We got married young, him 23 and me, 20. We had four children and a dog--the perfect family life. Along with Jim driving a truck route along the east coast, U.S. Route 1 from Maine to Florida, I got a huge inheritence when my mother passed away. Therefore, we were finanically comfortable.
After celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary, our youngest daughter fell terribly ill. She had been diagnosed with Retts's syndrome: a rare neurological disorder that effects girls. She as time went on, lost mobility in both her hands and legs (making her wheelchair bound) and also having her experience a number of seizures. The diagnoses was devastating on our family emotionally as well as financially. My inheritance dried up rather quickly, stripping my financial cushion. As a result of the expenses, my husband picked up more stops on his route. Now, he was crossing over 15 states, stopping in at least 8 or 9. At times, when he knew he'd be gone long, he'd have us fly out to the state of his last stop so that we could have the weekend with him. We would have dinner both nights, "as a normal family," like we were before Rett's turned out life upside down. However, this stopped because he got too overwhelmed by the long driving, his sick daughter, and distance from his family.
As the years went on, our family lost most of its value. We could no longer afford most of the luxuaries we were used to and began to struggle. There was a huge strain in the connections we had as a unit, our perfect family was no more. I began to see my husband less than I would have ever imagined, our relationship was failing. I started to sense that he would rather be away from home and I let him go. We both accepted our circumstances and decided to work on our marriage, separately.
Three years into working things out, our lived flipped and turned upsidedown again. Ironically, or more sadly, our daughter with the disabilities passed away from complications from a violent seizure. Honestly, it was a relief because neither of us was suffering anymore. We mourned for months and then we finally got used to her death. Things would never be normal; they weren't before she passed away so we didn't expect things to be. We, as a family, worked together and finally became closer to a unit again. However, Jim seemed a bit strange. He took less hours and trips but he was still distant and I couldn't understand why so I began to take notice and see if I could piece together any clues.
For months, I analyzed his patterns and noticed him disappearing for hours when he was in Delaware and Maryland. What Jim caller them "deadzones," which immediately rang bells of cheating in my head. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't even care if he was because even I knew things weren't the same. Him cheating was something that hurt for a moment but I couldn't prove it so I hired a private investigator. The PI wad a friend of mine from high school of which I paid by babysitting his kids. About a week and a half later, my PI, Thomas, let me know that not only were my suspicions right but Jim had two other families in those suspected states. I was crushed and I couldn't believe that he would go to that extreme. It was even as deep as him having two other wives and four children. The children were 7 years old to 9 months old. This would have meant that Jim was cheating way before our daughter got diagnosed and I couldn't understand how I'd missed the signs for so many years. Our oldest child is 14 years old and we just buried our youngest. I didn't even know how I would confront him so instead I asked Thomas to get me the best divorce lawyer. I knew that Jim wouldn't be back for weeks; therefore, I had enough time to file for divorce and have him served at his last stop before he made it home.
Within a year and a half, we finalized our divorce. I got Jim for everything he had and also made sure his other families would be taken care of as well. The wives and I became close for the sake of our children. We were all smart enough to know that the only true enemy as Jim and made it our mission to unite as one. As for Jim, he was arrested for his polygamy and even brought up on federal charges for muplitle counts of fraud.
Jim killed himself in prison a year into his sentence, leaving behind 3 wives and 8 children. As a result, I've lived to tell the weirdest story you'll ever hear.
