Caught In A Trap...Can't Walk Out

OK. Lets get back to the events of my investigative journey of 2008. First, as you know, was the hotel receipt that I found in July. Previously to that I had done some poking around his cell phone call history, but there was really nothing definitive until that infamous receipt. Right after the receipt was when I purchased the GPS tracking device so I would know his whereabouts whenever he went out. But I haven’t mentioned just how much of a role his cell phone really played in my mounting pile of evidence. It was gi-freakin’-normous. One time when I had called Dick and as usual he didn’t answer, I thought, ‘I wonder if I can access his voice mail remotely?’ Guess what….I could! Because I had set up his voicemail when he first got a cell phone, I knew his password. It was the same as mine. Obviously he never thought to change it. So, occasionally I would hack into it and check his messages. Aside from the many rants that I had left him about not answering his phone when I called, there was nothing of any use to me…until one day. But first I need to set the scene for you.

Every year Dick, Harry and “the guys” would go the Saratoga NY for the races. Every year Dick went with one of those guys because we only had one car and that would leave me for almost a week without transportation. This particular year Dick insisted that he needed to take our car. Red Flag!! His reason was that there were four of them going, each with luggage and golf clubs. So, they needed at least two cars to hold everything. It made sense, but I just knew he was lying. With four of them going, why did he have to drive? The most annoying thing was that he waited until the night before he was leaving to tell me by saying, “It’s not going to be a problem if I take the car…is it?” HELL YES, IT’S A PROBLEM!! I thought to myself. The rest of the conversation went something like this:
Betty: Why did you wait until the last minute to mention this?
Dick: I don’t know….sorry.
Betty: And, what would make you think it would be okay for you to leave me car-less for week?
Dick: I don’t know. Forget it, I’ll just rent a car if you’re gonna make a big issue about it.
Betty: I’m not making an issue out of it, I just don’t understand why one of the other guys can’t drive?
Dick: Well…Skip’s wife won’t let him (smart woman, I thought) and Harry isn’t coming back here. He is going to New York City straight from Saratoga, so we need the extra car to get the all the golf clubs back here.
Betty: So your saying you actually need three cars.
Dick: I don’t know, I guess so.
Betty: Well this really sucks.
Dick: Sorry.
Betty: Fine, I guess I can borrow my mother’s car for the week.
Dick: Sorry.
Betty: But I am not happy…
Dick: Sorry.
Betty: …I hate driving that car.
Dick: I’m sorry.
Betty: Will you please stop saying that!!!
Dick: What?
Betty: SORRY!! Can’t you think of anything else to ever say?
Dick: I don’t know…what do you want me to say.
Betty: Nothing, forget it. Take the car. Have a nice trip.

I had a gut feeling that there was more to it than the guys just needing the extra car for golf clubs. He told me that he was coming home on Friday, but I figured that he just wanted to have his own car so he could leave Saratoga earlier than he told me, to be with “her”. When Dick left that morning he told me that he was meeting up with Skip and Dom at Harry’s house. From there they would form their little caravan with Dom, Dick and Harry each driving to Saratoga. Since I didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth, I drove over to Harry’s place later in the day. Sure enough, there in the driveway was Dom’s car. Interesting, yes? But wait…there’s more. When they arrived in Saratoga Dick called me. I asked him how the ride out was. He said it was okay, but pretty boring with no one to talk to most of the way. “Why?” I asked assuming he would say because he was alone, but he fell right into my trap. “Because slughead Dom slept practically the whole way here.” “Oh” I said. Then to help him dig his whole a little deeper I added “So Skip went with Harry and you got stuck with Dom?” His reply, “Yea, lucky me!” AH, HA!!!…Caught ya! …I knew it….ran through my head, but I only said….”Oh, really. So, you only took two cars?” “Ya, why?” he said with a tinge of attitude which I threw right back at him with “’Cause you said you needed to have three…didn’t you?” Now with full on attitude he said “Well, if you must know, Jim is coming up on Wednesday with his van so we didn’t need three cars.” “Hmmm…Okay” I said “Then you didn’t need to take the car after all.” That comment from me really got his defenses up. “What do you mean by that? What are you trying to say?” “I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just repeating what you told me last night when we were arguing about this. You said that Dom was taking his car, and now you tell me Jim is showing up too. Obviously you never needed to take our car! That is what I’m saying!” I didn’t think he could weasel his way out of this one, but…he did. He told me nobody knew until he got to Harry’s that Jim was in fact going to be there at some point. That being the case Dom decided not to drive because he really needed new tires. Man, he’s pretty good at this lying thing. If I wasn’t so dam annoyed I would have almost been impress by his quick thinking.


So, what does all of this have to do with cell phone voicemail? Well, I'll tell you. On Thursday of the week Dick was away I called him. As usual he didn't answer, so, I went straight to his voice mail. "You have 2 saved messages in your mail box" the recorded lady said in my ear. Two? Last night there was only one! The lady continued, "To listen to your messages press 1." I pressed 1, and this is what I heard: "Hi baby...I'm just drivin' home from work and thought I'd call to say hi and tell you I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Miss you. Bye." That son of a bitch...I was right. I felt both disappointed and vindicated at the same time. On one hand I hated being right, but on the other I was so dam proud of myself for figuring out what the little bastard was doing. The message came in on Wednesday night so he was returning on Thursday, not Friday. I got definite confirmation of this when I was able to view the cell phone bill online. All the calls that week were from Upstate NY, until Thursday around noontime. There was one call from somewhere out on the Mass. Pike. The rest of the calls for Thursday and Friday were made from the next town over from us...her town. I sat there and cried, not for very long, just enough to purge myself of all the feelings that had hit me. I think that was the day that I started to feel nothing for him, which was why I was able to pull off my charade of welcoming him home on Friday as if nothing had changed.

The Ghost Of Christmas Past

I'll have a true Christmas without you
I won't be blue or thinkin' about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Will shine so bright, 'cause you're not here with me

I'll have a true Christmas that's certain
I'm feelin' fine, and my heart ain't hurtin'
I'll be doin' all right, with my Christmas of white
Hopin' you have a blue, blue Christmas.

Ah yes, Christmas time is here. The most wonderful time of the year...not! I shouldn't say that. I really love Christmas, always did. I loved everything about it...the shopping, baking, decorating, wrapping, all of it...until I married Dick. I still loved the ideal of the season and all that goes with it, but with him, everything that I loved to do for Christmas became a chore. Just getting the tree up and decorated more often then not required some form of begging, bribing or threatening. Everything was stored in the attic...the tree, outside decorations, wrapping paper, all of it. It was a two person job getting it all down so I was always at his mercy. When we were dating, Christmas was wonderful. He would shower me with gifts. "Too much" I would say. "Never enough" he would respond. Then we would passionately kiss and happiness would just ooze out of us, as little white doves took flight. Yea...that last part never actually happened. My point is that before marriage he would shop for me and his family and did a fine job of it. But for some reason, as soon as that ring went on his finger he became completely incapable of entering a store...unless of course he needed to shop for himself. It was all left up to me. All of it...even my own presents. I know...don't ya just want to slap him? I would get all the gift shopping done and plan on baking, cooking, cleaning, etc., the week of Christmas. I would have my whole week planned out and he would want me to go Christmas shopping with him. "I don't know what to get you." He'd whine. The first time he did this I told him I just didn't have time and that it didn't matter because I would love anything he got me. You know, its the thought that counts kind of thing. Big mistake. That platitude only works when you actually put some thought into what you are buying. I swear he went to Sears and just grabbed whatever. I got a sweater that I wouldn't be buried in, that is if I could even fit into it...a housecoat, not a nice snugly bathrobe, a "just like my mom wears" housecoat and slippers...I have never worn slippers. Then there was the flashlight to go with the "roadside assistance kit", a cordless phone, and a lovely napkin holder with matching salt and pepper shakers. As I opened each hideous gift, I played the part of someone who would have actually thought these things were appropriate gifts for a husband to give a wife. "Oh"...gulp..."Thanks, how nice." I would say while thinking, where the hell is the jewelry, and where can I return this? I swear there must have been a store called "God-awful Gifts" that catered to the likes of Dick. He would always tell me if I didn't like something, I could return it. Of course, if I ever did that, he would be very offended. The next year I guess he thought he would make it easier on himself and just get one big gift. Because we had been out looking at cars a few times but never got one, I thought I was getting a new car for Christmas. Silly me. I had no idea who I married to back then. What I did get was...a new stove and a stocking full of the same crap I got every year. The stove was a nice one, but really, a stove, for Christmas? Needless to say, after that I started making time to go with him to pick out my own gifts. I did insist that he at least wrap them though. I know, pretty lame, opening gifts that you picked out yourself. But the alternative was just to horrifying to chance. On the flip side of that was what I bought for him. I would rack my brain trying to come up with just the right stuff and be so excited to see him open his gifts. But, he would just let them sit there under the tree and maybe open them or maybe not until the next day. One year I bought him some black jeans. He loved jeans, lived in them. This way, I thought, he can still wear jeans and be comfortable, when blue jeans aren't quite the appropriate attire. Brilliant idea, I thought. When he opened the box and saw the black jeans he just stared at them for a bit and said "Oh, black jeans...hmm...guess I can put them in the drawer with the other pair you bought me last year." Who wants to slap him now? Anyone? Step up and take a number..."The slap Dick line forms here!!!" I told him that I didn't remember buying him black jeans last year or remember him wearing them. "That's because I didn't. They still have the tags on them." he said. "Why didn't you wear them?" I asked. "I guess that would be because I don't like black jeans." he said with the attitude that clearly meant he thought I was stupid. So, Christmas usually turned out to be one disappointment after another. But that is all behind me now. This year, Christmas is what it should be, because I gave myself the best gift of all ten months ago...freedom.

Looking Out For Number ONE

I am not sure if I mentioned this already, but before Dick and I were married my father gave me a wonderful piece of advice. We were talking about marriage and I said something to the effect of marriage being a 50/50 proposition and Dad corrected me. He told me that was where most people make the first mistake. It is not 50/50, it's 100% both ways. If you both don't give 100% for the other, it won't work. I thought about it and realized he was right. I took it to heart and tried to follow the 100% rule. As you have probably guessed, Dick did not. He was absent the day they handed out the marriage rule book. There is however a problem if only one of the people in the marriage is following this rule. If they are thinking only of the other's needs and the other person is thinking only of his own, then everything becomes about that one person and the other one gets left on the side of the road somewhere. That’s basically what happened to us. Very rarely during our marriage was anything done because it was good for me. Inadvertently it may have been good for me, but the only person he ever considered was himself, as in how something would affect him. Dick is and always has been self-centered, self-serving, and basically selfish. Every decision he ever made was based on his needs or desires...never 'ours'. My big mistake was wanting to please him and make sure he was happy. This of course came back to bite me in the ass, because it came at the expense of my own needs and desires. I‘ll give you an example. Dick likes to take a banana in his lunch. If I wanted to have a banana and there was only one left in the fruit bowl, I would not eat it. It wouldn’t matter how much I r-e-a-l-l-y wanted that banana, I would not think of touching it. I would eat something else or nothing, but never the last banana, just in case Dick might want it. I would feel really bad if I ate it and then he went looking for it and it was gone. Often Dick never wanted the last banana but that banana could sit there until it began to rot, because I was not going to eat it. I just couldn’t take the chance because he might want it for his lunch. We through out a lot of bananas over the last 25 years! There were other situations that when I think about them now I can’t believe I let him get away with. Our mattress, for instance…big bone of contention…I mean huge. It was firm, very firm. Truthfully it was like trying to sleep on a slab of slate. The carpeting in our bedroom had more cushioning. In the beginning it didn’t bother me because I mostly slept on my stomach, and I was a lot younger then with many less aches and pains. I was also much thinner and that made a difference in the comfort levels at the pressure points. After I had breast cancer sleeping on my stomach was difficult because of having had a mastectomy. I tried my side, but the dam mattress was so hard my hip would ache after a half hour or so. My arm would fall dead asleep because the circulation would get cut off to it. Nothing like waking up in the middle of the night wondering what the hell that lump is under your pillow, only to realize its your own arm that is completely numb. Anyway…after a while I started leaving the bed and going out to the couch. I would give myself an hour and if I was still tossing and turning…see ya! I made sure I waited until he was asleep so as not to make him feel bad that I was leaving. It got to the point that I rarely made it to bed. I would fall asleep in the recliner and just stay there. Then Dick started to complain that I wasn’t sleeping in the bed anymore. I felt bad about this, because it wasn’t right that we slept apart, but I told him…for the hundredth time, that the mattress was too dam hard. If by some miracle I did fall asleep in there I would wake up in the morning with in such pain I would feel like crap all day. I needed to sleep and the only way that was going to happen in that bed is if we got a new mattress. Guess what he said? “But I like that mattress.” “Well then,” I said “I hope you two will be very happy together, because I can’t sleep on it.” Besides the fact that he liked the mattress made of rock, he was also very concerned that he would not be comfortable on a soft mattress Me, me, me…I, I, I…its all about Dick. What’s best for Dick? Is Dick happy? God forbid Dick should not get a good night sleep. We wouldn’t want Dick to be uncomfortable, now would we! The truth is though…Dick could sleep on anything, anywhere, anytime. If we had a dog house he could sleep on the peak of its roof like Snoopy and be perfectly comfortable. Finally I got to the real reason he didn’t want a new mattress. He said, and I quote, “A new mattress is expensive. What if we buy one and you can’t sleep on that one either? Might as well just flush that money right down the toilet.” Money…it was always about money. What an ass. He is still sleeping on the same mattress and I have a very comfy air-bed. I have slept better in the past 10 months than I did over the last 24 years. So that as they say is that.

These Boots Are Made For Walking

When I tell someone new about my blog they are sometimes a bit confused about the title. So, I thought I would take a moment to explain. There was a book/made for TV movie a few years ago called "I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy". I didn't read it or see the movie, but I liked the title. Having had a mastectomy myself, and a hysterectomy, from which I was recovering when the infidelity shit hit the fan in my marriage, I have always referred to getting a divorce as having a "spouse-ectomy". Nancy Sinatra's 1966 hit "These Boots Are Made For Walking", which tells of a woman scorned who is putting on her boots, walking away from, and right over the guy who cheated on her has always been a favorite "oldie" of mine. I bought myself a pair of cowboy boots one summer. They are black brushed leather, and whenever I wore them I always felt...taller...stronger...like I meant business when I walked. Unfortunately I left them at my "marital home" when I vacated the premises last winter. Who knew I would be locked out of my house, unable to gain access to my belongings. Had I known, I definitely would have brought them along. My beloved boots are top on my list when I get to go on my first rescue mission back at the ranch. But all that is another story for another day. So, here for your listening pleasure is Nancy Sinatra in 1966 singing my song....Take it away Nancy...

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived a lonely princess. Everyday she would stare out her window, wishing, hoping and wondering when her prince would ride up to her castle and carry her off into the sunset. One day her wish came true…or so she thought. A handsome prince arrived to sweep her off her feet. He promised her a life full of love and everything her heart desired. “Marry me, my love, and everything I have shall be yours” he said. Blinded by what she thought was love, she said yes. Their wedding day came and they were married in front of all their family and friends. When it came time to “kiss the bride” her heart leapt with anticipation…”I’m married” she thought dreamily…they kissed… ”to the most wonderful…FROG?” The moment their lips touched in holy matrimony her handsome prince turned into a frog, a little green, ugly frog. “This is all wrong!” she cried. “Princes aren’t supposed to turn into frogs! it’s the other way around! Why did this happen?” The truth is, nothing happened. Her prince had always been a frog, she just couldn’t see it. She never saw him for what he really was. In her eyes he was everything she wanted and needed him to be. She hadn’t been blinded by love, it was desire that had altered her perception. She so wanted all her dreams to come true that she was only able to see what she wanted to see. The reality was she had married a frog and now she was stuck with him. Being as good hearted as she was she decided to give the marriage a shot. After all, he couldn’t help being a frog, it was just who he was. There must have been something about him that made her see him as a prince. Perhaps if she didn’t look so closely at him he would appear more prince-like and less…frog-ish. This worked for a while, but in the end she realized, he is what he is and there was nothing she could do to change that. It took a long time for the princess to do something about her situation. It was hard for her to do what needed to be done because she didn’t want to be alone again. But, because of her husband the frog, she didn’t get to do all the things she used to love to do. His promise of “everything I have shall be yours” turned out to be nothing more than a lie. Her friends and family never really felt comfortable around him because they knew from the start that he was a frog and could never understand why the princess married him. Then one day she realized that she felt more lonely now with her frog, than she did when she was alone. Being alone wasn’t a bad thing to be, being lonely was worse than anything. She no longer could ignore that fact that he was and always would be a slimy, little frog. She knew she didn’t love him and wondered if she ever really did. This was no way for a princess to live. She needed to be free, to go out into the world and find her heart’s desire. The only problem with that was that she spent so many years being someone she was not, she didn’t know what her heart’s desire was anymore. The time had come to move on. She told the frog that she was leaving, forever. The frog didn’t seem to care. He just grunted at her, as frogs usually do, and that was that. She gathered her belongings and went back to the castle she grew up in to be with her family. Everyone, friends and family alike, welcomed her back home. She knew she had done the right thing and knew that even if she were alone, she would never be lonely again. And the princess lived happily ever after.

The End.

Name, Address and Phone Number Please...

Whenever I tell someone about my situation, more often than not they inquire if I know who "the other woman" is. Why yes, I tell them...I not only know who she is I know all sorts of things about her. For instance...I know her full name, Charlot Doomie Babylon, and her birth date, November 23, 1964, I know where she lives and where she works. I know her car and license plate number. I also know all of her telephone numbers which includes, 2 cell phones (one for her work as a sales rep. for cleaning products and the other for personal use), the number of the bar where she works (3 nights a week from 6pm to 1am), the 800 number for her sales job, and her two house phones...one is in her daughter's name. That name would be, Diane. Charlot also has a son, Jarred. Diane is 23 years old, married and lives in Lowell...birthday, April 4, 1986. Jarred is 20, still lives at home with "Mommy Dearest" while attending college...birthday, May 10, 1989. Both of her children carry her maiden name, Doomie, not her married name, so one can assume that she had these 2 children before she married Scott Babylon...I know I do. The house she lives in was purchased by the happy couple in 1998 for $159,000. When the marriage fell apart (wonder why), ownership was transferred solely to her for $1.00, and our dear Charlot was divorced (wonder why) from Scott in 2002. Most of this information I found using Internet services like Net Detective and Intellius. And, most of this information was completely useless, but I liked having it. It made me feel really superior that I knew all these things about her, especially when she had absolutely no idea that I even knew she existed. And, it came in very handy when I used some of it to freak her out the first time we met. Oh...have I mentioned that before? Well, yes, I have had the privilege of actually meeting my husband's mistress...How lucky am I! I have actually spoken with her, and more than once. I caught them together three times, four, if you count spying on them in a parking lot late at night when they didn't know I was there. The first three times I made my presence known. That last time was...well...the last straw. It pushed me off the fence I'd been sitting on trying to decide whether or not to leave him. I had had enough at that point and couldn't be bothered wasting my breath confronting him about it. It had been six months since I first found out Dick had cheated on me. I knew that night I would never trust him again. Even if I wanted to or tried to, there would always be some doubt. And that little voice in my head questioning if he was being truthful. He had lied to me far too many times. I finally knew what I was going to do, what I had to do. I just didn't know how or when I would do it.

The Scent of a Woman

The evidence I gathered and all the clues were just pieces of the puzzle that would turn out to be Dick’s mid-life crisis. I have previously mentioned the new style of underwear and all the “shopping” he was doing, but there were other things that were out of the ordinary for him. He definitely dressed better…and smelled better too. There was this odd little bottle of cologne that appeared in the bathroom closet after he returned from one of his “guy trips” . He never wore cologne. I was allergic to an array of brands. He could never keep it straight which ones bothered me, so, he just found it easier to not wear any. That way he didn’t have to look like an ass for wearing the wrong one for the hundredth time, making me sick from the smell. Now, all of a sudden it didn’t seem to matter. He’d splash that crap on and out the door he’d go. Of course he was never going out with me, so I guess that could have been a good reason for him to start using it again. I did ask him about the new cologne, not in an accusatory way of course, just in a “oh, what’s this?“ kind of way when I accidentally on purpose knocked it over on the self. He had some excuse about how he picked it up in the hotel gift shop, because he had forgotten his electric razor when he went to Miami and had to buy shaving supplies. Sounded good, but…I didn’t believe him, so of course I had to investigate. I looked it up online and found out that the small bottle, and I mean small, like the one he had, cost $40. If he had bought it in the gift shop it probably cost even more…and it was cologne, not aftershave. All I could think was there is no way on God’s good earth that this man cracked open his wallet, blew the cob webs off the bills and shelled out some 40 plus dollars just to smell pretty. Not in this lifetime, no way…unless of course Harry had told him he should buy it, then, well, maybe. And, if he did, he obviously didn’t care that I might be allergic to it. On another note, but keeping with clues and smells...
One time when Dick and I were actually going someplace together, when I got into the car, I noticed that on the console was a piece of silver chain. He quickly picked it up, when he got in. But, realizing that I had seen it he asked if it belonged to me. “Nope, not mine.” I said. He then said something like he had found it on the ground outside the car. Which didn’t make sense to me since the car was always in the garage. He obviously didn’t have time to think that through, but he needed an explanation as to why a piece of jewelry that was not mine would be in our car. If it was mine, it would have had to been outside someplace other than home, and I would have had to been there with him…duh! I looked at it. It was a chain extender for a necklace. Dick probably pulled it off her neck in the heat of passion. “Huh…Oh well” he said as he tossed it back on the console, “I thought it might be yours.” Funny thing though, the morning after the next time he was out…it had disappeared. Weird. During our outing that night I kept smelling something perfumey. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, then I realized it was on the seat belt. As you now know I am allergic to many scents…this one was making me sick. When I mentioned it he said Harry was sitting there last night, and it was probably his cologne. I let him think that I bought that explanation, but I knew it had to be her. Harry is at least a foot taller than her and if that smell came from him it would have had to come from his armpit. Harry’s armpits do not smell that nice. Whomever was sitting there stinking up my seat belt was about my height. Because the spot on the belt that smelled was right at my neck. Why is he doing this, I thought. Is he really that stupid or does he just not care? I knew the answer to that question was the latter. The truth was that I was no longer important enough. I had slipped out of the number one position on his “Things I care about” list. At this point I think I was jockeying with the lawn mower for the ninth or tenth position. Eventually I was off the list completely, but until I finally realized that was the case I continued torturing myself by staying with him.