My name is Conrad,the following story has been my nightmare. I was a line driver for the Kroger Grocery Co. I worked the extra board, either on call or working 24/7, all hours of the day. My wife stayed home to look after the house and kids. Things seemed alright, but on Dec.25 1991, I got sick with a blood clot in my left leg, that was three feet long. I got my family doctor to come to the clinic on christmas day to look at me and from that point on my world changed, I just didn't know it yet. From that day, I was sent to the hospital and for about 2 1/2 weeks, I was flat on my back. I also had to stop working because of the severity of the blood clot. From that point on, my wife stopped having anything to do with me, in a sense, she figured I was broke and she pushed me to the curb with the Trash.
I had been in MY House for about a year before this nightmare began. I have two wonderful kids that also had to endure this ordeal as well. Not being able to work, and with no money created it's own nightmare in itself. My wife had to start working and what, I thought was bad relations with my wife, for getting sick, took a Huge leap off the planet. I have no family, except for one brother and a sister that lives out of town. So in real life terms, it is root hog little piggy, or die. I had nowhere to go, or be, nor the money to leave the marriage. My wife treated me as if, I did not exist. I had a hard time getting around and could not even, get her to take me to the doctor. She refused to do anything for me. So whatever went wrong about anything, regardless of what it was, was took out on me. The kids also disrespected me, to keep on good terms with there mother and needless to say, life at that time was the absolute pits for me.
For two years, life was like that for me. It got to the point that,I could not stand it anymore and asked my treating doctor to release me to go back to work. He advised me that if, I did, it would probably kill me. By this time, I did not care, anything would be better than being at home. The doctor and I, signed a AMA form and I started the process of going back to driving a tractor trailer again. A month short of being off sick for 2 years, I went back to driving for The Kroger Gro.Co. again. What, I thought had been bad at home, was nothing, compared to what was going to happen next.
On Thankgiving Day of 1993, I had been back to work for only three weeks. I came home from work about 6:30am, and my wife wanted to fight.( I didn't know it,but she and her mother had figured out how get me out of the house forever) When I would not fight with her, she called 911 and told them,I was beating her to death. So my house that morning looked as if there was a war going on with all the police cars and fire trucks and rescue vehicles. She made the claim, that I, was beating her death. It did not work, because the police would not arrest me, and they all left. She woke the kids up and they went to her mothers. They went and got a assault and battery warrant against me and the police came later and arrested me on Thankgiving Day. That also meant that I, could not go back home either. When the hearing came up, I ask the judge for a subpeona for the police officer in charge of the scene that day and the judge refused to grant the subpeona for me and my lawyer. When I asked the judge why, he had pretried my case, he got pissed off and gave me 90 days in jail for Family Abuse, on the charge of assault and battery on a crime that never had taking place.
That began the most horrible things a man should have to endure, by the justice system for a married man. In the course of the following year, I was taken to court 50 times, for everything under the sun. My visitation with the kids where a joke at best, I had 27 visits with my kids and each visit I,was either arrested or had to talk with the police on each visit because of her lies. My child support went from $400/month to $2400/month inside of a year on a $30,000/year salary(more than 6 times the state guidelines), I went though 3 lawyers and 6 judges. I could not get this runaway ordeal to stop. It finally cost me my job, for missing to much time from work, it cost me my house and everything in it. I was left with nothing and support orders to pay more than men making $250,000/year.
I was told by one judge in this ordeal, I was going to have to work three full-time jobs to pay her. At this point in life a broke clock was right more often in a day than,I was. The justice system threatened me with jail every step of the way, if I did not pay my $2400/month support. At the end of that year period, I was sent a bill from the I.R.S. for about $6000 on the income that I earned, but never got to hold because of the support payments. They would not let me claim nothing in relation to the kids, because a law change, that year changed all of that for the non-custodial parent. With no job, living in a motel room, I was faced with going to jail, no matter what. If I, paid my support, the I.R.S. was going to put me in jail and if I paid the I.R.S., child services was going to put me in jail for non-payment, a no win sitution, there was just no money to do anything, after what I, had already endured. In my case I, realized that as long as the legal system can keep the men scared about going to jail, they can turn you into a puppet for ther amusement.
On my last visit with my kids 7/31/95, wednesday at 4pm. I went to pick-up my kids as per court order. Things took a turn for the worst for me, as if its not bad enough already. My wife called the police as usual and the police came by the car loads. The head officer arrested me, charged me with treaspassing. I could not believe what was going on, because I, had a right to be there per court order to pick-up my kids. The police officer broke the court order to make the arrest. A complete violation of rights. I was charged and giving no bail for a crime thats less than traffic offense. Spent 4 days in jail before I, was giving an arrignment and the judge gave me 12 months in jail for a crime that never happened. A whole bunch of laws were broke to do this to me.
I know you proably think that this, is fiction but I can prove all of the things that happened to me. The only good thing that came from all of this is legal system broke the only document( court order) made for me to live by in regards to my wife. How do you enforce legally, a court order that the legal system made for you, and then breaks to trump up a crime to put you in jail over??? By this time in my life, the only thing that I, have is the clothes on my back and a old car. I slept there many nights. Since that year 1995, I have not seen, nor spoken to my kids because she just will not let that happen. I do not know where they are at, or what they are doing. My son is 19 now and my daughter will be 15 in a few days. I had to stop fighting to see them, because the legal system and my wife made it so costly, that I had to stop. When you are trying to find your next meal, or to stay warm, it is impossible to fight the legal system when you are in that bad a shape, in life. Needless to out of all the shit that was made for me, we never did finish our divorce, on going now for 12 years and counting.
Thank You all for reading this story, it is only the highlights to my ordeal and not whole story. I do know what the gates to HELL look like, I've been there.
Conrad - slowpoke7759@rbnet.com