Sunday, November 22, 2009

Open Letter on Obsession (response to the Anonymous)

Dear Anonymous, thank you for your time reading my blog and posting a lovely comment. Your opinion is highly appreciated (I am not being sarcastic). I will not descend to your level and will respond in kind to the personal attack in your comment (please read here). In this blog, we stick to the facts and let the readers judge and decide.

You mentioned that I am obsessed with my husband's ex-wife. I am glad you mentioned this very disturbing mental disorder so we can explore it together. I am sure you posses an incredible amount of knowledge on the subject, being able to diagnose me with insanity and obsession having never met me personally but merely reading my blog. I happen to have a degree in Psychology, but I am not your shrink and professional ethics does do allow me to do diagnose you or my husband's ex-wife in public.

Obsession is defined in medical dictionary as: A recurrent and persistent idea, thought, or impulse to carry out an act that the person realizes its senselessness and struggles to resist it, and that the person cannot voluntarily suppress.

Am I obsessed with my husband’s ex-wife? Well, according this definition, I am not. My blog is not about her, but about how my life is affected by her. And this is, my dear readers, is unfortunately the reality I live in, not an obsessive thought.

Let's discuss some strange behavioral patterns for a minute. 

Let's say, someone were to block your car in a parking lot so they could get a closer look at you, would that be considered obsessive?  Perhaps not. However, if that person were your spouse's ex, would THAT be obsessive behavior? 

Would be in this context, my attempt to learn about her be a senseless or irrational thought, caused by obsession? Or maybe I am just curious about how she manages on a daily basis, without having ANY certainty about the future, making same mistakes again and again without attempt to reconcile.

Twice already, she was under foreclosure on the house she lives in. She was bankrupt and owes money to everyone who is and used to be her friends, plus unpaid bills to her own lawyers and credit card companies. She takes, Tzedaka money, for G-d sake, and yet she is ready to go for another 10 years of legal battles. I wonder would she shot herself, knowing that the bullet exiting her body will kill her ex-husband? 

Would a sane person (until she is properly observed and diagnosed professionally I don’t have a right to claim her insanity despite the evidence) sabotage her own life in order to prove a point?

Now about me and my intentions. 

The opposite of obsession is passion. And I am very passionate person. I am passionate about my life, about my work, about my future, about an amazing person that I wake up next to every morning. 

I am passionate about living my life and about spending my time effectively, and this is the reason I feel pain every time I see a waste of time and energy.

The fact that I invest (waste?) even more time writing a blog about my life of war and peace does not qualify as obsession. It is my way to tell the world my side of the story and to bring awareness to the problem that affects hundreds of families.

Yes, you are right, dear Anonymous, there are many sides to this story, and somewhere is also the truth. Unfortunately, my side (the second wife's) is often the one, that nobody cares about. And let me be blunt here, I equally don’t care about his or her stories. I don't blindly believe what I hear from people (even if it is my own husband) until I learn the documented facts that either dismiss or prove what I have heard. In my blog I tell stories the way I see them, based upon documents I read, observations I made and experiences I had. If you find my story inaccurate, you are more than welcome to comment constructively instead of calling me names.

As I said in my first blog, hearing her story would cause anyone to cry rivers of tears. I used to have angry arguments with my husband while defending her and her side (silly me!). Reading the poisonous court papers where she degrades her ex-husband (a.k.a. a father of her children) and witnessing her twisting the truth the way she sees fit, was an eye opening experience for me.

There are no winners in any divorce. Furthermore, I believe that each side is equally guilty of making serious mistakes causing grief to all involved parties. The key message of my blog is that we better learn from mistakes of others, since life is too short to make them all ourselves.

And a personal message for you, my dear Anonymous: You don't become a failure when you make mistakes, but when you don't learn from them, blaming your unfortunate choices on others.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

What is fair and what is not fair, who decides?

In today's world a signature on the paper does not worth more than the paper it is written on. My blog went to a vacation (sort of) for few reasons (see below), but now it seems that we are back (unfortunately) in full power.

In the mean time we had celebrated my step son's Bar Mitzva, sent my step daughter for the second year in Israel and wasted our time and energy (again) in useless negotiations with my husband's ex-wife. Who are we? My husband and I, the author of this blog.

Was the happy biological mother involved in any of the activities mentioned above? Let's see. She felt that it would be inappropriate for her to participate in her son's Bar Mitzva celebrations. We ended up paying the tuition for the second year in Israel (the mommy paid her part from child support money - which came also from our pockets). And negotiations? Well... Physically she was there, I saw her.  But, you tell me if anyone can enforce a signed agreement by the person who is not ready to let it go. So what if she signed?! Next day there are 5 "new" issues on the table that has to be resolved. And if we resolve these? She will find more... Same story again and again and again.

You know what our problem is - we are eternal optimists. We always see the best in other people and believe that they are going to be reasonable. We tend to forget that hate and vengeance will always override logic and reason.

Imagine this: this war is the only thing she lives for the last 6 years. She is addicted to this battle, like a gambler is addicted to his game. Despite how much she already had lost, she continues until she completely destroys herself and everything that is dear to her.

When first met my husband I could not comprehend his story. Why it takes so long to finish something so straight forward as a divorce? The realization came after I read in one of her recent papers to the Bais Din that she still calls him "my husband".

"WAKE UP!" I want to tell her, "HE GAVE YOU A GET 6 YEARS AGO. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE HIM HAPPY AND YOU BLEW IT. HE IS MINE NOW. BUT YOU STILL CANNOT LET HIM GO. YOU ARE DIVORCED, GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!"






One day she will wake up in her bed alone, deserted by everyone who once cared for her and she will cry to G-d so hard that her lungs will blow up: "Please, please, G-d I beg you, give me back all these years that I have spent on this battle. I had my opportunity to find my true love and build a new family. But I was so obsessed with my ex-husband that I wasted my best years trying to destroy and degrade him. He moved on, and has a family and he is happy, and I have nothing to live for and nobody will care if I die tomorrow!"