Home Expo 2004 - "I'm not your diamond, I'm just someone you settled for!"

I used to keep a dream journal, a little book that I'd write my strange and crazy dreams in when I woke up (if and when I remembered them).  Did you ever have a dream that you knew someone really well, but in real life you hardly knew them at all?  I had one like that.

A new girl started working at Expo and I got paired with her to go around the store and check pricing.  During this all day process, she told me all about her bizarre relationship with her boyfriend in more detail than necessary.  So it wasn't that big a surprise when I had a dream about work, and in this dream, I knew her very well.  It wasn't a romantic dream, just one where we knew each other as if old time friends.  I almost didn't write it down at all, since I already knew where it came from.  But I did.  Then I got up and went to work like any other day.

When I got home, my ex was waiting for me.  Apparently, she had made a habit of reading my dream journal or anything else I wrote when I was at work.  (I would later find it wasn't just that, but my email and other things as well).  She was furious, demanding to know why I was "dreaming about another woman".

I know this kind of scenario is usually used as a joke.  Or reverse, when a woman has a dream her significant other is cheating and wakes up angry and starts arguing with him.  But there was nothing humorous this time.  She was threatening to call my job or to come up to my job and confront this girl (who, keep in mind, I barely knew).  I tried to calm her down but she was insistent on arguing and we downward spiraled into the same old argument.

This time I made the mistake of trying to change her perspective. I told her, just because I hadn't planned on marrying her, didn't mean that I didn't love her or that it wasn't my willing choice.  I told her I had been a naive boy searching for a stereotypical "diamond" but instead I had discovered a strange and new exotic jewel (her) and that the unexpected surprise was even better and more real to me.  It was the best way I knew how to describe how I felt.  She quieted down at that moment. 

But forever after, whenever we argued, her new line would be, "I'm not your diamond, I'm just someone you settled for!"

Summer of 2003: "You never loved me! You never wanted to marry me!"

When I first started working at Home Expo in Utica, Michigan, my ex and I had only Justin.  We were living in a single bedroom apartment in Harrison Twp, not far from the home I grew up in.  It was a nice area, very close to Lake St. Clair and all the marinas and seafood restaurants.


I used to play poker Monday nights with an old crew from the movie theater I worked at in high school, but that ended after my ex repeatedly made drama, called me and made excuses for me to leave and return home.  One time she called and demanded I come home and kill a spider.  No joke.  And either way, I'd get the cold shoulder when I returned home.  So she could really make sure I knew how unhappy she was that I continued to hang out with my friends.  Eventually, it wasn't worth the stress, so I just stopped going.

When I got bored of having no social life and never hanging out with friends, I suggested to some coworkers at Expo that we all go play cards and pool at a bar right down the street from work.  People started going and once a week or so, we'd all hang out after work.  It was really the only social thing I did.  Of course, the ex didn't like this any more than she liked the poker games.

Soon, every argument we got into always ended with the same statement "You never loved me.  You never wanted to marry me!"

It didn't matter if the argument started over who should take out the garbage or which groceries we needed, it always ended in the same place, "You never loved me.  You never wanted to marry me!"

I can't tell you how many times I heard this over the years, or how many times I tried to argue that I did on both accounts, and that if I didn't, I wouldn't have done all the things I did for her.  (She had a VERY selective memory). It was all I could do to try and understand why nothing I said or did made a difference.  I could spend all day planning a unique Valentine's Day surprise - sprinkling a path of flower petals to lead her to one place with lit candles and a small note, then sprinkling a different kind of petal pathway leading to a different room with a different set of candles and a different themed note - and so forth throughout the home.  The end would be a big heart-shaped box of varied chocolates and a large love note.  This would make her happy for about a day, maybe two if I was lucky.  Then she'd rage at me for something else, with the same statements again, "You never loved me.  You never wanted to marry me!"

It was absolutely exhausting.  And it was only going to get worse.

Summer of 2001: "Why do you still have these letters?!"

A thing or two about Red Flags

For a long time, years actually, my life was so messed up that when my former coworkers were having a bad day, they'd come ask me what was happening in my life so that they could feel better about their own.  They told me as much.  My train-wreck divorce with five kids and subsequent disastrous relationship with a Persian living in Amsterdam were the shop's entertainment.  I told the unbelievable stories with a smile.  That's the thing about having a fucked up life - everyone wants to hear about it.  If your life is going well, nobody cares.  I supposed smooth lives are boring.   Drama makes the world go round.

There are a lot of crazy stories out there, I'm sure - a lot of crazy ex's roaming about.  The difference for me, is that my ex-wife is exceedingly clever as well as crazy.  Most crazy ex's end up losing in the end, because they say or do something stupid and lose their power.  Mine, on the other hand, is shockingly shrewd and calculating.  She often spends days researching  the details of whatever plot she's preparing next for me.  This has always been her number one talent - finding details and exploiting them.  Her number two talent is taking advantage of other people's generosity and compassion.  She has, what psychologists call a High Conflict Personality.  Most HCPs suffer from either Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (but not all).  But I'll get to that later - for now I just want to say something about red flags.

Red flags.  We've all heard the term before, in regards to relationships, but how often do we actually listen?  There's a reason for the name Red Flag.  It means STOP!  DANGER!  WARNING!

When I started dating my ex-wife, there were many.  And I ignored them all.  Those of you who know my situation are probably shaking your heads.  Hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?  Unfortunately, hindsight is like the answer key in the back of your math book.  Everything makes perfect sense once you have the answer.  But when you're in the middle of trying to solve that algebraic formula, it's not so apparent. It's always easy to reverse-engineer a problem.  Unfortunately, you can't reverse-engineer your life.

As Vernon Law once said, "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."

The first time my ex got upset with me, we were only dating.  She had gone through my old romantic letters, piled in dusty boxes on the shelves in the basement - read all of them actually.  She was upset that I still had them.  Keep in mind, these letters and notes were years old.  Mostly just from two previous relationships to which I hadn't spoken to the other party in years.  But she came at me demanding answers.  Demanding.  Again - we were only dating, just in the beginning of the relationship.

I remember the red flag waving in my mind.  It was saying, Steven, the first time you've invited her to your house since you started dating and she's already ransacked your room and your personal items (cleverly waiting for you to go outside first)!  Now she's accusing YOU!  I felt violated, to be honest.  But I figured, she's just young and insecure, so I ignored it.

"Why did you marry her?" - that's the number one question I get asked when people hear my story.  Of course, my ex wasn't as crazy in the beginning.  It was a gradual progression that took years to get where it ended.

But the short answer is, she was pregnant.  I had actually just broken up with her, if you can believe that.  Mostly because she was obsessing over me and giving me no room to breathe.  I had told her repeatedly and often that I was the type of guy who needed a little more space and that she shouldn't be with me if she couldn't handle it.  She couldn't - but she stayed anyway.  That was Red Flag #2.  But I was also young and naive and unfamiliar with people who have an irrational fear of abandonment.

When I saw that ultrasound picture, that little life that would become my first son, Justin, I only wanted to be a father and for my son to have a family.  I thought - we can make this work.  After all, my parents argued for years, but they made it work. I figured, if two people want to make it work, they can.  No matter what comes their way - if they are both set on the same goal - nothing can stop them.  That's the reality side of true love.  Not just the feeling, but the willpower and determination and in the end, the perseverance.

This works in most cases.  Most level-headed people can work through anything if they truly put their minds to it.  Unfortunately, not everyone is level-headed.  In my case... well, if you don't already know, you're about to find out...