Sometimes—too often—I feel that my child and I are under house arrest for the crime of leaving my abusive husband, and that here we are held still to watch and feel what he is continuing to take from us.
He takes our things, breaks our memories and relationships, has taken all of my past certifications and licenses and my curriculum vitae from me, the materials I saved to sew each child a hug quilt, our dishes and cookware collected over years (each one a struggle to afford), my child’s computer, my child’s violin, my flute, my child’s artwork collected from age 1 to artist, my poems, Grandmother Evelyn’s velvet black dress, the book my child wrote and animated, every college textbook or book, every CD,…
The truck I rebuilt from dropping the fluids to replacing the engine and transmission after he took the brand new shiny one and left us stranded now again, the stiletto I had since 16 which I had bought at the Renaissance festival, my pointe slippers, my children’s first haircuts, the letter I wrote him but never sent, the dress and the silver belt I wore to our wedding which I had since I was 18 (before our wedding), every evening gown I ever found for $60 dollars to look better than his sister’s and mother-in-law who excluded me from shopping and salon parties when they invited us to events, my child’s diary, all of my college papers, my private lessons and lesson plans from 20 years of teaching, all of our photos, my computer and access to audible and word and Facebook accounts (and they don’t allow me back in to reset password because I am not on the same wifi or tower as before; YES I sent a photo of my id).
The latest thing he took…well, for years he has taken control of what happens to us, obeying no court order, ever, except show up to court… But the latest thing he took was our home.
He took our home after first taking everyone in it but my youngest child, and everything from it, and by several acts of fraud and even perjury by him and his mother, real estate fraud by his mother, violation of a Protective Order and violation of probate, he sold it and took all the money from it.
I’m supposed to let go, and I have, and I have again, and I have again.
Then I see a video where he purposely films my middle child climbing over a back fence, as if she should have to sneak in and out of a house and feel like she owes someone, like it’s a favor for her to just be allowed to live under a roof. I was made to feel like that. It took time, because I take responsibility for how I interpret things and how that makes me feel—but through time and repetition, and my desire to choose the very positive approach and just work hard to build my own independence=compliance, it worked. She is now suffering from the same perspective that allowed me to be abused to the point of check, re-check, re-check, and he now thinks checkmate.
Then there is no arrest, charge, or even a hearing on any of these matters, and no application for a written order of child support. There is only an empty echo as if I am coming to ask for a fight where none exists, when actually I struggled and cried and froze meals, laid out home-school lesson plans, argued, raised money that I cannot ask for again to come to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas for a jury trial in which I knew my ex would claim that I just turned from saint to sinner and tried to destroy him and everything he owned (which he claimed in court not to own but to belong to Mom or Dad, and I want to know how anyone can claim two opposing things in court and not be called on bs) and he would enjoy his right to not take the stand to answer for anything while he and his mother and my middle child ( the one he…,) have this attorney smear me for finally caving into a heap of mental exhaustion.
I’ve moved on from that exhaustion. We have moved on from that exhaustion, but our minds, bodies and souls should not have to just wait under arrest until he feels like being finished with us and his very public emotional, mental and financial abuse, which is very physical when I am walking in the heat with my child who has asthma and burns in the sun, of which he broadcasts a play-by-play on Facebook and Instagram Lives.
There are so MANY crimes documented and not charged, as if school cameras, a time-date stamp on school computers and sign in at the front don’t validate my claim of him going to the school, and cameras of him circling my work at night, and taking off, tires squealing toward the house where my children are and his later totaling that nice Denali we had just gotten months before, totaling it when he hit a vehicle within a couple of blocks of my work where he still was within an hour of me calling the police and locking the door at work….as if none of that is evidence of the events.
So then, I see the news channels announcing special outreach and additional funds to help programs which provide help in case of domestic violence or abuse. Then I read of the grants available to encourage such help, and I realize it wasn’t the issue the DA was taking on for any reason other than that grant monies were available.
This is civil. It is criminal. And I believe it is now both civil and criminal for McAllen, Pharr, Edinburg, Hidalgo County and the State of Texas, as well as for him, his mom, his dad, the Hidalgo County Clerk, and more. A person should not have to fight for their whole life for freedom, which is supposed to be inalienable from birth. Have we not yet understood this lesson? My dad said he had never seen anyone as enslaved as I. If that shames me, and I am trying everything I can to free myself and my children, to the extent of fleeing the state, shouldn’t it shame Texas?
