The Pitfalls of Life

This story is in no way for seeking sympathy, it is just the truth.                                 I was born on 17th July 1954 to abusive parents and into a fragmented home. Needless to say I had a very unhappy childhood, which I wouldn’t really want to go into. By the age of 21, I was a shoe shop manager and for the first time in my life I thought I had the world in the palm of my hand. I certainly had a life time career, or so I thought, until that is on 22nd March 1976 while I was on my own 3 guys entered the shop and I found myself on the receiving end of an armed robbery. I was beaten up but nothing more thank God, but having banked most of the money that lunchtime they only got away with £29.50. I got beaten up and had my career ended for barely £10 each. We got one of the three (the other two have never been caught) and was sentenced due to his previous convictions for 3 years. But in reality he would have been out in less than two and would have been helped into a job on leaving prison to help him get back into society. Whereas I being the victim was cast out of society, I was actually told in job interviews “Sorry, but we can’t take the risk”. Nobody would employ me. The first step then to my life being further destroyed after such a dreadful childhood. This went on for two years, now back then, on job applications you only had to tell them your previous five year job history. So I got the same thing each time “Sorry, but we can’t take the risk” and the answer is YES, I am still bitter about that even today.   Then I had an idea, if I joined the Royal Air Force for six years this would solve the problem of application forms. The Royal Air Force accepted me straight away so from April 1978 – April 1984, I was in the Royal Air Force. When I came out in 1984 to my shock horror the rules for job application forms had changed from the previous five years to full work history. Even though I had just served my country for six years and during the time of The Falklands War with Argentina, I found myself back to square one. Nobody would employ me. Another two years passed……   In 1986, I finally managed to get myself a job and back into society as a caretaker of a private school; due to the guy who employed me there being ex-Royal Navy. My wife was heavily pregnant with my son David so it came just in time. After what happened to me in my shop it had taken me 10 years to get my life back in order. Society had cast me out for daring to be a victim of a crime. The money I was now earning was the best I ever had. We had a cottage in the school grounds in which to live. Any of my children could have had a private school education. So the future looked extremely bright or so I thought. On the 5th April 1986, my first child and only son was born. Being my wife’s first born; I wanted my wife to stay in hospital for the maximum time allowed to make sure she was o.k. (10 days). The day finally came to bring them home from hospital and everything seemed fine. At long last I had everything I wanted from life except a daughter, but it wasn’t to last! They had only been home a matter of weeks. There was a knock on the door, which my wife answered. She came into the dining room and said “There is somebody here to see you”. I went into the living room and there was a guy there of similar age to me and on showing me his identity card, he introduced himself as John Murray and he was from the N.S.P.C.C (National Society Of Prevention Of Cruelty To Children). He said he was there to investigate a report that I had been beating the baby. At first, I thought it was a joke by someone I was working with as pranks were often played on new people. But no this guy was the real thing! There was I thinking I was a really good husband and father and now this. For the next 8 months, my life was hell. He called once a week, and I had to ***** my son in front of him each time, so he could check him over. He then grilled me for an hour trying to get me to confess to something I hadn’t done. He never found any marks and for that matter any evidence at all that I had ever harmed my son. Yet David was still put on the at risk register until his 16th birthday. As you can imagine everybody that I was in contact with (except one) was suspect. Who would be sick enough to do this? I held on for as long as possible. But after 8 months I cracked up under the constant pressure of this and returned to Wales (the job had been in Elstree, North London). Job gone, home gone, income gone, future gone, then having moved back to Wales the case was never even followed up, 18 years later the person who did this to me would confess.   We had to move into a trailer for just over two years and while we were there Lisa was born (my only daughter). Then my father-in-law, who was selling his house at the time because he was moving on decided to give it to us, it is the house my wife grew up in and where we still live today.   After living here a short time, I had the chance of a re-training course at a builder’s merchant literally a 5 minute walk from the house. I was about half way through the course (about 3 months), my wife came to me one day out of the blue very upset and said to me “would you consider swapping roles, I go out to work and you bring up the children”. When I asked her why, I didn’t get the answer I had expected. She said “I can’t stand them around me anymore”. Considering they were her babies, I was completely shocked by the reason she gave for wanting to swap. We then spent the day discussing and agreeing on the way this would work and I agreed to give her what she wanted. She then took a clerical college course and walked straight into a job and has had a career ever since. My job from then on was to be mum (no laughing please). We had agreed that I would be the children’s full-time carer and I did all the jobs of a housewife and mother (again no laughing please).  My other role, which was extremely important to me was to do my very best to see that they made university (my mother had 24 grandchildren, my two were the only two she never saw and yet my two were the only two who made it to university), which makes me a very proud man indeed. When I took over the role, David was about 2½ and Lisa about 8 months old. I have done this role ever since and to this day have no income of my own.   In this country, it is against the law to leave a child unsupervised until they are 13 years old. So since Lisa became 13 I have done part-time voluntary work when needed until August 2008 that is. My favourite of these was as a teacher’s assistant at a primary school.   Going back if I may to December 2002, my wife goes out with her work colleagues for their annual Christmas night out and with no warning what so ever and totally out of the blue there was a telephone call from one of her friends telling us that she’s left us and wasn’t coming home. Needless to say what a Christmas we had that year and it got much worse than just Christmas. For the next 7 months she put us through hell. Her first stunt was to clear the bank account; I didn’t know a thing about it until the statement arrived. I was only able to stop her when there was just £300 left. Now, why she would do this to me having let her have the career she wanted I have no idea. But to do this to her children, she will never be forgiven. That Christmas, David had what is the equivalent to an American prom night and on the biggest night of his life she never even turned up for him. He was devastated and that was the final nail in the relationship between him and his mum. When he was born she took one look at him and thought no, just like he was an unwanted present. He has his whole life been very thin because he was born 3 weeks early and every time he wanted any love from his mum she would always say and quite nastily to him “get off me boy you’re all bones” and push him away. Lisa has had a little more attention from her. But Lisa isn’t stupid. Having seen how David was treated, she has always regarded her mother’s love as false.   Anyway, my wife came round once during the 7 months to say to David and Lisa if mum was to get her self a new place to live would you want to come and live with me or stay with dad and without a thought they said together “dad”. Now they say hell has no fury like a woman scorned and we were going to find that out. She went back to her solicitor to see if there was a way to get the house and the children. Her solicitor told her that if it went to court she would loose both because the court would grant the children to the carer, and that’s me. No court in the land will take the home off the children. So I would win the house as well. I then told her that if she takes it to court David and Lisa would be there as well because being a woman you could lie as much as you like, turn on the tears and be believed against me. However, no court in the land are not going to believe children; now having spent lots of unnecessary money on both a solicitor and a flat that she didn’t need in the first place, money that we could ill afford, and that we still haven’t recovered from. Knowing she would have lost everything that any other wife and mother would hold most dear she asked if we would take her back. If I had been financially independent there would have been no chance. The only reason she was allowed back was purely financial that neither one of us could go it alone. There were conditions however, we are married on paper but that’s it. I have my space upstairs, she has her space downstairs. There hasn’t been any intimacy from that moment on; there isn’t even a double bed in the house anymore. It is in reality over.   If by now you are thinking there can’t possibly be anymore then think again. In 2004, while all around the dining table she gave us two more devastating blows. She told David and Lisa that she doesn’t love them and never has and the person who reported me to the N.S.P.C.C was her. When I said “but why, I didn’t do anything?” She said “I know you didn’t”. So I asked her “Why then did you destroy all our lives by telling such lies?” The reason she gave was because she had been suffering from Baby Blues after having David. I said “Baby Blues doesn’t last for 8 months and yet you watched me go through the tortures of hell and said absolutely nothing; when you had every chance to speak up and say you lied, why?” She said “well, I did think of saying something”. I then said “just thinking of it didn’t save all our lives did it? Don’t you think telling me this now is 18 years too late?” And I have never been able to understand since then; I was falsely reported to the N.S.P.C.C by my wife only for her to then hand them over to me to become their full-time carer, which just goes to show her state of mind. So we may live under the same roof but that’s it. There is no love left and there will never be any again.   These are just some of the things that she has done the highlights of the lowlights if you like. If I was to go through the hateful things she has said to all of us down the years then I would be here forever, this would be more like a book rather than a story.     After all of this Lisa is 21 and David is 23 years old. Neither of them has ever seen me raise a hand to their mother. I neither smoked, nor have ever taken drugs, and I don’t drink so they have never seen me drunk. I have never done anything against the law. I have just tried to be the best husband and father that I can be. Although she has never given me any appreciation for putting a home together and bringing up her children for her while enjoying the career she wanted. I have achieved what I have achieved against all the odds. I am well satisfied in how my children have turned out so I couldn’t have done a great deal wrong in their upbringing. I am a very proud father indeed. In all of the above I have never ever heard the word sorry from my wife. Unfortunately we just have to live under the same roof.   It would take a lottery win to be able to get out of here.  Having said that my son David and his girlfriend Amanda have told me when they leave university they are going to get a house together and have included me in their plans, so they could be taking me out of this hell in as short as 3 years time.   Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any worse, at the end of August I suffered a mini-stroke. And have been told I can expect more of them in the future, but nobody knows of course when. When David and Lisa are at university I am more or less on my own, though I do have two lady pen friends in prison in America, and have become very good pen pals.    Now I would like to thank anybody who has been interested enough to read my story. We may be living in the 4th richest country in the world but this just shows the pitfalls in life and there's nothing much there to prevent it. After all of this I try to stay cheerful, I have a ready smile and at least one of the things I still do with my children is laugh.