Blended: Confessions

“A broken mind is the most dangerous of all...”

— Jillian Felice

You know the saying…

“Give someone enough rope and they'll hang themself.”

I can’t tell you how true this saying is. Truly. If you give someone enough time, eventually they DO tell on themselves. Her attempt at contacting my ex made me wonder just how deep of a dive she’d taken into investigating my personal life. It actually brought to mind a very specific scenario that I can’t believe I’d completely forgotten until that moment. It’s customary to post a slew of photos, new and old, showing your history with a person on social media when it’s their birthday. We do it with friends, lovers, family, our kids… Well, on one particular birthday of [Son’s], while we were still on speaking terms, she would do exactly this to honor him. Not weird at all right? Except she did something so strange and blatant that it DID actually make me question her mental health yet again. She chose to change her profile picture to a photo of our son from MY wedding day! I think my mouth quite literally hit the floor when I discovered this because a few thoughts crossed my mind.

Had she embedded herself so deeply into my life that she didn’t even realize that picture wasn’t hers? How much of my wedding album did she look at? How many hours had she spent pouring over our photos, wondering about our wedding day or what it was like? Possibly imagining herself there…? But the better question was WHY she would want to take a dive that deep into my wedding album in the first place? Even setting aside the fact that she did, WHY ON EARTH would she then take one of those photos and post it to her social media? Cropping it wouldn’t make the photo unrecognizable to mutual friends who were actually there or even to people who followed us both and had seen my wedding album. It wasn’t like she got said photos from our son. He wasn’t in possession of these pictures to give to her in the first place. Yet, lastly, of all the pictures she possessed, for her to choose the one of her son walking down MY wedding aisle was the weirdest of all… How many of my wedding photos did she have screenshotted and saved somewhere? All questions I’d never have answers to. With this new situation concerning my ex coming to pass, I’d be more confused than ever about who exactly I was dealing with. However, clarity would soon come when I least expected it.

Let’s go back a few years….

I remember the day when my husband bought his first condo. We were just starting to get really serious and it was something his ex-wife questioned their son relentlessly about. She thought he was buying it with me. One day, while picking our son up from school, her car stopped working in the lot and wouldn’t start. Not surprisingly, she called my husband for help. He called me and the first thing he said was…

Him: “Don’t be mad.”
Me: “Why would I be mad?”
Him: “[Son’s] mom called me because her car won’t start. She asked if I could come to pick them up.”
My stomach dropped. Did she plot this? Did she expect him to pick her up and take them back to HIS place? I knew the type of internal conflict this posed for him. If he left her up there with their son and declined her request, he was a horrible father. If he picked his son up and left her there to fend for herself, in his son’s eyes, he was a horrible man. I knew him. I knew his character. Everything I loved about him meant he had no choice but to go.
Me: “I don’t understand why you seem to be the only person she ever calls. You are NOT her husband anymore. She’s not your problem. I understand you feel you have to go, but don’t like it. She’s been terrorizing us for a year now and yet she expects you to help her? I hope you don’t plan on taking her back to your place. I’m not THAT understanding.”
Him: “ HELL Nah I’m not taking her back to my place. I’m just gonna drive them home. She can figure out how to get her car when she gets there. I just don’t want my son to have to wait outside for who knows how long while she figures it out. I know this makes you uncomfortable and I understand. Trust me, I don’t want to be stuck in a car with her for 45 mins either but I can’t go up there, pick him up and then have him watch me leave his mother there.”
I loved him and this was why. But I couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to exploit his heart.
Me: “I know but I don’t have to like it.”
Him: “I swear to you I don’t want anything to do with her. I’ll call you as soon as I drop them off. I promise. Nothing is going to happen.”
… and I believed him. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

He drove up there and took them all the way home. I got a call almost to the min, 45 mins later. He told me that while on the way she asked him if he was looking for a house and if he was looking for us. It really wasn’t her business but he told her the truth. Afterward, he said the ride was more or less quite. They didn’t talk the rest of the way. She leaned against the window and pretty much cried silent tears the whole way home. Their son was sleeping in the backseat.

Shortly after he moved into his condo we started spending weeks at a time together. He still worked at the fire department so he’d be gone for days at a time working. He gave me a key so I could spend days there even when he was at work. One morning, while he was still unpacking, he found a computer that had been in storage for a few years. I set it up for him, sat at the bar where I set it up and started poking around. I found a ton of pictures of his ex-wife. Nothing naughty. Solo pictures of her, Her and her friends… However, the way she was posing in some of the pictures lead me to believe he’d taken them. This was clearly a computer they use to share. I called him over…

Me: “Hey babe, come here.”
He walked over and kissed me on the cheek.
Him: “What’s up?”
Me: “Why are all of these still here?” I pointed at the numerous pictures. She was in the same outfit, in a living room of some sort, posing against a wall, on a chair, etc… seemingly posing for multiple shots. “Did you take all of these?”
Him: “Wow, I haven’t turned on this computer since before we split. I had no idea those were all there. No, her Step-Dad took those.”
Me: I turned and gave him a weird yet surprised look. “These??? Are you sure?” I pointed again at the pictures.
Him: He had this expression on his face. “Yea… I know, it’s weird.”
Me: “Why would she feel comfortable posing like that for her Step-Dad to take pictures? That’s so weird…”
Him: “Yea, they have a weird relationship.”
Me: “What do you mean?”

He went on to tell me some of the stories she had apparently told him over the years. Her Step-Dad use to touch her. Inappropriately. I was floored. I remember seeing this guy with a camera at some of their son’s sports activities. So, of course, my first question was did her mom know. She couldn’t possibly… Why else would this guy be allowed anywhere NEAR their son? But my husband told me she did know. He explained that it was the reason they had such a horrible relationship.

Me: “But does she believe her!?” I was so shocked and appalled.
Him: “I don’t know… I’m not even sure I believe her. She’s done so much and lied about so much over the years that I wonder if she made it all up.”
Hmmm… Even with all of my experiences and dealings with her up to this point, my first reaction was to believe her. Even so, I guess her lying about it all was possible. I thought about all the lies she’d told on and to ME personally. Still… Why would someone lie about that?

I never thought about it again until years later. There are some things she’s addressed and talked about publicly. However, the occurrence that would happen to make me think of this again, as far as I know, wasn’t. So I won’t go into detail or address it out of respect. Just know, I believe her.

Fast forward to the present time…

One more thing would happen to bring this thought to the forefront of my mind. A conversation with her one morning while I was at work. I can’t remember exactly why we’d been driven to have this particular conversation or how it led to what she said next, but it definitely stemmed from a disagreement we’d had and must’ve been trying to clear up. One heated exchange of words back and forth and she’d blurt out that she’d grown up being molested by her Step-Father. The admission silenced me. I didn’t know what to do with or how to respond to the information she’d just let out. I didn’t want to say that I’d already heard… I also didn’t want to seem unsympathetic. So I said nothing.

I will say this… If this admission wasn’t something she’d spoken of very publicly I wouldn’t be writing about it right now. I would never have said a word of her confession. But it is VERY public knowledge of her own doing so I share it to bring context to what I’m about to say next.

After the admission left her lips, so much more made sense to me. Her being triggered by the affection I showed her son, the pictures of he and I, and her fear of our close relationship. She never said as much but maybe it was subconscious and something she could never quite articulate. The trauma that comes with living through an experience like that goes deep. It can affect you consciously and subconsciously. Maybe her escape was a facade. If she could pretend, if just for a moment, to be anyone else but herself then maybe she didn’t have to be that hurt young girl who was left unprotected and abused. But of course, this is all speculation. I’m not a therapist. I’m not a psychologist and I’m definitely not a psychiatrist. It just makes sense to me.

The unfortunate part is had I known this from the beginning I would have tread more carefully with our son. I would have been more intentional about not triggering her. Hindsight is always 20/20. Her admission to me on the phone that day told me many things, one standing out from the rest. When people experience that type of trauma, it can break them in many ways. It can break their heart, it can break their spirit, it can break their will and it can also break their mind. I had to wonder… Which part of her did it break?