When I met him, he looked good on paper, a former law enforcement agent and former military officer. And he looked good in his work uniform for the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) now Homeland Security. He was a former resident of a small town in the midwest currently living in New Jersey. And according to his claim, he was a former member of Methodist Church back home. These are the details I learned about my former husband shortly after we met.
I don’t think about him at all any more except when BigGEE unknowingly makes references to his Dad and his assumed sharing of Mr.GEE’s biology. “I’m going to be tall like you when I grow up. Right, Dad?” To which we respond rather sing-songy with something like, “We’ll see.”
My real thought, however, is “Uh, no because a) Mr.GEE is not tall and b) neither was your biological sperm donor”. We haven’t talked with BigGEE about him yet.
In the summer of 1997, I was working at the biopharmaceutical research company, ImClone Systems, whose founder and CEO, Sam Waksal, would many years later be convicted of several white collar crimes sending him and his friend, Martha Stewart to prison. But that’s a small side note. At the time, I had just completed my professional certification through the LaGuardia Community College interpreter training program and was biding my time at ImClone until I felt ready to leave for full-time free-lance interpreting work.
That time arrived when in July 1997, a mass call for ASL interpreters was issued throughout the tri-state area to assist the New York City Police department in the questioning of over 60 Deaf Mexicans found living together in two small homes in Jackson Heights, NY. It quickly became a federal case and for the next 14 months, I worked a rotating 24 hour shift with a team of 8-12 interpreters (both deaf and hearing) to work with lawyers, police, counselors, medical professionals, prosecutors, teachers and INS agents to interview, guard, serve and care for these men, women and children while they remained in custody. But this too is simply a side note. The former husband/donor was one of the many INS agents who also worked the 24 hour rotating shift and we would meet a short five months after I began my full-time professional interpreting career.
It was late December and I was gathering personal belongings to leave for the day. I found along with my coat and bag a greeting card. It was an early birthday wish signed by someone that, up until that point, was unknown to me. Smooth. I’m a sucker for romantic attention. How had he known it was my birthday? Who was he? I did not recognize the name.
Long Story Short: We met. We dated. And against my better judgment and the warnings of friends, we married. Seriously, yes. Some of my friends actually begged me not to do it. It was doomed from the start.
As it turned out, this beefy, gun toting, tough guy was incredibly insecure. I quickly came to learn that he could trust no one nor any situation and questioned me at every turn about my friends, co-workers, assignment schedules and eventually my family. “Where are you going?” “Where are you coming from?” “Who will you be with for that job or event?” He questioned everything including my faithfulness and love even as I blossomed in pregnancy.
“Really? You think I might have a date?! I’m three months pregnant and began showing in week two!”
“Some men think pregnant women are really sexy!”
It was sad really. He once questioned my devotion after reading an old personal diary written in my 20′s that contained, among the many bland entries of life as a single woman living in New York City, the occasional spicy post about someone I was dating at the time. I begged him not to throw out the book but he would not relent until finally I agreed to cut out those sections that contained references to other dates, interests and lovers. Those writings were NOT welcome in his home. I knew that was a bad sign.
I had to be more and more cautious about what interpreting jobs I could accept considering first what his response might be to each. If my judgment was off and I accepted a job that involved a perceived threat to our relationship, I might have my keys taken or the car disabled. He questioned me about most assignments wanting to know where they would be and with whom I’d be interpreting. Towards the end of our relationship, I gave up all interpreting work in The City choosing instead to accept more assignments in New Jersey meeting new faces along the way. But I continued to commute to the Helen Keller National Institute in Sands Point, NY enjoying the quiet, solitude of the almost 2 hour drive and the required over-night stays for multiple days worth of work. It was easy to fend off questions from the former husband when the clients were both deaf AND blind.
I admit that it was only after this experience that I could finally understand how abused women stay in bad relationships. I remember reassuring myself that if I just loved him enough, was strong enough, cut up enough diaries, gave up enough assignments, turned away enough friends, gave more sex, cooked better and tried harder then one day the light would click inside of him and he would . . . believe, know, trust, understand. I had quickly fallen into the misguided belief that if only I [INSERT VERB HERE] then HE would change. I was a grown adult! Intellectually I knew that if a person wants to change he can only do so by starting from within.
I don’t know if this guy was a victim of his law enforcement work or military experiences or if he’d been that insecure since childhood. But it started to dawn on me that if I could no longer predict what would set him off, then I didn’t really him know him very well at all. How could I? Someone so guarded and on the watch never let’s down enough to let anyone inside. Perhaps that’s what happened before.
Another addition on his Formers List includes an entry for two former wives with whom he had children. I know, I know! It was an ignored red flag! I suppose the same part of me that opened my heart to stray dogs reacted similarly to him. I was probably compelled to take a stand and love the donor thinking that someone had to. Christians can get wrapped up in the confusion of guessing what Jesus would do.
I know now that fixing him was not my Jesus job. That staying was not the plan. For, nowhere in the Bible does it say that it’s okay to be someone else’s door mat. There’s nothing written there about enduring being locked in a car, shoved up against a wall, yelled and cursed at, iced with silence and ignored, abandoned alongside the road home or threatened abandonment three states from home. It does not say that in order to show your husband PROOF that you love him,
“You must NOT visit your family over Thanksgiving or else it’s over”!
Because I think Jesus would stand right beside you in agreement, “Then it is indeed over”.
I don’t believe this particular argument about my perceived desire to spend time with my family being greater than any desire to spend time with him at the holiday was an anticipated ‘line’ waiting to be crossed. I believe instead that in that moment, as a six month pregnant woman, I became a mother. There was no way I was going to bring a child into that environment. This child deserved better. I would find a way to give him that. That’s what Jesus would do. I had no money and no plan but I had a plane ticket. The details would have to be worked out later.
That next morning in November of 1999, the minute my husband left for work, I calmly went to purchase as many U-Haul boxes as I could and methodically began packing everything that was mine that would fit. I called a friend who called another and by 6:00 PM or so everything I owned sat piled in the garage of my pastor’s home. I spent the next three days and nights there and we fended off calls and visits from the donor until I could safely board my Thanksgiving flight home to Texas.
Long Story Short: My family welcomed me home with open arms and lots of Kleenex. My father and I drove back to New Jersey to retrieve my things. I moved into my parent’s 2 bedroom apartment. Two months later, BigGEE was born – happy, healthy and perfect.