Amazing Day Today

I had an absolutely amazing day today overall.

The scale and diet are looking good so far. I had another person today tell me that it looked like I was losing weight. This really validated to me that my efforts are producing results (beyond just seeing a few pounds come off on the scale).

At work, I'm teaching a team of new hires (17 people of which 8 are my direct reports). I've had 3 to 4 people that are not my direct reports ask if they could be transferred to me because they really liked me as a manager. That really validated for me that I'm doing well again at work.

I picked up the Quick Quarter (local classifieds paper) and have a few leads on potential houses for rent. I'm running them down and hoping something pans out in the Lafayette or Opelousas area (a little closer than Krotz Springs). If not though, its time for me to get established and I'll go ahead and rent the place in Krotz Springs next week.

I've again completed several items on my list today. Things are starting to shape up in my preparations for a BIG 2007.

I have two women from past relationships who have been pursuing me since they found out that Tara and I split up. In fact one of them is pursuing me quite aggressively. Even though I have no interest in pursuing a relationship with them at this time, I'm absolutely flattered that they have realized what they lost and are so determined to get me back.

Someone attempted to serve papers on me today at my parents' house. Yesterday, I mentioned to my female friend at work that I felt like it was the calm before the storm and that I felt things were about to get really ugly. I even wrote in my blog that I was getting ready for the next round. I thought I'd be really shaken when the papers did finally come, but instead I was relieved and even excited to a point. Because I wasn't there, they couldn't serve me. I was so anxious to get the papers, I called the Sheriff's department to see if I could appear to be served but was informed they weren't attempting service on me. I have to assume it was a private process server and will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong, its not that I like what is going on, I'm just anxious for it to be over with. I'm ready to move on with my life and even though my wife says she wants nothing to do with me she is doing everything in her power to slow this down and drag it through court battles and force herself to face me over and over again when we could easily work out the details via e-mail or over the phone and execute an agreement and be done with it.

Finally, I just can't say how much I appreciate every one's support. I have so many friends at work that are so disappointed in the way things turned out between me and Tara and are showing so much sympathy and support towards me. I am getting more and more e-mails every day from people who passed by this blog who are praying and supporting me. And I really appreciate that. It has helped me so much in beginning down this path.

Well, I'm off to write for my other blogs. Thanks everyone for your support and kind wishes. They've been more helpful to me than you could ever imagine. Please keep the e-mails and comments coming (you can e-mail me by clicking profile). If you've linked to my blog, please e-mail me so that I can put up a link to your blog here.

Tara and the Kids

Today was the first church service that I've gotten through without crying. My wife, Tara Scott or Tara Lynn Scott to Tara Ray Scott or Tara Stelly or Tara Lynn Stelly or Tara Ray Stelly or Tara Ray or Tara Lynn Ray was there and was absolutely beautiful as she always is. She sat on the other end of the same row that I was on but didn't say a word to me. I would love to have gone over and to have told her hi and wished her a Happy New Year, but I'm afraid that wouldn't have be welcomed right now.

Timothy and Job did walk over and talk with her. Scott did not want to. I think he is still upset. The last time he called to talk with their step brothers, Tara did not answer her phone. He called back and left a message and she never had them call back. It was days later that I was served with a petition for a protective order and so I've not let him try since. Of course the protective order was dismissed because there was insufficient grounds, but she's not indicated that it would be okay for me or for the kids to call.

I'm not sure what she told the children, but since we left the service, Job has asked three times if he could call and talk to their step-brothers. I really wish that he could, but the situation is so hostile right now that I fear if I even try and call to ask her if it will be okay, she would call the police and claim I'm harassing her.

Anyway, this morning was a very powerful service. God revealed something to me this morning (about me) that really made me feel bad and will be the beginning of some more positive changes in my life. I have some writing to do for my other blogs and I'll return later to post in more detail on the church service this morning. I'm also waiting to hear from my friend at work. Her mom is in town from Costa Rica and she mentioned to me last night that she would like me to meet her mom.

Basic Dignity and Respect

It seems to me that no matter the justification or not, for some reason people simply cannot terminate relationships while allowing the other person to maintain a basic level of dignity and respect. So far, I’m batting 3-0 on this one.

When this relationship began and looked like it would take serious turns, I expressed to my then future wife, Tara Scott or Tara Lynn Scott or Tara Ray Scott or Tara Stelly or Tara Lynn Stelly or Tara Ray Stelly or Tara Ray or Tara Lynn Ray, my concerns about mixing the children too early. I told her then that my children had been abandoned twice before in bitter divorces and that I wanted to make sure this would not be a repeat of that situation. She assured me that she would never do that to me or my children and pushed to mix the kids, probably sooner than I would have on my own.

I expressed while we were dating how important it was to me to be in a relationship where we would not simply cut our losses and run the first time the going got tough. I had been through two bitter divorces before. And my then future wife spent almost two years trying to convince me that she would not be like my prior wives in this regard.

In fact, I have an absolute dislike for the holidays. It seems that year after year I go through one family tragedy after another. And this again was yet one more thing my wife swore she would never do to me and yet I’m sitting here just a few days before Christmas and I cannot even mail her a Christmas card or send a text message to say Merry Christmas. My children made cards for her kids and I can’t even let them mail them.

And all of this is for what? My best guess is that this has been a control issue from the moment we were married. Some of the counseling I have received suggests the same as well. The idea is that most of what has happened since we have been broken up has been an effort to exert control over me and the situations.

But in the end, what bothers me about this the most I suppose is that she absolutely refuses to treat me with a basic level of dignity and respect. And it really started the moment that she insisted I leave. The sad thing is, I don’t think my wife really understands that she could have just about anything she wants from me if she just asked for it with a basic tone of dignity and respect.

And the ways in which I was denied a basic level of dignity and respect are numerous, too many in fact to list them all here. When she initially insisted that I leave, she threatened me at that time. I’m not talking about threatening as in “leave or else.” We’re talking threats to destroy me financially and otherwise. In fact, she threatened to call Child Protective Services on me if I didn’t give her what she wanted. She never would give me a reason for this threat and just reminded me that she had something to hold over me.

When I called to ask if we could separate property civilly, she made unreasonable demands. She insisted that she not be held responsible for community debt but insisted that I divide with her the funds I had including funds that existed outside of the community. When I tried to tell her that she was being unreasonable and insisted that I wanted to peacefully settle this in a way that was fair to both of us, she threatened to ruin me and to ruin a business that I was trying to start.

I reasoned that this was all done in anger and have been asking her since to settle property division with me; however she has completely refused to even discuss it with me. I even explained that it was important to me that this get settled quickly because of a business I was trying to start, and she has refused. In the end, I was forced to abandon my hopes of starting a business because she wouldn't work to settle property. The sad thing is, I lost a business before in a divorce and once again here, my wife insisted that she would never do that to me. Fortunately, in this case, the business was only weeks old and had no real momentum at the time we separated, but none the less, I've needlessly lost another business in a divorce.

The sad reality of this is, I would probably have offered whatever she wanted to settle the property peacefully and without lawyers, but my wife has resisted. Her initial demands seemed unreasonable, but that was in the heat of the moment. Unreasonable as they may be, I might have agreed later in a civil conversation just for the point of reaching a quick and civil solution. So instead, now most of my funds are exhausted with a fair bit of it going to attorneys and we’ll be left with a community debt and I’ll be forced to seek her to accept her share of those debts.

I voluntarily offered my wife some monetary support to assist her with Christmas. I asked for her account number and offered to deposit it directly to her account. I did not think she would hesitate on this because this is the same manner that she used to collect child support from her ex husband. Instead she told me to mail it. Thinking that she probably needed the money fairly urgently, I sent it by third party. I was shocked when she refused to even acknowledge to me whether or not she had received the check.

She decided to file for an abuse prevention order. Her reasoning is because I was emotionally abusing her because I would not stop contacting her. The sad thing is she never even asked me to stop mailing letters or writing.

She also took issue with a website I opened up that described the arrest of her ex husband against very serious accusations. Of course she doesn’t realize that I had posted the information a month prior, the day before we broke up on a different address. But in a moment of frustration, I posted it to a more appropriate address and pointed it out to her. She took issue with some of the information that I had posted there. She never asked me to take it down or change it or expressed to me why it offended her so much.

As I mentioned above, the sad reality is that in each and every of the above scenarios, my response might have been materially different if I had been treated with a basic level of dignity and respect. There was nothing in our separation or breakup that prevents us from having a basic and civil line of communications open. I can understand if she doesn’t want to be best of friends and doesn’t want to chat for 30 minutes at a time. But I’m unsure why it is so offensive to her that I pick up the phone and ask how she’s doing and how the children are doing and if she needs anything. I don’t understand what is so wrong with wanting to wish her a Merry Christmas.

See, in the breakup, her threats to do harm to me set the tone for everything that followed.

If she had been willing to talk about property division, we’d of already settled things and would be waiting for a judge to sign a stipulated judgment at this time. Instead, our attorneys will get far more than either of us will ever get in a settlement and we’re likely to engage in a bitter battle over the few pennies and bills that remain.

If she had been willing to simply acknowledge that she had or had not yet received a check sent to her via a 3rd party, not only would she have received voluntary funds from me to assist her in buying Christmas gifts and paying bills, but she likely would be right around the time for me to try to scrape together some more to send to her.

If she had been willing to talk with me on matters regarding the separation and asked me not to write so many letters, she wouldn’t have needed to waste her time with a petition for an abuse prevention order for it to ultimately be denied in court. I can't say that I wouldn't have occassionaly written a letter to try to move the property settlement forward and ensure a peaceful divorce, but I certainly wouldn't have been pouring my heart out to her on a nearly daily basis.

Finally, if she had been able to treat me with enough dignity and respect that we could talk to each other like human beings and expressed to me that the website I posted bothered her personally and was willing to articulate sufficient reasons for such, I’d likely have altered it or taken it down without asking any further questions.

But instead, I stand here trying to figure out why it is so hard for such a precious young lady to treat me with a basic level of dignity and respect. And so we grit our teeth and will fight to the end because it’s too honorable and easy to simply treat each other like grown adults and try to work to a peaceful means.

Perhaps the real flaw is in myself. My counselor helped me to realize this in my last session. She suggested perhaps that I build an unreasonable expectation about others when I meet them. See, the first time I interacted with my wife, I formed a belief about her. The belief was that she was sweet and caring and giving of herself and often put people ahead of her. I saw how she treated her ex husband with dignity and respect and believed that this would also apply to me should we ever separate.

But as the counselor helped me to see, what I did was built an expectation and looked for behaviors to validate it. When I look back, signs were there and all over the place to suggest that the model I built of this person was in error and that my expectations based on that model might have been unreasonable.

Legal: Victory or Loss?

We had our day in court today for my wife’s application for a protective order. Even though I won across the board, for some reason I feel like I lost.

My wife, Tara Scott or Tara Lynn Scott or Tara Ray Scott or Tara Stelly or Tara Lynn Stelly or Tara Ray Stelly or Tara Ray or Tara Lynn Ray was absolutely stunning and beautiful today. I wish I could have told her that. I suppose I know that she really doesn’t care what I think about her, but it doesn’t change how I felt when I saw her.

When we were called, we went to the hearing officer and my wife said her piece. I made a brief response that I took issue with some of the particulars of the allegations and did not think my wife had alleged anything against me that warranted a court order to prevent abuse. I told the hearing officer that if my wife did not want contact with me that I would respect that but that I felt a court order was not necessary.

The hearing officer spoke with my wife a bit and ultimately decided that she would dismiss the suit because my wife had failed to prove that I had ever acted violently or was a threat of harm to her or her children.

Despite the fact that I won, I feel like I lost.

By winning, I believe that I only made my wife that much more angry at me. It’s really sad because the request for a protective order was so unnecessary. There’s not been once that I’ve ever laid a finger on my wife in anger or threatened to do harm to her or even acted in such a way that might lead a reasonable person to believe that I would become violent.

After the initial explosions of emotion during the actual separation, I really hoped that we could separate peacefully. My wife probably doesn’t feel that way, but I invested so much into this marriage and into our relationship. I accepted her children as if they were my own. I got a position at my employer that I waited for 3 years to get and two months later gave it up for her family. I gave up an extremely attractive pension plan and lost everything in it for her family. And I would do it all over again.

My wife has plenty of reasons to be angry and disappointed. My responses after our separation were inexcusable. I let my emotions and hurt and anger guide me and did harm that I will probably never be able to undo.

But I had such higher hopes. I believed so much in her. Even as she was giving up the relationship, I just knew that things would turn and we would at least separate peacefully.

I suppose much like the petition for the protective order signified that all hope has been lost; I suppose my victory today signifies the loss of any chance that we can resolve this thing peacefully. And so I march into battle, weary and tired, ready to fall on my own sword just to avoid the fights that loom. What I wouldn’t give for a truce to be called.

Legal: The Protective Order

The protective order filing alleges that I was told not to have contact with my estranged wife, Tara Ray or Tara Lynn Ray or Tara Stelly or Tara Lynn Stelly or Tara Ray Stelly or Tara Scott or Tara Lynn Scott or Tara Ray Scott. That's factually inaccurate.

When we originally separated, my wife demanded that I leave and I insisted that I could not leave in a matter of a few hours like she was insisting. She called the police and the police insisted that I leave right away. The warning that I received from the police was that she no longer wanted me there and since I did not own the property I should not return without a police escort.

I called that officer later in the day and asked to arrange a time to pick up more belongings. He asked me to call my wife and set it up. I had to insist that he call her and explained that she was very mad at me and not likely to accept my phone calls. He set it up for that evening and told me to call dispatch when I was on my way. When I called dispath, they also asked me to call my wife. I had to insist that they caller her.

The next day my wife called me and spoke with me by phone. We exchanged text messages and talked by phone a few times after that as well. She responded to a few of my e-mails and I was writing letters that I was mailing through traditional mail. None of these letters were threatening and none of the calls or text messages were meant to be harassing.

When I arranged again later to exchange some goods with my wife, she insisted that I be escorted by police. When I called the police department to arrange it, I spoke to the chief of police and the chief asked me to call my wife and verify. Later when I was arriving, I again called the police department and the chief answered and asked me to call my wife and have her call just to let them know it was okay for me to go.

I spoke to the police one more time in a desire to retrieve my final remaining personal property at the house. He told me that he had heard from my wife that day they did not want me on the property and so he could not assist. During that phone call, the assistance chief said to me that he was officially notifying me not to go on the property without a police escort. That's all he said. Nothing about not contacting my wife.

So why is this so important? Because now, my wife is claiming that I was told not to contact her and the police officers statement says that the told me the day we separated and again when I spoke to him recently not to have contact with her. That's simply factually wrong. He told me not to return to the property without a police escort.

I used to be a Sheriff's Deputy and if I had been told not to contact her by law enforcement, I would not have. In fact, if she had insisted that I not contact her, I would not have. Granted, I was persistent with letters and e-mails and she did not respond very frequently. But when I did want to call her, I'd often send a text message and ask if it was okay for me to call. If she would respond no, I would not call. These simply aren't the actions of someone who is wanting to ignore police notification to stop contacting someone or who is wanting to harass someone.

And the letters? They were mostly me pouring my heart out to my wife. When I wasn't telling her how much I missed her, I was asking her to work with me to settle the divorce and property settlement peacefully. When I wasn't asking about that, I was asking how she and the kids were doing and asking if my kids could still talk to them. Nothing threatening, nothing voilent certainly and nothing that would lead any reasonable person to believe violent physical abuse is likely to occur.

And that's the purpose of restraining orders. Its rediculous that I am having to go through this. I spoke with a retained an attorney today. I asked her to file a divorce and asked her to fight the protective order. I did offer however to voluntarily submit to a mutual stipulation before the court that we would not have contact with each other. I have never intended to harass my wife. In fact, near the end, my attempts were to move things forward in our separation. If she wants nothing to do with me, I'm very disappointed, but there's no need to seek an abuse prevention order.

So as much as I hate to acknowledge that things are really over, I have set the ball in motion to file divorce. It doesn't help me any to fight this. I love this woman dearly but I cannot make her return the feelings for me. Its a difficult road, but its one I need to begin down. No doubt, my wife will waive the papers around and say that it was my doing and what I wanted. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Emotions: Vacillation

Since our separation several weeks ago, my emotions and conditions have vacillated back and forth between two extreme states. It is perhaps somewhere in between that I ultimately need to land, but that goal seems to elude me at current.

When our marriage began to deteriorate, I became severely depressed. I was the product of two prior failed marriages. But both of my previous wives had serious family defects and also had mental health issues of one degree or another. But my current wife appeared to be from a solid family that was strong and together and was reasonably free from any mental defects that I could determine.

I had viewed my wife, Tara Scott or Tara Lynn Scott or Tara Ray Scott or Tara Ray or Taray Lynn Ray or Tara Stelly or Tara Lynn Stelly or Tara Ray Stelly, as sweet and fragile and so as I saw her becoming unhappy and struggling with our marriage, I began blaming myself and beating myself up. I believed largely that this was entirely my fault in some way though I could never really pin down what specifically I had done wrong. This really depressed me, so much so in fact that near the end of our marriage I could barely get out of bed or motivate myself to do things. How unattractive that must have been to my wife in the midst of everything else wrong.

So once our separation occurred, I spent the first days and weeks absolutely beating myself up. I blamed myself from start to finish. I really spent a lot of time hoping to get answers from my wife as to where I had failed. I wanted to focus on fixing me but could never get an explanation as to why she decided it was time to end things.

There's no denying that we were having problems, but we weren't yelling and screaming at each other and barely fought. We had started seeking counseling and the counselor was optimistic that all of our problems were solvable. My wife seemed willing to try to work things out. And I tried to put myself into the counseling totally because I didn't want to lose this one.

I have been seeing our counselor on a weekly basis since our separation and the first few sessions I spent beating myself up and blaming myself for everything that went wrong. The counselor was telling me that I shouldn't be blaming myself, at least not entirely. She noted that it was not common to see men who were willing to come and really devote a lot of work into counseling.

But then my feelings began to shift. I began blaming my wife more and more for our breakup. I was left asking questions like whether or not she ever loved me and whether she married me merely to support her and her children. I blamed her emotional involvement with her ex husband near the end of our marriage as well.

And her reactions were completely irrational. The best reasons I could get as to why our marriage ended is because we disagree on money handling and she's more permissive with children than I am. So why then was a total communications black out necessary? Why could we not exchange belongings without a police escort? Just nothing seemed to make sense. And all I could remember was 10 or so days earlier when she displayed concern for me so strong that I had never felt more loved and how that could completely change into our current state in a week and a half's time.

The next few visits with the counselor were spent with her telling me it was okay to be angry and normal to vacillate back and forth like this. My counselor seemed to share some of my shock at my wife's actions and she told me to stop trying to rationalize and reason them because they were irrational. The counselor had been working with my wife since well before we met and became involved. I trusted her knowledge of my wife and opinions in those matters. When she told me that I was learning that my wife wasn't really the person I believed she was, she seemed to be saying that my wife wasn't the person the counselor believed she was either.

But then books I was reading and a course I was participating in suggested that regardless of whether it was her fault or not, that I should bear all of the blame and fault, at least in interactions with my wife. And I began to really feel that way again, like I couldn't do anything right and I ruined such a precious person to get to the point where someone so sweet could become so bitter and angry.

This brought about a new level of desperation. If only I could talk with her and tell her how I feel and all the things I realized I was doing wrong in our marriage that hurt her. I wouldn't apologize. Instead I would show her that I understood the emotions that she was going through. Maybe we could make progress that way. But my efforts were scorned.

And when I felt she couldn't be more ugly to me, I completely lost my cool and fired off an angry e-mail. I then also demanded the last of my property back which she is making use of. In the original explosion that occurred as she was demanding that I leave, she had threatened me in some ways that I could not understand, not only because I didn't believe they were reasonable, but they were a vicious and hateful side of her I didn't know existed and I had been contemplating for some time taking some actions that were parallel to her threats. So I notified her by e-mail that I could no longer sit back and that I would launch equally vicious claims against her.

And that was the last straw. That set in her a rage that resulted in her request for a protective order by the courts. These orders are severe and normally used in cases of family and domestic violence.

But so I remain vacillating back and forth between blaming her and being very angry and blaming myself and being very depressed. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. I know without hesitation that I failed her in many ways. But all the reasons I get angry surely aren't my being completely unreasonable either. She failed me in many different ways as well. I just can't seem to settle on any balance of the two. I swing from blaming her almost entirely to blaming myself entirely, back and forth, usually a few days in each place before swinging back again to the other.

And so the roller coaster began and continues and will likely show itself in this blog over the upcoming weeks and months. Today I'm really depressed. The protective order signifies a loss of hope. And it forces in me an acceptance that this really is over with. And that I don't like. Perhaps its time for a bit of irrationality on my part. Perhaps I should deny the truth and just convince myself that somewhere and somehow hope remains. My intellect knows better but my heart says to hope.

More About This Blog

This blog was established to follow carefully and journal the steps and emotions that this individual is going through during the divorce process.

I am a 30 year old male who has recently separated from a woman I completely adored. I was prepared to devote my entire life and everything there was about me to making her happy. Unfortunately, I failed and failed miserably at that. Our marriage lasted a short 10 months.

After our separation about a month ago, I engaged in a high pressure effort to open communications between my estranged wife and myself in the hopes that if we talked, we could work things out or at the very least, we could settle these matters peacefully.

Since that time, I became increasingly agitated that despite there being an absence of any acts of domestic violence or threats, my wife has refused to open communications even declining to answer a simple text message or e-mail. This weekend was the breaking point when I voluntarily sent to her a check through a 3rd party person to assist her with making ends meet and for her use for Christmas. She refused even to acknowledge by text message with a "yes or no" answer that she had received the check.

Following that, I lost my cool and sent off a series of demands and an angry e-mail. I also made my estranged wife aware that I was putting together public information on her ex husband, Chad William Stelly's, shameful arrest for Computer Aided Solicitation of a minor and that I was posting it online.

In either case, this enraged her and she filed a petition for a protective order. It fails to allege any form of domestic violence or abuse except to state that I was mentally abusing her by sending e-mails and letters and text messages to her. I read back through all of the text messages and e-mails and they are completely void of any threats of harm or anything that would lead a person to believe I would commit an act of violence against her or her children.

I will post here regarding the progress of this divorce as well as my emotional condition as this divorce progresses. Since I'm pretty much an emotional wreck right now, this blog should serve as an interesting psychology project to the interested student.