With this post, I'm going to look deep into what I consider the darkest period of my life, which is the first five months of 1993, when Chez and Joad lived with me in San Diego. It irritates me that I couldn't make sense of everything that was going on at the time (although I was able to attain some insight into what was happening with Chez during that period).
I guess the biggest issue was that we both had different ideas of what our lives were going to be like together. I expected her to be my companion in life. She expected me to do all the work related to raising Joad and she wouldn't have to lift a finger. When it became apparent early on that our expectations were never going to come close to reality, that was when the friction started.
Honestly, I was expecting the first few weeks to be like a kind of honeymoon for us (without the sex). We certainly had that the first night in the motel when we were driving through Arizona. I do wonder if I had gone ahead and made love with her that night if that would have been enough to keep the affection alive in our relationship. But I know I would have gotten very anxious and may not have been able to perform. She would have taken this as a form of rejection and I still would have ended up getting the cold shoulder from her as soon as we'd arrived in San Diego.
One of the main issues was that she made no effort to leave the house and make friends. She was frequently talking about all the good times she had with her friends in Roswell. (Oddly enough, virtually every story ended with someone getting arrested for something.) For her social needs, all she had was the telephone. All of the other people in the apartment complex were older, so she couldn't really make any friends there. She only ever had contact with the woman who lived next door. If Chez started yelling at Joad because he was crying, the neighbor would yell at Chez to keep quiet and Chez would yell back at her even louder and call her the b-word.
However, I don't think having connections with other people would have improved her attitude toward me. I was on the receiving end of so much of her rage. I later figured out that all the anger she unleashed on me was what she longed to do to Road when they were together. If she yelled at Road, he'd likely respond by slapping her upside her head. Knowing that this was going to happen probably forced her to keep from saying certain things out loud. For those times when she couldn't hold it in, she knew what was coming and would be prepared for it. Since she knew I would never, ever hit her, she didn't need to put any kind of filter in place and just let it all come out. All I could do was talk back to her, and if I did that, it made her even more mad. I think that she was only ever used to was being treated like crap by all the men in her life. When I didn't do that at first, she couldn't handle it. But if I stood up for myself when she was hurling insults my way, it seemed as if I was treating her like crap, like everybody else in her life.
But she did love me. And I don't think she liked being away from her family and friends because of her deep-rooted feelings for me. It was almost like I wasn't worth the sacrifice. I believe she really wanted to stop loving me. So much so, that she had to hurt me to make that happen. She wanted to hate me as much as she hated Road. She was probably hoping that if I called her the b-word or hit her, my spell over her would be broken and she could move on with her life. And when I didn't do that, it frustrated her even more because it meant she had to stay in love with me.
There was something that started to bother me after awhile. It was after I thought things over that I came to the conclusion that she was taking all the frustration and anger that she had for Road out on me, to the point that it became close to being physically abusive. I thought, "Wait, haven't the caseworkers at the battered women's shelter seen this hundreds of times? Cases in which the victim would start attacking loved ones who were trying to help her?" I remembered that during that entire month she was there, not one person from the shelter contacted me. They had my phone number. They should have warned me that something like this could happen and recommend I try to get her to seek professional help. Now, I'll admit I probably would have blown them off and told them Chez was going to be okay. But when all that bad stuff started going down, I would have gone, "Ohhhhhhh, this was what they were talking about." And I would have tried to get her help. And if she didn't listen to me, I could have gotten Kijd to talk her into going.
I think the reason they didn't tell me is because they were afraid I was going to back out of the deal after they shot up the red flags. All they were interested in was getting her out of the shelter so that they could accommodate the next victim that would be coming in. They should have taken that risk, and because they didn't, the state of Chez' mental health quickly deteriorated. And as caring as Kijd claimed she tried to be with her clients, she clearly didn't do enough.
And of course, that whole thing with Chez and Kijd. Essentially, she fell in love with her and had If I'd known that was going to happen, I would have run down to New Mexico right away to get Chez and Joad. That probably damaged our relationship more than Chez trying to punch me in the face. Chez felt like Kijd had stabbed her in the heart, so she had to stab me in my heart in return. Basically, I was taking punishment intended for two separate people.
But really, the one person to blame for all this is me. I saw all the red flags that indicated this was not going to work out and I chose to ignore them. When I look back on everything that happened, I wished I had placed a personal wager while I was driving from San Diego to Clovis to pick her up. As I mentioned before, I was anticipating a big hug from her when I first saw her. That didn't happen and I started having doubts. I should have said to myself, "If she gives me a big hug right away, everything's going to be okay. If she doesn't, turn around and leave." This would have been a good time to possess the Chalk of Destiny.
This isn't the end. There will be more tomorrow.
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