I need a temporary change-of-topic!
(Blogging can be liberating but exasperating.)

Let's see... What to rant on now?
Perhaps my dad & stepmom's dysfunctional treatment which set me up for that horrible little poser who trapped me into marriage. They preferred their daughters, bigtime, to me and the girls always seemed to get priority. Of course, most kids feel this way. But I can substantiate it with at least one sister's witness, if that were important. Of course, I was the oldest & taught them how to raise their younger kids to love them -- i.e., I was the guinea pig!

I never really classified our parents behavior as officially dysfunctional until my sister, Jean, said that we had been "a dysfunctional family." Holy crap, that was good to hear -- even more because someone else in my family also knew some psychological buzzwords and understood what they MEANT! Jeannie & I were always labeled as similar and smart and used to be able to talk regularly and clearly about most everything once we were adults. WHEN we talked... which was truly far less than every blue moon! Of course, I enlisted in the AF when she was only 9 and I only went back twice to visit -- OK,, 3 times if you count the 3 days I first got back from Vietnam.

It was nice that my sisters got Dad to pick me up at McChord AFB (Tacoma, WA) -- I was happy my AF charter plane returned me there from Vietnam since parents had moved nearby. Dad got an Instructor Pilot job with Boeing after retiring from the AF's Presidential Squadron in Washington, DC. I should have known Sadie, my stepmother, would resume her evil stepmother role to me -- I am almost certain I remember she did not come out to welcome me home from fighting a war for a year. (It was not a long trip from their house.) What do YOU think she meant by that?

Of course, back then, few unrelated people welcomed Vietnam Veterans home -- they scapegoated the warriors for the war that we followed civilian leaders' orders to go fight! THAT is something we (VN Vets) corrected for the generations of warfighters to come later (particularly from Desert Storm in 1991 and forward)! I co-organized the Welcome Home Parade in Tallahassee for Desert Storm Vets. Since then, I always say "Welcome Home!" to any returning war vet and YOU SHOULD, TOO!

There was only one time in all the years I have known her that stepmother Sadie was in a reconciliatory frame of mind -- I think it was shortly after her father died, and she was trying to come to terms with a past she only hinted at, rather imperceptibly. I have finally come to the conclusion that she had been abused and/or neglected by her father -- I strongly suspect that it was sexual abuse because of her statement to me once when I was a child & had been beaten up by my father, "Oh, don't think that YOU'RE abused!" even though I clearly WAS abused physically and emotionally by any knowledgeable person's standards! In HER mind, I guess she didn't think anyone should be considered abused unless they had suffered something as bad as SHE had (but she never said anything about where SHE had learned abusive behavior; that follows the pattern of abuse victims of "don't talk, don't trust, don't tell!") She sure scapegoated ME, though; I was a "convenient" target for the sick bitch!

And Sadie, herself, had even come in and comforted me once when I was about 10 and Dad cracked the top of my head with the heavy butt end of a silverware table knife! It hurt so bad, I did something I NEVER EVER would have done any other time -- I got up and ran to my room (formerly, a maid's room) crying because of the hurt, not because of the meanness of my father. (I was used to the meanness but not THAT extreme pain!) We, kids, didn't say anything to authorities about that kind of stuff back then -- besides, where were we going to go that was better? Dad didn't hit overload too often, but you can believe I obeyed him very well and learned to follow his rules better than anybody else ever had to.

I'm sure he was nicer to the airmen who worked for him because he knew he could not treat them so badly -- or he would not have kept his officer's commission! He used the rough Kansas farmboy discipline on me that HIS father had used on him (his mother later told me). But I STILL don't think he had behaved as well for his dad as I did for him, and I don't think he was treated with such meanness, either. I don't know about his father's general treatment of him but, at least, he had his mother to look after him and take his side when needed. I DIDN'T.

This topic could go on forever and I had planned to end with the last sentence. But I think I'll add a couple of things it might be good for my family of origin to know if they ever get to read this. One is that I seriously considered killing myself when I was 16 or 17. I had been the Junior Class President the year before and had high grades through the first 3 years of high school. But in my senior year, I was feeling so unhappy and stressed that I skipped school when I missed the schoolbus and spent the day discerning whether to kill myself, or to "jump a train" & run away, or to finish out the spring semester and get my high school diploma. The other fact is that, when I joined the Air Force, I knew that no matter how mean any training sergeant would treat me in going through basic training or afterwards, they wouldn't HIT me! I was still better off than when I last lived with my father and stepmother.

Uncle Sam called me a MAN when I was only 17, and he gave me a chance to advance and earn many things all on my own. Now, I think I encountered liars and back-stabbers throughout my service career who hurt me without my even knowing it, but there were many good and reasonable and helpful people who treated me far better than my own father did.

I guarantee I worked VERY hard for my country and I actually earned everything I was able to achieve, and some other things I SHOULD have gotten, but did NOT receive. I had a successful career (especially for one who never played politics or other games) retiring from service as a Lt Colonel after only 19 years of commissioned service (& 5 years of prior enlisted service). I fought in 3 separate wars. I earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, many Air Medals, and a few Commendation Medals. I never cheated anyone out of anything. I did more than my share of the unpleasant duties and details. I was always a loyal soldier & faithful spouse, and probably followed orders too well for my own good (avoiding complaints as my father had taught me -- for better or for worse). And that's to say nothing of my active parenting of my 2 sons -- even teaching their mother behavior modification techniques I learned in my classes for my two Master's Degrees. I was my sons' Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Explorer Advisor, Committee Chairman and many other positions in the 29 years I volunteered as an adult Scouter mostly for them.

I even got to return to the Air Force Academy as a professor after having been dismissed from there 13 years earlier for academically low grades (a 2.09 cumulative GPA, but a low 1.7 semester GPA); with my background & experience, I was able to redeem myself happily by helping many Cadets there during 4 additional years later as Faculty. And I received a graduation gift of the Cadet Plaque and Saber from the members of my old Cadet Squadron. My life could have been a little bit better, but it surely could have been a whole lot worse! It was certainly worth working for!

So, who had she been fucking?
Just guys who liked free pussy & a pretty face!
[Feeling wanted can make a girl feel desirable & worthwhile when she doesn't have much for breasts or self-esteem.]

Well, she took great delight in getting this first batch off her chest after being married to me for 7 years! She seemed to speak as a new "alter" of a multiple-personality only hinted at. She rather gleefully gave me graphic details I asked for but, probably, shouldn't have.

Alexander was the son of a neighbor-lady treated as an aunt by Raquel's family; he was sort of a "primo" (cousin). But, there were other blood-related cousins who regularly fucked her pussy, too! Two brothers across the street were her first cousins; these young men were rather queer choices, so let's just call them "Salsa" and "Tea." But I imagine one brother told the other about the free and available, tight pussy of the smaller, younger Raquel. A more distant cousin was named "Gallito" -- his mother's trailer was on Raquel's way home from Laredo Junior College. This became a regular stop because Gallito's madre was always at work in the afternoons when Raquel wanted to stop for a little familial cock! She may have thought she "was getting an education" in the terms of the day, but playing the whore literally fucked over her college education. There are only so many hours in a day to study for school and tests. No one was providing sufficient parenting.

Interestingly, Raquel's "fuck-buddies" were often guys who lived close to her parents' house. It seems to me that the male relatives passed the carnal knowledge about Raquel around her extended family -- I wouldn't be surprised now to discover that she had fucked every male cousin she knew! It would make sense of some of the strange, little details I noticed in the interpersonal relationships with other cousins. Like "Payaso," the intelligent, artistic brother of cousin Alicia who lived next door. It would not surprise me if Raquel had done Payaso because there has always been an awfully close relationship with him. After our divorce, it occurred to me that Payaso had laughed with a strange vindictiveness the moment I split my jeans jumping down from a fence on the ranch while we were ear-marking calves years before. That laugh didn't fit our friendly relationship. It was out-of-character and that single instance of laughter perplexed me for years. It makes sense now interpreted as jealousy. Payaso later gave Raquel the only job she could find in Laredo (receptionist in his dental office) after she absconded with our younger son so I could not visit him. That job was in a new office that Payaso had built next door to his & Raquel's parents' homes -- strangely close to where so much of Raquel's sexuality had unfolded & unraveled. Two unrelated memories can start to reveal a pattern.

Let's see... who else? Oh yes, there was "J" whose Christian name Raquel called me softly one night when WE were fucking. I was so new to this all. I asked her "What?" and she passed it off by denying she had moaned anything. Raquel's parents knew "J," but they called him by his Anglo name which also started with a "J." If you are a truth-teller, you are vulnerable to terrible manipulations by anyone who does not tell the truth, much less anyone who is a compulsive liar or sociopath. Look for the bigger picture -- if a little piece of the picture is fucked up, the bigger picture may also be! There IS a best time to decide things are a mistake & to "cut your losses." Of course, it involves being judgmental & evaluating objects of your affection; but, in these matters, "Better late than never!" is truly notwithstanding.

After 7 years of Mar

After 7 years of Marriage, Raquel reveals her first Secrets!

We had just moved from Lubbock, TX to Dayton, OH and rented a 2-story brick home in Huber Heights. I guess Raquel was feeling her nesting instincts again, and she started pushing for having another baby. We moved there in early January, and into the house in late January, and just before my mother’s unexpected California death in February, Raquel pushed again. I honestly told her although the time had not been right before, I now felt like she was holding back something big from me, information-wise.

Buddy, that suddenly opened a flood-gate, spilling torrents of new information about her premarital sexual past! She had obviously sensed I would have had NOTHING more to do with her if she had revealed just how MUCH of a virgin she was not! She was correct -- If I had known how much promiscuity and sex she had willingly participated in before me, I would NEVER have married her -- pregnant or not! She had pretended to have been a near-virgin with only one sex partner (I mentioned Alexander before) -- not so! She substantiated an old stereotype of Mexicans with her own behavior and sexual history. Friendly but lying manipulators. LBFM's -- "Little, Brown, Fucking-Machines" as one Special Forces SFC with Honduras & Guatemala experience was to tell me, later.

Yes, I guess so. But, I was shocked by this "news!" More so because I had believed all the untruth that Raquel used to take advantage of my innocence and love. [Of course, Raquel's mental denial was operating fully -- she claimed this was not news since it had happened so long ago and I shouldn't have been upset any longer! Duuh! That was exactly how her mother (Margo) used to hide new clothes in the closet in plain sight but not wear them until they were 6 months old -- she could tell her husband that they were clothes she'd had a long time. Like mother, like daughter! I hate to even mention that my same "sixth sense" detected her mother's ongoing extramarital affair that Raquel later had confirmed with her mother. Probably, "Mum's" discovery of my knowledge about her infidelity played a role in her daughter's late engineering of a surreptitious and highly destructive divorce.]

Raquel rattled off the names of five different lovers she had been fucking long before she met me when she was age 19. And this was back in the mid-60's when most Catholic-high-school girls, like her, really were expected to be virgins! In fact, one of these lovers WAS Alexander whom she had succeeding in getting me to believe was her only lover before me! I understand now why the only Catholic doctrine I detected where she disagreed with the Church's position was that about the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Of course, Catholic (& most other Christian churches) believe that Mary was (is) a perpetual virgin and that Jesus was the result of a virgin birth. [There IS actually virgin birth which modern scientists have discovered in nature, & call "parthenogenesis."]

This clearly-heretical view of Raquel's is something I wish I had investigated more -- but I wanted to build our relationship closer and so didn't follow my curiosity for sake of not insulting or arguing with her. More than that, I was thrown off asking questions on this because it came up as I was about to leave after one of those late-night philosophical discussions that college-age people occasionally have. AND because I had seen and heard Raquel attending weekly church services and pray the weekly Creed which affirms one's belief in Jesus' Virgin Birth. The way I was taught about being a grown-up, mature, responsible human being was not to do one thing and believe/say another. (I later learned most people show such inconsistencies without even being aware of them.)

The Bible quotes Jesus, "The Truth shall make you free" -- if I had known the truth in time, it would have freed me of Raquel's manipulative entrapment of me into what turned into a miserable marriage and remainder to the rest of my adult lifetime. (There is good reason for Pope John Paul II to have said that a Christian life is one of bearing suffering.) I submit the proof that Raquel's initial manipulation was intentional by the very fact of her withholding the info for 7 years of marriage. And THEN revealing it only to get her way again when divorce for her Catholic husband in a Catholic marriage seemed virtually impossible. This is a view of marriage common to all Christians, not just Catholic-Christians: Jesus proclaimed the indissolubility of marriage! Because of our piety and sincerity and belief, we miss the "out" or "loophole" in that same proclamation, though. I wish I had read the actual Bible verse more carefully because Christ gave the exception to indissolubility in cases with fornication or lewd & indecent conduct!

I can now tell the mother of one of my former Scouts, Sven Kristofferson, why the Catholic Church CAN legitimately offer "annulment" as an option. It is NOT an inconsistency (although it was pitifully kept an option whose secrecy has lost many good Catholics as a result.) The reason, dear Anglican lady, is the same reason that Henry VIII tried to use when HE was still a Catholic -- there are some reasons for which annulment IS justifiable in a religious context! Of course, at the time Sven's mom brought up the topic, I could not tell her any details of Raquel's lies and lewdness to explain the divorce that EX- eventually sought, not I! I had been trapped into more suffering by keeping her destructive secrets! There are many reasons a good husband should not assassinate the character of his wife; but, now, she is not my wife anymore. In a very real sense, she never WAS!