I wrote an obituary for his sons and their families and anyone else who knew him as a wonderful man and a talented signmaker. For me he was none of those things. He was pure evil at times, saying vile things to me. His sense of humor was mostly abusive with an occasional good joke thrown in for good measure.
One thing I truly despise hearing are the countless tales of my husband's greatest acts and how wonderful he was and what he did for his community. If these people only knew of my husband's evil deeds they wouldn't be praising his good deeds.
You cannot erase or blot out your evil deeds with good deeds. A lot of people think that way. Yet deep down my husband knew this was true because toward the end of his life he told me that God probably wasn't going to forgive him for what he had done. Because I didn't know the truth behind his words I couldn't agree nor disagree with him.
I am writing this obituary on my website for myself and the victims of my husband. It's safe to say that my husband had three known victims. He taught grade school and that's the age of the victims he pursued. He actively stalked the young children he taught by doing things with them which were not okay to do with them yet "normal" for pedophiles. He'd even brag about doing those things with the children he taught. I know there are more who never knew his vile acts upon their beings yet still he perpetrated crimes against them. My husband used to drive certain routes through our small city so that he could ogle the age of children he was attracted to. A despicable act I didn't realize he was doing for years until I watched him one day as we sat at a traffic light, and he kept his eyes on the grade school girls in short dresses or skirts waiting at the crosswalk. To say I was shocked was an understatement.
My husband was a pedophile. He abused his sister and her daughter, both from early ages. And who knows who else. I believe there were others only because of my husband being sequestered away at an all boys school by junior high school.
My husband was my abuser; subjecting me to every aspect of domestic violence. He abused me for 32 years out of our nearly 35 years of marriage. If there had been a way for me to leave and stay away from him, I would have. I left many times and kicked him out once, forcing him into a treatment program. The program worked for a while and then my husband was back to his evil and vile ways.
He was a perfectionist, a control freak, a stalker, a nasty and vile humorist, a sexual assaulter, a sexual deviant, and a discourager among many other not-so-wonderful things. He lacked empathy for me and expected me to care for and about him like he never cared for me. I did. Once when I was deathly ill with a heart condition he left me to care for myself while he went to work. I could barely walk ten steps. He knew how ill I was. He saw me in the ED near death. Yet when I came home from three days in ICU he had zero empathy for my suffering. For years I tried to figure out why he treated like he had. And then I read a book on abusers, just this year (2020), and discovered that abusers lack empathy and accountability. Wow! That book, Stop Hurting the Woman You Love, really spoke to me. For the first time in my life I got it. I read a statistic this year too, that 60% or more of domestic violence perpetrators go on to become child abusers. That's definitely true for my husband. I still wonder what he did to his first wife. Was there some level of domestic violence? His sister told me there were threats, coercion, manipulation, etc. with her abuse as she got older. My husband refused to take responsibility for any of his acts of cruelty against me, against his sister, and against his niece.
In his death, I finally have freedom, peace, and relief. The first thing I did after he died was breathe out a huge sigh of relief. It was as if I was holding my breath for years, and I no longer had to do that.
On April 7, 2020, two months before his death, I wrote these words in my journal:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words carve out deep canyons of pain within my soul.
No truer words have ever been said about the years of abuse I endured with my husband. His words did more damage than anything else he perpetrated on me.
And then there were the lies…most of these I only knew after his death. He lied about everything that had to do with his acts of abuse on his sister and his niece. He was a convincing liar. Yet in the back of my mind I knew he wasn't telling me the truth. It wasn't until he died that I had the freedom to ask his sister what really happened. I learned a truth I had suspected for a long time. As a survivor of incest myself, I listened to the horrors that happened years ago and perpetrated on two innocent children, my SIL and my niece.
To this day, my niece is totally messed up by my husband's abuse. His whole extended family sided with him years ago by covering up the abuse, blaming the victim for the abuse, and never disclosing the witnessed abuse to anyone else including my niece's mother, my SIL. My husband's sister didn't learn of the abuse until years after it occurred and only after her daughter had entered a treatment program.
My husband hasn't left any lasting legacy as far as I'm concerned. He left this earth with a debt he failed to repay. He left this earth but not before wreaking havoc on numerous lives.
I have no problem "airing" my husband's dirty laundry on my website. He committed vile and evil acts against children and an adult. He shouldn't get to remain anonymous and hidden. Yet I will not mention his name here. I'll give you a hint: his obit will be published the week of August 10, 2020 in the Whidbey Times on Whidbey Island, Island County, Washington State.
As stated in the Bible:
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
Proverbs 11:10 NIV
The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
Proverbs 10:7 NIV
The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
Psalm 34:16 NIV