Years Had Passed

As time went by, I got stronger, my kids got a little older. Still no word from the deadbeat. NY State child supports view was that if I found him, they could process serve him again but they didn't have the manpower to find him. They told me rest assured that if he won the lotto his winnings would be garnished. Are they kidding? They did say that his license would be suspended in the meantime. Oh, great- this is a guy who doesn't even need keys to start a car, even less drive with a license. Needless to say I was not impressed with child support. In the meantime, life went on. I lost my residence to bankruptcy and had to move. My Dad bought a handyman special that in all practicality should have been condemned. Nevertheless, it was our new home. I worked overnight shifts as a waitress commuting about an hour each way to keep my old job. Rockland County was where the money was. Putnam County was more like a dollar or two on the table if they liked you. In Rockland, I had a following at night- bouncers, bartenders, and barbacks getting out of their jobs at about 4 am. I was guaranteed at least 25 dollars at that table alone. Teenagers that came in at night just to have a place to hang out and have a shake and fries would leave me nice 5 dollar tips and even clean the table up for me. I guess they sympathised with me for not having a busboy at night. It was actually a benefit to me. I'd have to clean the tables but I didn't have to give out 15 percent of my earnings to them either.

The commute, taking care of the kids, and reconstructing the house at the same time did take its toll on both me and the kids. Life was hectic, stressful and was aging me fast. I finally retained a lawyer pro bono- even with some income, when you have five children it still deems you below poverty level. The lawyer was on the last stage of the divorce. Publication was the only way to get my divorce since he could not be located. It had to be published in all the local newspapers for a while and then I would have my divorce because of default. To my surprise, the doorbell rang one day. It was a small geeky man with a beard with papers in hand. He was nervous as this process server handed over the papers. I laughed histerically! He was process serving ME for a divorce! How hilarious! I dismissed the nervous little process server that looked like he was best giving a sermon at a temple. I sensed his nervousness went away when I laughed about being served.

I called my lawyer the following day to let him know what was going on. It seems you cannot file for a divorce in Orange County (where he was living) if you have an open case inRockland County already. But surely this meant that we could get this divorce over with either way. I didn't realize it would still be a long, drawn out process just like starting all over again! There was the fact that he was in arrears in child support, there was money from the restaurant that my father and I invested in that we never saw, visitation he insisted on, and more miscelleneous crap that so was so trivial it should have been left out. The next day, Dingbat actually called me. His voice on the line made me feel neausous all over again. He explained how he had 'grown up' as he put it and would like to speak on civil terms. He said his life (as he called it) was made up of lonely nights patying, drinking and waking up in strange places. And now, he had truly found the love of his life- we will call her 'Mary' since he sworeshe had 'saved' him from his life of destruction. He said he needed the divorce as fast as possible because he had already gotten Mary pregnant. Trish had been long gone- I found out that when the new Pathfinder was gone, the money and restaurant was gone, so was the gold digging girlfriend. I guess it must have been true love. I couldn't help but feel some kind of satisfaction in the end result. Hearing about a new baby on the way was like a kick in the teeth. It was his way on cleaning the slate clean with us and starting over fresh and clean. We were just in the way. I didn't hold the torch for him long. I was a woman with emotional, physical and financial needs. There were a couple relationships after he left. Most of them were on the serious side, but none of them ready to take on the responsability of a new house that needed more than TLC and five children who needed a father to look up to. The guy that I was with now was divorced with two children of his own in Mexico that he hadn't seen in years. The story he gave me was that his wife took of with the kids and just up all left him. I must have been a slow learner because I believed him. He was living with us for the most part, but when times got tough, he would haul ass and go back to living with his brothers for a few days. He would ususally come back crying days later, would apologize to me and the kids and would be as good as pie til the next tantrum. He said his self worth was being compromised because although he was helping me with the kids and the bills, he had nothing to show for it. He wanted to get married and be an official part of the family. ( This is where another red flag should have gone up)

When the divorce was finalized, I got a check for four thousand dollars for the buyout of his shares in the restaurant, a far cry from what was put into the restaurant. The other partners didn't want anything to do with him after I got the lawyer to open the books on the restaurant to show inconsistencies in what they were recording as income. My father even tried to get his money back in court. Although he had an IOU for 15,000 dollars from Dingbat, it was faxed down to Florida and the original had stayed in his possesion. The fax was deemed inadmissable and either way he claimed that the money was a gift and that the fax was forged somehow. He was awarded visitation a couple days a week with some time during the summer school vacations and holidays. I guess his motives were to show his soon to be wife how good he was as a father. The first visit after a couple years was stressful for both me and the kids. They didn't remember him much and didn't reallt want to go. David, the oldest of the three seemed to want to go but was nervous about it. I assured him that he would be back in a little while as I kissed them all goodbye. My oldest daughter, Gail (from a previous marriage) brought them out to the car since I was not ready to mentally deal with the whole situation. I did not feel like meeting the next Mrs. K. The only contact we had ever had was a note I sent to her with my friend Sandy that I met in singles support group a couple years before. It was a note that I had sent to her, not in animosity, but as a warning about his ways and the fact that I had no intention of letting the child support arrears go. Despite my warnings, they were married. Supposedly it was a lovely honeymoon because my kids missed out on their second day of visitation with their Daddy. It didn't seem to phase the twins much since they really never had a chance to develop any type of attachment with him but David sobbed for hours, waiting by the window with his bookbag of toys on. What a piece of shit! How dare he hurt my children! I was livid! He actually had the audacity to call a day later to say hi to the kids. He wanted to tell them that he couldn't make it because he was on his honeymoon in Disneyworld! I told him to go to hell and told him about David crying over him the day before. It didn't seem to bother him at all. After ripping into him for about fifteen minutes or so I hung up on him. I was a big girl and could take it. The kids couldn't and shouldn't have had to!

Time To Wise Up

Time went by and so did the days he was supposed to pay child support. So it was no shock to me when they put a warrant out for his arrest for not showing up to court on a violation. He actually showed up to court saying that he would start paying. The judge asked me what I wanted to do, so I told him to put his ass in jail where it belonged. The judge said he was going to give him another chance and let him go with the promise that he would pay child support. So, why did he bother asking me then? I understood his reasoning - he thought that if he was in jail I would get no money at all. But what the judge didn't understand is that I knew he wasn't going to give it anyway! I got one payment out of it and that was about it. He had bought himself some time to skip off again. He always managed to find work off the books- I guess that was a genetic trait passed down to him from his father. His father had been a wanted man for stabbing someone in New Jersey quite a few years back. Anything he ever made was off the books, that way his mother could continue the facade of being a single mom of three. It had it's benefits, medicaid, food stamps, welfare money, plus her husband's wage that was unaccounted for. I learned some tricks from obseving the family, like putting your utilities in a relative's name so people couldn't find them via use of a social security card. I kept thinking to myself that if I were to milk off the system like that, I would have a Swiss bank account set up for myself for a later date. Instead of saving the money for a house or something significant in the future, there were always poker parties to be had, gold necklaces to be bought, etc. Not the way I would have spent my money. I was raised by a hard working IBM manager and a nurse living a middle class life in Westchester, NY. When I was little, I earned my keep. I would mow our lawn, do chores around the house, and earning a couple dollars here and there for walking the neighbors dogs and babysitting occasionally. A far cry from the in laws ' I'm entitled to...' attitiude. I saw a little of that early on when I went to get a money order for the ex's grandmother at the bank. She was mad at the bank because even though we were living in the 'Spanish area ' of the Bronx, they didn't speak Spanish at the bank. She had come over from Puerto Rico when she was young, but still spoke choppy English.



As time went by, I mourned the loss of in- laws that found themselves to busy to visit us or even call for that matter. There was nothing ever said about what he did or why he did it. My mother in law would tell me that maybe one day he would come back and that if he did I should be good to him. Are you kidding me? She must have thought that all women were the same- at this point I didn't want anybody's sloppy seconds after he got tired with Trish and besides that, who wants a husband who doesn't care if his own kids were eating or not?!

Time To play detective!

Finding his place wasn't hard, facing it was. I'm glad I didn't find that white picket fence I once hoped for; instead I found a mediocre apartment in a small, run down house. In front of the house was the newly leased Pathfinder that he put a deposit of 3,000 dollars on with my credit card. I guess I was supposed to be liable for it and I didn't even get to take a whiff of that new car smell. I made sure I got a picture of that too. I have to admit the lawyers, both his and mine were quite impressed with my homework. As usual, we sat in the court in front of the judge as Dingbat prepared his sob story. After the same old story of him being destitute, it was my turn. I handed the photos over. They were of the apartment he didn't have, the Pathfinder he didn't have, etc. Along with the photos were the account numbers of his electric account, his phone account, his cable account, and a copy of the furnture bill for the furniture he didn't buy and send to his apartment. I think his biggest mistake was not confiding in his own lawyer; I sensed that when she asked for a reccess to talk to her client. When the hearing examiner was finished talking, the ex didn't look so well. The color had run out of his face completely! The short of it is, I was awarded actually twice the amount that was originally granted because it was obvious he had gotten his money mostly under the table. This was not the end! As I awaited the child support checks he was already planning his escape. By the time a violation of support and then consequently a warrant for him was issued, he was long gone! All those court dates for nothing! I was losing my home, my bank accounts were frozen to pay for unpaid bills, and I had nothing but my kids and the shirt on my back. All life as it was stopped, no more school, no more birthday parties, no friends over for coffee- no nothing! Unfortunately there was only one thing to do- bankruptcy.

Of course, the first people on my list were the two lawyers that were working on my case. I figured, they didn't do any thing for me, so why should they get anything!? Not that I had it anyway.. After quite a while, the bills were gone, about 100,000 dollars worth of liability gone , so was my credit, my house and my dignity.

Trying to find Me again

After avoiding it for a while, I decided to take my friend's advice and go to a singles support group. I had to stand up and introduce myself. I thought, God I thought this was only done in AA meetings! When the counselor asked me why I was there my answer was 'I let myself go, I was too old, too stupid, too fat and didn't look like Trish. I was promptly corrected by the counselor. 'No, you are here because you are a responsable person and your husband wasn't.' He was abusive, inconsiderate, and a whole slew of other things I didn't want to hear them say. After all wasn't it my fault that I couldn't keep him? That's what he told me when he left.

It took me a long time to find Me again. I'm sure I still have more work to do. When I felt a little more like myself, although I didn't know who that was, I retained a lawyer for my divorce and child support. I had hired him under the assumption that I would be getting child support and half the shares from the restaurant. The soon to be ex had other plans. Although he was instructed to start paying child support, he continued to cry about the restaurant not making money , having to live in the restaurant office, blah, blah, blah. My lawyers advice was to get a private detective to prove that he was not in dire straits. Not only was he making the money, but he also told me that if I instigated anything, he would make sure that I didn't get a dime! I decided I would have investigate it myself!

Months passed, I was working in a deli overnights so I din't have to worry about the kids as much as I would in the daytime. My oldest daughter from a previous marriage became the second Mom. At an early age she learned to bottle feed, diaper and care for the little ones and entertain the older ones. I felt bad but not as bad as I did when there was no food in the fridge. My days were free so I decided to make them productive. I started to go to college for business part time and the rest of my time was spent trying to delay bills over the phone that I could not pay. One day it hit me. The poor guy was destitute but yet had charged my credit card thousands of dollars for furniture for Trish and his new apartment. Surely there was a record of it! My first phone call was to Seaman's Furniture. When I explained to this unsimpathetic woman my dilema she told me that the information was priveledged and could not give it out. I was not about to give up! I called back and got a different operator. This time I gave a different story. This time I I told her that my billing address was Pomona, NY but that I had a restaurant and an apartment upstate. I couldn't remember the life of me where I sent my table and chair set, and lets not forget about the bed for the bedroom that they shared. Without hesitance, she gave me the address in Salsbbury Mills were he resided. Next I got a rush of confidence as I dialed Orange and Rockland Utilities. They had my electrical account for years in Rockland but now had a new one upstate as well. It was easy to get his account number when I explained that I wanted to go to the local bodega to pay my bill and couldn't find the account number. Since I had given them my Rockland account number, address and both our social security numbers, she had no reason to doubt me. Now I had the address, his apartment number, and his balance with O & R! I was finally getting some where! Next step was to take pictures of where he lived!

From the beginning- Bad to worse

As you know bad marriages do't start out that way. I believed in the white picket fence around the victorian house just like other women. This was not to happen. Without boring you with the details of a tastless marriage based on lies and pipe dreams. I'll take you to right before he left me. Our three kids were 3 and 1 yrs old (twins). After convincing my Dad we could make something out of my 'charming' husband he helped invest in a restaurant for us. Dingbat (that's what we will call him for the sake of not giving his name and not calling him a bad word) had worked in a deli, been a dishwasher and in the process learned how to cook so he would be the partner that cooked. There were two other partners. One was the bartender where he previously worked and one managed and did the bookeeping. The women were silent partners, I decided this was his baby and he needed to fly with it. Besides nursing twins, chasing after another in diapers, and two more from a previous marriage was a full job it itself. There were many long nights of costruction work as I waited patiently at home with the kids convincing myself that this was going to be worth it once it opened. I wasn't anticipating him staying longer nights with 'Trish' the waitress when it opened. He left shortly after meeting this waitress- it was actually three days before the twins first birthday. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember him saying 'what did you want me to do, wait until three days after?' I was thinking, 'why leave at all' but I forgot, he had to go..his girlfriend was waiting for him as I lay on the floor sobbing. How could he do this? I don't know. For days I went up to the restaurant and begged him to come home. I think the day I stopped going up was when he told me I was old, fat, ugly and stupid and I'd never get laid again. It was real smack in the face, and to look in on the pretty restaurant that was built on my credit card and Dad's cash made it worse. Everyday felt like an eternity, looking out the window as headlights lit up the street as the cars passed by, hoping that one of those cars would be him. I grew some balls one day and finally put his clothes out for the garbage as I promised him I would if he didn't come for them. I remember the day he came back for them. He actually tried to open the door as if he still lived there. Did he think he could come and go like his Dad did all the time with his mother? (That always annoyed me how he would be gone a week and as soon as he walked through the door, he was greeted with a hot meal.) I changed the locks and he would have to knock just like evrybody else. After all, he made his choice to be with Trish instead of me and the kids. Time went on, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months with no sign of him but new credit card bills furnishing his and Trishes new apartment and a couple hundred dollars of clothes charged to my name. In my despair I hadn't cancelled him as an authorized user of my credit cards. Some money orders came to the house for $75 here, $100 there- not enough to keep food on the table for the kids. There were days I thanked God that I was still nursing the twins or they would have probably been as hungry as we were. There was no public assistance for a woman who had just put thousands of dollars into a restaurant only months before. My only choice was local food pantries, friends and occasionally asking my parents for money. I saved that for last because it was always a humbling experience. I told you so was usually thrown into the mix as I cried my eyes out about being by myself and not having help with the kids. At one point I had gotten so physically ill I wound up with IV's in my arm from dehydration. What ever I ate came up, if I was lucky enough to hold it in my stomach it would leave just as fast. My neighbor and friend Charlene had befriended me and convinced me to go to a singles support group before I wasted away..and then the kids would have nobody. The thought of wasting away and not having to deal with my life anymore didn't measure up to the neauseating feeling I had thinking that if I died, Trish would be raising MY kids with MY husband! It was time to make a change for me and my kids!