When people hear part of our story I often observe the levers and gears moving behind their eyes. Contrary to popular rumors, blonds are not the easiest to observe in this process. My experience points toward redheads. I swear I can actually see the movement behinds the eyes.

Three thoughts come up, never articulated, but the thoughts of any intelligent person when confronted with a story such as ours.

Thought One – How much of this is true? Almost everyone remarks that our story sounds like a Lifetime movie, a movie of the week, or a poorly written soap opera. How much evidence exists to support the Tale of Tales?

Quite a bit actually.

Audio records of the hearings make up several hours. I subpoenaed and received copies of the video recording of Patricia trying to hire the hit man and her subsequent interrogation. The two total about an hour and a half. The testimony before the Grand Jury is about an hour, comprised of the testimony of one of the investigating officers. There are also taped telephone messages Patricia left for the children and other conversations taped legally. All together, I would say a little more than ten hours. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at 448 pages is about the same length.

Our court file is three volumes, our email stacked out at about fifteen inches, Police reports are another hundred pages, there are lawyer letters after lawyer letters, notes from Patricia’s supervised visitations with the children, and all-in-all I filled a four drawer file cabinet with the paper documents.

And this does not count medical records, the majority of which I do not have. I imagine they would fill at least another drawer.

The newspaper stories and broadcast segments are the smallest section. They include the headline of the Albuquerque Tribune to Rod Green getting everything wrong at Patricia’s sentencing.

Thus, the facts are easily supported. Patricia and I married, produced three children, she filed for divorce, CYFD took the kids away, suicide attempts were made, she was allowed only supervised visitation, and went out on the Internet looking for a killer.

Her ad is still up. I found it a couple of months ago. Her website is not. It is now owned by a survivalist orientated company. Hell, the name fits – “determined2survive.com”. I have copies of all the pages and the WHOIS registration in the name of her second husband. 

            My conclusions and arguments drawn out of the facts are my own. There is a great deal of research there also. Thousands of pages read on domestic violence, the role of psychology in divorce, Guardian ad Litems, etc…

The Wheels Spin - Thought Two
Current mood: thoughtful

Thought Two- How did they stay married this long?

Patricia and I married on June 1, 1986 and divorced November 15, 2002. Sixteen years married.

I remember describing Patricia and mine’s marriage to my first attorney. After he listened, he stated that our relationship was common with one little exception – our relationship lasted FIVE TIMES longer than any in his experience. That should have been his first clue that he was in over his head.

I remember leaving the hearing where CYFD decided not to return the children to Patricia, on the way out the supervisor asked a simple question – ‘Why in the world did you stay married to her for so long?”

         As usual, a clever answer – “When you are holding the tiger by the tale, you do not let go”.

         As clever as the answer is, it contains a great deal of truth. Patricia continues to surprise me. The website surprised me, Grandpa Joe surprised me, but the hit man did not, the suicide attempts did not.

         One of the reasons I did not divorce Patricia is the absolute knowledge that just this kind of chaos we seem to have almost daily now would result. This included fear for the lives of our children.

         Another answer is a sense of obligation concerning Patricia’s mental illness. There is that wonderful scene in “A Beautiful Mind” where one of John Nash’s friends asks Nash’s wife Alicia how and why she deals with her husband’s mental illness. Her response is simple – a sense of obligation.

         I will never know how much I helped Patricia’s mental illness or how much I contributed to her problems. Not knowing the answer instills a sense of obligation in an ethical person.

         Of course, there are our children. Jessica and Monte are just now beginning to open up about the abuse they suffered from their mother – abuse physical and mental. When I asked why they did not tell me, the answer was simple – they thought their mother would kill them.

         As those of you that have read the first draft of my first three chapters know, the moment I learned of the abuse I acted and Patricia filed for divorce within three months.

         Everyday there are parents, and yes I will admit primarily women, making a choice to allow their children to be abused or to place their lives in danger (parent and child) by addressing the abuse. I made the choice when I faced it and the end result was a contract for my death. But I will go to my grave with the guilt about not seeing what occurred in my own home and not acting earlier.

         After all I wrote about Love, I still experience difficulty analyzing my emotional feelings for Patricia, mainly because she still manages to touch me. I thought I knew, I began to write, and then she stirred the pot again. It became difficult to think a kind thought about her.

         There was Affection, there was no Friendship, Lust died early in our relationship and Eros followed fairly quickly. Overall, Loving Patricia proved an Act of Will, or Charity, as Lewis would define the experience.

         The answer is incomplete, I am sorry. Answering this question is one of the reasons I write.

The Wheels Spin -- Thought Three

Thought Three – The last thought takes a couple of different forms. Recently, an ex girlfriend expressed one version when she attributed her own crap to me – saying that she thought that the monster Patricia had described all of these years had finally come out in me.

         Another version came out a couple of years ago when another girlfriend and I sat at Quarters talking about a child custody case that was in the news. The mother lost her kids after about fifteen different officials came to the conclusion that she had couched her children to lie about their father sexually abusing them.

         And my girlfriend’s comment? “Well, you know he did something!!!”

         A lot of what happened in Court for the second half of 2002 and part of 2003 was an effort to insure that the children had not been delivered to a lunatic with better acting skills – their father (me). I do not believe the judge started to trust me until January of 2004.

         There is a Mark of Cain Patricia placed on my forehead, branding me an abuser. My God!!!! -- Patricia’s primarily mental health diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome for abuse that never occurred!!!!!

         Or did it?

         I am in the car with Jessica and Montie a couple of weeks ago. We are on our way home after visiting some friends that date back to my marriage days. I do not know how even these old friends know the truth about me. I make the remark to the children that they and they alone know that I NEVER hit or abused their mother.

         “Not even Grandma and Grandpa?” Jessica asks. “How about Uncle Shawn and Aunt Karon?” Montie chimes in.

         “I shake my head, “No, they trust me but they can never know. Only you three know”

         And that is the sad truth.