"Rob" is my ex husband. And he is a monster. He is an alcoholic, and like all alcoholics, he is a mean and manipulative man. What makes him even worse than your typical alcoholic is that he comes across as a really nice and genuine guy-- honest, a little on the innocent side, soft spoken, and kind. In reality, he is a screamer (honestly, I've never heard of anyone who can reach the pitch of this man-- he sounds like a shrill woman when he screamed at me), he lies completely and totally about anything and everything, and he terrorized two families.
After five years of living with Rob, I fled just days after being diagnosed with a life threatening blood disorder. On January 2, 2012 I went to Kaiser Permanente for followup tests after lab results from a routine CBC showed some big red warning flags. While getting a full body scan, the tech told me that "we're scanning for tumors. Your doctor thinks you have cancer." Try hearing those words from someone. I stood there and sobbed as the tech took Xrays. I went home and started calling my "sweet" husband, Rob. He wouldn't answer. I started texting him. "Please come home," I pleaded. "They think I have cancer. I'm so scared." I knew he was at the bar pounding drinks and, sure enough, when he came home, he was agitated and mad and LOUD. He literally started screaming at me: "Just GO TO UTAH. I'll take $10,000 out of my 401k to move you. You just want to go home to Mommy!" I was incredulous because under no circumstance should anyone speak to someone in my condition like that.
"Rob," I said, "Why are you screaming at me? I'm scared." And I was. Terrified, actually. And I was sobbing.
And what did sweet Rob do? He got in my face and started screaming at me so loudly that he was spitting in my face. "You're such a lazy stupid bitch. You just don't want to work!"
I called Rob's mom and the phone went to voicemail and I let it record how Peggy's "sweet" drunk son spoke to his wife. As he continued to scream, I just let it continue recording on Peggy's voicemail. I finally interrupted him. "Nice job. Your mom can listen to that."
Not deterred, Rob continued screaming at me. I went to the back bedroom and called my parents. They could hear Rob screaming from several rooms away. My dad was horrified. "Is that how he speaks to you?" he asked.
"Yes," I nearly whispered.
There was silence as my dad continued to listen and my mom cried. After a long pause, he said "we're coming to get you." They live in Utah so they left a few hours later to San Diego to rescue me from my monster husband.
The next call I made was to the police. I needed Rob gone and I needed time and quiet to wrap my head around the fact that I may be dying. And that's how I separated from Rob the Great (Alcoholic). A few days later, I was officially diagnosed with my illness-- a rare, incurable blood disorder. What shows Rob's character even better, he threatened me that if I left him, he would cancel my health insurance. Nice guy, huh?
The girls and I moved from San Diego on January 12, 2012. Rob got on match.com literally a few days after we left. He found a new girlfriend even before I filed for a legal separation. I had to file for that separation so he couldn't cancel my health insurance. Instead of taking time to deal with his alcoholism and heal from another family he destroyed, he got another girlfriend instead. He did the same thing with his last family. He lied to me about his official separation date. Terri (his first wife) moved out of their home in late December 2006. I met Rob in late January 2007-- just weeks later. Had I known this, I NEVER would have dated him. And he did it again. A wife leaves him and the first thing he does is search for his next victim. The last time Rob went to court against his first ex wife, Terri, she attached an email that Rob sent her on December 30, 2006-- just a few weeks prior to my meeting him. The email stated "I'm so sorry!" It made me sick-- Rob had apologized and had tried to keep his marriage together just weeks before meeting me and pursuing a relationship with me full steam ahead. If I had only known, there is no way I would have dated a man like that. Any woman who would date a man under his circumstances is, in my opinion, incredibly dumb.
Much of my story could be comical or interesting, except Rob took everything from me-- my money (I had a lot of money in savings), my assets (I had two homes that I was renting out), my sanity, and my health. And while I was still grappling with the fact that I may die and that I had years of hardcore treatments ahead of me, Rob was already on to his next girlfriend. I would sit at my doctor's office getting injected with poisons that made me sicker than most people can imagine, watching others in my position holding the hands of their spouses. And me? I was with my mom and dad while Rob the Great was fishing, at the bars, and dating a new woman who, he told me, had LOTS OF MONEY and wasn't LAZY like me (because I wasn't working anymore).
Yes, Rob is a monster and part of my healing process is journaling my story. And here it is.
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