Standing up to the Vampire!
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| Thu, 03-29-2007 - 7:05pm |
It's getting easier for me to stand up for myself to my XH-- I was married to him for 18 years, and he was and still is emotionally abusive. I posted here a few months ago about him (see "Dealing with the Vampire" ;-) ).
I've been going to counseling, and reading various books about recovering from emotional abuse, which has been very helpful. Also got a terrrific CD about chakra balancing by Deepak Chopra, which is very calming, invigorating, and liberating for me.
Recently, I've had a situation going on with X-- his skanko GF has been harassing my DS's GF via email and telephone. X's GF accused DS's GF of calling her the "C" word a couple of weeks ago-- never happened, but X's GF went crying to X in a drama queen fit that was striaght out of junior high... X's GF is very immature, and is a real instigator. That's kind of blown over, but DS now sees how abusive his father really is, and DS has made a 180` turnaround from me being the "bad mom" who made dad go away to yeah, he sees that his dad is really a jerk.
Some background: X and I owned a ministorage facility. I got the house in the divorce, while he retained the business. I did the invoicing up until the end of last year. My 2 sons and I have some of our household items in a unit at the storage place since January 2006 or so; as I did the invoicing, I just took the unit offline, and it was designated as "Unavailable", which means not available to rent. DS has a unit for one of his hotrods, and X has a unit for his own hotrod, and these are both designated "Unavailable". As DSs and I are moving soon, we put excess house stuff into storage there, so as not to clutter up the house while it is on the market.
So, here's what happened recently... DS was concerned (I was as well) that X and/or X's GF would have access to our belongings there (an extra key was at the storage business, and anyone could have used it), so we purchased a new lock and took off the old one, which actually had belonged to X. We did not give a key to X-- just DS & I had keys.
On Monday, X called me, and asked me for the "2nd key". I did not realize that DS had taken the key, and told X that I only had one key. He called me back a few minutes later, informing me that I was "locked out", and that I owed him $95.00 for storage (the owner may "lock out" a customer if the customer defaults on payments). He also demanded to know why I hadn't asked his permission to change the lock. I stated that I was unaware that I had to ask his permission to change the lock-- did the other people there have to ask his permission? He told me again that we were locked out. I informed him that his sons also had belongings in the unit, but he seemed furious that I hadn't gotten his permission to change the lock.
Tuesday, I received an invoice from X, dated March 20th, 2007, for $114.76, and a copy of a "Move-In" receipt, dated March 26th, 2007. The move-in states that the unit is "paid through 3/31/2007". I was never informed by X that he was going to charge me for the unit until AFTER the incident with the lock, which was yesterday morning.
In my opinion, he's being petty and vindictive because I bought a new lock, and he could not access our things. DS stated that X claimed that X had items in the unit. But when the 3 of us ( me, DS & X) opened the unit, I asked DS if he saw any of his father's things in there. DS said no. I then repeated this question to X, and X said no. X has stated to me that he has no reason to go into the unit, yet when I saw that there were items in there that neither DS nor I placed in there, X admitted that he'd put them in the unit. We then closed up the unit, and I put my lock on. I pointed to X's "lockout" lock, and asked him if it was necessary. He said that there were "unpaid storage fees". I gave him a check for $32, or 1/3 of the $95 that he demanded-- when he told me it was the wrong amount, I told him that I didn't think it fair that he charged his sons for storage. I have since stopped payment on the check, when I realized that I never signed a lease.
We spoke for a while outside the storage locker... he kept saying how "people are acting immature", and that he was just trying to live his life, and that everyone was "burning bridges", but that he doesn't do that. I saw pretty quickly that he was just trying to bait me into getting defensive, so whenever he started with the "immature" BS, I just kept saying, "Are you alluding to something *I* did personally?" Or "Can you give me a specific example?" Or "What are you referring to?" He could not give me a SINGLE example of ANYTHING! LOL :-D He was super-nervous, was poking at the gravel driveway with his shoes, and walking in circles. It felt SO good not to get sucked into his games. I didn't feel nervous in the slightest way! I'm proud that I'm getting better at recognizing when he's pulling his crap, and being able to make non-defensive replies. When he was getting his feathers ruffled over the lock, and how we should have INFORMED him that we changed it, I told him, "Gee, we considered it a minor thing. Kinda like changing the sheets, you know?"
Wednesday, I received a lease agreement from X, which was dated AFTER he sent me the invoice! What a freakin' IDIOT he is!
After the "C" word incident a few weeks ago, I told DS that the next catastrophic event that would happen would be over something dumb. Monday, DS said to me, "Mom you were RIGHT. This is all over a STUPID LOCK!"
I guess I've healed enough that I can even joke about what happened with the lock... DS's GF and I were talking about it, and I said, "Gee, I guess I'll have to call X up when I change kitty's food from Meow Mix to Friskies." She said, "Yes, and don't forget to call him if you need to switch from Charmin to Angel Soft." LOL
