I just wanted to express my appreciation to you for your book, A Promise To Ourselves. Since marrying my best friend in 2004, I have had one recurring dream. TO CHANGE THE LAWS THAT ALLOW WOMEN TO RUIN MEN. The irony…I am a woman.
Two weeks after I married my best friend, at the age of thirty-nine, my husband was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer that would inevitably be deemed terminal. I geared up for the battle that was ahead, determined to be there for him no matter what. Little did I know how difficult this would become. As soon as we married, my husband’s ex-wife began a vicious campaign against him that is still ongoing. She kept him, and me, in a courtroom, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees, which would inevitably become debt for me. She went through four attorneys that she never paid, sued me for damages, which was thankfully tossed out of court because I did nothing to her. And she prevented my husband from seeing his son. My husband got hit with the cancer diagnosis and the pain of never seeing his son again, all within the space of a few weeks. The only time my husband had visitation, the ex called the poor kid in the wee hours of the morning and spent two hours grilling him about every detail of what was in the house, what we ate, what we did, what we said. The next day was Christmas day. She called twenty-five times in half an hour. She was ordered by a court to leave us alone on visitation days, but she ignored it. When no one answered the phone, she showed up on our doorstep, disrupting my husband’s last Christmas with his son. The ex convinced her third attorney that my husband did not have cancer, that he was lying, which resulted in more pain and suffering for my husband. I was called a liar and forced to prove that my husband did have cancer. My husband had just undergone a life-threatening surgery that required a six month recovery time. The scar starts at his belly button, wraps around his ribcage, and ends on his back, just under his shoulder blade. This was no lightweight surgery. This was extreme stuff. Needless to say, I did not appreciate being called a liar when I could so easily prove that I was telling the truth. I had to bodily get my husband out of bed and take pictures to show our attorney the scars, and I had to make my husband’s medical records public fodder.
For five years, I was either in a courtroom or a hospital. The ex-wife stalked and harassed us relentlessly. We had no privacy at all. She interfered in every aspect of our lives and tried to disrupt our lives and my business. Meanwhile, I was doing everything I could to shield my husband from her abuse and the court abuses, trying to shield him during his cancer battle, while the court pummeled both of us into oblivion. Nine volumes sit in the local courthouse, all of them related to the ex-wife’s harassment. In thirty years of practice, our attorney had never seen anything like it.
Despite this woman’s constant lies, despite the ex-wife’s death threats, her attempts to extort money, her attempts to hide the fact that she herself was a drug addict, despite the harassment, and despite her psychotic behavior the judge awarded her a judgment that left my husband vulnerable and placed his health in jeopardy. Too overwhelmed to continue, I eventually lost my health food store, and went home to take care of my husband full-time during his final days on this earth. This court system is so cruel, that I was forced to watch my husband roll around on the floor for hours one night, in agony from the cancer, and STILL, all the attorneys involved, and the judge, expected my husband to appear in court the next day. The harassment and stress became so intense that I got to the point that I couldn’t answer my phone anymore, I couldn’t answer the front door, and I got chest pain if I had to go get the mail and open it, because every single day there was some form of court crap in that mailbox. Yet another letter reminding me that my life was being stripped from me one court document after another.
In the end, the judge made my husband look like a deadbeat who refused to uphold his obligations of spousal support. The judge completely ignored the cancer, did not care about the fact that my husband had no money, did not care about the cost of the medical bills, which were staggering. He expected my husband to pay her money, when he did not have a job, and he was literally dying. It is against the law for either party to have personal contact with the judge. I know that myself and my husband certainly had no personal contact with the judge, but I cannot say the same for the opposing party. The horrors brought on by this ex-wife and this corrupt court system would require a tome the size of Arkansas. So much damage was done.
THANK YOU for writing your book, speaking so candidly, and making this public. In the past five years, I have met men who are terrified of getting married, pilots making $200,000 a year living in their cars because all their income goes to an ex-wife, men who feel like there is no way out of the quagmire. I met men who are afraid to fall in love again. After the unjust way my husband and I were treated, without regard to our futures, I understand how these men feel.
In the past five years my spirit has been wrung from me, along with my trust in people, my faith in the legal system, and any hope of a future for myself. For five years, I kept a stranglehold on my emotions. I did everything my husband needed or wanted at the time, without regard to myself. I walked the straight and narrow path to try and ease the burden of stress for him. But when I started to read your book, it all came rushing out, and I was so overwhelmed with all of my own emotion, I ended up on the floor sobbing like a maniac. I had to go lock myself in the bathroom because I didn’t want my husband to get stressed and wonder what the hell was wrong with me. All these years, I kept it all stuffed down because I never wanted him to feel like I blamed him for my life being wrecked by all the court crap and the ex-wife. I only wanted him to feel loved, because he had been so UN-loved by this woman. I wanted him to know that all women are not that way, and that he could be cherished and respected.
These past five years have been so painful for me. Still, as hard as she tried to force us apart, I stayed at my husband’s side, to my own detriment. I worked my butt off to try and support him. I watched over him when he was in the hospital. I appeared in court and spoke for him. I took every burden I could upon myself to try and ease his burdens. (The cancer was burden enough.) My reputation and good name were slammed over and over again. I shut down, closed up, and lost pieces of my soul every day. Penniless, homeless, hopeless, with no one to turn to and literally nowhere to go. As his wife, I was forgotten. I got lost in the shuffle. My hopes and dreams for my future were crushed and destroyed. I was invisible in this whole process. But…there is one thing I can take with me. My personal integrity will be intact. When my husband escapes this world, I will be there holding his hand, easing his fears. He will know that someone on this earth loved him. I repeatedly told his attorney, “If my husband is in pain and needs me, and a court date happens to fall on that day, I will not be there. Because no judge on this earth is going to take me away from my husband at that critical time. They can come get me and put me in jail for contempt of court if they want to, but they better wait until after my husband draws his last breath.”
I want my husband’s last thoughts to be that he knew love, the love of a woman with integrity. Not the viciousness of that pathological maniac. No judge is going to take that away from me.
My husband is a good man. I will always resent the judge for making him look bad, when the truth of the matter was that cancer changed his earning status. That was something my husband had no control over. The judge ignored the law. He ruled in favor of the ex-wife no matter how pathological she acted. Despite the fact that the judge ruled against the law, we had no recourse. Once the gavel pounded, that was it.
When my husband was first diagnosed with the cancer, just two weeks after our marriage, I made a promise that I would one day take him to Arizona so he could see how full of stars was the Arizona night sky. This year I had to abandon that promise. I failed in providing for us financially. Weakened, beat down, stressed and tired, all I can do is take one day at a time. I think I will always feel guilty about never making that promise to him a reality. But the court system had other ideas, ideas that were far bigger than mine, and far too powerful for me to beat.
The legal system is not fair. Not by any means. Attorneys will drag things out just to earn more money themselves. And unless something changes, ex-wives will go on ruining men.
Men have the right to have a happy, healthy life beyond divorce. Men deserve fair treatment.
Mr. Baldwin, you have a purpose. Perhaps the pain you have endured, the courtroom drama, and all that, is for a higher purpose. That may not feel like much to you now, but I’m sure your book helped many people, as it did me. Thank you.
Best Wishes For A Happy Future.
C. D. Blizzard
For Everyone Else:
If you are going through a similar situation, the best course of action is to unite with others. A unified front is a stronger front. These unjust court situations with their corrupt practices need to be brought to attention. If possible, get the media involved. But understand that if you fight and fight hard, you must accept the consequences of that fight. Judges and attorneys do not bow to justice easily. Educate yourself about the laws governing your attorney’s actions, become informed about your rights as a client, and beware of bogus psychological evaluations.
I hope to add more links in the future, but here is a beginning: