Something important happened today and I can't write about it in my blog. A certain amount of anonymity is called for, and yet I need to process the events "out loud".
Let's see. My daughter made a big mistake in 1998 and married a very, very bad person. I did not find out how bad he was until they divorced, because I had begged her not to marry him and she didn't want me to find out I was right. She was 20, so that makes sense. She made excuses for him and covered for him for a long time, because she found out quickly that I actually WAS right. Wish it had been otherwise.
This man had been married before, and had three children by two other women who were still involved in his life almost daily because he wanted to be involved in his children's lives.
Sounds good, right? Well, no. He wanted to be involved because he saw them as his property. And he felt it was his job to teach them to respect him. And the way he did that was to terrorize them. My daughter, having been an only child of a single mother whose own father was violent and full of rage, didn't see anything unusual about what she saw and didn't interfere. We were living 200 miles apart during that time.
I won't go into detail, but it was serious. My daughter is a very strong person, and he beat her into submission. She had two children by then, and out of fear for their safety she finally told me and I took action. He was arrested, restraining orders were obtained, but still the Court gave him vistitation under the supervision of law enforcement. That remains the case now five years later. I think it is a good idea that we have these restraining orders, for his safety more than mine. I have dreamed of killing him more times than I care to admit.
The other women, we call them The Moms, have never stood up to him. The other three children, two girls and a boy, despise him. One of the girls is developmentally delayed and she has so much anger over what he has done to her that she cannot control herself and attempts to beat him up when she sees him. Once they were at a movie, she was behind him, and she took off her shoe and just started slamming him in the head. No one could restrain her. She is 13, tall and sturdily built.
But the serious problem is his son, now 15. I met him when he was three, and a more beautiful child I have never seen, outside my own immediate family, of course. Loving and caring, just a great kid. His mom was obsessed with the father, and was always in the wings, waiting for the marriage to fall apart so she could get him back. She is at the very least bipolar. I don't really know, but even now, when he is getting married again in a few weeks, she still thinks he will come back to her. She dangles the boy as bait.
Now mind you, I have witnessed, and reported him abusing the child. He beat him when he was eight because he did not say a sincere enough thank you to me. I had to restrain him, and I am twice his size, because the boy was unable to walk. The dad would throw the kid against the wall, knocking holes in the wall with his head. All of this was reported to the court when daughter and I got our restraining orders. The mom would not corroborate. He is scared to death of me because I am not afraid of him and he knows it.
My DGD10 hates him, doesn't want to ever go to the visits, but knows that she has to because the court says so. My daughter has her seeing a counselor to work through the abuse she witnessed when her parents were married and to document the truth about her feelings for him.
Remember I said one of the moms dangles her son as bait to get this man to love her? Well, the past week she sent him with the dad on his truck driving route. Today, they were about 30 miles away, en route home, when the dad called the mom to let her know that he had made a lot of progress in getting the boy to learn some respect.
Apparently, at a truck stop the dad went into the building and when he came back the boy was using the laptop, which is forbidden. So, he strangled the boy until he passed out. After the boy came to and took off running out of fear for his life, the dad called the mom with the proud fact that he had choked and strangled her son to teach him a lesson about respect.
Two hours later, after trying to figure out what to do, the Mom called my daughter and daughter told her to call the police. Mom didn't want to because it might jeopardize their imaginary future together. Daughter convinced her. He is now in jail, charged with felony child abuse.
I should also mention that as a result of lifelong abuse the child has dissociative personality disorder: He has three separate identities in what is erroneously called "split personality". He remembers what happened tonight, but he has no emotion about it at all. One of the other personalities keeps the emotions safe.
His mom is expressing sadness---that she now has no future with this man. She is concerned for and advocating for her son, yes. But she still wants this man to love her. After a lifetime of abuse, she sent him in a truck with his abuser for a week. I don't think she has a right to be called a Mom.
As I read this, I realize that this situation has been so a part of our lives that I have forgotten how much of a horror it is. I cannot even imagine how it sounds to people who are hearing it for the first time. And after the story of my sister, you all must think that I live in a looney bin.
Anyway, we are praying for the boy, and are praising God that he is safe tonight. I am pleading in prayer that this will finally be the thing that keeps him out of my girls' lives. He could get up to six years if it goes the distance. I would like to be left alone with him for 90 seconds with a machete. But I will settle for court ordered cessation of visitation.
I just had to say this out loud.
Then I decided to torture it to death by turning it into an Imperial sized Bonsai. I stripped bark. I removed all but a couple of limbs. I braided the trunks. I regularly stripped off ALL of its leaves. I even burnt part of it once. For about 14 years I tortured the tree. Yet in lived on and even produced mulberries to stain my patio furniture. Then came TORDON. I cut off a small branch and poured on the TORDON. I doused it around the base. Within a few days it was DYING!! 
Very cute!!!
I love it!
