Before reading the rest of this book and thinking, “He’s just a bitter, abusive man who is angry because he got caught,” please allow me to preface what is to come. First, I have never intentionally hurt anyone in my life. I have never struck anyone to hurt them. Like anyone else, I sometimes get angry, but I really don’t think I have an anger management issue. I can only recall getting extremely angry a handful of times in my life and never at an immediate family member besides the time Rita refused to allow me to see my children.
While I know for a fact that I’ve never abused anyone physically or verbally, there are, of course, many other ways a person can be abusive. All I can say about other forms of abuse is that I have never intended to abuse anyone in any way. I can’t control how other people feel or think, but it has never been my intent to make anyone, especially a family member, feel bad or abused. I have seen people be emotionally abused and/or financially trapped in a relationship they would like to end. I also see how people wind up staying in these relationships. In the end, I feel abuse basically comes down to trapping someone such that they feel it’s better to stay and be abused than to leave.
I can certainly see how Rita may have felt financially trapped in our marriage because she had become accustomed to a standard of living that she alone could not provide. This isn’t something I ever wanted or tried to make happen. I tried to get Rita to take classes or learn a trade for many years. I took an accounting class at a community college with her while I was in graduate school because she wouldn’t take it alone. Unfortunately, there were not many adult education opportunities around State College, but we did look into what it would take for Rita to become an LPN or a nursing assistant. I was hoping the shoe store we ran for several years would become something she could call her own and be proud of. Unfortunately, we didn’t foresee people buying children’s shoes online without trying them on.
I will allow you to decide if I’m a misogynist. I don’t think I am, and I don’t feel any animosity towards any particular group of people, including women. Sure there are some women that I don’t like, and you’ll read about them shortly. But I would say the percentage of women I dislike is probably much less than the percentage of men I dislike, both being tiny percentages. Although it may seem like I am blaming women for what happened, that is really just a coincidence as my ex-wife is a woman; her two attorneys were women, my three attorneys were women, and two of the four judges were women. Besides choosing women for my attorneys, I had no control over the other women involved. And I honestly really don’t blame them for what happens, besides maybe one of the judges.
I also do not blame drugs or alcohol for what happened. I have never used any illegal drugs, abused prescription drugs, or drunk enough alcohol to be considered drunk more than a handful of times. I dislike the taste of beer. Yes, all beer, even “good” beer. When I drink alcohol, I get extremely sleepy, and I will sometimes drink a glass of wine or a bottle of hard cider if I’ve been having trouble sleeping.