Personal Struggle — Part 7
My son and I in 2003.
Part 7:
I live with a lot of guilt. A lot of guilt for what I did and for what I didn’t to, for what I could and what I couldn’t do. I’m guilty for not running away from my ex as soon as my baby was born. I’m guilty for not protecting him from that monster. I’m guilty for not realizing what was happening right away. I’m guilty for realizing everything too late.
I didn’t even get to (more like couldn’t really bare to) write in my previous posts about all the sexual abuse and sexual perversions of my ex. One of the reasons I got to be suicidal while living with him was the realization that my ex was a perv who wasn’t sexually attracted to me.
With a woman, he is only interested in engaging in degrading sexual acts, most of which only professional sex workers are willing to accommodate for $$$. Otherwise, he’s more into men. And boys.
He himself was sexually molested as a child by both men and women back in Chișinău where he’s from. He’s actually quite proud of some of these stories such as the one involving his piano teacher.
I knew that he was cheating on me with questionable people. After all, he did give me an STD right after I gave birth. He even had the nerve to try to convince me that I got it from the hospital.
I also knew that he was closeted. He had a close buddy, a small group of buddies actually. All Russian speakers who liked to meet up at the sauna for the “boys night out.” After every Sauna Sunday, he’d come home and complain of anorectal discomforts for days. His buddy was also married at the time to a woman who is a well known dentist from a family of prominent dentists in San Francisco.
We used to be very close with that couple. I remember how the wife would call me and say: “I think they are f$cking again!” and we would joke about it. I mean, we all knew.
By the time I was filing for divorce that poor girl from Boston who was the last woman he had any real feelings for, suddenly died in her 30s leaving behind a small baby who was about the same age as my son. She wasn’t married. People didn’t know who the father of the child was. I’m pretty sure it was my ex. I feel really bad for that girl. I don’t quite know why she died. I think I’ve heard someone say she had cancer. Maybe she just got tired of waiting for him. She waited for so many years.
I found out much later that my ex was very distraught when he found out about it and that he wanted to adopt that baby who was very likely his son. At the same time, he was about to get into one of the most epic legal battles with me. He could not afford to publicly come out about this affair and to admit to having a love child. It would not have been a good look for him. The baby ended up in foster care. I don’t know what happened to him after that. It’s very sad.
And still, that baby was endlessly more lucky than my baby who got to experience unbelievable cruelty and abuse by this monster. I’m very guilty for not being able to do anything about it. I also lived in fear. In fear that if I was to come out with such disturbing information, I would not only lose my custody, but also be put into some psychiatric ward.
Today, I can’t apologize to my son enough. I can’t ask for enough forgiveness. I didn’t do enough. I should have run away with my child to Mexico and then maybe somewhere else. It would certainly be risky and I would have been banned from coming back to the U.S. after that, but it would still be worth it and better than watching my son get completely destroyed every single day.
I was expecting and hoping that my parents would help us escape that monster. Initially, my dad had every opportunity to pay him off to let me go. My dad could have easily taken me back to Moscow. Except, he didn’t want to. It was one of the most devastating moments for me. My parents were turned against me. They sided with my ex and they believed that I had a “sick” child and none of them wanted to deal with that.
I remember my mom telling me to get back together with my ex because now I was not only damaged goods, I was damaged goods with a “sicko” autistic child. I just turned 24 and she told me: “Who’s gonna want you now? You have a sick child!” Unbelievable, right? She was trying to tell me that my life was completely over at 24.
I’m still thankful to my parents for not leaving me out on the street, and for paying for my legal expenses, and for providing us with financial support. Yet, they really did stab me in the back with that one and it’s hard to get over that.
I was left all alone. Everyone turned against me. I felt like I was losing my sanity. I saw and I knew that my son was fine. He was scared, he was terrified, he was anxious, he had A LOT of PTSD, but he wasn’t sick. He was a normal kid who wanted to have a regular childhood. He had a lot of tantrums, but what toddler doesn’t? Do you need to label every 2 year old who tantrums autistic?
People like my ex are very skillful at weaving their spells around people by bending the truth and perverting reality. They achieve it by using a little bit of truth that your brain recognizes and focused on and then they deliver the rest of it, the 99% of bullshit that all of a sudden starts making sense and sounds totally reasonable. And just like that, you are no longer in touch with reality and your perception becomes skewed and perverted.
The next couple of years were very dark for me. I lost my first lawsuit and was slapped with a 50/50 custody arrangement. Every week was split up and my poor kid had to switch houses every few days starting at 2 years old. We alternated weekends and my heart sank every time I had to drop him off at my ex’s place. One should never have kids with pervs and psychos.
The drop offs were always very emotional and my kid would cry every time I had to leave him with my ex. One time during one of such drop-off, he was crying more than usual and was begging for me to stay. I was already sitting in a taxi with this douchebag that I started dating. We were on our way to the airport to fly to Vegas for the weekend. A part of me wanted to get out of the car and take my kid home. I should have done that, but I didn’t. I am deeply ashamed for myself for that moment. I couldn’t stop crying and my new bf got me a whole bottle of amaretto to drink on the way to SFO. I don’t really remember how I got to Vegas and what I did there. I was drunk the whole time.
When I picked my son up after that trip, he was not the same. He was very withdrawn. He did not want to communicate. I could tell that something terrible happened. But what could a 3 year old tell ? And what could I do when I was tied up with court orders?
To be continued …