The Recording Device

I remember it like yesterday. I had to go out of town to take care of a client so I was scrambling to get ready for work and get on the road. I was getting dressed in the closet where all my clothes were folded and hung on one side and on the wife's side it was its usual pile of her dirty clothes and things shoved into the corner like a big pile of laundry and unwanted but expensive swap meet items. It did not get much better as after getting dressed, I walked into the bedroom to see clothes on her side on the floor and a shelf covered with stuff. I walked through the kitchen toward the dining room where we had never actually dined. Her mothers nice dining room table was covered, and I mean covered, with books, paper, book bags, and other miscellaneous crap. It looked like a Junior High School students locker turned inside out. It had been like that since she had moved into my home so I had gotten used to it. 

I was in a bit of a rush and had my socks on but no shoes. I walked in to the dining room for reasons I forget other than God pointing my male beta ass in that direction. Suddenly I stepped on a paper napkin that was on the floor and my feet fell out from under me in a way that would have even Charlie Brown on a football field laughing. I didn't have time to be mad as I was late for where I needed to be that morning. I thought back on all the times I had asked why my perfectly clean house has turned into a pig sty since she moved in and my requests for her to clean it fell on deaf ears. I was a neat freak and always cleaned my mess and more than did my share of the housework. I understood her position however. Stay at home moms who birthed children were too busy for such trivial nuisances as a clean house no matter how hard her husband worked. I also was not forceful as I wanted to be about just like most issues in our marriage. I was not going to create an argument when I had a drop dead gorgeous wife who had birthed me two beautiful and healthy children and I was hoping for a third. I knew that desire of mine was seen by her as a burden and not a joy despite all the economic advantages in the world which allowed her to be at home with her children watching them grow and bonding with them in ways working moms cannot. In marriage, too many men choose their battles based on their desires and confidence levels. The wrong mindset ingrained in to you by controlling women, the feminist agenda, and your own insecurities can take a man who is strong and dominating in every aspect of his life and turn him into a blue piled bitch that only shows itself more as he ages. That issue is for another post.   

Back to the story.....  

Being flat on my back staring at a room with nothing but a disarray all around me, the mess didn't matter any longer as I had made it known awhile back to the wife I wanted a divorce(another mistake that will be discussed later) and having to live in a pig sty house would end once our fine lawyers sorted out a separation agreement which did not seem to be progressing at all compounding my mistakes of telling the wife what I wanted before I had a physical exit plan in place(yet another mistake to be discussed later). I reached over and noticed a picnic basket near my face and opened it to put the napkin inside to atleast do something productive following my fall. As I opened the basket, my eyes did a double take. I saw a recording device that could be put on a person, in a bag, or anywhere to tape people or things etc without the person knowing. Real undercover shit. Finding it was pure luck and by the grace of God. I thought to myself, no way. There is no way my wife is taping our conversations. I am not a wife beater with a spouse who is beat up that no one believes so she is told to get proof to protect herself. It was early in the divorce process and I was still learning how things work and how people with marital issues and their lawyers are some of the nastiest most dishonest people in the world. It did not immediately register with me what was going on and why she did it but it is important for anyone about to go through the divorce process to understand. Your wife is not going to be anything like the woman you married or worse she will show you that you did not marry the person you thought you were marrying. When I discovered this device, my head was already spinning from the loss of the woman I loved, the difficulty of running a business day to day, the uncertainty of my kids future, and the overall feeling of failure that I wanted to fix but couldnt. Reality is a bitch in more ways than one.

Anyways, I picked up the device and started listening to it. It was months of taped conversations with me and my wife, me and my daughters, and me alone in my room. For some reason she thought it would be to her benefit to see if she could get me to say or do something that would give her an edge in the divorce, deprive me of fair time with my daughters, or to lay the groundwork for the infamous Divorce by Bed and Board. This is basically where one spouse can force the other spouse out of the marital home due to physical violence, threats, or some other bs reason when the two parties want to divorce but neither one will leave the marital home. This was probably even tougher for her to do when the house was mine and her name was not on the deed. I had no clue what that was at the time and all I knew was that I was being taped in my home by my wife with no justification. For all the things that lead to divorce, there was never any violence or threats of it. There was nothing to where my kids were threatened or uncomfortable. In fact it was the opposite. My wife and I never fought. I complimented and encouraged her incessantly. I didn't stalk or follow her around when she left the house. None of that mattered, she was going to play dirty and I needed to respond accordingly or watch my character get destroyed. Is the importance of the right lawyer sinking in yet?

As I listened to the conversations and recording on that device, I had my red pill moment and suddenly I knew what I was facing and that no matter how well you treat someone, they will do anything to gain an advantage over you in a divorce. While you may think this behavior helps you in the short term, it is short sighted and damaging to the kids you share with the person you want to destroy. As time passed I saw who I had married and what her motives were at various stages of knowing her. Since I was not her first husband she probably had been through this rodeo before and while her first divorce did not involve kids, she knew the game more than I did. I wasn't the know it all bad ass I thought I was. Could she have thought on her own to tape me for whatever reason? While possible, at the time I figured her lawyer told her to tape her husband in the home. She needed to "get the mood of the home" as she would later testify to at trial. If you can get him to threaten you or your children and have it on tape, you can get him out of the house. You can get him to receive less time with his kids. If you play your cards right and push his buttons, he could do something that would land him in jail or cause him to lose his professional licenses. Your daughters financial security does not matter, its about beating him in the divorce and making him look bad. Who cares if he's the father of your kids and is an overall good guy who has in 10 years of knowing you done nothing to give you a reason to tape him in his own home. If you are telling me as your lawyer that you only want him to see his kids two days a month we need to be aggressive in destroying and provoking him. He's human and he's a big strong man with an ego. He can snap and that benefits you so here is what you do. The betrayal and outright dishonesty by a woman who you took care of and allowed to be a stay at home mother is beyond anything I dealt with in years of dating the most horrible type of women. This took the cake. I was no longer going to be the nice guy. 

The point of this story is why she did it didn't matter. The hurt I felt didn't matter. I can whine and moan about how I was treated in my marriage and deceived during a divorce process including being taped, but ultimately I let it happen to myself due to my own mindset and lack of preparedness. Only my character and proper behavior prevented any damage despite my lack of awareness. Most men do better with awareness on their side as they are not usually so lucky as mistakes are made and actions taken in anger or without thought. No one wants to hear someone whine or complain. They want a solution and the tools to fight the battle. What did matter was this was my awakening. I knew I had to educate myself on things that I never thought I needed educating on in my life. I knew that for me to survive a divorce war, and it was now a war, I had to not only learn things, but that you need a lawyer who knows what the other side will try to do and can prepare you ahead of time to face them. This knowledge includes but is not limited to telling a client they might be taped in their house or anywhere by their spouse or certain things would be done to try and provoke violence resulting in loss of time with your kids or even your job. You and your lawyer need to learn everything about your enemy so you can get the best possible result. 

Looking back and comparing my anger and hate towards someone I loved over such an action, I can now see that it was an instant blessing for me. There was nothing on that device that would hurt me in court or put me in a bad light. I am sure there were other recording devices that were never found but when I had my trial for kid custody, no recording was played of me. It was simply a desperate act by a desperate person because for all my faults, I was not an abusive husband and my wife lived in a home filled with respect and proper behavior.

With the discovery of the recording device, my mindset changed and any doubt I had about wanting a divorce and the guilt I felt of wanting to walk out on a beautiful family was gone. It instantly became about how do I fix the mistakes I have made so far in the divorce process, eliminating future mistakes, and turning my wife's bad act into something she was pay for in a way that might even affect her beyond the money payout she would receive later.

I put the recoding device in my pocket and made it disappear. I said nothing to her and continued on with my days like I had never found it. As the days passed I saw the panic in her eyes as she searched for it and couldn't find it. She opened and closed drawers and cabinets with such haste wondering where it went. She didn't ask me if I had seen it. I said nothing and from that day forward never spoke another word in her presence and never will again despite having two children with her. 

This wakeup call had an immediate effect on me. As I stood up from the floor with the recording device in hand, I said a brief prayer in thanks and I got an additional bit of devine help in that very instant. Something or someone told me to look somewhere and I did what I was told immediately while trying to make sure I was still focused for a busy workday.

What I was able to discover elsewhere in the minutes after finding that recording device would sink my heart further but it also provided information that would help me in a custody battle that would go my way in a county where the standards for men and women to get equal custody are vastly different despite what the law says.

To Be Continued...….









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