspiracy against me!

Idiot #4 Pick up truck passenger yells at me to get off the road. License plate obscured by heavy, tailgating traffic.

They closed a busy bridge recently, which has been ticking drivers off. Perhaps they are looking to vent fustrations, and I am an outlet for them.

Great Fall Weather = Lots of Cycling

Been a quiet month. Just the occasional obtuse and aggressive move by temporarily thoughtless people. Didn't inspire me enough to even remember a license plate #. The most memorable mix-up was with a DirectTV van running a stop sign at William St and Pulteney. Missed me by "that much". Even then, I saw it coming and wouldnt've allowed a crash.

The weather was stellar.

I have much bigger fish to fry in my life than road incidents nowadays. Holding the marriage and the family together really is, and always should be, #1.

Second encounter with the Foreigner, and more.

I decided to get an extra workout in before heading off to the beach a couple weeks ago. On the road to Watkins Glen, a 45 mile round trip, I ran into a gray-haired gentleman on a folding bike. I believe it was the guy on the bike path we encountered earlier. We were both on the correct side of the road this time, and with no quarrels, we greeted each other cordially.

Unfortunately, these last couple of weeks yielded more than their fair share of cat-callers and stop-sign runners. The incidents took place on Centerway (unintelligible insults from some young passengers in an older compact SUV), the Walmart parking lot (stop-sign runner in a red Pontiac Grand Prix with PA plates, by the Painted Post Sunoco (Corning Natural Gas company employee in a compact sedan near-miss on a hurried left turn into the gas station). And there were others!

I've been putting myself out there more often, with 15 miles a day of commuting/errands lately, 7 days a week.

I use my bike whenever possible, damn the sticks-in-the-mud! Go forth, and do likewise.

Weird encounter with a foreigner

I was cycling along our town's main bike path with my two kids when this funny gentleman, with a British Commonwealth accent, on a foldable bike, pulls up behind me, and announces he is going to pass on my right. He says this more than once. I move left as he attempts to pass on my left (not my right as he announced he would), and I run him off the path. He then castigates me - "you understand English!?" I respond "You said you'd pass on the right then you went left. YOU LIE!" And off he went. Silly helmet, tiny wheels and all.

Must have been a disoriented Brit, used to driving on the left side of the road, unsuccessfully coping with our backwards traffic system.

Quiet Summer

No real problems this past month. Some delinquent in a compact SUV, windows down, babbled something incoherent at me and my son biking to the store. Other than that, mainly courteous drivers.

Read somewhere that Americans are using 25 million gallons less gasoline per day than they were 5 years ago. That is encouraging. Look forward to the day when gasoline is just some lunatic fringe boutique fuel, and the hydro/nuclear/solar/wind/biomass/geothermal complex is the mainstream for our transportation needs.