This story really hits home to me. My father and I went through very much of the same thing. My mother was a constant nag. My father (who had a serious heart condition) worked himself physically and mentally to the BONE, and it was never enough for her. She'd have a way of following you around the room, never leaving you alone, until you thought your head was going to explode.
One day, my father and mother were arguing in their bedroom. It got to the point (I witnessed the whole thing) that my father said: "If you don't leave me alone, I'm going to blow my head off. Go away." Then, an amazing thing happened... my mother shut up. I sat down with my dad to talk a little with him after she left the bedroom. My father and I never left the room.
Ten minutes later, there's a knock at the door. It's the police. Four of them. Next thing I know, my father is being ARRESTED on charges of a terroristic threat with a firearm (we keep one locked in it's holster in the house). My mother had called the police and claimed that my father had taken his gun out of its holster, put her in a headlock, and jammed the butt of the gun up against her temple and threatened to kill her. That was all the cops needed to hear. My father was gone. It didn't matter that my mother had NO MARKS on her. You'd think that a 130 lb. woman would have several bruises/abrasions from being put in a brutal headlock and having a metal gun jammed against her skull by a muscular 210 lb. man. It didn't matter that I had been a witness to the whole argument that day. Nope, no sir. You see, I had a penis and so my word didn't count. My eyewitness account to the police was stopped midway with a wave of my mother's hand, while she proclaimed airily: "Oh, he's bulldozed by his father. Don't listen to anything he says." They stopped the interview with me after that.
After my father, a man who never had a record his ENTIRE LIFE, was strip searched (to teach him a lesson, he later told me the police said), and put in jail for two days with common criminals, he was let out, but he couldn't go back home. Nope. Restraining order. He could stay on-property to work our business (a kennel), but he had to stay in a hotel while my mother lived and slept in the splendor my father labored so terribly hard to give us.
After pretrial intervention (he was told to take this route by a dozen lawyers), and a humiliating speech from the judge, he was put on probation for nearly 2 years. The restraining order was dropped and all was tense but very quiet at home. Weirdly calm. My father and I bonded. We went to movies together, had countless late-night talks in diners, walked on the boardwalk very late in the evening, etc. Then things got worse.
It started when I was helping my father work the kennel one afternoon after school. Two police cars showed up in or driveway. My father had to leave. My mother had called and said he was verbally abusing her. No, it doesn't matter that your son and your customers are saying that you haven't been in the house for the past two hours. You still have to go. You have two minutes to get some clothes.
This time I couldn't keep my cool. I was 15 years old and now there was a strong bond between me and my father. I cursed the cops. I told them they were pigs. I stared at an older one and told him I smelled bacon. I spit on their car. I was almost arrested. The only reason I wasn't was because my father stood between me and the enraged cop (the older one really wanted to take me in... the younger one just looked like he felt really bad) and told him that if he wanted to take his son in, he'd have to shoot him first. Cop threw his hands up and just said forget it, just get your ass off the property. Wham. My father gone for another week, with my mother's condescending laughter ringing in my ears as my father drove off.
After that things were very different. My father and I bonded closer still, but when we came home from the movies or a restaurant, we wouldn't go home. We'd drive by the house to see if there were police in the driveway first. We never knew when they would be waiting for my father. Sometimes my mother would call them in the dead of night and my father would be awoke with police barging in with guns drawn. My father was repeatedly kicked out... perhaps a total of six or seven times. I cried a lot. My father, who I never saw cry even at my grandfather's funeral, broke down and cried sometimes too.
Soon, my father began talking of suicide. To me. He had no one else to speak to. I tried to tell him it was crazy, insane, but he wouldn't listen to me. There I was, 15 going on 16, listening to my father talk about killing himself. Things got worse and worse. My father always wanted us to be a family. He loved wolves and used their family pack as an example to try and live by. What my mother did broke his heart in a million different ways.
One afternoon I returned home from school and my mother's parent's (my mother was adopted so I have no relation to her side of the family) were at my house. I knew this meant trouble. They hated my father just as much as my mother. I got in the house and they all turned to me with this gleam in their eyes that I will never forget. This glittering, gleeful hatred. They all wore identical shit-eating grins on their faces. I dully remember wanting to rip their lips off. They told me my father attempted suicide, but he didn't succeed. He had locked himself in the separate two car garage we had and turned on the two vehicles and tractor. My mother had heard the noise, pulled his unconscious body out, and called an ambulance. They got to him in the nick of time. He was in detox at the local hospital. He would be put in Shoreline Medical Center for further evaluation (the local booby hatch).
Shoreline did nothing for my father but put him on various drugs. He said the right things at group therapies and was let out a couple weeks later fifteen pounds heavier and in a drugged stupor. The drugs sucked the life out of my father. He was always a very jovial man - he had done stand-up comedy for awhile. During the time my father was on the drugs, he never made any jokes. He was never happy, sad, or angry - he was nothing. An empty shell that picked at his food and looked at you with wet eyes that had a distant, veiled hurt in them, just below the surface. Even my mother hated the drugs - she could no longer goad my father into arguments. My father would just sit there like a blob and take it.
Eventually, my father got off the drugs. He lost the extra pounds, and became his usual self. Things sort of calmed down. My mother was up to her usual self-deceptions and double-speak. My father had never REALLY wanted to kill himself. It was all bullshit, even though the paramedic had told her that her husband was one hair from death when she aired her opinions at the hospital. But still, things were quiet. The divorce was slowly but surely coming along. Amazingly, my father still didn't want it, but my mother pushed it through. We sold the house. We moved into an apartment while looking for a new house. My father allowed my sister and mother to move in with us. I told him it was a bad idea, they were just going to use us until they found a place of their own. He wouldn't listen. He still had hope for us as a family. He still loved us.
The inevitable happened. My mother started a huge argument. She threw a phone book at my father. I called the police. They arrived, and the only reason we weren't kicked out o four apartment was because my father's name was on the lease and I called and stated my father's case first. It's almost like a game. Whoever cries wolf first wins. So my sister and mother left. THEY had plenty of time to gather their things. Three hours worth. Then, a cop came up to me and told me I was going with my mother. Here I was, now 16 years old (17 in another two months), and I'm being told which parent to go with. I said no. The cop said yes. So I thought quickly. I said that if you force me to go with my mother, you'll be arresting me because I would beat the living hell out of her. I would beat her until she stopped moving, and then you'll have to talk to your supervisor and a grand jury and explain why you ordered me to go with my mother when you knew I was going to hurt her. I said this loud enough that all the other onlookers from the apartment complex could hear it.
The words tasted like acid in my mouth. I hated to say it, but I did not want to live with that thing - I didn't know her anymore.
The cop stared at me, openmouthed. Then he just walked off to help my mother with her clothes. I mentally noted no one helped my father when he was forced to leave.
To make a long story short, things are better now for me and my father. I really don't talk with my mother anymore. I can't. I don't know her, and I think I can honestly say I hate her. I don't feel anything for her.
My father and I had to move out of town. People we knew for decades wouldn't speak to us anymore. We had to change doctors, dentists, veterinarians, everything. All of a sudden every time we tried to make an appointment they were booked. Or the receptionist would just hang up on us outright. My father lost any acquaintances he knew. His reputation was completely destroyed. Over lies. All lies. And greed. My mother wanted the money. That's all she wanted, and when she found out the pot wasn't as rich as she thought it was, she claimed alimony. She got it, of course, because we all know how independent today's women are -- until they're separated from their hubbies, that is.
My mother will die old and alone. That's her punishment. The only one I can legally give her. I will never include her in my family. If I have children, I will tell them their grandmother is dead. She died at 4:36 PM, January 14th, 1999. The exact time she made that first call to the police.
To kis123: You are either a sexist who is very bitter, or you are using this example in hopes of pushing your moralistic agenda forward. Better commit, boys, or THIS will happen to YOU! You are despicable.
I had a g/f of 2.5 years cheat on me. Should I call the police and have her arrested? Should I cut myself up and claim it was her doing? She didn't commit to me. That's what she deserves, doesn't she? Sounds like someone didn't commit to YOU and you may have fantasized about doing the very things this sick **** (if this woman is not a ****, then I don't know who is) has done.
Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, the men didn't like the woman? Maybe she had wacky political views. Maybe she was paranoid. Maybe they suspected she was off her rocker (and they would have been more than correct). Maybe they just didn't jive after awhile. You have NO IDEA why these men broke off the relationship. It was THEIR CHOICE to end the relationship. No woman should have the right to force a man to say stay in a relationship where he is unhappy. No woman should be allowed to punish a man for not wanting to be with them. I seriously doubt if the roles were reversed you would be espousing your current viewpoints.
No woman should have a right to lock a man up on words alone. A woman's word (or anyone's word) means NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING. People lie. Women LIE. Men LIE. You need to have EVIDENCE. PROOF. And even then, if the defendant is able to provide evidence to counter yours (i.e. alibis/witnesses/documentation), then you must let him/her go.
We must stop locking innocent men up and RUINING THEIR LIVES on the whim of some woman who is on an estrogen binge.
This woman should be jailed for 20 years, minimum. I'm pretty sure that's what these men would have received had her story held up. No slaps on the wrists. We should come down on liars of domestic violence and rape HARD. These men's lives will NEVER BE THE SAME. Her life should be similarly wrecked, plus jail time. She should never be allowed to do this to another innocent victim. THAT is justice.
