me and Dave

My husband got a temporary restraining order against me on November 7, 2005. I fought it, of course--he set me up for it by not paying a bill which we share, and for which I send him money every month. When the credit card company started to call my house ten times a day, I called my husband repeatedly, and emailed him at his job. He went to the local police station and complained that I was harassing him. It cost me (my sister, actually) 3K to get a lawyer and fight it. I won. No permanent restraining order was issued. Now, if the credit card company calls, I tell them, "My husband handles that bill." Then I give them his cell phone number and his number at work, so that they may contact him directly.

The worst thing about this was that a cop came to my house to serve me with the temporary restraining order. My youngest daughter was home by herself--my husband knew this; he had called her that day--unusual in itself!--to ask "how were things?" and "what was going on?" I was at the medical center with my brother, who goes to a clinic there for treatment of his multiple sclerosis. My daughter told him this, and told him I wouldn't be home til late, because the buses from the medical center were only running once an hour. And he said nothing, did nothing, though he knew what was coming. She was terrified when the cop came looking for me. She was too afraid to open the door. She couldn't reach me on my cell, cause it chose that night to die. She thought someone was dead. She turned off the TV and all the lights in the apartment and sat in the dark, waiting for hours until I got home.

Here are some things my husband--we are still married--has done.

When this same daughter had her tonsils out in July of 2004, soon after he moved out to be with his girlfriend, he came to the hospital the sultry morning of her discharge--I had spent the night with her--carrying a "get well soon" balloon. He walked downstairs with us, handed my daughter the balloon, and had the valet bring his air-conditioned car. Then drove away, because he was angry at me. I had to scramble to find a friend to drive me and my semiconscious daughter home. When we got home, my maintenance man saw me and my friend struggling to get her out of the car. (She is a big girl, and was fourteen, not four.) He carried her up the stairs for me, and gently lay her upon the couch. (You know how it is with those Mexicans; they'll do the hard jobs Americans don't want to do.)

After he moved out, after years of appearing to be the most committed, religious family man on the face of the earth, my daughter had some suicidal moments. (I had to hide all the family pictures and videos because she would sit, just staring at baby pictures of herself with her father, for long periods of time.) The school counselor called and told me that we had to take her to a therapist, because she was mutilating her arms and legs. (I didn't know; she hid it from me.) She went to this therapist for a year; her father and I split the cost ($125. per session, twice a month). Then he decided he could no longer afford therapy for this child he destroyed, so he stopped giving me the money.

http://www.overlawyered.com/2005/12/david_letterman_restraining_order.html