In my teens I dated a girl I really liked. On my mission I had several who worked hard to get my attention. When I came home I had several who also pursued me. But I married a gal who was wanted by many since she was drop dead beautiful. But after we married I discovered she came with some serious diagnosed psychological issues she had hidden well while dating.

It was the psychological issues that were the root cause of our divorce, and her refusal to take ownership. The divorce and how my kids were treated by the church is what finally caused my shelf to explode into dust and never exist again.

For awhile I thought about all those other stable girls I dated\knew. They were hard working and reliable, and would have made a great partner. But then one day it occured to me.

They were all TBM's, and I mean super duper, 110% over the top TBM's. And I realized that I was sooooo lucky. If I had married any of them, to this day, my blown away shelf would still be gone. But I would still be active, paying tithing, have callings, and faking that I was happy doing the church thing to keep the family intact. I would have been trapped, and miserable. Plus, there would be a high probability that any one of those girls, would not have been satisfied with the now current me. As I have aged, I lean heavy on the logical\empirical side, with a non-existent burning in the bosom.

My young and foolish impulses in this instance saved my senior years butt. Talk about dumb luck!

Anybody else have stories of luck, that got you out, without bringing the whole house crashing down on you? We see a bunch of negative, how about the positive side of dodging a mormon bullet.

I'm something of a risk taker, and have my share of adventures--and misadventures. "Writers don't get setbacks--they get material. "

Graham Greene said that childhood is the writer's credit balance.

Of course, some childhoods are longer than others.

By definition it turned out rather crappy.

But I have made questionable decisions, like having my daughter and her partner move in. Jury is still out on that one.

Either you know the decision is bad at the time and you don’t care, or you realize it was a bad decision through hindsight.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2023 01:39AM by Beth.

I think I can relate.

As I've mentioned before, my husband made a bad decision when he married his ex wife. They weren't LDS when they wed, but decided to convert about three years before they divorced. I always thought converting to Mormonism was a bad decision for my husband to make. But really, it was just one thing that happened because he made a bad decision to marry his ex wife.

Some people might have already read this part of our story, but I'm going to share it again for those who haven't... Feel free to skip the next paragraphs to the asterisks if you want to get to the TL/DR point.

My husband and his ex wife knew each other in high school back in the late 70s and early 80s. She is three years younger than he is, and had a really crappy childhood. She and my husband, and her first husband, who also went to high school with them, were all involved in JROTC. That's where they met.

She married her first husband when she was still really young and promptly got pregnant with her eldest child, a son. Husband #1 had enlisted in the Army. It wasn't a love match, and they were only together for a few years.

Meanwhile, my husband had gone to college and earned his degree, as well as an officer's commission in the Army. He never dated much, because he was very shy and lacked experience with women. He had a very poor self image and had kind of resigned himself to staying single.

All three of them wound up in Germany. My husband went to Ansbach and then Vilseck. Ex and her first husband went to Kaiserslautern.

One day, my husband and his ex wife's first husband were on the same flight going back to the States for temporary duty. They recognized each other and caught up. When they got back to Germany, Ex's first husband told Ex that he'd seen my husband... who would become her second husband. Ex then decided to dump husband #1 and pursue my husband, who was an officer and made more money.

A few months after that chance meeting on the plane, after she and #1 had moved stateside, Ex showed up in Germany and knocked on my husband's door with her toddler son in tow. She had somehow tracked him down. When he opened the door to her, she laid a sob story on him about how awful and abusive and crazy #1 was. Although he wasn't all that attracted to Ex, he did fall in love with her son, and determined that the boy needed a father figure.

Before too long, Ex had divorced her first husband and moved back to Germany. She and my husband arranged a quick wedding in Denmark. On their wedding day, which was also the day Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, they fought. My husband later told me that on their wedding day, he had terrible warning bells going off in his head, but he hadn't wanted to disappoint his ex, and he thought her son needed him. He also thought she might be his only chance to have a family. He had wrongly believed that no one else would find him attractive.

Things were pretty crappy from the get go, but she got pregnant about two months after their wedding. Naturally, since he had a child on the way, my husband felt like he had to lie in this uncomfortable bed he'd made, all because he hadn't wanted to disappoint her, and he thought she was his only chance to have a family.

Two years after their older daughter was born, they had their second child. Ex was pressuring my husband to get out of the Army, because she didn't want the Army telling them where they'd be living and controlling my husband's time. Meanwhile, the children were being neglected; they were drowning in debt; and Ex got pregnant at the drop of a hat. My husband wisely got snipped so they wouldn't have another child together.

Pretty soon, my husband, Ex, and her son and their two daughters had all moved to Arkansas. My husband, who had a degree in International Relations from an excellent university and had enjoyed being in the Army, was working swing shift in a toy factory for about $27,000 per year. Ex had moved in her sister and her sister's child. My husband was supporting them all. Financial ruin soon occurred. They went through foreclosure and bankruptcy.

Not long after that, Ex came up with her LDS church idea. She then proceeded to use the church to try to control my husband. Fortunately, he was starting to realize that he was losing the best years of his life to an abusive nightmare narcissist. She started having an affair with #3, whom she'd met playing Dungeons and Dragons online. My husband decided to go back into the Army, which really made Ex angry. Clearly, she felt she was losing control, so she hatched plans to "force him to rock bottom." She knew he feared divorce, so she focused on threatening him with that.

About the time my husband went back on active duty, he moved out on his own. He felt much better when he did that, even though he was forced to live on about $600 a month. Ex had moved her boyfriend into the house my husband was paying for. She was starting to alienate the children and replace my husband with #3, who had also joined the church.

Soon, my husband found me in a chat room. We became friends. When Ex dropped a divorce ultimatum at my father in law's house the following Easter, my husband accepted. They were divorced by June. The following year, we met in person and started dating. When he survived 9/11 in the Pentagon, we decided that maybe we should get married. Almost 21 years later, we're still extremely happy together.

*** It's never been lost on me that had my husband married someone else, we might never have met. My husband is a very faithful man. I know this, because when he and Ex were splitting up, he was very platonic with me, even though we had a lot of chemistry. He wore his wedding ring until the day he got divorced.

If he had not married Ex, he might have married another woman who would have been a better match. She might have treated him better-- which would not have been a hard thing to do. They might still be married, albeit probably not as happily as we are.

Anyone who knows us, knows that marrying each other was one thing we both did right. But I am about eight years younger than my husband is, and when he met me, I was in graduate school. If we had met at a different time, or under different circumstances, we might not have ever gotten together. And I cannot imagine that I would ever find someone as compatible as he is.

Because he married his ex wife, he knows what a bad match is like. His experience with me is completely different and way, way better. But maybe it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't married Ex. Or maybe it would have... I don't know.

I'm sorry he went through ten years of Hell with that woman. I'm sorry he had his daughters with her, instead of with me, especially since his younger daughter finally reconnected, and has told us about the horrors of being raised by her. Fortunately, his younger daughter is a really lovely person. I wouldn't blame her if she was still very angry about my husband's bad decision. I wish he hadn't given up his fertility because he was with her, because I would have loved to have had a baby with him. The vasectomy was later reversed when we were married, but we never managed to conceive.

But yes... in the grand scheme of things, everything has worked out quite fine for him. At this point, I'm even glad we never had kids. We have a great marriage, and a great time together, and we have virtually no debt!

Ex, on the other hand, is still with #3. They had two more children, one of whom has severe autism. My husband's older daughter still doesn't speak to him, and at age 32, has resigned herself to being a stay at home daughter and taking care of her brother. Ex's youngest daughter with #3 is currently being used as one of Ex's props for her public facade on Instagram and Twitter. Ex is constantly tweeting celebrities, trying to scam them out of money, while #3 is the sole breadwinner, supporting everyone on his CNA salary and whatever Ex can swindle out of people (elderly family members) who give her money, selling stuff on eBay, or coercing her children to hand over the leftover college loan money her they get.

Any day now, I expect #3 will finally decide he's had enough and either split, or just drop dead from the sheer stress.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2023 01:07AM by knotheadusc.

That's quite a story, knot. That Ex lady is one piece of work. Your husband is lucky to have found you!

We are lucky to have found each other. Although of course he's not perfect, he's an absolutely wonderful man, and it pisses me off that she took advantage of his kind and generous nature the way she did. She abused him in all ways, including the ways that are very difficult to talk about. I didn't know about that part of the story until we'd been married for 15 years and a urologist saw the evidence and asked him about it.

Although I certainly can't know for sure, I'm pretty sure Ex is a full on narcissist, as in she probably could be diagnosed with NPD, even though it was supposedly taken out of the DSM V. I know for a fact that she spent some time at McLean Hospital, supposedly with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (which she has publicly shared on her Instagram).

There's a small part of me that feels sorry for her, because she legitimately did have a really terrible childhood. Unfortunately, she visits that hell on everyone who gets close to her, as she tries very hard to impress strangers on Twitter. I watch her, because she still tries to worm her way in with my husband's widowed stepmother. She even tried to get her to move in with her. When SMIL demurred, Ex gave her some empty boxes and invited her to box up whatever she wanted to "pass down". This, even though she got my husband's daughters to change their last names, tried to get them "resealed" to #3 (which the LDS church refused to do), and probably got them legally adopted by #3 when they became adults.

Yep. That woman should come with a warning sign. She'll take advantage of anyone. She has no concern about anyone but herself. I pity the next man she finds. I feel sorry for her kids.

Living well is the best revenge. This is us on our very recent Regent cruise in the Baltics…. No, there’s no music, but there is champagne, inappropriate jokes, and laughter! I am grateful Ex dumped him so he can be with me. <3


https://youtu.be/i9IV_ejz-ko

How fun! You are such a great couple enjoying each other and life. That is living well! You have a great laugh.
(PS- I can't believe Ex let him go.)

I can’t either. He treats me like gold. He doesn’t have a mean or irresponsible bone in his body. I really don’t think it was her intention to get divorced. She thought he would back off and go back to obeying her. She didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. When he didn’t dance to her tune, she smeared him to everyone, including his own parents.

Ah well…. Here is a music video that I could dedicate to Ex. I’m kidding, of course. I didn’t steal him from her. She threw him away. But they were doomed, anyway.


https://youtu.be/tItLvSm6IEk

I am glad you enjoyed my laugh. Not everyone does. :D

LOL, I already watched it :) Beautiful ship. You do need to tell Hubs to tilt the glasses when he pours then he won't get all that foam!

Trust me, he knows how to pour! I think he was in shock because the champagne cork almost flew out and hit him. It was under a lot of pressure.

good, although we have made peace and get along well. But that is a hell that nobody should have to live through. I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm not so sure any of them turned out well in the end.

Okay, I just realized that it would have taken A BIG ISSUE for me to leave the mormon church and I went inactive in 1996. I'M SO GLAD I didn't have to live the last 27 years (is it) in the mormon church.

Wow, knotheadusc. I haven't heard that whole story before. Your poor husband. It's lovely to read about how happy you both are with each other.

I didn't know, or didn't remember that hubby and ex were converts to the Mormon Church. Wow. That adds a layer. (Not that being BIC doesn't have its own baggage as well).

The champagne video was fun to watch and I really enjoyed your song too, knotty. You're both obviously enjoying yourselves, being together, sharing the bubbly and heading off on a trip.

Your musings about the what ifs and might-not-have-beens are interesting. I find that it can help to have that take on things - if not for this, then this or that may/may not have occurred because often in life something that seems horrible, which can take you down, leads to something else that is wonderful that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Thank goodness for that chat room eh?! I'm always full of wonder that people can meet that way. Serendipity, or something.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2023 07:27PM by Nightingale.

I often can’t believe my luck, to be totally honest. I never dated much myself. I briefly had a boyfriend in high school, but he turned out to be gay. I was completely single and totally celibate. Then I met my husband online when I was 27 years old.

I knew nothing about his family situation for three months. One day, he sent me a long email explaining everything going on. He was sure I would hate him, because Ex had him feeling so ashamed.

She liked to use toxic church quotes to mess with his head. You know, like the one that goes “There’s no success that makes up for failure in the home”, or whatever. He hated and blamed himself for their split, even though she’d orchestrated the whole thing. He just wanted to quit living on the brink of financial ruin and have a sane partner.

At the time, I had nothing but empathy for his situation. I never thought we’d meet offline. He lived in Kansas, and I was in South Carolina. But then he got transferred to the Pentagon. I happen to be from Virginia, so it was much easier for us to date.

Also… he happened to meet my aunt’s brother, who was a former state trooper, at an Army conference before we met in person. I was happy they bumped into each other, because I had never met anyone from the internet before, and I was nervous.

My aunt’s brother said, “I met your boyfriend.”

I said, “He’s not my boyfriend! I haven’t even met him in person yet!”

And my aunt’s brother said, “Trust me, he’s your boyfriend. And don’t worry. He’s okay.”

About six weeks later, we had our first in-person date. A few months after that, he survived 9/11 in the Pentagon. The next year, I finished grad school, and we got married. The rest is history!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2023 11:29PM by knotheadusc.

knotheadusc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He just wanted to
> quit living on the brink of financial ruin and
> have a sane partner.

That's not a lot to ask for is it.


> Also… he happened to meet my aunt’s brother,
> who was a former state trooper, at an Army
> conference before we met in person.

What a funny coincidence. If it was in a movie you'd think it was too contrived!

>> And my aunt’s brother said "...And don’t worry. He’s
> okay.”

Great recommendation. Must have been a relief. I completely despise blind dates myself - but at least you guys had interacted for a while before your meet-up, so technically it wasn't blind. My friends have always seemed to know "the perfect guy" for me and all I can say is my friends don't know me very well, based on their track record so far! Not a commentary on the dates themselves - it works both ways - but I don't do blind stuff any more.


> ...he survived 9/11
> in the Pentagon.

Thank goodness. (That day still hurts, even to a non-American like me. Indescribable tragedy). He's been through a lot, it sounds like. You're both so fortunate to have found each other. Life is funny that way.

The Army is a small world! My husband and aunt’s bro were both in the National Guard. When my husband told me he was going to the conference, my aunt said her brother was also going to a conference in the same city, at the same time. We figured they would be at the same place. So they were looking for each other, but in the wrong places.

My husband was a federalized (working full time on a federal level) Arkansas National Guardsman who was posted at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Aunt’s bro was a Kansas Guardsman who lived in Virginia. He was not federalized (working as a full time soldier in a national capacity). They were all segregated into groups.

They finally met on the last day of the conference. Husband had been looking in the Virginia section, and aunt’s bro was looking in the Kansas section. They bumped into each other while waiting in line.

I identify with it, sort of...

I lost my 20s to alcohol, all those years of misery, loneliness, and failure, and wished I had gotten my adult life started earlier. Such was not to be. I "dried out" at age 30, gave up drugs at 31, and tobacco at 34. Those were the years of my delayed, late adolescence and maturing. And I sorely regretted having booze-botched earlier relationships. A few of those were with Christian Science girls (groan).

In my mid-30s, I met a wonderful girl...20 years old. Courtship went fast, followed by a long engagement. I was 36, she was 22 when we married.

I once said, "If only I met you sooner, before I was so deep into booze--things might have been different!"

"Yes," she retorted. "My father would have had you arrested."

I'm critiquing a friend's novel which involves time travel and the "grandfather's conundrum," where a character intervenes in history resulting in his own annihilation. My friend says he's solved it, but I find it very confusing and am not (yet) persuaded he has. Suffice it to say: the past is past, and whether we believe in cosmic coincidence, kismet, divine Providence or predestination, we have our present circumstances to order that present, and devise our future.

I can relate to wishing you’d met the right person earlier. I guess, the older I get, the more I think there’s a right time and place for some things. Even if you had met when you were younger and still sober, you would have been different people. It might not have been so right.

As much as I despise my husband’s ex wife, I also realize that she helped make him who he is. If we had met before he went through all that stuff, I don’t think he would be as mature and considerate as he is.

Maybe your experiences with substance abuse shaped you in a similar way. You wouldn’t be as wise if you hadn’t gone through that.

Anyway, I have learned that while regretting the past is understandable, the only things you can control are the present and future. It took us a long time to recover from my husband’s first marriage. In some ways, we’re still recovering. I guess he’s just living proof that life can get better. Sounds like you are, too.