Author: BetterNow

Divorce papers? At work? I was in a state of shock but managed to get to my car and call my friend at work to let him know what happened. I was also able to call my boss who was very supportive at the time. As I drove away, I texted Hahna to see if we could talk and she said yes. I called her and pleaded with her not to do this. She let me know that when I had started the new job that past February and I was in Georgia while she was in Virginia, she realized she didn’t miss me. She told me she wanted primary joint custody and suggested I do not go for more. Other stuff was said but we agreed to discuss the divorce with the kids when she got back from Virginia.

I went home and called my father to let him know what was going on. I’m not ashamed to say that there were a ton of tears shed and a constant sick feeling. Sleep rarely came and I had no desire to eat. I had some good friends through work that offered support and tried to help me by bringing food. Those first few days were a complete fog.

Advice – I’m in an online support group with guys in various stages of divorce and I always encourage the guys in the beginning phase to get sleep. Tylenol PM, Melatonin, talk to their doctor, etc. A sleepless person is not thinking straight and they absolutely need to think straight to go through this process.

I was a bit freaked out by the divorce papers that said I had 30 days to respond to about 35 questions. I called multiple lawyers and most of them were out of the office for the next week and a half which meant I had a limited amount of time. I finally found one lawyer that had decent reviews that I thought would be good so I set up an appointment with him for later that week. Insight– The 35 questions are called “Interrogatories” and according to my first lawyer, there’s usually wiggle room in extending that 30 days as generally, the other side will grant you an extension.

A friend of mine had me over a few days later to watch some football. I had another call with Hahna while there that went well. She talked about wanting to co-parent, having me over for dinner with the kids. It was going to be a congenial post divorce world from the sound of that conversation. My naivety level was high.

The next day, I met with the lawyer. He thought that my story was very interesting and suspected something was going on that wasn’t on the up and up. He thought a PI might be a good idea so I researched around looking for one. He told me that the best I could do was to get 50/50 custody of the kids while that was the worst she could do. Insight – If you’re a dad and looking for a lawyer and you get one that says this to you, walk away. This indicates a lawyer that doesn’t want to fight for your rights as a father which is key in the divorce process as a father.

The next few days were a haze but somehow I got through them and moped through the day with very little sleep. Hahna was supposed to come back on New Year’s Day but ended up coming up with various reasons as to why she wasn’t coming back. She ended up taking the kids from Virginia directly to the cabin rental her Uncle was “paying” for. She had told me a few weeks prior that we needed to pay the $1,000 down on the cabin rental and her uncle would reimburse us. That never happened and was one of the many devious ways she used to siphon money from our accounts.

On January 2, 2019, I was watching UGA get their butts kicked by Texas in the bowl game. I decided I was going to file a long overdue moving damage claim on the Chromebook from our movers the prior year. As I opened it, I remembered that I’m the one who had set the login and password for it and that a few weeks prior, Hahna had tried using it with the cracked screen. I logged in and decided to go to Facebook and sure enough, Hahna was still logged into Facebook.

Although the prior six weeks had been miserable and I was still in shock from the sudden divorce, I wasn’t quite prepared for what I was seeing. On her Facebook Messenger were conversations with a guy that were quite personal and had started, on the app that is, a few days before I was served divorce papers. I called my buddy to tell him as I felt like my heart was about to explode in my chest. I spent the next hour or two scrolling through her messages she was sending to this guy and proceeded to take pictures of every single message for future reference. Tip – Although it is a painful process, capture as much documentation as you can.

It was clear something was going on with her and this guy and had been for a while. Despite all the misery of the prior six weeks, I never really thought she was cheating on me yet here in front of me were hundreds of messages that showed there was at best an emotional affair and at worst, a physical affair.

The day after Christmas, I went to work since Hahna was leaving that day on a road trip. The night before, I had checked her van over, making sure the tire pressure was okay, double-checking the battery (we’d had an issue with it a few weeks earlier,) etc. At work, I went ahead and started working on filing an insurance claim with USAA for the missing jewelry and safe box. I texted Hahna that I needed to discuss some things about the claim with her and she said she was busy. Now at this point, I’d given her multiple weeks to file the insurance claim and she did not so I figured I was doing her a favor and she could take the time to discuss it with me.

I called Hahna and we spent about 15 minutes discussing the claim and then she needed to get off as the doorbell rang. I let her know before she got off that I had put a security camera in the garage as that was a possible way the cleaners or painters had taken the jewelry and stuff out of the house. She told me she would call me back but never did which wasn’t too much of a surprise at this point. I summarized what we had discussed in an email and sent it to her.

After about an hour of not hearing from Hahna, I looked at the Arlo cameras to see what was going on. I saw her car battery had died and tried to call her multiple times and see what I could do to help. She texted me that she was mad as I should have replaced it weeks ago.

Flashback – A few weeks before, I was working a little later and Hahna told me she was having issues with her battery. I left work immediately, met her and the kids at Autozone and told her she could take my vehicle home and I’d stay until we figured out what was wrong. Autozone cleaned the terminals and checked the battery and the check showed it was fine and possibly just the corrosion was the problem.

Flashforward to the present and none of that mattered. She ended up having a neighbor jump her and went and bought a new one and continued to ignore my calls.

I also noted on the camera she was taking our dog with her rather than leave him with me. When I asked her about it she said she was going to keep it at the friend’s house she was staying at in Virginia. I’d later find out this was a lie as she found a kennel on the way to Virginia and left the dog there.

I talked to a friend at work about the situation and decided I would give her space during her time away. Looking back, I wish I would have given her the space a long time before and started getting my ducks in a row as we were obviously going downhill. I decided to do something for myself so I joined an online fitness program called Fit Father, ordered a bench and some Bowflex adjustable dumbbells, protein shakes and supplements. I had always been in decent shape but thought I could focus on getting even better to get my mind off things.

Around 8 pm, Hahna texted me that she was going to get a hotel which was an afterthought and another expense she hadn’t planned for. I offered to help her find one that was pet friendly but she said she’d already found one.

Two days after Christmas, I woke up, had a phenomenal workout and felt great for the first time in weeks. I went to work and saw a guy in the lobby with our security people, shot the breeze with him briefly and then proceeded to walk towards my office. Part way there, I realized I’d missed a call from one of our security managers. I called him to see what was going on. He told me that there was someone there to serve me papers. The first thought that went through my head was that one of my employees was suing me for something as some of them tended to be sue happy. Security gave me the number of the guy and I called him and told him I’d meet him outside.

I walked back to the lobby and went outside to meet the gentleman I’d spoken to on the phone. Lo and behold, the guy that I’d shot the breeze with earlier was the guy that was giving me my papers. He told me he was really sorry and handed them to me. I opened the papers up and saw that Hahna had filed for divorce for “cruel treatment” and at that moment, my world was turned upside down. I guess divorce was an option after all.

Our counseling session that was set up for the week before Christmas was approaching and Hahna told me she wanted to go on her own. My buddy thought that might be a good thing so I supported it. Later, I’d find out that she skipped the appointment and didn’t go. Not so good after all.

About three days before Christmas, she told me she wanted to go to Virginia (where we had moved from in early 2018) to see old friends, clear her head and figure out an approach with me. I asked her if divorce was an option (about the 4th time I’d asked it) and she said it was not. It was odd. Things were horrible and yet I couldn’t see the writing on the wall.

My younger brother flew in (he’d spent most of his adult Christmases with us) somewhere in there and I thought it would be a good opportunity to go on a date with Hahna. We went out for dinner but it felt odd. She was talking about her gym friends and I felt like I had no idea what was going on with her life. She spent a good amount of time on the phone texting one of her gym friends who was in labor pains. Insight – I’d later find out from my brother that he and Hahna had some drinks after we got home. She was already inebriated from the date and during the conversation with my brother, she asked him if he would take our dog and watch him if needed. He didn’t think much of it at the time. Later, it would come back to bite him.

Hahna had bought tickets for the Christmas lights at Rock Ranch for one night and told me I should take the kids and my little brother to it. I told her she should go and tried to convince her but she claimed she was busy. We went and had fun but I was distracted by things going on and was curious what was going on at the house. I had a camera in my office and found myself looking at it to see if anything was going on at the house. She eventually went into my office and angrily flipped the camera around so I couldn’t see anything.

On our way back from the ranch we were practicing Christmas carols to sing to Hahna when we got home to hopefully put her in the Christmas spirit. The kids were jacked up and my oldest was a bit ornery as any kid could sometimes be. I reached back at one point to grab his leg and get his attention and tell him to tighten it up. His leg was closer than I thought and it appeared that I slapped his leg, which wasn’t my intent. He was extremely upset about it and lost complete control of his emotions for the rest of the ride home.

When we got to the house, the younger two were ready to sing but my oldest was still upset. As we got out of the van, he was angry and I wanted to calm him down so he didn’t ruin our surprise for his mom. I put my arms around him and tried to hug him and talk to him but he was having none of it. He was fighting me so hard that I was afraid if I let him go, he’d fall. I gently put him to the ground and then he took off…down the hill and fell. He still seems to think I pushed him down which I found out later was egged on by Hahna. The other two excitedly went to the door to sing but Hahna wasn’t in the mood.

Christmas Eve and Day came and were uneventful but not good as there was no Christmas spirit in the house. Christmas had always been a festive time for us and it’s a shame that our last Christmas together was as bad as it was. I didn’t think there were enough gifts on Christmas Eve and went out and bought more which turned out to be overkill. The kids seemed to enjoy it though especially with their uncle there.

I ended up sending an email to Hahna who still wasn’t communicating with me about the state of the finances. She had told me earlier in the month we needed to pay $1000 for a cabin her uncle was renting for her and the kids towards the end of the month. He was going to reimburse us according to her. That money never came back into our accounts. Not that he didn’t hold up to his end of the bargain but because the money went to her which was put aside somewhere I didn’t have access to.

I reminded Hahna that I had planned on taking time off with the kids and how she was now going on a trip with them during my time off. I told her I would leave her alone on the trip but would keep her posted on the finances. I noted that again, I was the one working to provide while she was off on another memory making trip with the kids. That was pretty much the story of our marriage. I worked so she could do all the fun activities with the kids which is something I’d never advise a couple to do. It creates a huge imbalance in the relationship when one person is trying to make things work financially while the other isn’t interested and living in a Monopoly world without the bankruptcy option.

Despite what I thought was a good counseling session, we did not connect or talk more in-depth afterward. The fights about things began again primarily with my frustration being that she didn’t want to talk about anything and she continued to overspend. If having no spending conscience was an endorsable skill on LinkedIn, she’d be at an expert level. My job was to make the money and keep score while she found creative ways to spend it. If I had a nickel for every time she said “I got this on sale”, she’d have taken the accumulated nickels and found another sale to spend it on.

During this time period, we had multiple arguments, and yelling was often part of them. Unfortunately, this is how my kids remember our relationship although it was not always that way. In one instance, I opened the doors aggressively in our master bathroom (she was behind me) and the doorknobs went into the wall. She was in her closet one time and said something snarky to me and I hit our bedroom door flat-handed which was about 15 feet from where she was which left a small crack in the door. She would tell me that she was physically afraid of me despite me never being anywhere close to physically abusive to her. It helped her narrative though as she described me and I would later find pictures she had taken of the wall and door damage as proof of my “violent” tendencies. Insight – Although my frustration was justified, the yelling and other stuff weren’t. As a man, in particular, you’re subject to a high standard on dealing with crazy stuff and keeping control. Leading up to and even going through the divorce process, you have to maintain control as any loss of control will be amplified.

Somewhere in this time frame, my company (a large eyeglass manufacturer) had a sunglasses sale. I’d hit a few of them up in the past and brought home some amazingly good deals. I would typically set aside all the girls’ glasses for her to keep or give away and I’d keep the guys’ glasses which is what I did this time. I came home from work one day and found most of the glasses gone. Additionally, I found sunglasses from my personal stash in my closet gone. I called Hahna and she told me she had taken them and given them to people at the gym and that she had told me that. There was no discussion about her taking the glasses but this was one of many lies that were told to me during this period of time. Later, I’d see pictures of her and her personal trainer as he wore my sunglasses.

Hahna had stopped wearing her wedding rings in the fall and kept them in her closet. She would claim she had a rash on her fingers. I would look occasionally to see if she had begun wearing them. It was an odd habit but with the way things were going, I felt compelled to check. One day, I found the rings were gone as well as one of our lockboxes. When I asked Hahna about it, she told me that her jewelry must have been stolen. Hahna said she had painters in the house to quote painting the entire house (which I should have called BS on as that had never been discussed) and cleaners in the house (she was a stay at home mom, which kept her busy, but we’d had house cleaners most of our marriage). I told Hahna we needed to file an insurance claim but she would drag her feet on filing and I eventually would file it for her. She wasn’t overly concerned about it all which should have been another warning sign. We’re talking $15K in jewelry gone and she’s acting like it was no big deal.

At this point, my frustration had been growing and Hahna continued to not talk. If she wasn’t going to talk through things or try to get finances under control, I was going to do something about it. We’d often talked about going to a cash system and I decided to set something up as close as possible to it. I sat Hahna down and went through the budget and how I was going to set our accounts up differently. One account would have money for our fixed expenses (mortgage, insurance, etc.) and one would be for groceries, shopping etc. She was on board with it but unbeknownst to her, I set the new accounts up in my name only and switched my paychecks to hit those accounts. I knew if I gave her access to the money, she would just dip into those accounts. To make this process work, it meant we would stop using our credit cards and rely on debit cards only. I told her I was going to put a block on our credit cards so we didn’t use them which she agreed to. My plan was to deposit paychecks in the accounts in my name and then transfer the money over to our joint account to use towards discretionary spending. Insight – Once divorce papers are served, no changes are supposed to be made to any accounts. For the person that is going to file, they have time to make changes and do what they think serves them best financially. It was by the grace of God that I set my paychecks up to go into an account in my name. Had I not, Hahna would have drained our accounts.

Some time in that next week, Hahna ended up going to get a procedure done for our son and couldn’t pay the bill with her ATM (she had a problem with her debit card and the zip code is what we’d later find out) and couldn’t use the credit card because it was blocked as we had discussed. That led to a huge fight even though I unblocked it in a few minutes.

Things were falling apart all around me and despite the signs, I was clueless and still felt we were going to get things worked out. I was told repeatedly divorce was never an option and I never imagined it would happen to me. Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20. My Presentsight was about 20/1000.

Around the first of December, Hahna informed that her shoulder was hurting. She said she went to see her plastic surgeon as her implants (pre-marriage) were “impacted” which was causing the shoulder pain. She told me the doctor said she needed new implants which were going to cost $5,000. Even though we were over budget, I told her we could pull the money from savings and do the surgery if it meant helping her shoulder pain. Plus, who wouldn’t be happy with upgraded boobs?

She said she could have her dad take her to the surgery but I told her I would take the day off and do it. On the day of the surgery, I was going to take the kids to school and she was going to Uber to the hospital. In the middle of it all, she asked me if I had any preference on boob style. Kind of an odd time to ask and I told her I didn’t really care but whatever made her happy. She said she was leaning towards Halle Berry which as any boob aficionado knows is a good one to look like. Fun Fact: They don’t look as good as Halle’s.

I arrived at the facility where she was having the procedure done and proceeded to wait for her in the lobby. Her doctor came out after the procedure to give me an update. I asked him if this was going to help her shoulder out and he told me there was no medical reason to have the surgery. Huh? I was surprised and probably should have taken that as another warning but ignored it. Later, I went back to check on her and they gave me a packet of info, one of which said the CCs or ounces of the implants. I decided to look them up and see how “big” they were by doing some online research in incognito mode and holy Tawny Peaks were they big. Way too big in my opinion. 

As I drove Hahna home, I mentioned what the doctor had said regarding no medical need for the surgery. She said the doctor must be mistaken and she would check back in with him at her follow up. Over the next few days, I took care of her as much as I could and got the kids to and from school. She eventually went to her follow up and came back and told me how the doctor had been confused and noted the medical need for the surgery. Sure. Nothing helps shoulder pain like large boobs or so I learned from Dr. Feelgood.

Looking back on it all now, it would seem I had several inclinations that there was something fishy going on. The refusal to talk through issues, the new phone that was with her and locked and the boob job that was completely unnecessary. When you’re living in denial of serious marital issues and divorce is supposedly not an option, you can easily start to overlook the warning signs.

Eventually, when a lot of the things came out, Hahna switched her story from saying it was a medical necessity to saying that she deserved to have her boob job because she had breast fed and raised my three children. Some validity there and I probably would have been on board with that approach as well but the lie she told to get the procedure overshadowed whether she deserved it or not. I probably deserved hair plugs for all my hard work so that she could stay home with the kids but here I am 3 years later, bald still.

In our marriage, we had occasionally gone to sleep angry but never let it carry out more than one day. Not this time. Over the next week, Hahna proceeded to use psychological warfare she learned from her time living on military bases as a child. Joking of course but she was a master at it. I just wanted to talk through things and come to an agreement. She would agree to talk through things “later” and then refuse to talk to me when the time came. The stress was getting to me and I wasn’t sleeping well as this was the longest we’d ever gone without working things out. We would get the kids down and then I would ask to talk and she would say she was too tired or she would fall asleep in their beds.

One evening, I asked her if she was having an affair and she got very offended with me for having the audacity to ask her that. I didn’t really believe it but threw it out there in my frustration (teaser: she did). It became a big sticking point with her that would eventually come up in counseling.

Thanksgiving was approaching and some of my family was coming into town. I again asked her to discuss it but she wouldn’t. I told her I thought we should cancel my family coming in given how things were going but she said we should still do it. She eventually said let’s get through Thanksgiving and then we’ll talk. What’s that old line about Fool me once…Yeah, I was fooled multiple times so shame on me.

We got through Thanksgiving but she still wasn’t talking. She had never believed in budgeting limits and one day surprised me with news that she had gone out and bought a new phone as hers wasn’t working (teaser: it wasn’t and I have said non-working phone now).  She said she traded in the old phone to save some money on the new one. Sure you did. She used to leave her phone on the counters around the house and not have it on her half the time. In my paranoia about what was going on, I noticed she started carrying the phone with her at all times. I asked her what the code was for her new phone and she told me. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I got the phone and tried to enter the access code but it didn’t work. Of course if I called her on that, I would be the bad guy for trying to get on her phone but I was completely at my wits’ end and desperate to figure out what was going on.

I used to always pat her bottom when I walked by and one of the days I did it, she proceeded to tell me she didn’t like it when I did it. If I tried to hug her, she would only give me half hugs. Despite the fact I couldn’t access the phone the first time I tried, I was determined to try to see what was going on. I would go into whichever kid’s room she had fallen asleep in and see if I could get the phone. Several times she woke up in the process. She would later use this as fodder to tell her friends as to why she was physically afraid of me. This was an insane situation but I never came close to hurting her or touching her in anger yet suddenly I was a “threat” to her.

My work had an employee assistance program that offered a few sessions of free counseling. I finally got Hahna to agree to counseling which I set up for a few weeks out. The day before counseling, I came home from work early as I was exhausted from a lack of sleep. I discussed it with her and she told me she still loved me and asked me if having sex later that night would help with things. I of course said yes because what ailment does sex not cure. Later that evening, we had sex but it wasn’t the same and for some reason, it felt like she was having it with me for the last time (which it was).

My buddy had told me that the counseling would be good and that generally, counselors were pretty logical and it wouldn’t go over well with Hahna because of the logic. The session went well enough but Hahna dredged up a multitude of things from years in the past and still seemed a bit distant. Towards the end of the session, the counselor said that if we want to move forward, we have to forgive each other for the past. She had me apologize to Hahna for what I had done, which I did, although most of the things she brought up I had already apologized for when they happened. She had Hahna apologize for how she had handled the last few weeks of psychological stress which Hahna did. This was her reason for never going back to counseling as she had done no wrong in her opinion.

Fun fact: her father, who enabled a lot of her behavior, brought this topic up with me a few months later. How dare the counselor suggest his daughter apologize for not talking to me about issues?

Although Hahna told friends she had tried counseling with me for years and I had always refused, this was the only time we ever did counseling. I set up a follow up counseling session for a few weeks later. We left there that day with me thinking we were in a pretty good spot and things were going to get better. My ability to not read situations should be quite apparent by now and a good reason why I never played quarterback.

I will begin this by saying that sometime in the Fall, the ex, who I will from here on out refer to as Hahna, started working out at a Crossfit gym in the area. The membership was well outside our budget but her father was going to pay the bill until the end of the year and she was hoping to do some side work for the owner to defray the cost. It came with a few free personal training sessions but because Hahna was friends with the owner, she got as many personal training sessions as she wanted.

It was November and UGA was going to play Auburn. I had received my masters from Tennessee but Tennessee’s program had gone downhill so I jumped on the UGA bandwagon because of Hahna. I had watched most of their games for 12 years and Hahna generally did not watch. Hahna’s interest in UGA had increased since we’d moved back to Georgia. We had discussed earlier in the week about kicking back and relaxing on Saturday night and watching the game together and I was looking forward to it.

On Saturday morning, Hahna told me nonchalantly that she was going to go watch the first half of the football game with some friends of hers. It caught me off guard and I was a little hurt she was bailing on me. She was going to go watch the game until halftime and then come home. Um, sure. I’ll stay with the kids and you go out.

Hahna left and I got the kids down and proceeded to watch the game. The first half came and went and Hahna still wasn’t home nor had she texted or called. The game got over after 11 pm and I still hadn’t heard from her so I called her. She answered the phone and told me she was on the way home and I hung up as I was quite pissed. Not the most mature way to handle it but no communication for 3 hours and coming home an hour and a half later than planned seemed ridiculous.

On Sunday, I was still upset and feeling pretty justified in my anger regarding the prior evening. Experience should have told me that I was a career .000 batting average in situations where I thought I was 100% right but I ignored experience and went with my gut. We had plans to go watch an Atlanta United soccer game with the kids but I decided to go ahead and address it with her. I swung at what should have been at an easy pitch down the middle that turned into a changeup.

What proceed next was a large fight over a relatively small “issue”.  I was ticked about the previous day. She was ticked about 8 years of marital violations and brought up a litany of grievances against me. I couldn’t begin to list them all as I was blindsided by the whole ordeal.  The rest of the argument was mostly a blur as she threw haymaker after haymaker at me and all I could do was cover up and hope for no long term brain damage.

We called an unofficial truce in there somewhere and took the kids to the Atlanta United soccer. She was very distant and made no attempt to connect or make up during the day. I was still hurt but made the best of it. Hard to play the game when you’re thinking it’s Old Maid and she’s playing Russian Roulette.