Starting Over

In 1991 I moved to Portland, Oregon. I arrived in a small Honda Civic Wagon full of all the stuff that I had in life.  This was a life reset, a reality reboot, a clean slate. I had several goals including starting a business, buying a house, finding a healthy relationship to start a family of my own.  This all happened so very fast, within a year!  What seemed impossible actually happened.  I started a business doing leather & vinyl repair.  There was very little competition at the time and I established accounts at BMW, Lexus, Toyota and several used car lots.  The business was a huge success. 

 

I purchased a charming colonial house in SE Portland and started a vinyl repair business. One day my neighbor asked me to join them for a little gathering with a woman who wanted to meet me.  She invited me to go to the Oregon coast with her the next day.  Suddenly she brought up the subject of marriage and having kids.  Yeah, it happened really fast.  She didn't know if she could have kids since she had gone through childhood scarlet fever and her heart valve had been replaced.  She went to the doctor the next day to have a physical exam and asked the doctor if she was capable of carrying a child.  We both went in to get the results of the physical exam test. The doctor told us that she needed to have a child soon or else her bodily condition wouldn't support her to have another child.  So, together we decided to expedite this process and get things rolling with creating a kid. After all, this was one of my goals. The wedding would just need to wait.  Unfortunately, it became very clear there were some major complications in our relationship. Louann was deeply in debt even though she had a good income.  Looking back, this was a red flag that I chose to ignore. Turns out, she had gambling problems.  Her smoking habit was a clear indication that she had dependency issues.  Yet, I chose to ignore the warning signs until it was too late. Later I had to tell her that we needed to hold off on the relationship until we worked to resolve these issues. That's when she told me she was pregnant. 

There comes a time in life when we have to make a tough decision.  For me, this was that time.  A friend told me at this time that I should completely cut off the relationship with Louann because of the complicated issues.  There was a part of me that thought this might be a good option, to cut bait and quickly move along.  However, there was the prevailing part of me that said to take responsibility for my actions, take the deep dive and move forward with my goals.  Since there was now a child involved, this was a permanent deal in my mind. I felt I had no choice but to do the honorable thing now (or so I thought). I figured that if there were problems in the relationship we could together seek professional counseling.  Problem solved.  So, just 2 months into our very shallow relationship, we were married.  Soon after we bought the Fast Signs business in Vancouver, Wa.

I purchased the Fast Signs business from the proceeds from my Trim Craft business.  I made the decision to include Louann as a business partner in the sign business even though she made no investment. Instead, she promised to be the sales manager of the company.  I trusted her to do as she promised.   Relationships are built on trust, trust was the foundation of our partnership.  If trust is in short supply, the relationship suffers.  If both participants in that relationship don't have the same motivation and determination to work on it, the relationship becomes distorted or fails altogether.  The relationship I had with Louann lacked trust from the very start and we had no time to build on the little trust we had. The little trust we did have in each other quickly dried up and one of us decided this relationship wasn't worth saving. 

 

Louann and I had very little in common. We had no navigational skills in this relationship since we both came from dysfunctional families.  The way in which we handled finances was completely different.  We both took chances, but Louann's mindset was more in line with her compulsive gambling addiction (compulsive choices) which went crazy with the addition of her hormonal imbalance as a result of being pregnant.  Reality became very complicated as she felt her gambling was an investment that would pay off in time.   My financial plan was more calculated and predictable.  Most of the financial choices I made were good.  However, the big mistake I made was to start a partnership business with someone who was not trustworthy and then share a checking account with her.  Purchasing the sign business together, one that we both agreed to work on together as a partnership, then giving a gambling addict access to my money was the worst possible combination.  For me it added to the stress of the new living situation, the adjustment to her kids from a previous marriage, starting a new business and becoming a new landlord. Now becoming a new father.  I had no navigational skills or support in this new landscape.  Needless to say, there was lots of stuff on my plate and plenty of learning going on on my part.

 

  

Another Tangled Mess

Everyone deals with stress one way or another. The way I have learned to handle stress is to get outside and connect with nature.  Hiking, biking, skiing, paddling, windsurfing.  These activities cleanse my mind, they get me regulated and make me more functional and whole. The way Louann handled stress was to smoke more cigarettes and gamble more.  This activity caused a spike in her dopamine levels, bringing out her more functional side.  When I discovered that she was taking money from our shared bank account to support her compulsive gambling addiction, 

When Louann and I had purchased Fast Signs as a partnership, the plan was that Louann was to be the sales person and I was to be producing the signs. However, Louann never showed up for work when she had agreed to.  Instead, she went out and got a job working for Wilber Ellis, a fertilizer supply company.    I had a talk with her about it.  This is when things turned from bad to worse.  There was a situation when Louann became violent with me and insisted that I leave her house.  As I was leaving she would get angry and say “why are you leaving me?”  and then she would blame all the conflict on me.  She hired an attorney and threatened me. I had a nervous breakdown and Louann had convinced me that there was something wrong with me (gaslighting).  I wanted to get marriage counseling but Louann wouldn’t go.   I decided to  talk to a therapist for almost an hour about what was going on.  I asked him what can I do to fix this marriage?  There was a long silent pause.  The therapist knew exactly what was going on.  He could have strung me along for additional sessions, but no.   He assured me there was nothing I had done wrong, that I wasn’t the cause of this conflict.  He also made it clear the marriage was over and I needed to find a good attorney.  That was it, that’s all I needed to hear.

As I later learned, Louann had a game plan, she had been playing me all along. Indeed, it was all scripted in her playbook, all programmed.  It was ‘her way or the highway’ and she would not come clean about the gambling problem. She realized I couldn’t go along for the ride any longer since she was not being accountable. I was no longer going to supply her with what she wanted, I couldn’t go along to get along.  So now we reached the end of that road and I got discarded from Louann's toxic game. The mask came off as Louann now began a series of attacks on my character (more gaslighting). She claimed that I was just like my dad, that I was the problem in the marriage. The resulting mistrust and conflict between us brought the relationship to an end just 8 months into our marriage.  Louann suddenly decided to file for divorce.  Together with her attorney, they were demanding that Louann acquire ownership of my house, my truck and full custody of my daughter along with my child support.  I later discovered that Louann had also started a relationship with another man, the manager she had met at Wilber Ellis where she got her job.  He was very well off.  It became very clear that their goal was to transfer all of Louann's debts to me, these were the debts from Louann's gambling habit. They threw me under the bus and wanted to use me as their scapegoat.  Figuring I had no family support, no friends to help out, this would be easy for Louann.  Yes, I hired an attorney.  As happens in these kinds of divorces, nobody really wins.  The attorneys make their money and the judge decides the future of the lives of everyone involved.  As it all turned out, the judge was very good and Louann didn't get my house, no, she also didn't get my truck, and not as much child support as she had asked for.  I received more visitation with my daughter than I had asked for.  So, in fact, this was a great victory for me!  The sign business got sold so I didn't need to declare bankruptcy.  In the end, I didn’t allow the very evil intention by my former partner to lead me into a place of bitterness, despair and resentment.   I took control and moved on.

Getting Untangled

 At this point I just focussed on establishing a clean break from someone who was extremely toxic in my life. It was all about survival and recovery, gaining my freedom back, establishing healthy boundaries. As always, I had no drug addictions, no alcohol abuse, no violence, no secrets, no lies, no deceptions and no crazy drama. I was now free from someone who tried to bamboozle me, someone with codependency issues, for that I was thankful. I restored my free agency and autonomy while taking responsibility for making a very bad choice in finding a partner.  I now experienced a release!  Life was now so very good and I was so very thankful for all things!