And Into the Jaws of the Beast Machine
The Beast Machine reared its ugly head yesterday, reminding me how it continues to put its hunger above the needs of the family, reminding me how its stupidity endangers the family, reminding me how it consumes many of the minds of those family members entering its den.
I share my experiences through my website fatheriam.com and through personal contacts. People find me there or are referred to me by others for what little insight I can provide. My only compensation is the hope that other families do not relive some of the horrors our family experienced over the last decade.
If I was to sum up my thoughts about conflicted divorce in one motto, it is “Always take the high road, always”. Divorce courts are full of liars, full of dirty tricks, full of thieves to such an extent that the judges usually do not recognize truth when they see it, they only sort through the various lies.
Of course, some might argue Patricia’s mental illness made this easier for me. Patricia’s mental illness was degenerative and offset by her brilliance and charm for the first several months of the divorce. This and her willingness to lie about anything. It was not until she expressed her anger against Glen by putting his dog down that a little truth started making our way into the divorce. And I would laugh at anyone who might label my divorce easy.
And you fall into classical rationalism – it is okay for me to act this way because he started it. Like Patricia telling the bond hearing judge that she had sought my death before I could kill her.
Our society is wrestling with some of these questions at the moment. There is the wife who shot her husband with a shotgun three times while he lay sleeping with their young children in the house and fled the scene with the children afterwards. Her sentence – four months. There is a similar case pending here in Albuquerque.
The use of the ‘high road’ and the employment of lawyers is typically a contradiction in terms. The legal profession is the only part of our cultural where ‘Victory equates Justice’ and often ‘Might equals Right’.
Now to our story.
One lady I have been talking to for the last five years continued to claim she wanted a divorce but found excuse after excuse to stay miserable and to share her misery with her children.
At first I was supportive, but eventually came to realize that I was part of the problem. Our relationship became a classical ‘emotional affair’ and as long as she received emotional love and support from me, she could not move forward in resolving her relationship with her husband and healing her family.
She refused to see it this way. To her, any friendship that was not physical and met her needs was okay. We argued and argued about this and she simply refused to see my point of view. Our relationship was additionally complicated by the close friendship between two of our children, so some communication is necessary. I tried again and again to reduce our relationship to that level but after a few weeks, she would attempt to scale it back up.
Finally last month, I made some progress and got her mad enough at me to back off. She seemed to understand she could no longer turn to me for advice and support. She needed to move on.
And right into the jaws of the Beast Machine.
Last night I hear from my child who wants to go over to this lady’s house that the lady is busy filling out a restraining order against her husband against whom she has not filed divorce.
Remember, I have been deeply emotionally involved with this woman for several years. Time and time again, I heard her complaints and stories about her husband. On one occasion, two or three years ago, she related an incident of the night before where he had been physically abusive to their daughter, about eleven years old, by slamming her head against the desk. I pleaded with her to report it to the police but she refused. Later, it became fuel in her ‘misery’ complex as she expressed time and time again her subsequent regret at not calling the police.
And it is important to recall that I have been deeply emotionally involved with another woman in my past, my mentally ill ex wife. I kept in my mind that I was hearing only one side of the story and her refusal to act on her complaints and her lack of discretion with her own children attached some doubt to her creditability.
But, I felt it likely her husband was emotionally abuse. She, without even realizing it, also related a few stories of her emotional abuse of him.
Emotional abuse between adults is probably one of the poorest defined terms in the area of family issues. Either every insult and argument is an example of abuse or there are levels where we must assume adults are communicating harshly.
It is a judgment call and of course the worst example I know is when Hearing Officer Lopez ruled that if Patricia felt threatened then she was.
Adding to my concern is that I am hearing this from my child who is hearing it from her friend.
One of the Beast Machine’s fantasies is the belief that children do not have to be told anything about a divorce. The idea is to spare the children as much as possible and to avoid putting them in the middle.
Nice fantasy, put the reality is the children are more involved in the divorce then anyone else and need to be supported during the process. APS runs an excellent program for elementary school students called ‘Banana Splits’ to help with this.
It is a fine line responsible parents need to walk. In my case, it is important to remember my children were the victims of their mother’s mental illness, more so then I will ever be. In addition, there was my children’s intelligence to consider, often greater then the adults within the Beast Machine. I remember the court psychologist chewing me out for some remarks fourteen year old Glen made about his mother’s ‘chemical imbalance’ and drawing the conclusion that Glen picked this up in conversations with me. Actually, it was Glen’s own thoughts.
I have criticized the lady in question time after time over the years for communicating too much of her problems to the children. First and foremost, it borders on abuse to tell a child year after year that you are going to rescue them from their father by filing for divorce and then never doing it.
Second, how the hell can you tell a child that you are getting a restraining order against the father although he has done nothing specific on the advice of your divorce lawyer?
Aye, there is the rub. Apparently, after I managed to end my relationship with this lady, she was finally able to move on and made the decision to end her relationship with her husband only to fall into the jaws of the Beast Machine by filing charges of domestic violence against her husband only because her Beast Machine lawyer advices so.
And the Beast Machine lawyer now takes what could have been a simple case, worth only a couple of thousand dollars into a high conflict case generating fees now in the ten of thousands.
The vast majority of cases filed in Albuquerque are resolved without a single hearing; the vast majority of the remaining cases are closed with a single hearing. Complicated cases like mine are extremely rare, less then one out of a hundred.
The very allegation of domestic violence disqualifies you from participating in the Family Court Clinic, a non lawyer way to work out the issues of your divorce.
Even if there is domestic violence, bringing it up may not be the best way to proceed and requires deliberate thought.
She files those papers and she enters my world and she is not welcome.
The Next Chapter, Our Story
Here is the email I received from the Department of Corrections today.
Good afternoon Mr. Avery,
I hope all is well. I tried contacting you at the last know numbers I had for you and one of those numbers was disconnected. I tried calling an alternate number I found for you and the mailbox was full. Luckily, I was able to retrieve your e-mail address. I am contacting you regarding a message I received from Leon Shook, probation and parole officer, regarding Patricia Long. Mr. Shook advised me that offender Long had her final sentencing this week and she was given a unsatisfactory discharge from probation and was released from custody. Mr. Shook wanted to ensure you were aware of the status. You may have already received notice from the D.A.'s office regarding the probation sentencing status, however, we wanted to ensure you were aware of the most recent status.
If you have questions regarding this matter, please contact my office.
Sincerely,
Francine Garcia
Victim Services
New Mexico Corrections Department
505-827-8848
I Speak for the Dead
I speak for Michael Snyder shot eight times by his wife and then buried in the yard only to be found by his stepson’s conscience as the stepson confessed his limited involvement in the crime to friends and later the police.
And where was Michael’s six year old daughter as shot after shot impacted her father, as mom wrapped dad’s body in a tarp to be stored until later buried?
Conscience does not seem to be an issue for the wife after several shots, getting a friend to bring a backhoe in for body disposal; lying to the police about her husband’s whereabouts; and failing to disclosure to the new homebuyers that she had turned the yard into an impromptu cemetery where she acted as judge, executioner, corner, and mortician.
Why, because she was the victim of years of abuse of course. Abuse which lead her to defending herself against abusive husband who, by the way, was also apparently dealing with questions about his own sexuality.
And the only witness to the abuse, apparently not the seventeen year old son, or the six year old daughter who should be able to outline incident after incident of where stepfather/father heaped this abuse on mom to such an extent that seven or eight bullet holes proved the only remedy. But I am sure you give them enough time and they will come up with the stories necessary to defend their one surviving parent. After all we do not wish the fourteen year old daughter to lose both parents, especially a mother who involves a minor child in the attempt to hide her criminal actions.
And there are no police reports, no shaking heads among neighbors and friends, just one male ‘friend’ who saw the bruises on the wife and did not respond by calling the police, by setting up counseling or other services, no he responded by lending her the murder weapon.
And if you believe all of this is ridiculous beyond belief, Google “Mary Winkler”.
She recovers or she does not
It is now over two years since Patricia’s arrest for violating her probation by making numerous suicide gestures/attempts.
I missed the hearing last week as I was out of town on business and my information comes from our son Glen and the assistant district attorney.
I am not sure how many of these hearings spread out over the last two years, at least half a dozen. I was thinking half a dozen, but the court website says eleven. This number does not include the three we traveled down for and the court cancelled at the last moment.
This hearing differed from the others. First, it took and hour and a half before they could get Patricia into the court room. The
She agreed to the recent finding of competency. The
As I understand it, Patricia faces two choices. If she agrees to the DA plan, she would leave for
My calculation for her husband’s release date seems to have been short, I thought Mr. Lopez would be released by now but he is still in jail for his own probation violation (DWI arrest number eight).
I really did not wish to hear the word ‘combative’. It is an indication that little has changed, Patricia is unchanged.
People ask how the children are doing; honestly I am so proud of them. Glen feels genuine sorrow for the events; sorrow not to be confused with pity, trust, or missing contact.
I believe Jessica has dismissed her from consideration and her life. She did not have to assume some responsibility for her mother as Glen was forced to at seventeen, thus I believe her position is natural and rational.
Montie worries a little, and shares the sincere desire with his father that this would simply end.
Someone asked me yesterday how does this end, it has been ongoing since February 2002, my thirteen year-old son was five.
My response, “It ends one of two ways, she recovers or she does not”.
“If she recovers, it is a miracle to be shared with the world, a time of rejoicing and attempts to heal”.
“If she does not recover it could be years of this chaos as she fights the world until all energy is drained out of her soul and body”.
Same Old Song
Patricia’s hearing was moved back to October 7th yesterday after she would not agree to the stipulated order with a finding of competency. Both the
La Belle Dame sans Merci
I fell in love with Dicksee’s La Belle Dame sans Merci as a freshman in college. The painting is inspired by a Keat’s poem of the same name. My love is one of those moments in your life difficult to explain.
I own a copy that use to hang in my office and now hangs in my den. A print with Dicksee’s version and two other Romantic artist’s versions hangs in my bedroom. A third relief version hangs in the master bathroom.
My first love of the painting was without knowledge of the title or the poem Keat’s wrote. I fell in love with the idea Dicksee communicated of total surrender, of giving yourself up to Love completely.
The Knight is a Christ figure, vulnerable to the slightest movement of the beauty above him. And such beauty -- the long red hair, the beauty of her face, the perfect dress setting off the white flesh.
To me this was Chivalry at it best, in service to Beauty.
Before the internet, I searched for information about the painting, glimpsed only for a moment at seventeen years of age. Eventually I found information to include the title --
La Belle Dame sans Merci, or The Beautiful Woman without Mercy and the poem by Keats, the tenth and eleventh stanzas follow:
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side
It is a poem about a knight killed or trapped by a fairy princess, doomed to eternally be wrapped up in her spell.
And who says God does not have a sense of humor?