“Sure, go ahead.”
The next day he called. We talked for hours. I invited Lee over to watch the Academy Awards. He was late, but the kids and I didn’t mind because he walked in the door carrying four different boxes of candy. Lee told funny stories while feeding my hungry brood those sweet treats. What kid wouldn’t like that? After I tucked them in bed we spent the whole night just talking.
Lee came over every day after that and we talked for hours. It was refreshing, he seemed interested in me, there was never a lack of conversation, he always had something to talk about and he acted like he wanted to be around me all the time. Kenny had rarely engaged in conversation with me unless it was to ridicule or accuse me of something. Lee quickly swept me off my feet with promises of a quick marriage and wanting to become a father to my kids. I was thrilled to actually have someone interested in me who didn’t have a drinking problem.
I found out he had two boys from a previous marriage. Because he was unable to pay child support he had given his boys up for adoption to their stepfather thirteen years earlier.
“How did you feel about giving up your kids?”
“Of course, I regret giving them up. I still feel terrible, but I was in a bad situation at the time. I had just gotten in a car accident. My buddy was driving and he fell asleep at the wheel. We hit a parked car and he was killed instantly. “Look!” He pointed to his injured leg. As he pulled off a piece of white gauze I noticed a small hole in his calf with clear fluid oozing out.
“I have to wear a bandage every day of my life, day and night. And now I walk with a limp. Why did I survive? I don’t know. Maybe God has something else for me. I still struggle with survivor’s guilt. Maybe you’re the answer, you and your kids. I can be a husband again and your children can replace the ones I was forced to give up.”
Finally, I thought, somebody had come into my life that would love me and take care of us. It was the love I had been looking for all my life. I appreciated that Lee actually opened up about his feelings, regrets, and his dreams. It seemed to me he had learned from his mistakes. And the most important thing of all, he talked to me, constantly!
Laney moved out shortly before I met Lee. She had a little girl and was so happy her parents finally accepted her interracial relationship. She was able to move back home. Laney and Max were making plans to marry after he graduated from high school.
Lee and I met in March exactly one year after I had filed for divorce. We were inseparable and spent every spare moment together, although he went home every night to his own apartment.
Lee’s job was to take underprivileged kids door-to-door to sell candy. He worked whenever he wanted to. He seemed to love kids, and appeared responsible. He had a great rapport with my children, and Jeremy began working for him. Jeremy enjoyed making his own money and meeting new friends.
Lee was a charmer and he seemed to say all the right things. He radiated confidence, and gave the impression he had the ability to overcome obstacles and move forward in his life despite his past setbacks. I felt he had integrity too. He seemed too good to be true. He was always ready to go to church with us and he was never at loss for words. Best of all, he didn’t have a drinking problem.
“We can live in your house and I can help you fix it up. I can build a recreation room for the kids. I’ll help you take care of the yard. I can even make a tree house in the back yard. If it means I have to work more hours and help with the house payment I’m ready to do it.”
It seemed like a dream come true!
Everything was moving quickly and I thought it was because he was in love with me and couldn’t live without me. Within weeks he asked me to marry him and we decided to get married right away. I got in touch with my old pastor, (who had recently divorced and had left the church) and asked him to perform the ceremony. Lee and I secretly eloped near the scenic red rock formations, known as the Garden of the Gods, only a few miles from our home. It was simple, quick, and romantic. Jeremy and my sister stood up with us. Because we kept it a secret from everybody else, it seemed so exciting. Four months later we decided to have a small wedding and invited our family and a few friends.
A couple weeks after we were married Lee proposed a plan. “I want all of us to go camping. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
We had never been camping and we were all looking forward to it. The kids and I were up at the crack of dawn, ready to load the van, excited to leave for our trip.
“We all need to clean the van before we load it,” Lee began barking orders.
“It will be dirtier when we get back. Can’t we just clean it then? The kids and I are ready to go now.”
“Nope, it has to be cleaned first,” He said, adamantly. “That’s just the way I do things.”
Hours turned into all day, as Lee was very particular about how the van had to be cleaned and packed. By five in the evening the joy and enthusiasm about the trip had waned. Nobody was excited anymore, except Lee. I began to realize the cute way he was late on our first date was really a lifelong bad habit of his. He always kept people waiting and he procrastinated on just about everything. I just thought he was spontaneous. I liked it before we were married; now it wasn’t so cute anymore!
We took more camping trips, and although the kids and I loved being out in nature, Lee simply turned the ventures into disasters. We kept hoping each trip was the last one, but it never was. Lee would fly into fits of rage over the smallest things. On one trip, Lee’s two brothers joined us. All of us sat by the campfire. “Look up, there’s a planet,” Lee pointed upward.
“I can’t see no planets, those look like stars,” Jeremy stated.
“That’s a double negative Jeremy. You said it the wrong way,” Lee corrected him.
“No, I didn’t,” Jeremy said.
“You don’t even know what a double negative is? You’re just stupid!
“No, I’m not,” said Jeremy.
“Come on, Lee, leave the kid alone,” Ray, Lee’s younger brother said. “Don’t make it a big deal?”
I also asked him to leave Jeremy alone, but Lee wouldn’t shut up. He continued to belittle Jeremy for not understanding what a double negative was. I just wanted him to shut up.
“You’re supposed to take my side and you’re always taking the kids side. You probably don’t know what a double negative is either!”
I tried to reason with him. “Just leave my son alone. You sound so self-righteous. Please don’t call Jeremy names. You’re embarrassing him in front of your brothers.”
All of a sudden Lee screamed. “Let’s go. We’re leaving. Pack up! Get in the van now.”
Finally, his brothers calmed him down. But the trip was ruined for the rest of the weekend and we did our best to stay out of his way. We even stopped making comments when he was around. Later the kids and I talked about it when we were out of Lee’s earshot. “I am sick of Lee correcting me about my grammar and just about everything I do.” Jeremy said angrily.
“Me too,” said Kristy. “I’m sick of being criticized for everything I say and do.”
“I don’t like Lee making jokes about me,” added Jeff.
“I’m sorry, you guys. I’m just glad his brothers are with us. It makes it easier to be stuck out here. Unfortunately, they are leaving tomorrow.”
A few days later Lee decided it was time to go home. It took all day to pack up.
“I want you to drive the van. I’m tired.”
I had only recently learned how to drive it and I was nervous. It was so big and I was inexperienced. “Please don’t make me drive. I’m not that good at driving a stick yet. I know you’re tired, but I’ll keep you awake, I promise.”
“I said I was tired and if you don’t drive we will just stay here for a couple more days.”
“But I have to go back to work, and I am really nervous about driving your van. Please don’t’ make me drive it.�
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My pleading did no good so I climbed into the driver’s side, put my foot on the pedal and prayed all the way home that I would be able to drive and not make any mistakes.
Within months after we had our wedding ceremony, I knew I had made a terrible mistake by marrying Lee. Although he brought some new adventures into our lives it was evident he wasn’t the man he had portrayed himself to be. His demeanor changed as soon as he moved into my home. I was constantly confused with his mannerisms and his display of unruly behavior and rages and particularly the way he treated my children. I felt like I was going crazy. I had never dealt with anyone like him before. I had no idea who this man really was! I soon realized I had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. I felt guilty for my first divorce and even guiltier for what my children were enduring because of my quickie second marriage. Feeling helpless to change the direction my life was going, I felt like such a loser.
The real Lee proved he had no self-confidence and was filled with insecurities that he began to display daily. Lee hardly worked at all. I realized the only reason he drove kids around to sell candy was because it was an easy job for him and he was lazy. Mistakenly, I believed he enjoyed hanging out with kids. Now my children seemed to get on his nerves most of the time and he always found ways to criticize them. I noticed Lee would spend hours lecturing the kids and me. All he wanted to do was argue, he just had to get in the last word. No one could reason with him. What had I gotten us into? I felt stuck!
Unfortunately, my husband had a strong sense of entitlement and was content to let me carry the burden of paying the bills. “After all, I didn’t get to spend any of that money you took out on your second mortgage, and therefore it’s your responsibility to pay it.” He often stated.
At first the weekend trips in the van whenever Lee worked was fun, but after a while all of us grew tired of the hearing the same jokes over and over and listening to his exaggerated stories. It wasn’t long before I noticed all conversations were about him. I had thought he enjoyed talking with me but in reality, he was a compulsive talker. He hoarded the conversations and was quick to interrupt my attempts at joining in. One of the other things I began to notice was his lying. I began to catch him in lies all the time.
When I went to work, I had to leave the kids with him. I hated the way he wasted time. He had grandiose ideas about how he would win the lottery one day and he would spend countless hours writing down how the money would be spent. Then he’d show us the list during dinner and try to get us all excited in his unrealistic fantasies. Fruitless hours were spent wasted by Lee whenever his magazines came in the mail. I dreaded the day when he would receive his beloved Reader’s Digest. He would stay in bed all day reading the magazine from cover to cover, never acknowledging the kids or me. Sometimes I’d leave for work before the mail arrived and I would find him, still in his pajamas, holding on to that stupid magazine, when I’d get home from work. Finally, I began hiding the book if I checked the mail first.
Jeremy was the one that got everyone ready for school and made dinners when I worked the late shift. Lee ignored the kids, and if he wasn’t ignoring them, he was nagging them, forcing them to do their chores to perfection. He never praised them but was quick to point out any shortcoming on their part. He usually ended up grounding them. There were certain things in the house that belonged only to him, such as his desk. He was always accusing the kids of touching his things. “Get your grimy, dirty hands off my stuff. I will put you on restriction if you touch it again. If your mother lets you then she is going to be in trouble too.”
I tried to stick up for my kids.
Lee only argued with me, “We’re married. You should take my side not theirs.”
He even had his own special boxes of cereal. He’d meticulously tape up a box of Captain Crunch so my kids wouldn’t eat it. When I accidentally washed his money, and checks he marched me into the laundry room to teach me the appropriate way to check the pockets and do his laundry. I had been washing clothes since I was ten. It was absurd!
I thought things would get better financially after we got married, but because he rarely worked money was always tight. He had stopped working for the candy company and went from job to job, or, more to the point, he hardly ever worked. I was the sole breadwinner and he did absolutely nothing to help out and child support was virtually non-existent.
Growing tired of waiting for Lee to bring some money in, I applied for food stamps. He didn’t think anything of using my food stamps to help himself to food but he refused to go with me to apply each month. I kept bugging him about getting a job, but he wouldn’t listen. Thinking I was helping, I’d read the morning paper and circle jobs in the classified section hoping he would apply for them.
Before we got married he had bragged about working for a real estate agency, owning his own waterbed store and working in his dad’s wrought iron shop. Now I wasn’t sure if he had done any of those things. I never met a man who could spend all day doing nothing. The only thing my first husband had going for him was he worked hard. Mistakenly, I thought all men did. I realized what the word lethargic meant when I married Lee.
I had never been around someone like him and was so confused about his behavior. Just when I thought he was fun to be around he’d act unreasonable and fly into rages. Like the time we were driving home from a camping trip and I started my period. Realizing I forgot to bring tampons, I stuffed an old shirt between my legs. “It’s five hours till we get home can you stop at a store?”
“No, you should have come prepared. We’re not going to stop.”
No amount of pleading and bargaining would make him change his mind. Shocked, I wondered who this man was and why was he so damn mean.
Most times after our camping trips Lee expected me to drive part of the way home. I began to refuse to give in to his ridiculous demands. He knew how anxious and uncomfortable I felt about driving his big, blue van, but that didn’t matter to him. He would head towards home then stop about 45 minutes from our house, then he would order me to get into the driver’s seat. Sometimes, I stood my ground and said no. I was more afraid of having an accident than submitting to Lee. I didn’t care that he would make us spend the night at a rest stop. He thought he was punishing me, but the kids and I just got comfortable and fell asleep for the rest of the night. This would be repeated many times throughout our marriage. He knew when I had to be at work, thankfully, I was always home in time for my job.
When I was at work, Lee would hassle the kids and send them to their rooms. My two younger ones often crawled out the window and would run to the neighbors. Petie was grandmotherly and had no kids of her own and always made my children feel welcome. They would call me at work. “Mom, Lee is being mean to us again.”
“Okay, you can stay at Petie’s until I come home. I will deal with him after work.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t reason with Lee and he would continue to put the kids on restriction and scream at me later. “You’re always taking their side, you should take my side now that we are married.”
There were times I had to work and couldn’t prepare dinners for the family, fortunately Jeremy was very responsible and had learned to cook. He took care of his brother and sister. Lee rarely cooked for the children. He’d open up a can of soup for himself but he seldom offered any to them. Lee would go to the store and buy himself warm, just-baked French bread and lunchmeat and order my kids not to touch HIS food.
Jeremy was good-natured, but a few times he and Lee argued and it almost came to blows. Stepping in, I’d beg Lee not to hit my son. Luckily, these kinds of heated arguments only happened when I was home to intervene.
Lee would often spend all day, sitting at a local coffee shop, flirting with the young girls who worked as waitresses.
“Why are you at the coffee shop letting those girls hang on you? We are married. You shouldn’t be doing that.”
Even tho
ugh we fought constantly I desperately wanted to be loved by him. I believed if I was prettier, skinner, or more fun that Lee would prefer me instead of hanging out with the girls at the coffee shop.
One night we even planned a date and I came home from work showered, dressed up and waited for Lee. When he didn’t come home, I finally asked the kids, where they thought he might have gone and when he had left.
“I don’t know Mom, right before you got home he got in his van and drove away.”
Angrily, I stomped out to the car and drove around until I saw his blue van parked at the Kwik Inn, his local hangout. Walking in, I saw him surrounded by teenage waitress. “Lee,” I hollered. “What are you doing?”
He turned to look at me and then followed me outside. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t go to the coffee shop and hang out with those young girls anymore, and besides we had a date planned. Isn’t this important to you? I have been home getting ready and waiting. Why are you hanging out with those girls?”
“They make me feel young.” Staring straight at me, he rolled his eyes. “The novelty has worn off with you?” What the heck did that mean?
I shook my head. Was I too proud and too guilt-ridden to seek help? I don’t know. How could I let other people know what I had gotten myself into? I felt helpless to change the mistake I had made. I wasn’t even thirty-one. I wasn’t about to get another divorce. How would that look to other people? Selfishly, I didn’t consider how my children were suffering. All my Alanon teaching went out the window. I seemed to have forgotten all the ways in which the Lord had worked in my life earlier.
My mom even tried to talk some sense into Lee, but he twisted everybody’s words and blamed everyone but himself, refusing to admit he had any problems at all. I often questioned my sanity while being married to Lee. Sometimes I felt living with an alcoholic was minor compared to the verbal and mental abuse the kids and I suffered from him. Some of the things he said to me were so cruel. Kenny would have never said those awful things. Did it have a name? Is this what mental illness looked like? Was I going crazy? Was he crazy?
Something About Those Eyes Page 23