More pain and disappointment...

I was working at Northtown Bank in the bookkeeping department. I was learning how to be part of the working world and I loved it. I was promoted to Customer Service after a year. I was worried about working with the public because myself confidence was so low. What I found out was that I liked working with the public. I was good with people, really good. I balanced checkbooks for people that were having problems. I loved helping them and finding the mistakes. I learned that the banks rarely, rarely make mistakes. I also learned to hold my tongue when customers yelled at me, saying the bank was stealing their money. I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I balanced their checkbook and got the privilege of showing them their mistakes. It became a game to me. I loved working at the bank.

I had lots of friends at work. Frank was wrong people liked me, they even thought I was funny! Wow! How cool was that? People wanted to eat lunch with me and shop with me. We had a group of friends that even went out dancing at night. I spent a lot of weekends dancing. I wasn't a good dancer but I loved dancing. The more I drank, the better I danced! I was the girl that everyone laughed at because I thought I could dance to "Rocky Top." I must have looked like a fool but I didn't care, it was all in fun.

Surprisingly enough, Frank, came back into my life. He had been dating Gloria for a few months but he he realized he wanted to be with us again. He told me she was crazy and he didn't want anything to do with her anymore, they were done. He wanted to do whatever it took to make me happy, to get our lives back on track, to be a family. I missed him too, I was different. I was the person he had married many years before. I was fun and confident. We started seeing each other on the weekends for real dates. He bought me a birthday gift for the first time that didn't have anything to do with cleaning the house! I pair of black high heels for work. We went to many nice places for dinner and had a really good time. I thought we were getting back together. I was happy.

I had a work schedule that was from Tuesday through Saturday. I remember it was on a Monday afternoon. I was at home in my nightgown, cleaning the kitchen. I was doing all the heavy duty stuff like cleaning under the refrigerator when I heard someone knock at the door. I was sweaty, smelly, and covered in dust. I felt the panic of knowing someone was watching me through the glass front door. I looked up between pieces of my fallen hair. It was Frank at the door. I was really surprised because he should have been at work that day. I was happy to see him though. I pushed my hair out of the way and went to the door. I apologized for my appearance but when I looked at him I knew something was wrong. I asked him what he wasn't doing there on a Monday.
He told me he had to talk to me. I thought maybe he was going to ask me to marry him or move in with him or something. I was wrong, very wrong.

He told me that Gloria had spoken with him and told him that she was pregnant from when they had been dating. He told me that he was going to marry her and raise the baby. I hear the words and I could see his mouth moving but I felt removed from the situation. I stood there looking at him not believing what I was hearing. I said, "but you said she was crazy and you didn't want to be with her. You want to be with me." I was almost pleading with him to remember his words. He was doing the stand up thing, the right thing. I felt the tears well up in my eyes. He turned to leave, he didn't look back, he just left. I didn't see him again for a very long time. He did indeed marry Gloria. She forbid him from seeing the girls because that meant that he would see me.

I couldn't believe that I had started to open my heart to Frank and he left me. It was easier when I did it to him, now the shoe was on the other foot for me. It was awful. I don't remember ever feeling that low that hurt. I made up my mind then and there that no one would ever get the chance to hurt me like that again. I would never marry, never love anyone again. My heart harden that day and stayed hard for many years.

7 Stages of Divorce

I have read that there are 7 stages in a divorce...Breakdown, Shock, Anger, Pain, Hatred, Grief, and Acceptance. I believe it. A lot of my stages occurred during the latter part of my marriage, long before I actually divorced. I was disassociating with Frank long before I left. My life as a single mom was new everyday. I had no script to follow, I learned to wing it. I missed my old life of comfort, not having to worry where I would get the money for groceries or bills. Frank had always been a good provider. There were many things about him that I loved and missed. I just didn't love him enough or me either for that matter.

I had to learn to grocery shop in a different manner too. I could only afford the generic brand of food. Everything we had in our cupboards was wrapped in a white label with black lettering. The green beans always had part of the stalk in the can, it was gross and I hated it. I wanted to have Del Monte in my cupboard again. I wanted to never again have to buy generic food, but I paid the bills first and what was left went for groceries. Many times we did without and ate off brand cereal for supper. I can remember when my sister, Linda, would come to town to visit, she would go to Aldi's and stock up on food. I would come home from work and my kitchen floor would be covered with grocery sacks full of food. It was like Christmas to me. She will never know how much I appreciated those times and there were many times she helped me. She and Bob were there many times to lend me money when I didn't have any. They were always there for me.

I sunk really low during those times. I didn't want to live, I didn't want to die. I was relieved to not have to listen to Frank's demands anymore. Little by little I found the girl I had lost all those years ago. I learned that I could make decisions on my own. I could laugh again, I could wash the car and not dry it off, I could raise my girls the way I wanted. I liked who I was becoming for the most part, but there was a girl/woman in me that had been suppressed for years by marriage and obedience. I liked staying up late and eating cereal for breakfast. I liked not eating at the table at supper. I liked that it was just me and my girls. I always wanted to be a mom, but not a wife.

My house became the place for everyone to hang out. My friends came over on the weekends and we would play cards. They would smoke like fiends while I tried to breathe. They drank beer and sometimes smoked grass. It was not a healthy environment for my kids in today's standards but back then it was the norm. I usually was the odd person out because I was the responsible one. I had to be a mom and I had to work. I couldn't 'let go' because I had to think of my children. I felt left out at night when they would leave and go to the bars. I had to stay home and be responsible.

Those were good times too though. None of my friends had much money so we pooled our resources and had many meals together. We were a family of friends. We took turns providing the meat for the meals. One time one of the guys actually shot a rabbit and brought it home for dinner that night. That was the night I ate a bologna sandwich. He told stories of how the rabbit screamed as it died, it was horrible! Another time one of the guys brought a live chicken to my house. We named him, Mr Kentucky, and he watched TV with us that night. The next day they took him in my basement and killed him. They fixed him for dinner. I had another bologna sandwich.

I found that being with my friends was what I lived for. I started to feel like I was living the life I had missed out on by marrying so very young. I probably wasn't the best of mother's back then. I regret that too. I was torn between being extremely responsible and being the wild girl that never got to party. Sometimes I made the right decision and sometimes I didn't.

One of the worst decisions that I made at that time was meeting, Mike Carlson. He was from California and was a friend of some of my weekend buddies. He had long hair and looked like, Conan the Barbarian, from the movies. He was rough, tough and ruggedly handsome. He was a charmer...he was trouble. He had no place to live so I let him stay with us. I fell 'in love' with him but it was never reciprocated. He put up with me and my adoring ways just to have a place to live. Sometimes I would sit and watch him drink, hoping that he would get so drunk that he would find me attractive. I think over the years we probably did have sex a couple of times...but even liquor didn't change the way he felt about me. I was like a sister to him...those dreaded words of, 'I love you like a sister' rang true for him.

This unhealthy relationship/friendship would carry on for 4-5 years before I finally had enough. He came in and out of our lives many times over the years. He had crazy girlfriends that would drive by my house at night, beat on my windows, call me names and he would cower inside. He loved my daughters and played with them. I thought it was good for them to have a 'father figure' in their lives. That is another regret I have.

I never knew when Mike, would be at my house. I could come home late at night and he would be asleep on my couch. I would welcome him back with open arms because in the back of my mind I thought one day he would realize I was the girl for him. I supported him financially while he attended welding school to become a union welder. He promised to pay me back, to buy me a new couch, to take care of us when he starting making money...promises that were all left undone. He moved out as soon as he started making money. But he returned many times after that. He always had a stack of cash, twenties usually on my dresser. I doubt that he even knew how much money he had because he was always drunk. I started taking one or two twenties off the stack to buy groceries, I never told him. I felt guilty about it, I shouldn't have, but I did.

Mike and I parted ways when I moved to Kansas City. I left town partly to get away from him. I couldn't say no to him. Even after I moved away, I continued to visit him and his new wife and family. He had a son and a beautiful little red headed daughter. His wife was a gentle and kind spirit. I took my daughters with me when visited. I finally felt comfortable with him as my 'brother' and maintained the relationship in that manner. I still found him wildly attractive but I no longer fantasized about a relationship with him. I had moved on. He and his wife later divorced and he moved on to yet another relationship. It was many years later that my daughter came to me and told me that he had sexually molested her at night, when I was asleep in my bed and I thought he was asleep on my couch. I was so extremely devastated. How could he do that to my child?

When I did finally find out many years had passed since the molestation. I contacted the security department at Yellow Freight to him them track him down. They came to me in 24 hrs with his address, all of his neighbors addresses, more information then I ever dreamed possible. He was living with a woman that had young daughters. I contacted his former wife to ask why they had divorced only to find out that he had sexually molested his precious, tiny daughter since she was a toddler. His daughter was under psychiatric care because of what here dad had done to her. I was sick to my stomach, why hadn't I seen what he was? Why was I so blind, so stupid, so irresponsible?

I had Mike's phone number so I called his new wife/girlfriend and told her what he was. I told she had to protect her daughters before he hurt them. She, like me, didn't believe that he could be like that. She didn't listen, she hung up on me. I waited until later and I called again. Mike answered the phone. I told him who I was, he was thrilled to hear from me. He kept saying, "Oh, Kath, I love you, I miss you so much, I am so glad you called." He had no idea that I knew what he really was. I told him I knew what he had done, I told him I hated him, that I would haunt him forever and that I would tell everyone. He cried and denied everything. Everyone was a liar, not him, he would never hurt anyone. Bullshit! I hung up on him. I did call him and remind him for years...I finally realized it didn't change anything so I quit calling.

There is so much that I have forgotten that first year of my divorce. It was so painful, it was so hard and I had so many regrets. What would happen to me, to my girls....who would take care of me now. Frank was right no one would ever want me.