Shortly before Christmas, I came home from work and was horrified. The dogs had clawed through the linoleum flooring in the kitchen and ripped portions of it up. One of the gates was broken down, and they had destroyed the living room furniture and other portions of the house. One dog had gone upstairs and chewed on my great-great-grandfather’s mahogany bedroom set. That was my breaking point. I told Jess that the dogs must go, and I took them away.
Jess experienced extreme guilt for months, knowing that the dogs were euthanized due to her failing to act. She never admitted that it was her fault. She knew this had been her responsibility: she’d known she was supposed to take care of the situation and sell the puppies, and she’d known what would happen to the dogs if they were taken away, but she had done nothing. She redirected her guilt and shame toward me, making me out to be the evil guy, while she completely misrepresented the actual events and didn’t tell people of her own failure to act on her promises.
For the first time, I considered divorcing her, but I stayed with her due to the vows I had taken. I still loved her, but I was very unhappy in our marriage with all the damage she had caused. I was tired of constantly having to bail us out of all the problems she created, only to be accused of not caring and not supporting her.
Four
The Pacific Ocean Is a Good Mother-in-Law Barrier
Jess’s bridal and prom store was in full operation. She was very busy and had multiple employees. Her customer base and sales grew, but there was no profit. Jess was not paying herself a salary.
She needed more room for storage, so I paid a couple of kids from church to help me build a second story at the back of the store. I also built an office for her, ran all new electrical and network outlets, built dressing rooms for customers, and repainted the store. All my work at the store was in addition to my full-time job at Ford. My dad even came down and helped quite a bit. My mom was working there quite frequently to help with alterations.
The store looked great, but that didn’t last long. Shortly after all my work, Jess began buying a huge amount of dresses and useless stuff. The store became extremely cluttered due to the huge amount of inventory. Both floors of the store were full. These dresses were not the current year’s fashion; Jess was going to websites with bulk-clearance sales and buying excess inventory that other bridal or prom stores could not sell. She was on a buying spree, getting what she called “great deals,” thinking she could resell the dresses at a profit. There was far more inventory coming in than she was selling. All her spending on the massive inventory that was not selling concerned me greatly.
I told Jess that the store no longer looked like a high-class bridal salon; it looked like a secondhand thrift store with all the mess and clutter. Jess didn’t see it this way. She told me that many of the prom dresses were seasonal items and would not sell until prom season. She said that all the advertising would go out at the right times. She pretty much ignored all my concerns—I was just a guy with limited fashion sense. Jess assured me that she knew what she was doing.
Jess’s emotional problems and conflicts with people got worse. She could not handle the jerks who came in every now and then. If they said anything negative, she took it very personally. She also couldn’t handle people not liking her. Many times, when she got home, she would be crying about how others had treated her. My mom tried helping Jess with her issues, tried helping her to toughen up, but nothing worked. I tried telling Jess that these were not personal attacks on her; the people were just rude idiots. Jess knew she had to toughen up, but she would not change or help herself. She had this narrow view of how the world should be and how it should treat her. Nothing could change how she felt.
In a retail store, customers lie a lot. They will go to great lengths in trying to rip off the store. It goes way past normal behavior of haggling over prices. Some women will take two gowns into the dressing room and switch the tags. They’ll attempt to remove markdown stickers from one dress and put them on another. They’ll say one shop has a certain dress cheaper when it does not. When caught in a lie, they’ll get indignant and start yelling. Whoever came up with the phrase “The customer is always right” clearly did not run a retail business. This abusive behavior took a huge toll on Jess’s emotional well-being.
Many times when I got home from work and walked in the door, Jess would immediately go off on me, like a floodgate of emotions had opened. She frequently told me about the latest incident of how her character had been insulted. There were a few instances when I didn’t even have a chance to get out of the car. She saw me pull into the driveway, came outside, and immediately started to rant while I was still sitting in the car. I asked her many times to please give me just a little while to decompress after I got home before hitting me with these issues, but as usual, she countered by accusing me of never wanting to talk to her. She let up a little for a while, but she soon resumed venting to me.
Internet websites selling bridal gowns increased dramatically, and the store’s sales were not increasing. One of the ways bridal stores combat this is on alterations. When a person buys a gown at the store, a greatly reduced rate in alteration charges is given. Many times women complained that it was not fair that Jess was charging more on alterations for gowns they’d bought elsewhere. Jess was having a hard time managing these complaints and the stress and other issues of running the store.
Jess’s pride had ramped up during the last few years, and customers falsely accusing her of lying further added to her stress and emotional issues. Jess could not adopt the attitude that they were simply idiots and that she shouldn’t let them bother her. Due to her pride, she felt these incidents were a personal assault on her character, and these incidents damaged the very core of her being. There were also thefts in the store, so I installed a digital surveillance system with eight channels of video with audio. This system turned out to be invaluable.
It was prom season, and many mothers and daughters were coming in to get dresses. Jess was spending a lot of time dealing with one family with a morbidly obese daughter. Unfortunately for the girl, the mother and grandmother were trying to make her the perfect princess and dictate every aspect of the prom dress. They were extremely fussy and demanded that every stitch on the dress be perfect for them. It was only a $120 dress, but they loudly demanded all sorts of free alterations. Jess put her heart into this, as she really wanted the girl to have a nice prom. I saw their hateful and demanding behavior and warned Jess that they were nothing but trouble and that she should cut her losses and get out of this situation. Jess felt bad for the girl and continued trying to help. I made sure to archive the security video showing the interactions with these people just in case something happened.
The grandmother was being extremely unrealistic about the dress alterations. If she saw a small pucker in the fabric, she demanded free alteration work to make it near perfect. When someone is that obese, the fabric will pucker between the folds of fat. The grandmother even said, “I want to show off her curves.” They were completely delusional, difficult, and abrasive. There was no way I would tolerate that horrible behavior if I were running a business.
Jess didn’t want the mother and grandmother to ruin the girl’s prom. With the large amount of alterations required, Jess got them to agree to half off the alterations. This was one of Jess’s great gifts. She put her heart into someone and wanted to make that person happy, but it was also her greatest weakness, as she took this to the extreme. When someone didn’t return the kindness in her store and instead took advantage of her, Jess was devastated.
After all the hours of tedious alterations Jess put into this girl’s dress, it was finished, and the mother came in to pick it up. She came in, sat on the couch, refused to pay, and claimed it wasn’t done on time. The dress was done, and these claims were an outright lie. Jess brought out the dress and set it on the couch next to her, but the mother refused to acknowledge it. The mother even called her mother and said the dress wasn’t done and wasn�
�t here. I saw and heard this on the video and couldn’t believe she lied to her own mother. The daughter was not around for this. They had already paid for part of the alteration work and demanded a full refund. Jess refused.
A few weeks later, Jess got a small claims court summons. The women were suing her for the cost of the dress they’d never picked up and the alteration fees. They lied, claiming the dress had not been ready for prom and that they’d had to buy another from a different store.
Jess was devastated over this. Her emotional outrage was completely over the top and way outside any type of normal reaction. She wanted to express her anger in court about how her reputation and business had been harmed and how they had insulted her and caused her great pain. I tried to console her, saying they were despicable human beings and would have done the same thing to someone else.
Nothing I said mattered. We discussed how we would fight this lawsuit, and I spent hours trying to convince her that the court wanted facts, not just her describing how her pride was hurt or how she wanted revenge. I told her I would put together all the facts from the video to prove them wrong and that it would be a sure win for us. Jess would not relent. She was livid, beyond reason, and she wanted only to lash out, express her pain, and do whatever it took to get revenge. It took days, but finally Jess agreed to let me speak first in court to present the facts. Then she would speak about how this had hurt her.
I spent a few evenings transcribing the video and wrote up a document showing video screenshots with the dates, times, and what the mothers had said to Jess. I paid particular attention to placing screenshots of the video into my document that showed the dress sitting on the couch next to the mother. I also transcribed the mother’s words from the audio with her claiming the dress was not there.
The great thing about small claims court is that you don’t have to let the other side know what evidence you have. When the court appearance arrived, the mother and grandmother spoke first, and as I predicted, they lied about everything. They were very loud and hateful, and they expressed how their daughter had been hurt, claiming Jess had ruined her prom. It was all a con—after the hours of work Jess had put in, they had clearly changed their mind and decided to buy another dress somewhere else. I thought these despicable human beings were the ones who had hurt their own child, but they were being perpetual victims and liars. I smiled as I listened to them speak; I knew they were just digging their hole deeper and that I had all the evidence to prove them wrong. I calmly waited with great anticipation to destroy them.
Jess didn’t see it this way. She was outraged and started interrupting to correct them. The magistrate, Charles Pope, had to tell Jess to let them speak. I whispered to Jess, “The more they lie, the more I’ll destroy them.” When the women finished their ridiculous and false story, I got up and spoke on Jess’s behalf.
My testimony showing evidence and facts was brutal to them. I read part of the document I had prepared that showed screenshots of the video with their own words transcribed into text. All their false statements were obliterated with my facts. I also told the magistrate that I had a laptop with video evidence showing the completed dress if he wanted to see it.
He said yes, and then I played the video with the audio turned up for all to hear. I showed the portion with the dress sitting next to the mother as she lied into the phone and claimed the dress wasn’t there. The women were shocked when they discovered it was all on video. It was glorious to see the look on their faces when they knew all their lies had been exposed. I took great pleasure in outing these despicable human beings in court for what they were. Jess still was not satisfied.
Jess began speaking. She couldn’t contain herself and spoke only of her emotional pain. She went on and on. Then the magistrate had to stop her testimony. Luckily for us, I had already proved our case. After Jess finished talking, the mother had to get in the last word. The family was black, and the magistrate was white, and the mother had the pure audacity to say, “How do you know that is me? We all look alike.” Charles Pope rolled his eyes in amazement at that outrageous statement of them pulling the race card with him.
Charles Pope wisely didn’t issue the ruling in court. He said the court held retailers to a great level of integrity and must ensure all customers are treated fairly. The women smiled, thinking they had won. He would review the case and send out the ruling by mail. I knew Mr. Pope said this only to prevent their making a scene in the courtroom, but Jess was extremely worried. When we left, I tried to reassure her, saying this was a slam dunk for us, and I explained why Mr. Pope had said that. Jess could not be calmed.
A week later, the ruling arrived. We won! Not only that, but they had to pay Jess the balance of alterations due plus the dress’s retail cost. When the balance was paid, the women could pick the dress up at the courthouse.
I showed the ruling to Jess and said, “This is great! Those evil bitches lost.”
I was expecting Jess to be elated, but she showed a completely opposite reaction. She slumped over and complained how she was hurt. We talked at length, but she would not allow herself to feel any happiness in winning. This situation was all about her hurt pride, and she wanted to lash out and get her revenge. She wanted to make those women pay emotionally and wanted the world to see how she’d been hurt and empathize with her. She was in a depression for two months over this. Multiple people talked with her in an attempt to help, but because she hadn’t claimed her vengeance by publicly humiliating these women and having the world sympathize with her emotional pain, Jess stayed depressed. Nothing mattered to her except her hurt pride.
Two years later, when we were waiting in line to vote in local elections, we unexpectedly met Charles Pope. He was running for judge. He recognized us, and we spoke briefly about the old small claims case. It was clear that he had been amused by the women’s courtroom antics, and he told us the women had never paid the balance or picked up the dress; it was still at the courthouse. He also told us he felt sorry for the girl. Her mother and grandmother had caused all these problems, and the girl was the real victim in this case. The women’s behavior had been so outrageous that this case stuck in his mind. We voted for him.
Jess’s demands on me about the store were becoming unreasonable. One incident in particular was when Jess wanted me to go to a fashion expo. This wasn’t a local bridal show where I was like a pack mule, helping her and the employees haul dresses, racks, and boxes; this was purely about women’s fashion trends and all sorts of different things about women’s clothing. It was definitely not my world.
I told her no way, but she said this would be fun for both of us. I looked at her and wondered what she was thinking. She knew I didn’t like the fashion industry; she knew I didn’t like being around all those dresses or listening to talk about fashion trends or other silly things. She knew I’d help her all I could with hauling boxes, moving racks of dresses, loading things up in our F-150 pickup, and doing the grunt work for bridal shows. Sitting around listening to designers yap about bridal fashion trends was the ultimate man hell for me.
I told her, “You know me; we agreed at the very start of this business that I was not going to be involved in fashion. I’m more comfortable in camo than designer clothes. I’d rather walk around with my bow and arrow in a swamp or in two feet of snow stalking animals. Why are you trying to get me to do something you know will make me miserable?” I also reminded her that I worked a full-time job.
Jess would not relent. She came at this from all different sorts of angles. She tried to tell me that this was something we could do to have fun together, that it would be great, and that we could have a nice trip together. She even said fashion was something I’d be good at.
What the hell? Me good at fashion? That was pure crazy talk. She knew without a doubt how silly and shallow I viewed the fashion industry, and she was only trying to manipulate me. At this point, with her unrelenting badgering, I was getting really irritated. She refused to stop or back down. It was ver
y bizarre and another example of the fantasy she had built up in her head of how people were supposed to act with her. Anyone else who knew me would laugh if someone said I’d have fun going to a women’s fashion show. My own wife, who was supposed to know me best, refused to accept this reality.
I’d had enough of it. I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “My balls don’t belong in your purse.”
She was shocked; she didn’t like this comment at all. Then she said I was being unreasonable and crude. I have to admit that comment about my balls was a bit over the top. She then went into a tirade about how I never helped her, never supported her, and never listened to her, and she said I needed to understand her feelings. After all the times of working at her store after getting home from my full-time job, plus working there many weekends, and now she was trying to emotionally blackmail me.
I looked at her and sternly said, “No way in hell am I going to a woman’s fashion show,” and then I walked away without saying anything else. She packed up and left the next morning without speaking to me. I was OK with that.
The nation’s economy took a downturn, and this turn for the worse greatly reduced sales in the store. I found out Jess was way behind on rent and had received an eviction notice. Damn, more money problems. Jess showed me financials that looked very good. She assured me there were no other outstanding debts, and I even saw a monthly credit card sales report that showed a very promising picture. She needed a bit of cash to make it through the economic downturn and hold her over until the next seasonal sale of dresses.
We took out a home equity loan to fund her store. This was on top of the mortgage. Jess assured me that $20,000 would see her through.
Jess’s mother, Suda, came to visit from Thailand and was going to stay for three months. She wanted to help her daughter with the store since she was also an experienced seamstress. It went well for a short while, and then the extremely controlling aspect of her mother reared its ugly head. Suda would not follow Jess’s directions about how a customer wanted a wedding gown or dress altered. Suda did it her way, which got customers upset, and then Jess had to redo the work. This added stress, and the worsening relationship with her mother really affected Jess. Suda ruled her with an iron fist. In Suda’s world, she was the mother and knew best, and Jess had to do what she said. Jess would not stand up to her mother.
Tales of the Crazy Page 5
