My Sadness

Farmer At Sunset (Van Gogh)

“Even Time, the Father of All, cannot undo what has been done, whether right or wrong.” (Pindar 518-438 BC, from Olympian Odes)

ראיתי, את-כל-המעשים, שנעשו, תחת השמש; והנה הכול הבל, ורעות רוח

מעוות, לא-יוכל לתקון; וחסרון, לא-יוכל להימנות

(Ecclesiastes 1:14-15) “I have seen all the goings-on under the sun and all is futile and fleeting. A twisted thing that cannot be straightened and missing things that cannot be replaced.”

As many know, I was divorced 15 years ago, and went through many life-changes since that time, both emotionally, physically, and mentally. I was not the model husband, nor was she the model wife. We fought a lot. It was too much to be comfortable, too much to allow the kids to be raised in it, and too much for even friends to bear. I had hoped for a peaceful split, so my kids wouldn’t be raised in home with that kind of tension. So much for good intentions. Her revenge upon me was to estrange me from my own children. That has been her single-minded purpose for the last decade and a half, and she has been wonderfully successful in this endeavor.

There is a certain amount of distance that develops between fathers and children in any divorce, let alone one where one parent actively pursues a course of action, both at home and in the court system, with the intention of maintaining and widening that rift. I wish I were the only man on the planet to know this pain, but I am not. There are thousands of fathers like me, who even when winning their rights in court, cannot make good on them in reality. Most of us are not the type of men who would force visitation upon a child who is reluctant to have it. We seldom get to ask the child’s opinion anyhow, as he/she is carefully ensconced behind bolted doors, unopened birthday gifts, and blocked e mails.

My son was recently engaged. He is living in Har Nof, and his kallah is also from that neighborhood. Not that anyone actually called me to give me a ‘Mazel Tov’. I found out when doing the usual Google search for his name, and it took me to a website where the engagement was posted. I sent a brief message congratulating the Chussen and Kallah. Within twelve hours, I received a notification from the website that I was being cited for abuse and my posts would be removed and my membership to the site rescinded forthwith. I’m not mad at them, and I know who was behind it. This incident brings up old pain and reminds me that nothing has changed.

My ex-wife is a liar and a witch. She has everyone fooled. She has this ability to make others feel so sorry for her, poor nebbishe that she is, that she gains the sympathy and assistance of everyone who knows her. My ex-wife, to this day, claims that I stalk her and the children (they are all grown now and live far away from me), have paid no child support, and that I have threatened her on numerous occasions. During the earlier years of our divorce, I was visited by the local police on several occasions, being accused of kidnapping my own children from her home. The police would come in, search my home or office, ask me a few questions, and then find out that she had them all along. I have tolerated the lies and loss of my children’s love long enough. What can I do? Nothing.

My ex-wife has been under treatment for paranoid schizophrenia and delusional episodes for several years now. She is currently taking Resperdol, which is an anti-psychotic drug. She has undergone long periods of hospitalization for psychiatric problems, has refused to bathe for extended periods, claims to suffer from seizures, and has a state provided housekeeper to do her housework. The funny part is, bad as we had it when we were married, she was never THAT bad! One would think, that if I were the cause of her misery and degradation, that once I was gone all her problems would miraculously vanish! But they only got worse. I think the world is getting little peek at what I had to endure for six years.

If you are wondering how I know about her condition, I’ll tell you. I have friends in many places and I have access to a great deal of information. Mostly though, bits and pieces comes through in her protracted attempts to sue me for one thing or another, and her refusal to show up in a courtroom because (get this) her doctor says that my presence alone will cause her to have seizures. She has also told her doctors that I sexually abused her during our marriage. Proof? Who needs that? I have long ago discovered that proof and evidence are of little consequences when sympathies hold sway. It is something that I have grown used to. After years of court dates and thousands of dollars, I can do no more but accept it. They are grown now and fighting it at this point is moot.

The worst part is not that she turned my children against me. She’s mad, clinically mad (so she claims.) She took it a step further by cutting them of from their uncles, aunts, cousins, and their grandmother and great-grandmother o’h, who has been nothing but kind to her and the children. For shame! Her fear is being exposed for who she really is; a viper with a very bad sheytl. I have held my tongue for many, many years.

My ex-wife lives and now owns what used to be my father’s (o’h) home. She has never paid a dime toward the upkeep of that house either. She buys/leases a new car every year and has not worked a day in ten years. She collects all sorts of benefits from the state and county she resides in for her ‘condition’ (good fake job), and still receives $234.00 per week in child support for my daughter who is still in high school, though over 18 years of age. None of this matters. I’m not mad at her, I’m frustrated with a world that doesn’t see through her nonsense. I’m frustrated with a world that allowed her to defame a good young man in a court of law, make a Chilul HaShem doing it, and then reward her for her misdeeds.

Now my ex-wife portrays herself as martyr and tzadekes, too. At one point, I went to a Bais Din to resolve the visitation issue, since I thought that they, of all people, would understand my position. I also thought that she wouldn’t have the chutzpah to defy the advice of a Rov. I was wrong. Again. The Bais Din invited both of us to a meeting. I sat across form her and her brothers (the same one’s who have threatened to kill me should I try to see my children), and she agreed to allow me regular visitation at the Bais Din’s request. The Rabbonim were more familiar with this kind of problem than they prefer to be. Once outside the room, however, she changed her mind and told me, in no uncertain terms, that it would be her life’s work to keep me from my children. She’s done a smash-up job.

I’m really hurting inside. I’m not as strong, Stoic, or Taoist as one might imagine me to be from my writing; at least not when it comes to the rejection of my own children, my knowing the reasons why, and my inability to anything about it. At best, I’ve been coping for all these years. I was raised thinking that the ‘truth always prevails’, the ‘truth is simple’, and that ‘time heals all wounds’. Those dictums are only true for those that believe them to be. Life, for others, remains a cesspool of agony that feeds off anger, hate, non-forgiveness, fear, and greed. Let them have it I say. I want no part of it. I just want them to know my side of the story and give me the chance to be a father, in any way, shape, or form. None have ever risen to my defense, and I have, for the most part, even stopped coming to my own.

You are wondering at this point “How could this be? How could someone tell such lies and get away with it? There must have been something to her claims!” You’d be right for asking the question. If it were a normal, everyday sort of psychologically stable American couple that divorced, and the woman brought up specious claims of ‘whatever’, one would have to assume that maybe something was not right. I’ve seen those cases, too. In my case, however, one can tell ‘beginning from the end’ of the matter; fifteen years later, and still the venom of days gone by rages strong in her. One is very naïve indeed to imagine that truth gets sorted out in courtrooms. At best they make expedient guesses, playing it safe for fear of wasting too much of their own precious time, seldom considering the consequences of their own laziness.

I don’t think anyone can really know how much this hurts me. It’s not meant as an insult to others who feel pain. I know others can and do empathize. My pain is not only that they may forever hate me and fear me, but that I am not even getting the chance to vindicate myself, or to have any closure within.

The greatest lesson learned from this, and the greatest teaching I can offer anyone, is to LISTEN to the other side of the story before rushing to judgments. Those who admit their shortcomings should not be condemned for the greater sins they have not committed, but seen rather as human and fallible as we all are wont to be. I have been condemned without trial or evidence, and in such a limbo I may remain forever. I am just a man.