It has been alleged by Robin that I visit her website every day.

No. I visit it on occasion. Sometimes months go by without my visiting it. Robin is a Drama Queen. She calls this "stalking". Puhleeze!!!

She has suggested that the fact that I talk about murders of families might mean that I would hurt her.

No. That is absurd. I talk about murders of families for two reasons. One is that I am always fascinated by the contrast between the private person and the public person. Between how some people seem so very normal and then they go and do something so contrary to everyone’s expectations of them.

My interest in these persons has nothing whatever to do with Robin
other than that she has estranged herself from me and that was quite
contrary to anything I had ever expected from her. But other than that,
no, it has nothing to do with my own family. The other reason is that I
am fascinated with mysteries that involve crimes. This also has nothing
whatever to do with Robin. Not everything is about her. I, along with a
zillion other people, enjoy trying to figure out why or who did this or
that evil deed. Here is the link for my favorite blog about missing
persons and crimes. It is called The Dark Side. (Note: The Dark Side no longer exists but the blogger who had had the Dark Side has a new blog on crime: crimeblog.us.) 

However, speaking of murder, Robin stated that her father warned her
not to put Robert as a beneficiary on an insurance policy as he might
murder her to get the money. This is interesting because when I was
leaving her father, he wanted me to get a life insurance policy and
name him as beneficiary! Since I hadn’t fallen off a turnip truck that
day, I did not take out the insurance policy and did see the
implications behind why he might want me to get one. Long before Robert
was even in the picture, my ex had thought of that idea all on his own.
Interesting that he would tell Robin to watch out for that.

Robin called her father a sociopath and a narcissist. I never
considered him a sociopath as he does have feelings. He just doesn’t
express them or maybe even feel them right away. He might talk about a
feeling months after the event that caused it. Or that is how it
seemed. I never saw him do things that seemed like a sociopath other
than ask me to buy an insurance policy when I was leaving him. That
MIGHT be sociopathic. He did tell me that he was having fantasies of
murdering me but then we were divorcing and people can get some pretty
wild ideas in the middle of a divorce. I don’t think it makes him
sociopathic. Not that I usually defend him.

As far as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder. they always say
that a professional has to diagnose it. But some people just seem to
fit all the criteria. I have wondered about that in my ex but didn’t
really think it was so. Image is important to him and it sounds as
though it is important to his second wife. But whether it rises to the
level of Narcissistic Personality Disorder for my ex, I don’t know. I
have read a number of good books on NPD because we have some friends
who seem to have all the criteria for NPD and they are much more
narcissistic than my ex seemed.

When I left my ex, I learned how much I didn’t know. I had been
married to him for 18 years but then felt as though I didn’t know him
at all.

I made a mistake in allowing Robin to live in the house after I
left. She witnessed his grief and pain over the separation and divorce.
She never witnessed mine. I never allowed her to see me cry. She has no
way of knowing how much I cried or how much pain I was in. She has no
way of knowing that I am vulnerable and that I hurt. She has never seen
me show much weakness. This was a mistake on my part, to let her stay
there. I think she might have felt that I was abandoning her,
especially when my tiny apartment didn’t have room for her. I was
freaked out at the time that I would not be able to support myself and
took the smallest cheapest apartment I could find and it didn’t have a
separate room for her. When she visited there and didn’t see another
room, I cringed and felt guilty that I might have hurt her. It was
NEVER my intention and my only reason for taking that apartment was my
fear of not being able to make the payments on a better one. I knew
that I would get no money from Tony.

She has never experienced a divorce and I hope she never will. Since
she has a strong bond with Robert, they may always be together.
However, if she had experienced what it is like to leave or be left,
and not just witnessed it as a daughter, she might have more empathy
for why people talk and act the way that they do when they divorce. Why
they do stupid things. I did plenty of stupid things, including being a
jerk about the Mercedes that we drove to her wedding 6 years later.
Yes, I was a jerk about the Mercedes.

I knew my ex adored cars. I was never that into cars but due to a
story that is too long and uninteresting my second husband and I ended
up with this Mercedes and I wanted to shove that Mercedes right up
Tony’s nose because he had been such a pain in the butt by not talking
to me and not trying to be friends. So I was a jerk. So bite me! I am
not the first woman to act like a jerk after a divorce and I won’t be
the last. My ex acted like a jerk and I acted like a jerk. We are human
and sometimes we’re stupid. If someone could walk in my shoes at that
time, they might have driven the Mercedes right across my ex’s lawn! It
wasn’t the worst thing I’ve done and it is a pretty minor thing. I’m
sure it was irritating. I recall that it was my sister-in-law that I
dragged outside to show off the Mercedes. Yes, a jerky thing to do!
Some would call this human but then others would call it mental
illness. I wonder if they institutionalize many people for being jerks
towards their ex-spouses?

When someone acts like a jerk, as I had, it might make sense to let
them know, kindly, that they are acting like a jerk. It doesn’t take
much to clue me in. I know when I’ve been a jerk and it is embarrassing
to think back on. I can’t imagine that Robin has been so perfect in her
life that she has never done a jerky thing. In fact she has told me
about some pretty jerky things that she has done that were downright
alarming!

(Note added Nov. 5: When I used the words, "Bite me!" above and
when I said in another post that "Shit happens." my daughter reacted by
stating that she wouldn’t accept an apology that had those words in it.
Well, that’s fine. In the unlikely event that I ever even speak to her
again, I will remember that. But in the context of what I was saying
above in this post and in the other post, I was not making an apology.
I was describing what happened and why. I was admitting that of course
I make mistakes and act like a jerk as we all do. My daughter has taken
this information and used it to attack me further rather than accepting
my admitting my human foibles.)

So anyway, some people reconcile when they realize that what their
estranged person has done is something that they can eventually
understand and empathize with. For some people it’s when they have kids
that they realize that their parents aren’t so bad. For others it is
when they get a divorce and things get crazy and then they realize that
their mother or father had a reason to behave as they had. They learn
empathy. They forgive and put things in a proper scale.

Jennifer Aniston recently reconciled with her mother after a 9 year
estrangement. Jennifer was divorcing Brad Pitt and learned in the
process that maybe her mother wasn’t such a bad person.

Online article:  Jennifer Aniston Makes Peace with her Mother, October 2005

I can’t and wouldn’t recommend divorce for Robin just so that she
could learn some empathy and I can’t and wouldn’t recommend children. I
can’t recommend anything as she seems to think she knows it all and
that is the end of the story. All I can do is hope that life eventually
teaches her that her mom is a lot more normal than she thinks and that
we have a lot of life left that could be lived with each other in it
doing some things together.

I’ve had life sober me up plenty along the way. Most people do grow as they get older. I know I have.

I do wish the best for Robin. I am happy for her that she is moving
to that beautiful house. It looks lovely and is in a great location.
And I am happy that she has found a career she likes. I am happy that
her and Robert are so happy in their marriage. That is great news, all
of it. The only irony is that I am happy too and would like to be able
to share our happiness together. But for some reason she is convinced
that I am a miserable mean and ugly person who wishes her nothing but
bad stuff. There are times I’ve been angry and exasperated with her but
for good reason. It isn’t easy being estranged, especially if you care
about the person who has estranged you. There are days that you are
very angry and there are days you have all kinds of feelings. But the
anger isn’t there to be mean. It is there because you miss the person
and want things to be different.

Okay, enough of this ramble. Night all,
Snicks