One Thousand Words From A Life I Once Lived

He was positive that he had his next wife in the palm of his hand and threw it in my face how much better she was than I was, in every possible way …

He wasn’t INFJ.

I was.

So, although he virulently (and violently) hated me, and she despised me, I told him the truth.

Come to think of it, maybe it was because I was so hated and despised that I told him the truth.

‘She doesn’t want to marry you. She just wants a playmate for a while. You’re married and she knows it. You’re cheating on your wife with her and she knows that too. She won’t marry you.’

He argued, of course.

I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could.

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

The rest of my life depended on his response. If he believed the truth and didn’t divorce me so that he’d be free to marry her, to prove to her that he loved her more than he did me and our daughters and was serious about marrying her, my life might be short indeed. He’d already almost killed me more than once.

If he refused the truth, he might still kill me but I’d at least have a chance to be free for a while first. I could take the girls and run for it if he divorced me.

So … angry, sure I was lying in order to hurt him, off he went to file for divorce.

It didn’t take long. We didn’t have much of anything to speak of, I had things lined up for my return to college, and about the time the divorce came through so did the clearance for me and the girls to move into family housing on campus.

We had tried this route twice before.

Once the girls went with me for a summer school session and stayed part of that summer with me in my dorm, part of it with his family until I went and got them and kept them with me on campus.

The second time we had gotten an apartment off campus and for the first time I took out student loans as there was no way he was going to help in any way. That was the time I got myself into counseling, was reassured that indeed I was NOT the crazy woman he’d constantly drilled into my head that I was, and found encouragement in a support group for battered women.

Yeh.

That backfired in a big way when one of our group was murdered, along with her children, by her abuser. We knew where he was, as opposed to never being altogether sure where any of the rest of our men were at any given time. He was in jail; she was the only one of all of us who walked free and confident.

That was before we got some laws changed.

They never notified her when they turned him loose.

Convinced that I would be safer knowing where mine was than never being sure he wouldn’t sneak up on me and the girls and do the same, I went back to him. Again. At least I would know where he was.

So back I went.

Things had changed.

He told me when he found out I was right about his girlfriend. Right all the way down the line. Right all along.

He wanted us to use our divorce as a starting over point and I encouraged him to believe that it could be exactly that for us.

I did not tell him that this starting over point would be where our paths diverged and we would be starting over in different directions.

This time I had help.

This time I had a long term plan.

This time I had some community support.

This time when I left to go back to school, I wasn’t coming back.

Ever.

Not that I told him that.

Better safe than sorry.

Let him be on his best behavior while he tried to woo me back.

When he decided to leave the career that had gotten him nowhere, and the town that had not given him his proper due (especially when the truth finally came out) the girls and I had already found Steve and moved halfway across the country.

When he was on his way to pick up the girls for a visit I notified my local sheriff and was told to shoot him if he came to my door. Appalled, I said I couldn’t do that. ‘Well then, throw rocks at him before he gets to the door.’

He was afraid of the mountains, something deep and visceral in him was truly terrified of the mountains. At ten thousand feet up I was as safe from him as I could get.

For his part, he chose my go-to place, the college town I’d returned to in every emergency of my life, to resettle himself with the trophy bride who remained married to him just long enough for him to pay for her advanced education and to be able to take him for all he was worth when she left with someone her own age.

There is, of course, much more to this story than I’m putting down here. Perhaps one day I will tell the rest of the story but for the moment this will have to suffice.

My points here are several.

First, if an INFJ tells you a truth about someone, believe them even if you are convinced otherwise.

Second, when you need to do something you have to use all of the resources at your disposal, including your instincts. And subterfuge if need be.

Third, if laws need changing you have to do your bit to get them changed.

Fourth, believe this: ‘Vengeance is Mine saith the Lord.’ Call it karma if you want. Call it the Universe restoring Balance. Regardless of what label you choose, do your bit and then just step back.