Looking for Mr. Cont-Right

Contrite:  feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming.  That is the definition that Webster gives. I saw it for a brief moment in time. Dick was contrite, for about five minutes. That morning after the first confrontation with him and Charlot, he was full of remorse and sorrow. But like I said, it didn't last very long. The next night when I finally initiated conversation with him, the man that begged me to tell him what he could do to make things right was nowhere to be found. Somewhere in the last day and a half he changed his tune. I assumed that Harry had something to do with it since he had spent the afternoon of the day he was outed with him. I can just hear Harry saying "You admitted it to her?? What are you crazy? Live by the Man Code: Deny it 'til ya die!" Since I had proof with my copy of the hotel receipt and Dick had confirmed that he and Charlot had done the horizontal tango, Harry must have come up with the BS that came spuing out of Dick's mouth that night. Dick said this about that infamous night of passion, and I quote..."If you must know, we didn't 'make-love' because I couldn't." Did he just refer to 'it' as 'making love'? But wait...there's more..."We just cuddled all night." CUDDLED?????? Did I really just hear that? Was he freakin' serious? CUDDLED!! He said they cuddled, like that was supposed to make it okay. Man, he really had no idea how deep a whole he was digging for himself. What he was telling me, again, was that their relationship was not about the sex. They were intimate. They had something we didn't. He held her all night...all night! I can't remember the last time he held me in bed and never all night. All I got was him rolling over when he was done and snoring with his back to me. Then he continued, changing the subject to trust. He said that, yes, he had lied and knew I didn't trust him. But, I had also lied to him and so he too had trust issues. What had I lied to him about? I bet you haven't a clue, so I will tell you...MONEY. Yup, money. I had run up quite a bit of a balance on my credit card. It was at twelve thousand dollars. Back in March when he had started his rants about money I came clean and told him about it. He made me feel like the most horrible person in the world for keeping that from him. He verbally tortured me about it until I was sliding down the wall in tears, until I was on my knees, begging his forgiveness. I felt small. I felt like dirt. But, that was then. Then I had no back bone when it came to Dick. Now...now I was angry and I let him know it. I slammed my fists down hard on the table and yelled "MONEY? Are you serious? You're trying to say that my keeping a credit card balance from you is the same as you screwing around? Are you for real?" "Well," he said, "You have your issues and I have mine." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I don't know why, by now you would think I'd be used to his odd sense of logic. But in his mind I had done just as much wrong as he had...mostly because he and Charlot had not "made-love", only "cuddled". So says the lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch. He started to speak again, saying that he explained that they hadn't made... but I cut him off. "Don't say it." "What?" he said. "Make-love. Its called having SEX, you asshole! When you're married and you sleep with another woman its not making-love, its screwing around, or f%$#ing! You say you didn't, which I think is bullshit by the way, as if it doesn't count. But it does. Because, even if it is true, you made a reservation, you went to a hotel, you got naked and got in bed with another woman. Then, just because "Little Dickie" couldn't perform you think you didn't cheat? Well, ya did, because the intent was there, and you stayed. If you had any guilt at all, you should have left, but ya didn't. So, "f" you and the horse you rode in on!!" With that I left the room not waiting for a response from him. I knew if he opened his mouth and said one more stupid thing I would have to shove something in it, like my fist. I got in the shower and began to shake. So much for that back bone I thought I had. There I was, sliding down the shower wall to my knees crying. I thought that because I had known about Dick's affair for months that I wouldn't be such an emotional mess like this. But actually seeing them together and talking about it with him made it all too real...and it hurt. It wasn't just the affair that hurt, it was how Dick was acting about the whole thing. He didn't have to still be in love with me, I knew I wasn't in love with him anymore. It wasn't about that. It was about respect. He had absolutely no respect for me...certainly not as his wife, but not even as a person. He just didn't care about me, at all. And that, is what cut so deep.

Happy Anniversary

This passed Monday was exactly one year since I left Dick and the divorce papers were filed a year ago yesterday. I never thought it would take this long to get this close and still have nothing show for it. Well, that's not entirely true...I have so much more debt now, than when I started! Divorce is nothing if not expensive. The hope is that when all is said and done, it will be worth the ridiculous expense, and since Dick had been hiding money during the course of our marriage, I should make out just fine. Have I mentioned the "money hiding" before now? I don't think so. Well, apparently "Mr. Crying Poor Mouth" never had anything to be crying about! I knew that we could live comfortably and that he made a decent salary. What I didn't know was that he had been squirreling away money from the very beginning. I was aware of some accounts that my name was not on, but I didn't think anything of it because he told me they were for retirement, and they had to do with work. I believed him. Why wouldn't I? I had no reason not to. Things are different now. Now I wouldn't believe him if he told me water was wet. But back then I trusted him with my life, so I never questioned anything that had to do with money. I figured he was earning it, he had every right to do whatever he thought best with it. As long as we were together I would be taken care of. Since we were going to be together for ever, I never gave it a second thought.
During the course of this blog I have basically brought you from the day I left Dick, up to the day I confronted him about his affair, with a little skipping around into our past for good measure. Its time once again to skip back, first we must visit the early days of our marriage, then we will go to the summer of 2008. Right after our wedding, I closed my personal checking account and with our gift money we opened a joint checking account. So far, so good. But, the only thing that ever got put into that joint account was the initial deposit and my paycheck. In the beginning I was paying certain household bills, telephone, cable, doing the food shopping and paying for any other household items as needed. Dick would pay the larger bills like the mortgage, gas/electric, insurance, etc. Dick also had his own personal checking account before we got married. Ten years later, he still had the same account...without me on it. I didn't want to accuse him of doing something wrong, because if you remember, I trusted him, so I approached it saying "What if something were to happen to you and you were unable to write a check or access the account? We wouldn't be able to pay bills because I can't write a check on that account." It worked, because the next day he came home with a signature card for me sign. Finally we had all "our" money in joint accounts...or so I thought. What he didn't tell me was that he also had a savings account at the same bank where he kept the big money. When did I find this out? Picture this...it's July 2008, and I am home recovering from my hysterectomy. I had started my fact finding tour with the discovery of where Dick hid the key to the file cabinet. Due to my lack of energy that day I had to cut my snooping short. I had plenty of time in the days to come to go back to the infamous file cabinet, which I did, many times. What I found was not one, but two bank accounts that my name was not on. One of them held particular interest to me because I noticed that the statements were mailed to his work address. Upon closer examination I realized that this was just a plain old savings account. Nothing special like a CD or Money Market...just a passbook savings. I looked some more and found the old passbook...same account number. Original deposit date 1980! This account had tens of thousands of dollars in it. The other one had over a hundred thousand. I was a bit shocked, to say the least. I did believe that he was hoarding it for retirement, but why be so secretive about it? Then I came across a most interesting piece of paper. It was all folded up and stuffed in between two file folders. It was a receipt...from a lawyer...a divorce lawyer. "What the hell?" I thought out loud, "That little bastard has looked into divorce!" The date on the receipt coincided with when I started to noticed Dick acting differently. It was also the same time the cell phone calls between him and Charlot had first showed up. I surmised that he went for a consultation with a divorce attorney to get an idea of what he was in for if he were to get divorced. When he found out that he stood to lose half of what he considered to be "his" money he figured it was worth putting up with me and staying married. I have to tell you that even though I was considering divorce, the fact that he had thought about it really bothered me. I was incensed! How dare he! He obviously didn't know how good he had it. Now I was really fired up. I took every folder that contained any financial information out of that file cabinet, scanned them and loaded them onto a flash drive, which kept hidden in my purse. It was a good thing I did that because soon after I outed him and Charlot, money began to slowly disappear. He made withdrawals of ten to twenty thousand at a time over a period of three months. Both of those accounts that were only in his name where closed out by the end of December 2008. During what is called "discovery" in the divorce process both parties have to submit financial statements. These list all of you assets, debt, income, and bank accounts that you have had for the past three years. Well, guess what was not listed on Dick's financials? That's correct...those two accounts. Can you say "Caught ya!!!" Since my lawyer had all the information that I had scanned we knew that Dick was probably hiding more than what I was already aware of. This brought up the burning question of where did the money from those two accounts go? That is another very interesting story which really needs its very own post. So, once again I will leave you hanging and end this post with a little song.

Everybody join in if you know the tune to the Anniversary song!


Happy Anniversary...happy anniversary....happy anniversary...haaap-py a-ni-ver-sa-ry! I am happy 'cause I just had my first anniversary. I left Dick this time last year and all I want to do is sing and cheeeerrr!!! Happy anniversary...happy anniversary...happy anniversary...haaap-py a-ni-ver-sa-ry!

Money, Money, Money, Money....

MONEY may make the world go around, but it can also bring it to a screeching halt. I think I have mentioned it before that if you were to ask Dick what our "problem" was, he would tell you that it was mostly about MONEY. He would never mention the fact that he had lots of it, but liked to cry poor mouth. For example: during the winter months, the highest he would allow the heat to be at was 65 degrees. When we would have people over they were always sure to dress appropriately...turtle necks and sweaters. Once it was even suggested that I pass out blankets at the front door as people arrived. For the summertime we had central air...one might think... brrr.... how nice... and one would be wrong. Never, ever, was anything lower than 72degrees acceptable. I could never quite grasp the reasoning behind it. It was perfectly okay to keep the house at 65 degrees in the winter, but in the summer 65 was never going to happen. Just as 72 was fine for the warm weather, that number never appeared on the thermostat through the winter months. If I ever complained about it I got "Fine, you want to pay the bill? Then turn it up (or down depending on the season). I'd be more than happy to hand you the bill when it comes." Apparently he thought that I didn't know heat and air conditioning cost MONEY. I learned early on to just keep my mouth shut and put on another sweater. Thank God for menopause. Its pretty sad when you look forward to a hot flash so your teeth will stop chattering! But that time of life made the summers almost unbearable. I had more fans running 24-7 than we had rooms! I could never understand why Dick didn't complain about the electricity I was using to run all of them. Perhaps he somehow sensed the danger in going there. I did have my limits.

Our living room furniture was purchased when we were first married and it, like us, was falling apart. The cushions had no "cush" left in them and our cats had used every piece as a scratching post at one time or another.New furniture was out of the question. Why, you ask? Well, I'll tell you, but you've probably already guessed the answer...MONEY. "Why spend the MONEY on new furniture only to have the cats tear it up too?" Dick said...and again, I quote "Might as well just flush that MONEY right down the toilet."

There are many other things I could mention to prove my point about Dick being a tight wad, but I think you get the picture. When Dick says that our problems were mostly about MONEY he is referring to my credit card debt. He has convinced himself that my hiding the fact that I ran up a ten to twelve thousand dollar balance on my credit card was just as deceitful as him having an affair. I know...the man's a fool...but he truly felt that way and still does. I guess you could say that his view on whats more important in a marriage is a little skewed.

Six years of dating, twenty five years of marriage and it all comes down to MONEY. The Almighty Buck! The one thing that Dick values above all else. "We" are reduced to fighting over who gets what, how much and for how long. It's all so very, very sad, and its killing him to have to part with half of "his" MONEY. I am sure that Dick feels I am trying to take him for everything he's got. But the truth is I'm just trying to survive. He never realized that as married couple everything belonged to "us". Perhaps that's because there never really was an "us". To him it was always "you" and "me". We were supposed to be together for life. It wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to live "Happily ever after". This divorce has cost a lot more than just MONEY so far, and its not over yet.

All that being said, I will leave you with a conglomeration of phrases about MONEY.

Put your MONEY where your mouth is and talk to the MONEY Man so you can make a bundle of MONEY. Time is MONEY and you want to be right on the MONEY and In the MONEY. Then you can rake in the MONEY. Because, if you have a ton of MONEY then you’ll have Money to burn . When Money is no object Money is power .
MONEY talks, MONEY makes MONEY and MONEY makes the world go round .

But, MONEY is also the root of all evil and MONEY can't buy you love. Because MONEY isn't everything and MONEY doesn't grow on trees.

Some people have more MONEY than sense or spend MONEY like water. You'd better get your MONEY's worth, get the best that MONEY can buy. For a Fool and his MONEY are soon parted. So make sure you get a MONEY back guarantee and then take the MONEY and run. Take plastic MONEY pin MONEY, old MONEY, new MONEYY, mattress MONEY, managed MONEY, mad MONEY, hush MONEY, glove MONEY, front MONEY, funny MONEY, found MONEY, folding MONEY, even MONEY, easy MONEY, blood MONEY and seed MONEY. Don’t forget to sock your MONEY away. Maybe put it in a MONEY market account. Then you’ll have more MONEY than God and people will think you are made of MONEY.

Above all, remember…MONEY changes everything, MONEY can’t buy happiness, and you can’t take it with you...unless you have a good lawyer. And that you can take to the bank!