Broken Man by Douglas Goff My Worst Fear Writing Contest contest entry |
This is becoming all too familiar territory. Writing a difficult and personal piece. Then struggling with myself to post it with tremendous angst and high anxiety. Eventually, I find a contest it fits into and I post it. Immediately, I have a moment of terrible post-posting regret. Yet, the next day I always feel relieved. So here goes everything. In June of 2010, it was all over. Sixteen years of marriage ended with a St Clair County court document. It had taken fourteen months and thousands of dollars to end the union. The years had not been all bad. I gained three daughters, Alexis, Cierra, and Celeste from the failed relationship. Not that the end wasn’t contentious. Bitter in fact. My ex-wife had cheated on me with another man, while carrying my child in her belly. Her relationship with the other man had not lasted days, or even months, but for years. She wasn’t even sure whose baby she was carrying at one point. The pain was fierce. Now the danger in writing a piece like this is that it could easily slip into a one-sided bashing of the other party. I do not want that, but I must lay out some ground work. My normal work shifts in California were 10 hours, but being in a dynamic law enforcement environment, it was not unusual for me to work doubles and even triples. The longest shift I can remember working was 42 hours when we had five principal conspirators to charge and ten material witnesses. So, my ex was not totally to blame for stepping out. Still, the only reason I have ever been given for the infidelity to this day was that I was boring. I guess I was. Being shot at and having knives pulled on me lent itself to my desire for peace, quiet, and relaxation at home. Upon divorce, my daughters would quite often ask me why the marriage had failed. I simply told them their mother and I had grown apart. I never told them about my ex’s infidelity. Even to this day. (They are 27, 19, and 18.) My daughters often complained that I had all the money and their mom had none. Of course, they were unaware that she received nearly $300,000 in total (not including child support) from our divorce which she spent on plastic surgeries and trips out of the country. During the divorce my ex told me that she would never work another day in her life. To date, she has testified in court that she has not worked a day since our divorce. On the other hand, I have worked three to four jobs at a time to make ends meet. For several years I worked every holiday and weekend to adjust to the court ordered schedule. I did that for my girls. Eventually, I received full custody of Cierra and Celeste. At that time Alexis was married and moved out of the house. Since I had full custody of Cierra and Celeste, my ex was ordered to pay child support but declined. I refused to request a warrant for her arrest as I did not want to put the girls’ mother in jail. The girls were very aware of their mother’s lack of mothering. In 2019 my ex was diagnosed with a non-cancerous brain tumor and the court decided that she no longer needed to pay child support, which changed nothing because she was already not paying and was behind thousands of dollars. In order to get social security for her tumor, she had to pay me a rather large lump sum of back support (remember in court she claims she doesn’t work). Her paying me upset my daughters. In 2021, the youngest, Celeste, moved in with her mother at 15. A year later, Cierra graduated high school and moved to her mother’s home. I was aware that daughter Alexis had been instrumental in prodding and pushing the girls to move out. I let it slide. So, I had completely expected my ex to file for child support for Celeste but she told me that if I helped pay my daughter’s expenses she would not. I thought maybe this was because of all I had done for Alexis. I paid for two years of her college, helped pay for some wedding expenses, and covered her honeymoon cruise to two countries. I also bought her a Ford Ranger to get to college and then a newer $13,000 Chevy Impala which she is still driving to this day. As far as Cierra and Celeste goes, I started covering medical expenses, glasses and contacts, and took them both clothes shopping on more than one occasion. I also paid for Cierra’s first semester in college. I gave her a newer Chevrolet RallySport worth $14,000 for her to get back and forth to college, knowing full well that it would be sitting in my ex’s driveway. I’m not bragging, I just need you to understand that I was bending over backwards for the girls. In 2023, I received court papers for a support hearing. My ex was asking for back support to 2021, control of both Cierra and Celeste’s college funds, and support until Celeste graduated high school, even though I had raised them for over four years without a dime from her. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I had been expecting it. I was always waiting for the hammer to fall. What I found on page two of the document, I didn’t expect. Listed as willing to testify against me in court were Alexis, Cierra and Alexis’ husband, Brian. Testify to what!? I had paid and was paying for college for both of these girls and the two of them were driving around in cars I paid for with my hard earned money. By hard earned, I mean I had been nearly killed on the job on numerous occasions. A few months before I retired, I was in a knockdown dragout fight with a felon and ended up in the hospital. This money represented years of stress. I would like to now tell you that I stiff upper-lipped this and calmly resolved it, but that didn’t happen. I panicked. I freaked. I jumped in my Silverado truck and drove the backroads which usually calms my soul. It didn’t. I had to pull over because a terrible tingling blindness struck me. I grabbed my phone to dial 911, thinking I was having a stroke, but could not even see well enough to dial. It took a few minutes to realize that I was having a blinding migraine, which I had not had since retiring four years ago. Good news, I wasn’t dying. I texted the girls that if they were going to testify against me, then I didn’t want to hear from them again. It was a rash angry mistake. There has been no contact between the two older girls and me for months. Through relatives, I have learned that they are angry and blame me for the altercation. I was told by Celeste, the daughter that I speak with, that they said there will be no reconciliation until I seek them out and apologize. She told me that their mother also told them that I am a ‘serial cheater’. This hurt as I was the one who was cheated on. The courts had awarded my ex a large monthly sum for Celeste for a year which I am using Ciera’s college fund to pay. (Celeste is 18 but still in high school.) I now refuse to pay anything other than the support payments. I’m already working four jobs in retirement and any further would probably send me to an early grave. I love my daughters but am disgusted by this whole affair. I have learned that NOBODY can hurt you like your kids can. Alexis was very close to me when she was younger and Cierra was my buddy throughout her high school years. I felt like I was going to be closer to her than any of my other children. Heartbreaking. It’s cliche, but even the mafia knows you don’t testify against family. I have sought out advice from my friends and my pastors and they all agree that my girls need to learn that you don’t treat family like that, even if it’s the last lesson I teach them. Unfortunately it looks like it just might be. Several months passed before I reached out and requested to sit down to discuss the matter with them. That was in January. I have recently been told that Cierra and Alexis want nothing to do with me. I really don’t understand. I was a good dad. I refused to speak ill of their mother and even insisted they go there when initially they didn’t want to. We took trips to Disney World, Cedar Point, Nashville, and such. I put them in soccer, dance, and various other activities such as Daddy/Daughter dances. Adversely, my three youngest children from a second marriage think I hang the moon. I am not claiming that I was a perfect father. I worked a lot. I made the three oldest attend church when they hated it. They had chores. These are things they complained about because they did not have to deal with those issues at their mother’s house. I had no good example of how to be a daddy. My father wanted, and still wants, nothing to do with me. My stepfather was everything a daddy shouldn’t be. So I learned everything on the fly and with trial and error. I thought I was taking the high road while they grew up. All the while, I was being verbally destroyed by my ex, the girls being constantly manipulated against me. Like Chinese water torture. A constant drip, drip, drip throughout the years. So, I am seeking your kind advice on how to fix this as it has been over a year now. I am having trouble sleeping and I find myself growing bitter. My greatest fear is that I have lost my two oldest daughters for good.
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Douglas Goff
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