2003-2004: A Politician, The EX, The Mother-in-Law and a Friend

In 2003 I returned from my first tour of Iraq.  I was married to Ex, and my son was born while I was sleeping on the Baghdad runway.

The day after I returned from Iraq, I was told by the Ex, “I did this for a year without you, I can keep doing it.  I don’t need you to tell me how to raise the kids.”

All this over asking her not to reward our daughter with a doughnut after tantrum while getting dressed for school.

This was the exact moment I knew my second marriage was over.

The divorce, on the outside, was amicable.  Unbeknownst to me, there was a plan in place with the Ex, the Mother in Law, and an Oklahoma Congressman, Tom Cole, (I sent a disk to Tom Coles office asking about the letter and conversation, the disc came back snapped in half) and a guy, who I thought was a friend and fellow soldier, named RF.  The Mother In Law and RF teamed up to write a couple of letters to this congressman to ruin my career based off of rumors and half truths from my ex-wife.  Now that’s drama!

The only way I found out about this was because my ex-wife sued me a few times, post divorce, and submitted seven 90 minutes tapes of all sorts of conversations with people, other than me.  It was kind of strange actually.  There were great tales of yelling and screaming and threats but yet, there were no conversations like that.  In fact, there were a couple of conversations where I am being nice talking about Christmas presents for the kids then when she clicks back over on call-waiting, The Ex and The Mother In Law begin to verbally bash me for being nice.  Twas’ the season I guess

So here’s a question:  If you get divorced and you don’t have a job, you get $1900 per month child support, and $750 month in alimony, (that’s $2650 per month) why would you sue someone for contempt if your money was going into your account at midnight between the first and the second of the month.  (Justification was that it wasn’t technically the first of the month….yeah, I know, you don’t have to say it.)

Needless to say since she was suing me, I had the state figure the correct child support, and you know what? I was paying $500 per month too much.  Then, soon after that, she got pregnant by some guy she knew for a month, moved him in, and my alimony stopped.

I don’t have a problem paying child support.  In fact, I have never complained about it, but to sue me for contempt over a 24 hour period, well, your asking for things to be dug up.

Kharma is really a bitch!

Although Kharma is a two way street.  The thing is, is my career was never really ruined, but I have been trying to return to a major military base but always seem to come up shy when it’s time for my new assignments.

Is it Kharma giving me a reminder, or did the politician really do the trick?  I suppose I will never know for sure.

Don’t worry, there’s more to come next season on:  Army Wives:  As the Rotor Turns.