A Woman With Murder In Mind

In 1994, almost thirty years ago to the day, I willingly accepted a change to my life that would in the long run prove to be the ruin of both me and my family and almost cost me my life.

Fully charged with optimism for the future well-being of my wife and our three children, I accepted her demand to be a go-out-to-work partner whilst I remained at home as a newly appointed house husband or stay-at-home Dad.

I embraced my new role with all of my heart and soul and looked forward to having a closer relationship with my three children. At the same time, I was still able to work as a freelance copywriter, fitting in my workload with my new domestic responsibilities. One of the things I was revved off the clock about was not having to deal with the daily cut and thrust of office politics.

In the world of advertising, a great deal of backstabbing goes on in top ad agencies to gain plum jobs, promotions and a higher salary.
Despite all of that, my wife at that time, thought I had it easy.

“It’s ok for you, you get to be with adults having stimulating conversations, free of any of the stress of bringing up three young children who seem hell-bent on killing each other.”

She had no idea of what went on in a highly charged place of work full of over-ambitious ego maniacs. On at least two occasions I was backstabbed out of my job. Sadly, it was all part and parcel of that particular highly dynamic territory. The only reason I, and other creative people like me, put up with it was because of the huge financial rewards. At the height of that career, I earned more in one hour than I had previously earned in a week! However, in the end, I was glad to get out of it and go freelance. Having said that, even being a freelancer comes with a degree of backstabbing, albeit to a much lesser degree.

I have to say, I adored being a stay-at-home Dad. Yes, it was hard work, but it was also good fun and very fulfilling. Every morning I got up and got the kids up, dressed and breakfasted before walking them to school. In the following hours, I did household chores, which included all the cooking and cleaning, gardening and shopping. In between those chores, I also managed to do some well-paid freelance work.

The downsides included being cut off from any non-work-related adult contact. At that time I was the only stay-at-home dad I knew of and stay-at-home mums were not inclined towards including a man in their ritual coffee mornings whilst the kids were at school. Mind you, I wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. I was not in any way partial to female small talk about dirty nappies or the price of sausages at the supermarket.

Another thing I discovered was that I began to feel emasculated. My masculinity was being systematically robbed from me by a wife who wanted what she saw as the perks of being the principal breadwinner, along with ruling the roost back at home.

“Right, before I go to work, I’m going to give you your directives” my wife would say in a stern tone of voice.

What does giving a directive mean? “A directive is an official instruction that is given by someone in authority.”

It was not that things that needed to be done were not in any way being done, on the contrary, they were being done very well indeed. It was just that my wife was trying to micro-manage me in her absence. She would even call me on the phone to give me further orders. Quite frankly, I just wanted to tell her to fuck off and leave me alone. For the sake of peace, I simply acquiesced.

The real trouble began less than a year later when I discovered by chance that she was having an extra-marital affair with her boss. One day, about midday, the mail came and included an itemised telephone bill. When I saw the amount due I was horrified at how much it was.

Leafing through the pages of calls made, one unfamiliar number stood out due to two things. One, that was where all the extra cost was, and two, those calls were only ever made when I was out of the house. Curiosity got the better of me and I called the number. The response I got from the other party rocked my world.

“Who am I? Why don’t you ask your wife? You’re pathetic.” the snarly male voice angrily growled at me.

When my wife got home I asked her who the number belonged to and that was like lighting the blue touch paper. A barrage of fireworks flew at me from her direction, calling me a liar, when I told what was said to me, and a flat-out denial of anything untoward.

Over the ensuing days and weeks, the firestorm burned ferociously with all manner of nastiness hurled at me. All the time she was accusing me of being delusional, and she even spread that narrative far and wide among family, friends and neighbours, all of whom began to give me the cold shoulder.

To get to the bottom of what was going on I started to listen in to her calls and private conversations. What I heard was the most appalling insults, lies and false accusations against me. Even worse was yet to come. Indeed, it was every person’s biggest nightmare.

One call in particular stood out for what it indicated what was being planned for me. It started with her and her lover's boss discussing my state of mind.

“Do you think he’ll do something?” she asked him.

That was about how much pressure they had put me under, was it enough yet for me to do the unthinkable and commit suicide? This was followed by…

“Do you think we should do it for him?”

I immediately took that to mean that my life was at risk. What I was dealing with was a woman with murder in mind. This was no simple office affair. From that point on I knew I would have to be extremely vigilant. I have to say, that heightened alertness went a very long way to saving my life.

About one week later my wife told me that she was going out for an evening swim at the local leisure centre. I was immediately suspicious and watched her every move. Coming downstairs from the bathroom, I suddenly spotted that the hall telephone had been disconnected. A few minutes later I discovered that she had slyly slipped the security lock on the patio doors which led onto the back garden. Both of these discoveries led me to believe that some sort of attack against me was going to happen. Unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong.

The slipped lock was to allow easy entry for whoever was coming to kill me. The disconnected phone was to stop me from calling for assistance. I was sure of this as in the weeks leading up to this point, I found out that she had been telling people that I had made lots of enemies who were out to get me. 
In addition, she had my car broken into and ransacked whilst it was parked on the drive leading up to the house. That was her putting her alternative narrative and cause of death in place. The evening swim was her alibi.

As soon as she left I reconnected the phone and locked the door. I checked the three children were tucked up in bed, fast asleep, and I checked all other doors and windows were securely locked, just in case. Then I turned off all of the lights and sat in darkness waiting for what I felt was to be an inevitable assault of some sort.

I closed my eyes to try to relax without going to sleep. It had been quiet for quite some time when all of a sudden…

After she left, just when I began to think it was all in my deluded mind…there was the loudest, most horrendous crashing noise against the front door. It was as if somebody was using a battering ram to get in. How on Earth the door withstood the impact I do not know.

I ran in the darkness to the living room window to see a dark figure, who appeared to be armed, running back down the drive to a waiting car. He or she jumped in and the driver began to rev the arse off the engine. Then, a minute later the car tore off down the street, tyres screeching, at one hell of a lick.

Not too long afterwards she returned home as cool as cucumber and I told her what had happened. If she was innocent, I would have expected her to be alarmed, especially since we had three young children upstairs asleep in their beds. Although her hair was wet, I simply didn’t trust her and refused to believe she had been anywhere near a swimming pool.

I told her I had to go out to the late shop to get some milk and bread and calmly went and got in my car. I drove directly to the leisure centre only to discover that it had been closed all day for an extensive clean-up of the pool.

After that worrying escapade, I left the house, for my safety. It hurt me enormously to abandon the children, but the last thing they needed was a dead Daddy.

I did try to report what had happened to the police but they were not convinced that my life was in danger. I had to come up with something to thwart any further attacks, even away from home. So I chose to confront her and told her that if anything happened to me she would be the first person in line for the police to investigate. That was the best I could come up with under the circumstances.

Even in my new rented house things happened. I was being followed for sure, I made a note of the guilty parties. Also, one morning I went to my front door to go out only to find a dead cat had been placed on my doorstep. It did not die by accident. Its throat had been cut. I took that to be a warning, or it was further proof of her trying to create evidence that somebody else was out to get me.

For a long time after those events, I remained extra vigilant and changed my appearance and my routine. I had my head shaved and took alternative routes to places I needed to go to.

About a year later I met my second ex-wife-to-be, and my first ex-wife was furious. She embarked on a concerted effort to destroy that relationship and sadly forced us to leave the country to get as far away from her as possible. However, by that time the damage was done and not too long after moving to Spain that marriage also failed.

I spent the following fifteen years alone until I met my present lovely wife and moved to Japan, well away from both of my vicious exes. The only remaining painful effect of my past troubles is that I lost my children. They want nothing more to do with me, and at this point, I am past caring.

They have been brainwashed against me and sucked it all up as if all of the vicious lies about me are verbatim. I did try to tell them the truth and they did not react well at all. Over the past fifteen years since I had any contact with them, I have tried to build bridges in a good way, but sadly they chose to reject my advances. Whatever, I am at peace with myself and the world at large.

The one last thing I would like to say is that there will no doubt be people who say “Gee, you must have done something wrong, something real shitty for her to treat you like that.” Guess what? My conscience is clear. I have seen dozens of USA videos where something similar has happened. Every single time it happens it does so because the woman (or man) wants everything, a new partner and all of the money and assets, plus the children from her old marriage all to herself. The only obstacle to getting everything is their partner. Get rid of him, or her, and everything is for them. To add insult to injury, they try to play the victim card. Greedy narcissistic monsters are what they are.

Tim