• Our Son’s Name on the Wall
  
  • I remember we bought ceramic or wooden letters that spelled our son’s name that could be painted and nailed onto the wall. I remember spending a couple hours, proudly painting them and then nailing them onto his bedroom wall.
    
  • 5 days after Mother’s Day, 2007, those letters were removed from the wall.
    
  • I remember finally coming home that night, and seeing that blank wall. All the blood rushed out of my face. As I stared at my son’s totally empty room, beautifully painted with the meticulously painted brown and turquoise stripes Sara and I spent so much time on several weeks before working on, I dropped to my knees. I couldn’t believe how mean she could suddenly be to me.
    
    
  • I had absolutely NO WARNING that she was planning to suddenly abandon me. Whereas MOST WIVES would have given their husbands, especially one was NEVER ABUSIVE to her, some kind of warning, she failed to do so.
    
  • I was sucker punched.

She Deprived Me of My First Father’s Day

Even though MOHHHHHHST PEEEEPLE who had never been physically or emotionally abused by their future ex, or had EVER witnessed him be nothing but a wonderful father to our son, Austin, would have had no problem ensuring that said father would be able to spend his first Father’s Day with him. Strangely, such was not the case for Sara.

Father’s Day 2007 was going to be my very first one. She and I were separated and living under court order arrangements that had been set. She was set to have full physical custody and we both had joint legal custody. Since our son was still an infant, my “parenting time” arrangements were limited to a couple hours on Tuesday and Thursday nights and 3 hours on Saturdays. (I don’t remember off-hand the specifics). The Saturday before Father’s Day that year, it was a nice, sunny day in Eden Prairie, MN, and I was walking the baby in a stroller to meet her at the library which was just half a mile from the Stratton house. Since tomorrow was Father’s Day, I just naturally assumed that, even though the court order said nothing about there being exceptions to the bare minimum allowances, she seemed to understand the order as setting both the minimum AND maximum allowances. In other words, she seemed to think that whatever the court order said, NO DEVIATION would be acceptable.

At least, that’s what I thought at the time. When we approached each other for the exchange, I naively asked, “So, since tomorrow is Father’s Day, what’s the schedule?” I’ll never forget her stone cold glare and utterly cruel response, “I think we should just stick by the court order.” I could instantly feel the blood rush out of my face. I had planned to have a wonderful, peaceful first Father’s Day with my first child ever. I assumed that that was her plan too. Alas, it wasn’t. I could see the thrill in her eyes at how much she pain she was causing me. She had all the power and control she needed behind her to punish me for my crime of embarrassing her. Somehow, in her sick twisted mind of embarrassing her in front of her friends and family was worth depriving me and her own son of being able to spend their first Father’s Day together.

I spent the next two hours bawling my eyes out at the library in the children’s section, in total disbelief, “How could someone I thought I knew, become so evil?” — I was too naive to never notice the danger signs before.

She Lied to a Pastor in order to help her abandon me and our house

On Mother’s Day, 2007, my parents happened to be in town visiting. They had no idea that she and I were having marital difficulties. They WERE suspicious about one thing, though, and that was why she had requested that they bring back the big shag rug that we were storing over at their house in Rockford, Illinois, a request I had no knowledge of either. — The answer to that didn’t become obvious until only a few days later.

It was Sunday morning, obviously. I was so eager to make my wife’s very first Mother’s Day special. I had just bought an expensive, and engraved jewelry box for her that included a little picture frame inside when it was opened up. I knew she would love it. My plan was to surprise her with it a picture of our son inside of it wearing one of her favorite outfits of his. On the weekends, I usually liked to let her sleep in. So, I would go in and wake up the baby, change his diaper, and put his clothes on, and even feed him. The same was true of that day. Since my parents were there, and since they were early risers anyway, I had my mom help me take some candid shots of Austin that could be printed and put in the frame. I was able to find the perfect one. It was one of him with his little arms outstretched and smiling a toothless smile. He looked so happy, and I thought she would appreciate a gift where every morning, while she was getting ready for the day, no matter what, she would be welcomed by her happy, smiling baby son.

Later that day, I was hoping and even expecting, that she would be excited about getting together with her parents and having a little celebration. Her mom, my mom, and her. Instead, she acted so aloof. I felt like I had to beg her to get her parents to come over to our place. That should have been a huge clue! In fact, when they did, neither Ron or Beth seemed happy to come over. Even when I gave Beth the special gift that I specifically chose for her, she didn’t give me her usual, and exuberant thank you like she used to. Instead, I got a half- hearted smile and pathetic sounding “Thank you.” — The awkwardness in the room could be cut by a knife.

After my parents went back home to Rockford, I thought the week was proceeding as normal. Every morning, around 7 or 7:30 I would wake up, take a shower, and walk over to our walk-in closet to get dressed. Well, on the Thursday following Mother’s Day, 2007, I remember going through my same routine. Sara, as usual, was still in bed, but, I noticed her watching me, like she was paying special attention. I didn’t think anything of that at the time. I kept my ties neatly organized on a tie hanger, as I reached to find the perfect one for the day, I noticed glance and then quickly turning away. I gather that she was ensuring that her plan would pan out. I was too stupid and naive at the time to pick up on such cues.

Nevertheless, I caught the bus to go to work at Target downtown as usual.

[I NEED TO FINISH THIS STORY LATER! THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!! THIS IS A JAW-DROPPING STORY!!
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She Was Very Verbally, Emotionally, and Even Physically Abusive

Examples:

• Calling me a “fucking idiot”
• Calling my family “your fucked up family”
• Several times running in front of a door that I was trying to escape out of
• Kicking and screaming at me in bed
• Locking me out of our bedroom
• Spreading gossip and lies about me to her friends and family
  • This always bugged me. She was much closer to her mother than she ever was to me, even to the point of revealing personal, private information to her without my permission. I was appalled. And then, she expected me to be physically intimate with her.
• Hitting me in the neck, forcing me to call 911
  • She had again started fighting with me about having kids and while I was driving, she got so mad, she hit me hard in the neck. As soon as we pulled in the garage, I called 911 on her.
• Throwing a gallon of milk at my head (I had to dodge and it splattered all over our newly painted kitchen wall)
• Falsely yelled to my dad telling him “Your son is having affairs,” which is totally false and mean. But, for a narcissist, it doesn’t matter if something is true or not, the point is to make someone believe it.

I was able to move from working out of an office at UnitedHealth Group to working from home. This meant that I could watch our son myself instead of paying her mother to do it. Sara was actually upset with me about this, but had no choice in the matter.


She Wanted to Change Our Son’s Last Name

She Preferred to Have Her Mom Babysit our Infant Son During the Day, Instead of Me

General/Miscellaneous

• She could never apologize. Nothing was ever her fault. If I ever felt upset about something she said or did, she would just say that I’m too sensitive. I remember not being able to understand why she wouldn’t accept ANY responsibility. She had a way of making me believe that there was something wrong with ME, not her.
  
  We started going to marriage counseling because things were so bad between us. But, she blamed all the problems in our marriage on me and my drinking problem (which, I’m not denying was a major, major factor). But her controlling nature, had nothing to do with anything. She swore at me once when I was on the phone with her and asked where she was going, and she said, “I’m going to fucking counseling” — as if *I* should feel guilty that she should be subjected to such degrading humiliation.
  
  But, as I have since learned, this is typical of a narcissist. Since NOTHING is ever their fault, the reason for it has to fall on someone else. The fact that we were having problems in our marriage and needed to go to counseling, means that something was wrong with ME, not her. Now, of course, my drinking WAS a huge problem that eventually led to our divorce, but, she failed to acknowledge her own contribution to our struggling marriage.

She Constantly Lied, Even About Minor Things

The whole objective of a narcissist is to make the world believe that he or she is superior above everyone else and deserving of everyone else’s praise. When we first started dating, there was an instance when we were in the car together and she was talking to her dad on the phone about something, but she flat out lied to him about a very minor thing, and I just remember that I couldn’t understand why.