Cris has taken a lover

July 1985

Cris has taken a lover. It hurts to know I wasn't enough.

It hurts to know if I had only not gotten pregnant none of this would have happened. It hurts to think that Cris and I were so much in love a year ago.

It hurts to have to share Cris with another. It hurts to let Cris go, the only thing that makes sense is that stupid cliche "If you love someone let them go. If they come back they're yours. If not, they never were."

It is awful having to go through a pregnancy neither of us planned - and that drove Cris apart so much he sought someone else as an escape.

I think sometimes of the request Cris had made, but I am sorry, I just couldn't kill someone just to make him happy. I will stoop incredibly low, but not that far. Now I will be alone, with three children - each of whom is loved less by their father in the order of their birth. When I met Cris, he was so confused (as I) and we needed each other. I loved him. I still love him and I suppose I always will love him. I wrote a poem during our early relationship about how he was everything I'd hoped for - he was and continues to be.

Why don't I meet up to him? It hurts.

But I am so happy he is still around. I wonder how much longer? I want him so bad, more than anyone will ever realize.

Of course now I cringe about this, but at the time, I was so lost. I was so hurt and confused. I was in an Aspergian free-fall into despair, anxiety and terror.

The fear of change prevented me from doing the correct thing - tossing him to the curb. He was not providing me any income. He was rarely home. I was the person that kept our life in order.

Before I was diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder, I wondered in shame why I had not let Cris go sooner than I did. I kept him, clung to him as if he were my safety net. This man, who during our marriage kept me a figurative prisoner. One day a week, Cris would allow me an hour to go to the library. That was it. Other than that, it was me and the children. Alone. I walked to the co-op and to the park with my children. I cooked and cleaned and read. Cris worked for 2-3 years, then in the fall of 1984, he quit his job, and enrolled in the University.

He was gone all day. Late, late, late into the night. He said it was to do studio work in the Art building, or to study, or to work... I don't know. I didn't question it. He took photographs of people I didn't know for his photography class. He said they were classmates. I didn't think anything of it. One day, he came home with ink drawings on his jeans - covering his leg - all the way up to his crotch. I did not recognize it as his "style". His "style" is all scritchy-scratchy short lines smashed together - like hesitant scratches to form the outline of an object. I draw in outlines - one continuous ink line. These decorations were circular, geometric, they were not his. I asked him about them. He said a classmate had drawn them. I was shocked - why would you let someone draw on your thigh? That is a bit personal, is it not? He said he hadn't thought of it that way.

My ex-husband was a sociopath. I didn't know this until very late in the "game". He is very good at finding women/people who are vulnerable and manipulating them to do his will. He watches. He pretends emotions. He acts the way he believes is expected at the moment. He cries at will. He is a strange man. This is a link to his creepy, walking on the line of pedophilic-hypersexual "art" website.  (Here is a bar of soap to wash your eyes off when you are done...) I have as little regard for his "artistic" abilities as I do for his "character".