Frustrated that he can still make me cry, but I can move past it.

[gfuertes]

I did read the Post-It about not using this forum to gratuitously vent.  I am about to vent, but not primarily so you'll know how I feel about my ex.  It's primarily because when we were together, I let myself become increasingly silenced, despite having been such a verbal person.  When my ex was finally gone, I felt compelled to clean every inch of my home, and found angry, scared, raw things I'd written on papers I then hid from myself, or in old computer files I had never re-read.  That I had managed to completely block out some awful incidents, after I'd preserved them in writing, disturbed me.  Still today, it wouldn't be constructive to share certain things with people in my life.  But I want to say them to someone.  Tucking truth away, only for myself, feels like keeping my ex's secrets, and helping maintain his false image.

I see now that my ex is pathologically opportunistic in 100% of his relationships.  Always, it's about what resources that person has to offer for him, and how to extract them.  Plus, he has this bizarre mix of Dunning-Kruger and being a control freak:  He has good ideas, but doesn't trust anyone else to give him helpful input or the benefit of their knowledge and experience.  He's sure he can do anything, if not better than a seasoned professional, then just as well while cutting more corners. 

So years ago my ex was constructing a grandiose new business model and courting investors, at the same time my father - after suffering multiple strokes and heart attacks - was in marked cognitive decline, and depressed from having to retire from his law practice and no longer being able to drive.  My ex began spending nearly all his time with my dad, letting Dad tag along everywhere my ex went, getting beers together, swapping military stories, and seeming like best friends. 

The military stories always made me uncomfortable.  My dad was a legitimate war hero.  He graduated from a military academy, was heartbroken that he couldn't become an Air Force pilot because of (eyesight? height? Something outside his control.  I can't remember.)  So he became an Army helicopter pilot, flew rescue missions for four tours in Vietnam, and was awarded more than one Distinguished Flying Cross.  My ex had graduated from the Air Force Academy, and - in the years I knew both men - my Dad spoke less about all he must have seen in Vietnam, than my ex did, about the one night he was (allegedly) called up to fly out to some brewing foreign battle that ended up being cancelled before he left. 

But you've never seen anyone thank people for their service, and celebrate Memorial Day and Veterans' Day as passionately as my ex.  One sounds and feels like a total jerk, finding fault with that.  But somehow, quietly, I always felt like my ex was giving lip service to honoring other veterans - always while making sure everyone knew he was every bit the vet they were, himself - because it made him feel like everyone was honoring him.  But next to the older war veterans around whom he did this, my ex had not served in war, nor seen the atrocities, nor taken the risks with his own life and safety, that they had.

Another thing that didn't sit well with me was the "friendly" rivalry between my dad and my ex, about which was better, Army or Air Force.  Dad was proud of the Army, but (at least in front of his civilian family) he never bragged about it being superior, as a way of taking other soldiers or vets down a peg...except with my ex.  My ex - even though he already knew Dad considered the Air Force top-notch, and wished he'd been able to join - loved getting his digs in about it.  Dad treated it like it was good-natured and mutual, but the longer it went on, the more it felt a little like bullying.

Anyway, Dad had the time of his life (well, the time of that portion of his life when he was in decline and not enjoying much,) when my ex took him on a road trip across the country, to meet with these impressively-connected, super-wealthy potential investors, to do the final schmooze and get them to commit to backing some projects.  Dad got to dress up and attend the swanky dinner.  The investors signed on.  My ex came home victorious, and Dad got to feel like part of it.  Everyone thought my ex was such a great guy, to go so far out of his way to make my dad feel part of something big.

A few years later, my ex, my dad, my sweet adult step-son whom my ex had convinced to work for him, my mother-in-law, my husband's friend next door who'd also invested...were all being sued by those out-of-state investors, and investigated by the FBI.  The suits and potential charges were eventually dropped against everyone except my ex, but it took a long time.  During that time, Dad's lung cancer came back, and he died a really miserable death...my ex right by his side the whole time, impressing everyone with how caretaking he was.  Surely, he had to be innocent, right?  Surely, he couldn't have drawn an old man he obviously loved so much into some sort of crime?

For some reason, my ex was adamant that I not go to his federal trial.  And when he lost, and was sentenced, and went to prison leaving me with four kids, mysteriously empty/nonexistent savings, and debts I hadn't known about, I was so overwhelmed by the major life makeover I had to suddenly pull off, that I wasn't sure I even wanted to know what had really happened.

But eventually I learned that my ex hadn't gone to the Air Force Academy.  That was cited as one of the lies he had told the big investors, to con them into trusting his credentials, into thinking he knew what he was doing on the projects he was asking them to back.

The bigger con?  My ex had convinced the big investors that he hadn't come up with his whole "revolutionary" business model on his own.  He convinced them my dad - whose legal credentials were easily verifiable, but evidence of his mental decline, less so - had helped him; had signed off on all the legal angles. My ex created a fake social media account under my dad's name, to support this.  And later, when deals fell apart, people lost big money, and someone discovered my ex had forged signatures on loan paperwork, and used bad bonds - and they wanted to talk to this attorney of his, who allegedly signed off on everything...my ex told everyone his actual legal advisor was some completely different person who just happened to share the same name as my dad, and who - for some reason - had gone away and no one seemed to be able to find him...

My husband used convenient parts of my father's identity, while he was old and weak-minded, as part of a con job that got my father sued, and very nearly got my parents' home raided by the FBI like ours was.  And my husband feigned excessive devotion to, and friendship with, my father, so none of us - not even my dad - would ever believe my husband could actually do something like that.  Surely - as crazy as it sounded - my husband must have been telling the truth, when he said people were plotting against, and framing him.  And I was the one who brought this guy into our family.  I didn't see it in time.  I didn't protect my dad.  I will always wonder if the stress of being sued and investigated played a role in my father's cancer, or in his disinterest in aggressive treatment.

Tonight, my ex and I were texting, trying to work out Memorial Day weekend parenting time.  My ex is defensive lately, because we're on the path to determining final custody of our 13-year-old son.  My ex would like some bad behavior or big parenting fail on my part, to take to a judge, but there isn't one.  My ex is on house arrest.  Our son thrived with me, while my ex was in prison.  Our son sees his dad's bad behavior for what it is, after spending the years my ex was in prison NOT seeing an adult behave that way.  Our son doesn't want to live primarily with his dad, and he's old enough to articulate that, if my ex were foolish and unfeeling enough to try to directly drag our son into this.  So my ex keeps trying to needle me, hoping to provoke a big reaction.

He said, even though Memorial Day is "my" holiday this year, he wanted to split it, so he could take our son to the big, annual celebration at the military cemetery where my father is buried - the celebration my ex knows my siblings, mother and I like to attend since we buried Dad there.  He wanted our son to go there with him to honor my dad, instead of going there with me.  Curiously, my ex never calls him, "your dad".  Even when talking to me, he always calls my dad by his name, the name my ex literally stole, to commit a crime.

It looked so innocuous in text.  But - despite my ex apparently being free to date, go to bars, and even travel out of town to visit people while on house arrest - he has spent all school year doing nothing with our son but watching TV.  Yet suddenly he wants to make this grand gesture of taking our son to this event, where he'll feign deep respect for my dad, and the military, and (even though Memorial Day isn't about living vets) my ex will no doubt remind our son that he, himself is a vet who deserves the same attention and respect all the other vets are getting.  And my ex was brazenly telling me this, as though I'm too stupid to have figured out how he used my dad; or as though I'm still too silenced to let on that I know.  I suddenly felt shaky, furious, and tearful - and frustrated with myself for it.

But I didn't take the bait.  I told him calmly that he could not have my holiday with our son, and that even though I see no reason to discuss it, I'm aware of what he did regarding my father, and he really has no business visiting my father's grave.  Apparently he wasn't expecting that, because instead of the usual word salad I expected, he just said "OK."  And I have to believe that - as much as I hate that my ex can still find my soft spots and not even appear to an outside observer that he's doing it - what matters is that I didn't let him manipulate me into wasting my breath (and risking looking combative) by saying everything I thought (although I suppose I've said it here;) or giving up my holiday; or making excuses for him, because it hurts to know I married someone like that.  And I was upset, but I will be fine by tomorrow.

[JustKeepTrying]

gfuertes,

This absolutely sucks for you.   My heart is breaking for all of you and the absolute cruelty of the situation.

My thoughts and prayers are with you this Memorial Day - for you, your Dad and all of your family.

You are so admirably strong!