As I post this, I am feeling more and more like it is important that I write this. Yes, this is incredibly unfair. This is my version of events. I wrote this less than a month after she left. And, I am looking at her behavior that last week before she left, and letting it color my recollection of her from day 1. I see her differently now than I did two months ago. A year from now, maybe I'll remember her differently . . . and that is why I must write this. I have no doubt that she is badmouthing me to anyone that will listen -- when we were together, she badmouthed me until I received a death threat, so why should that change now that we are apart? She's probably made up whole incidents in an effort to make herself sympathetic. She has likely reinforced her parents' perceptions, so they likely believe it was the "right thing" to have threatened me. And she probably has no lack of men willing to believe anything she says and wanting so-much to be there for her. I've heard the way she talks about her ex's, and no doubt she is doing the same with me. For those that read this, I can't make you believe what I say if you are inclined to not do so. To you, I can only hope you find this story entertaining.
But what I am writing IS true. And the important thing is that, later when I am lonely and missing her, I can read this. The important thing is that I believe it.
In early '08, Leah had some major psychiatric incidents that threatened her plan of moving in with me. She seemed to improve, and with no further psychiatric incidents, it was time for Leah to move in. By this point, there was no relationship at all between her and my older son. To be fair, he was spending all of his time with his girlfriend, so no one really had much time with him. Shortly after she moved in with me, Leah started becoming dissatisfied with the time I spent with my kids – even though this was one of the things she claims attracted her to me in the first place. She started arranging for us to have our own time, leaving my younger son alone. This went well for a while, but it started getting excessive.
Conflicts were starting to emerge between my older son and Leah. Leah was cooking most nights (although we ate out a great deal: remember that Leah never did nearly as much housework as she claimed), and he continued to refuse to eat her cooking. As a result, it became expected that he would do the dishes every night. Leah generated huge amounts of dishes every night, and he would clean them. Leah started becoming incredibly critical of his job with the dishes. My son started getting annoyed that he was doing dishes for dinners she was cooking, but she refused to give him any say in what she was making for dinner. I discussed options with Leah for reducing the amount of dishes (by making simpler meals and by using disposable cups and plates), and about once-in-a-while making foods the kids might like, but Leah became FURIOUS at the suggestions. She insisted that I had said she had “absolute authority” in the kitchen, which is something I never said. She unilaterally refused any such suggestions. After we fought enough about this I made it clear that it was not fair, and my older son would not be doing dishes every night any more. This was to be revisited as part of Leah’s rebuilding her relationship with my kids, which never happened.
I started having health problems. This was when her father and step-mother started to invite me to lunches or dinners. I was polite company, and they took great joy in explaining their Jewish traditions to me. It didn’t take long, however, to notice that they were eager to explain their ways to me, but had absolutely no interest in getting to know me. They never asked about my traditions. They never asked about my job or even my kids! Her step-mother did make an occasional “we’re better than you” snark, but that was about it. As unpleasant as they were, this was a major improvement in how they had been acting. This allowed me to get the illusion that maybe they were starting to like me. .
After my heart surgery, I needed Leah to “grow up” in a hurry. She rarely drove, but now I needed her to do the driving. I needed her to get the kids to school. I needed her to start contributing to the household finances – prior to that she almost never paid for anything. Suddenly, she started complaining about fibromyalgia pain. Leah was exhausted all of the time. She complained about the housework that fell on her. She complained that her boss at work was harassing her. She complained about what seemed constant pain. Finally, the fibromyalgia was diagnosed, and she took a short-term disability leave from her job.
By the way, she would argue that her fibromyalgia was MORE serious than my heart problems. She did have a point with that, although I found that to be a bit immature.
Leah frequently complained about all the housework that she did and how she never had help. This was one of her complaints before she left – that she felt like a maid. She described how when she finished her long work days, she had to come home, get changed, and immediately start with the housework. After she made this claim, I pointed out that it wasn’t true. When I came home, night after night, I would find that she was upstairs in the bedroom. She was either asleep or using her laptop. She had been there since coming home from work: she was not, as she had claimed, spending that time doing housework. She changed her story: this was exhaustion because of her fibromyalgia. That may well be true, but it did completely invalidate her claims of being flooded with housework. Later, she changed her explanation: that was her “alone” time that she needed for her own sanity. Again, that may be true, but it did completely invalidate her claims about housework.
Around this time, Leah first mentioned her step-father. She explained how he was emotionally abusive to her, to the point where she blames him for many of her mental issues. She blames him for numerous suicide attempts. I wondered: if he was so bad, why did her mother and her father let him get away with this? Why didn’t her father act when she kept trying to kill herself? We were invited to Myrtle Beach to visit her mother. Her step-father was notably racist against Indians, so everyone was stressed about how he would act around me. While he was far from pleasant company (ALL of her family were quite stuck-up around me), he wasn’t bad either. The visit went fine.
I did spend some time with her mother. Her mother, at one point, attempted to become confrontational. She mentioned my ex-girlfriend with a “don’t try to deny it: I know all about it” line. I changed the subject, as none of this was her business. Again, I had a word with Leah about how she was perhaps talking a bit too much about my private life.
As I had mentioned, Leah was constantly arranging for us to have time without the kids. This was getting excessive. My younger son started complaining, and announced to me that, because of this, he wanted to spend more time with his mother. Once, when Leah wanted to go out to dinner with me (after doing this several times that week), I invited my younger son along. Leah was actually upset about this!
During her short-term disability leave, at my pressing, the kids started helping more around the house. Leah started with physical therapy, but quickly stopped. Not being at work, she seemed to be feeling better. She was certainly in a better mood. Eventually, she had to go back to work. The week before she was scheduled to go back to work, she checked herself into a mental health clinic. She said she was hearing voices again, voices telling her to kill my kids and me.
I visited her at the hospital and met with her father. I had a request for him: after she is released from the hospital, I needed Leah to stay with him for a while. I couldn’t let her move back with me until I knew that my kids are safe. He agreed. That night, at Leah’s request, I called her mother to tell her what was happening. Leah’s mother made some interesting remarks. Leah had only recently told her mother about the abusive ex-boyfriend in Virginia, and her mother found it difficult to believe it. Leah’s mother also remarked that Leah was being quite unfair in how she spoke of her step-father, basically saying that he didn’t do the things Leah claims. Leah’s response to this, by the way, was that her mother has a habit of looking the other way with her step-father, and even justifying his actions. This was something I was able to see later.
I met with Leah, her father, and her step-mother at the hospital one day. Her father sat quietly as her step-mother started lecturing Leah. First, she detailed almost every mistake Leah had made in her life and every way that Leah had come up short. Then, she moved on to her agenda: that Leah’s hospitalization was my fault. My house, according to her step-mother, was unlivable. My kids and I were lazy and made Leah do all the work. Leah was miserable at home during her disability. Where was she getting all of this? Leah had a beat-down look as her step-mother assaulted her.
The next day, one of Leah’s therapists called me and said that they would like to set up a meeting, to discuss about when Leah comes home. This was a trick. At the meeting, Leah started assaulting me, the way her step-mother assaulted her the previous day. At one point, she declared that my kids never ever help her with the housework. When I pointed out that they had been helping a great deal the last month or so, Leah declared that this didn’t count because the kids didn’t want to. At one point, in tears, she demanded I spend even less time with my kids. She brought up issues with our sex life. When I turned around her various complaints, the therapist without fail would interrupt me so Leah could move on to the next complaint. After this meeting, I told Leah: it’s over between us.
Leah became frantic. She insisted she didn’t actually believe the things she said, and she didn’t know why she said those things (she even suggested that the therapist manipulated her into saying those things, although oddly enough she never acknowledged that many of the things she said were things her step-mother had said the previous day). She started playing on my sympathy – at a time like that, she needed my support . . . could I really abandon her at a time like that? In the end, it worked. I was cautious, but I let her back into my life.
I still maintained, though, that she could not move back with me until I had some assurance that we were safe. Within a week of being released from the hospital, Leah called me in tears. Her step-mother, it would seem, was getting on her case again. Leah begged me to let her come back home.
After she was released, it became clear that Leah’s breakdown had been the result of a jealousy fit because of a female friend in my life. Leah had decided that this woman was a threat to her, and that was at the core of her erratic behavior. At one point during this, she wrecked her car. She bought another used car, but took a loan to pay for that. Put together: because of her jealousy fit, she spent time without an income (because she had to go to unpaid disability), reducing her ability to contribute to the household. She had huge hospital bills she needed to repay, reducing her ability to contribute to the household even more. She had a car loan payment, which reduced her ability to contribute to the household. And, I had to pay a much higher amount for car insurance. With her reductions in contributions, my contributions had to increase . . . effectively meaning that I was paying for the bulk of these things. I found myself feeling resentful: when I agreed to date Leah, my plan was for "a girlfriend", not "a daughter". Leah said she was sorry and understood that this might annoy me . . . but she never did anything to fix these.
As for Leah’s jealousy? This was never resolved. I had a falling-out with the friend, and that was that. Ironically, despite her jealousy issues with me, Leah very much enjoyed the company of men.
Leah made a new female friend at her job, and the two became very close. Her friend was polite to me when the three of us would get together or go out. One day, Leah revealed that her friend hated me as well. I found this a bit distressing: why does everyone close to Leah hate me? I became aware that Leah was calling her parents and complaining/venting every time she and I had an argument. I told Leah that this was a bad idea – if they hated me at the start, perhaps given them reasons might not be a good idea – but Leah continued. One thing I found odd about this was that Leah never acted this way with her ex-boyfriends. She would never mention them to her parents, let alone tell her parents every time they had an argument. Why was she behaving differently with me?
Her parents' perceptions were clouded by racism. They looked for anything to justify their hatred of me. This led to such fascinating twists of logic such as "arguing" being a sign of "an abusive relationship". I'm sure that for anyone else in the world, they would see things differently. But, if it gave them a reason to hate me, so be it!
But what about her friend? Was she also a racist? I once explained to Leah that we are an "interracial couple", and that brings out a whole new level of hatred. More likely, her "hatred" of me stemmed from the things Leah was saying about me . . . and that led to the obvious question of what exactly did Leah think of me.
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