Bucyn

This is my experience.

My first husband was an army ranger, 2 tours of duty in Vietnam, 2 purple hearts, pathfinder, sniper, very good looking, dynamic. We did well for about 8 years, then the drinking kicked in and took him down and our lives became hell, chaos, drama, etc, etc, etc... You all know the routine.

I wanted nothing so much as peace and quiet, stability, NO DRAMA. We split in 1997 (Halloween, as a matter of fact). In 2002, I made acquaintance with a purchasing manager who had recently divorced from a legitimately crazy wife (either schizophrenia, or bi polar, or something horrible where for the last decade or so she spends most of her life in psychosis wandering the streets homeless, interspersed with brief periods of being Baker Acted). He had custody of two small children, and I had 3 kids older.

He wasn't good looking, in his mid forties he had jowls like a 65 year old, he had a face full of acne scars, a swollen nose, grey teeth (from tetracycline as a teen), etc... But he was nice, polite, good humored, laid back, a family man, stable, sensible, competent and no drama. There was nothing particularly interesting about his life, except maybe that he had been married to a crazy woman, and his experiences with her were quiet similar to my experiences with my XAH.

I enjoyed his company, we talked a lot, I appreciated his consideration and stability, and over time a spark grew. We lived together for a year and married. And within four days of the wedding, I wanted a divorce.

We got married on a cruise and about 18 members of our families were with us, including his brother and mother. And the problems started right away. He spent his days with his brother and mother, excluding me, told me "I get to see you all the time, I hardly get to see them", mommy wanted to have him at cocktails without me, so he LIED to me and said he wasn't going to go to pre dinner cocktails (because I'd said if he goes, I'd like to as well), and then when I realized he took his mommy instead of me, I arranged the next night that we'd meet in the cabin at 5:00 and go to pre dinner cocktails together. He stood me up. One night we went dancing and he started dancing with a strange woman, leaving me alone at the table. He did dance after dance (he said it was her birthday--but hey, it was our HONEY EFFING MOON!!!).

Mommy had played lots of games prior to the wedding (I don't feel welcomed, I'm not going on the wedding cruise. Ha, ha, just joking, of course I'm going. I don't think I should go, you have to promise to spend time alone with me or I won't go. Oh, I'd never miss your wedding. Maybe she shouldn't go, she didn't think she'd have any fun. Ugh...). XAH was torn about her pre wedding games and lots of phone calls went to her to beg her. I told him this wedding was about us, not her, and we discussed it. He was worried she'd ruin the honeymoon, and I thought he was probably right, but figured, that was her problem not ours. He said I could just avoid her and if she acted up I would just say nothing, but he said I could 'blast' her on the last night of the cruise if she was unbearable, but he'd appreciated if I'd just put up with her in the meantime. I said I intended to stay away from her. And that was our agreement.

However, on the cruise, mommy whined that I was being 'cold' to her, I wasn't paying enough attention to her, sob sob, and she martyred herself and complained to his brother, who had 'talks' with XAH, and then sent XAH to get me straightened out. XAH would meet me in the cabin and complain that mommy felt bad, her feelings were hurt, and EVERYONE agreed that I was avoiding her and being cold to her. He badgered me, ignored me, when he was with me he fretted about mommy (we walked to the Hemingway house on key west, and he was sullen because mommy wanted to come too--this was the only time I did anything alone with her).

Mommy was also having trouble with her grandchildren (they won't listen to meeeeeee) and bossed my children around. On the last day she was told to leave my kids alone. So what did she do? As soon as the first opportunity came, she made my kids babysit her grandchildren (something she'd been told SPECIFICALLY not to do anymore). I didn't blast her, but did yell at her just to LEAVE MY KIDS ALONE. Mommy was very upset and a neurotic mess and his brother overheard and they both ran to XAH to whine about how mean I was to mommy and instead of telling them that she had disregarded specific instructions regarding MY kids, and confessing that he had suggested I stay away from her and put up with her until the last night when I could 'blast' her, he joined in with them criticizing me.

We were planning to watch a magic show. He would barely talk to me, I didn't want to sit with his family--they were hostile and I was sick of them; they'd ruined my honeymoon. He didn't want to sit with my family because it wouldn't be fair. So I suggested we just sit alone together after all, IT WAS OUR HONEYMOON AND WE'D SPENT ALMOST NO TIME TOGETHER. He said, "If I sit with you my famiy will be upset." And he bought me a coke and ran out of the theater. His brother saw him and sprinted out after him.

I watched the magic show with tears running down my face. After it ended I went over to my sons' cabin to settle them in for the night before hunting down my 'husband' and figuring out how to solve this horrible problem. My kids' cabin was next to mommy's cabin and when I got there I saw a dress hanging there that mommy had forgotten to pack. I took that dress and marched it back to mommy's cabin and said thru gritted teeth: "Stop.Making. My. Kids. Responsible. For. Your. Problems." And I hung the dress on a closet door knob and marched out of her cabin.

The idiot followed me back into my cabin with the dress whining that she had forgotten to pack it and didn't know what to doooooooooo. I refused to look at her and said, "Carry it off the ship with you in the morning" again thru gritted teeth. But she whined over and over and over, "But I forgot to pack it, what do I doooooo?" I kept repeating: "Ask your son. Ask your son." Everytime I said that she got more and more frantic. The woman is fricking ******* crazy--as crazy as XAH's psychotic homeless ex.

Finally because I wouldn't 'help' her, she shrieked, "THEY ARE YOUR KIDS NOW" (the dress belonged to her granddaughter my stepdaughter) and smashed the dress into my face. Right into my nose, snapping my head backwards.

I was stunned, shocked, began to shake and didn't say anything just ran out of the cabin leaving my kids there. I started looking for my ex, but he was hiding out with his brother. This was at 8:30, at about 10:00 I saw his mommy walking the ship carrying the dress, dragging her 5, and 7 year old grandchildren behind her. I dodged into the shadows to avoid her. About 45 minutes later, I bumped into her still with the kids and said they needed to be in bed: stepdaughter had black circles under her eyes and stepson looked miserable. They looked at me, like 'please save me'. I thought I should just take them and put them to bed but decided against it because it would just cause more trouble with mommy, a scene in front of the kids, and make XAH and his brother madder at me. Mommy said, "They had a very fine nap this afternoon." And stalked off.

About 11 pm I found XAH. He was talking to strangers and I don't know where his brother was nowhere to be seen. I went to stand next to XAH. I could sense the anger coming off him. He ignored me. Pretended I wasn't there. The strangers kept looking at me puzzled. WHo's this woman, why is he ignoring her, does he know her, does she want something from us? Finally I turned on my heel and went to the elevators. I had decided that the marriage was over and when the ship docked I was going to get a lawyer and a divorce.

Just as the elevator doors closed on me, XAH jumped in too. He refused to talk to me and we went to a bar. I told him his mother hit me in the face. He didn't say: "Are you okay?" or "I'm sorry". He said, "She must have felt cornered" in a poor-little mommy voice (it was my fault you see). I told her that at this minute she was wandering the ship looking for him, carrying the dress in front of her, and dragging his children around, and had been doing it for that last 3 hours. Did he get up and rescue his kids? NOPE. He ordered another drink and sighed: "It just goes to show how neurotic she is." He also told me that his brother had said, "And I agree with him" that if I really loved my new husband I'd be nicer to his mother." This rubbed me the wrong way and I snapped, "If your mother loved YOU, she'd be nice to your bride." XAH looked shocked and said, "There is NO DOUBT my mother loves me".

Anyway, we worked out a solution; five rules for dealing with his mother, BOUNDARIES. He wanted to keep the marriage (probably because I had $109,000 in the bank, and he was living in a 30 year old rusted trailer in Margate FL), and I'd bought us a nice 5 bedroom house. He'd hidden his drinking from me, because he knew how I felt about my kids' father and alcoholism. But he drank vodka and gator ade almost every day when he was at home. On weekends he drank from the time he got up.

Mommy was sent back to Ohio (her apology: I'm sorry for everything I ever did since the day I was born, there, are you satisfied), and we tried to make our marriage work in FL. But he couldn't. Mommy whined nonstop, guilted him, blamed him, nagged him and he bullied me on her behalf. He wanted to leave me in FL our first Xmas to visit his family. He screamed at me, he was mean to my kids, I watched me a lot of times kick and smack his son, he lied about me to his family, on and on and on. It was the same crap as from my prior marriage--the only difference: I had upgraded from your basic alcoholic husband to a the deluxe model: an abusive alcoholic momma's boy.

Eventually, he shoved me into a refrigerator during a drunken rage, I called the police and he was removed from the house. He then did everythig he could to make the divorce as miserable as possible; stalked me, stalked my kid, cyberstalked me here; demanded I be removed from the house I bought, demanded alimony, demanded I pay his legal bills, etc... Finally, he lost his job and moved his drunken butt back to Ohio to live with his brother and be with his mommy and we got divorced.

He was not the nice quiet, stable, boring, good natured, man I thought he was. He'd pretended to get me (and my money), he lied, he manipulated.

I threw myself into therapy. Alanon f2f at night and during lunchhour, individual therapy, and another support group therapy. I had chosen 2 alcoholics.

In June of this year, I had to serve a FISA order to the Dir of Security for one of the major tourist industries here. We started talking; we got put on a joint project. We talked all the time. I'd been in the military; he had spent 20 years as a Navy Seal, working their CT spec. warfare group. He'd frickin' jump out of airplanes with bombs strapped to him to deliver them to remote areas of combat (I asked him, "Does your mother know what you were doing?" The thought of one of my kids doing that...ugh). After twenty years of that, he went into a private corporation. He thinks my job is more interesting than his; I think his is more glamorous than mine. He was what my first XAH could have been had he not self destructed via alcohol. And what's more I know my new friend does not have alcohol, drug, violence, financial or any other type of trouble in his past: he recently underwent a full scope TS/SCI background investigation.

The "nice guy" was not nice at all. He was horrible. He's crippled with codependency focusing on mental illness (his mother, his first wife, and his son who is another whole nightmare story).

I'm not saying all nice guys are nightmares; just my experience with one was. He lied and misrepresented himself. I felt groomed and 'handled' and manipulated. I'm sure my money and the lifestyle I could give him was a big attraction to him, and when he had that ring on my finger, and me trapped with financial entanglements, he showed his true alcoholic mommy-boy self and 'punished' me with abuse and humiliation and rejection and threats when I didn't get with the make-mommy-happy-all-the-time program.

Will this guy I'm hanging out with now be 'the one'? Who knows? I'm not looking for perfection, just sanity, character, and normalcy and someone who makes my heart leap and who thinks I'm worth it. It's fun now, exciting, delicious, just fun, fun, fun. We like each other. There's no hurry. My youngest graduates in June 2013, so there will be no thought of having a life together until then. And if we were still inclined, we'd live together for several years. There's no guarantee of anything, but six years of knowing someone well should leave no nasty surprises of alcoholism, cheating, gambling, abuse, neurosis or whatever. And in the meantime we're having FUN. My life now: just work and play--and I love my job, so it's just a good life right now.

My advice. Don't count on 'nice'; if you don't feel the spark, the nice is not enough. Go for someone who makes your heart leap. Nice can be faked, but a singing heart is a delight. (of course, a leaping heart can lead you astray too, but if you do your therapy work and give yourself a lot of time, you will probably be able to tease out the messed up ones from the decent ones).

If your gut is telling you that you may be being groomed or set up--follow your gut. I'm almost 50 years old, 158 lbs, mother of 3 college aged kids, a middle aged average woman, no glamor puss, sexy, exciting hot young babe. I never thought this would happen to me at this time of my life.

Wait for the right one; work on your innards and your life; and trust life will be kind to you. Don't tolerate the second rate in yourself or others.