One week until Mother’s Day 2026 and it marks just another year since my oldest daughter has allowed me to be in her life. I think it’s been six years. Maybe seven.

Usually I don’t share my life stories out here in the great realm of land where nothing goes away once it’s out there. In the past I have and those blogs have since been removed. Anything that I might have shared on Facebook is probably also long gone as a few years ago I downloaded my data and deleted those posts afterwards.

Her story is that I destroyed her childhood and I have no right to think of myself as a victim. Her younger sister joined in along with her husband.

Why do I come across to them as a victim in my mind? Choosing to give in to someone who couldn’t be defeated by a girl who didn’t want to be his. When we first met I didn’t like him. He was all into himself and spoke to me as if I was interested in him. This started the first week we met when he showed up a week late in my Art History 101 class in college. Then, he informed me that he wasn’t sitting next to me because he wanted to but because he ‘wanted to get into the pants of the girl in front of me’ who he knew from another class.

No, I wasn’t interested in him. Not then and not at the end of that quarter. He took Art History 102 the next quarter and so did I. We didn’t have a seating chart in this course so I sat where ever I landed when I got into the room after coming from the opposite corner of campus.

Then, the day of our final exam we hung out together for a couple hours and he took ownership. Almost immediately my purpose in life was directed by his ideas of how life should be. After a few weeks of dating he got sick and had to recuperate for a few weeks and I went on a three week vacation with my family. When I got home I realized how calm I felt not being around him. My dad took me to buy my first car and when I announced my purchase I was verbally berated for wasting our money. Our money? GeezoPete we only dated for maybe two months and he was already claiming my savings account?

Should have run then but I didn’t. A year later when I told him I needed time to get back on track after I pretty much failed a class due to not giving it enough time or attention and being exhausted all the time from school, work, and being out too late with him and his gang. One month. That’s how long that lasted. He would show up where I worked, find me at school, at my house and just act like he was devastated. Afterwards my feeling is that he was more like mad at me since he now didn’t have a girl to drag around and until then he was the only one in his gang who had one.

He kicked in the door on a friend’s brand new car saying he had to show him who the boss was. Boss? Again, why didn’t I see that? Why didn’t I call the neighbor who was a detective? You can’t just go around destroying property and not get some sort of repercussion. But, he did.

When we got back together his mom told me I was no good for her sweetheart. She never knew that he was far from a sweetheart. He had more than one personality. One for Mom, one for me, and one for everyone else. So, there was no hope in me ever sharing what he did and said after we got married. Who would believe me?

I was criticized, told I’d never be anyone without him, no one would love me like he does, I was a nobody hick from a hick town before I met him and anytime he did or said anything that was hurtful and I said something about he’d just use his famous line that I’d get over it. No, I didn’t.

Like I didn’t get over the time he shoved me into the deep end of the pool on our honeymoon because I was having a conversation with some other people and he got tired of it and walked away. I was never rude to people like that and would at least finish the subject of conversation then excuse myself. I wouldn’t walk away, stand over there and stare then come back all mad and shove someone into the pool knowing that they didn’t swim. I inhaled so much pool water during my panic.

Again, I’ll get over it.

There were many incidences that were dangerous and hurtful.

Two years into our marriage he became obsessed with a girl at work. So much that she was all he talked about when he was actually at home. This went on for about eight months and taught me that, yes, I could do fine without him. Then, I met her in person. Oh she was like a puppy following her little boy. At the work party I casually mentioned to him that she really kept her eyes on him even rearranging the centerpiece for a better view. He turned and did the finger point into my chest in front of everyone telling me that I was just a jealous bitch.

Far from it. She can have you if she wants you. After the honeymoon I was already keeping track of incidences and keeping a journal. Darn it all if I didn’t take them with me when I left.

Two months later he informed me that they had done it in the parking lot in his company truck. Oh I was hoping she would become pregnant and I’d have an easy way out. Nope. Didn’t happen.

He did tell me though that it was my fault that it happened. 1. I wasn’t there for him. 2. She reminded him of me and 3. They were drunk. Huh? I was at work and school after work because my employer was paying for my education. He was hanging out in the bar after work in the next county while I was working and in class.

Can I say Narcissist?

There was the time he didn’t come home from work until minutes before I got the girls up for school. He told me it was none of my damn business where he was. Yup. Like it was none of my damn business about our finances as well. I didn’t need to know but did need to keep contributing.

We had a month of weddings. Four in one month. One was for a couple who were friends of friends. One of our longtime friends (part of his original childhood gang) lost her mother that week and the funeral was the day before the wedding. We sat together at the reception and remembered her mom and she told stories. No, I really didn’t want to discuss home improvement topics at a wedding reception. It’s how he would get me to divert my attention from conversations he wanted no part of.

The punishment for this incident wasn’t the usual verbal berating. I was grabbed, dragged into the house and shoved around and slammed into walls and appliances in the laundry room. More happened after that which ‘I had coming for ignoring him’. Don’t I ever do that again.

Believe me. I will be ignoring you a lot now.

Over the next couple years I was learning how to find my mind again. Learning how to get back into the world after going back to full time work. I found what I thought to be a good escape route that also didn’t work out so well. I now have a rule that anyone who physically hurts me, verbally threatens me or insults me or my family will be warned only one time.

One time.

My family didn’t even know how often they were insulted behind their backs. How many times they were described as bitches or losers or prudes.

No. I was never a victim. Ever. Never.

My girls stayed behind with their dad not because they had to. He chose to make it look that way. He manipulated all three of us by making financial agreements that worked in their favor while paying me off to go elsewhere. I couldn’t force them out of the only schools and house they knew. Pull them away from their friends. That house would have had to be refinanced for me to stay there and there was no way my income would support that. The lawyer told me I was letting him get away with too much. We were all fine until we weren’t.

How is it that over a decade later I became the bad parent. The mom who doesn’t deserve even an acknowledgement of existence? How? I think it’s because of therapy. Once I did catch a tiny bit of an online post about a therapist saying that distance was needed from the toxic parent.

Who was the toxic parent? I didn’t insult them when they were little. I didn’t deprive them of childhood activities. I fought hard for what they were involved in. He wanted no over night parties with friends. He said the friends always accuse the dad of sexual advances afterwards. He said friends steal things from houses. Pets? No. They’re annoying and messy. No pets. I managed to get an aquarium which was ok because they were contained in the tank.

There’s so much more. I met him in January of 1976 and the divorce was in 2000. No, I didn’t get over it. Never will I.