Tales of the Crazy

by Charles L Cole

  Constant drama between the girls in the store was another behavior. When I worked in the backroom of the store, I heard girls talk to one another about drama in their lives. It was a very bizarre interaction. They said they wanted stress-free lives and complained about problems, but their own actions repeatedly sabotaged their own contentment. The unconscious need for drama and chaos in their lives ruled over sensible behavior that would bring contentment. The girl with the most dramatic stories in the pack was the center of attention, while the other ones telling stories with little or no drama were ignored. They quickly learned to up the drama to get closer to the center of attention.

  Some girls even worked against the others’ contentment. When they saw another girl who was really happy with her life, jealousy erupted, and they would cut down that happy girl behind her back. It seemed to me that true contentment wasn’t the ultimate goal in their lives; talking about drama seemed to be the real objective with these teenagers.

  After seeing this drama unfolding and how it held their interest, I conducted a little devious experiment. Women I met were told stories of happiness and fun, but they were also told stories of drama and conflicts between others. Drama always drew the women to me far more. The raw interest in their eyes as they listened to drama was far more appealing to them…as long as it wasn’t my drama. After all, confident men who are attractive to women are above this petty nonsense in their lives. Combining stories of confidence and contentment in my life while describing other people’s drama always made for the best conversations. It also got the most interest from women.

  I remember one time when Jess and I were talking to an acquaintance of ours, Jake, and listening to him complain how he could not get a date. He had plenty of female friends, but he was always sent down into the friend zone. Jess went into the routine of how Jake had to be nice, be himself, and tell women they look pretty, as well as all the other typical advice a woman will say to a desperate nice guy. All the things Jess and other women told him to do were what he was doing, and these behaviors were the main reason he could not get a date. Women viewed Jake as submissive and weak; they had no attraction to him, and women instantly friend zoned him. I used to be the guy who was instantly friend zoned, so I knew exactly what Jake’s problem was: he needed to stop following women’s advice about how to act.

  I spoke up. I told Jake women didn’t view him as desirable. He appeared to be only a nice guy with no confidence, who lacked a take-charge attitude. I looked straight at him and said, “If you see a woman you would like to ask out, you must take charge and be confident. Have the attitude that she must earn the pleasure of being in your company, not the other way around.” I also told him to scrub all his social media accounts of role-playing games and remove the profile pictures of him in Star Wars costumes. He had to eliminate anything that screamed “immature nerd” and replace it with something women found exciting.

  Jess was shocked. She told Jake my advice would never work. I looked at her and thought, That’s how I got you. Jess spoke again, reinforcing her idea about how Jake should act. Unfortunately for Jake, here was an incredibly beautiful and sexy woman telling him he had to be the ultimate nice and submissive geeky guy, so he was being encouraged to stay in this pattern of utter failure. Jake was clearly desperate, and women seemed to be able to detect this desperation a mile away. They will avoid men displaying this desperation, as it is one of the worst personality traits a man can have.

  I sent Jake a message the next day for us to get together, but the damage had already been done. In his eyes, there was no way a short, balding, nerdy-looking guy could give him better advice about how to improve his dating life than a smoking-hot woman could.

  Physical attractiveness in a male has some benefit, but it is not the deciding factor. Men are far more visual than women, and that also leads them into picking the wrong woman. Many a man will chase the hot bimbo but overlook a plain woman who could potentially make happy for the rest of his life. The exception to male attractiveness is in online dating. Many women window-shop for the physically attractive guy.

  The problem is that many times both men and women are attracted to the wrong type, and that gets them into trouble. Women get tangled up with aggressive bad boys, and men get involved with shallow beautiful girls. They don’t learn from previous mistakes, and both sexes continue to make bad choices in their romantic lives, which continuously create problems in their lives. I’ve seen it over and over again, with men and women being equally foolish about whom they date.

  The problem Jess and many other immature or insecure women have is that they are not honest with themselves about what attracts them to a man. They talk among themselves about how they want a nice guy, but they ignore the fact they have a primal sexual attraction to the bad boy. Because women can’t admit this, they continually choose the wrong type over a good man. They were raised to want a Prince Charming, but if he’s not a confident alpha male swinging a sword and striking down his enemies, he won’t be considered desirable as a man.

  Many nice men are clueless about this behavior and get frustrated when they see women hanging around and sleeping with dirtbags. Bottom line: Don’t listen to women’s advice to be attractive to the opposite sex by being a nice guy. It doesn’t work. I’ve heard many female friends complain that they want a nice guy who won’t cause issues, but they ultimately ignore and friend zone the nice guy while choosing the jerk instead. It’s the do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do behavior that a man must be aware of.

  As I wrote this book, I saw an episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden on YouTube, and he was doing a skit called “Carpool Karaoke” with a guest, Carrie Underwood. James asked Carrie if she got worried when her husband, a pro hockey player, got into a fight.

  Carrie smiled and said, “Have you seen his latest fight? He knocked a guy’s tooth out.”

  James covered his mouth in shock and exclaimed, “Oh my god!”

  Carrie smiled again and said, “It was pretty hot.”

  It was refreshing to see a woman be honest.

  When I saw this, I could not help but remember what Jess had told Jake. Jess could not admit that a masculine alpha male dominating another man was sexy to her. There is nothing wrong with being very masculine, but aggressive males without empathy are just assholes. There must be a balance of confidence and aggressiveness while demonstrating the ability to show and give deep kindness and empathy.

  Twenty-One

  Protecting Your Assets from a Business

  Dealing with the financial aftermath of Jess’s store has been horrific. Even though she formed Formal Diva as a limited liability corporation, this did not shield my assets from many of her debts. If a spouse wants to start a business, you must protect your family’s assets just in case the business goes under. I had no intention of getting divorced when Jess started this business, but I should have done a few things to protect myself even if I had stayed in the marriage.

  1.Do not put your name as jointly owning your spouse’s LLC. By keeping your name off, you are shielded from potential problems if bankruptcy or frivolous lawsuits happen. You may be sued but can’t be held responsible, and your joint personal assets are protected. My name was not on the LLC even though Jess wanted me on it. She tried to persuade me by stating that this was our business, not just hers, but I stood fast and refused.

  2.Get the home mortgage in the name of the spouse who is not on the LLC. Joint marital assets are normally not collectible from judgments, but they will try if the spouse’s name is on the mortgage. You will waste a lot of time and money fighting this. The IRS and state treasury will put a lien on your home if the spouse’s name is on the deed or mortgage. They may even put a lien on your home if the spouse’s name is not on the deed, but this lien is easily removed. The IRS will do as they please and break the law to get their tax revenue. It’s up to you to set things up correctly so you can take them to court and force them to obey the law.

  3.Consider putting all yo
ur personal assets in a trust. This adds another layer of protection from the business for all your family’s assets.

  4.Never have any company credit cards issued in your name. Have cards issued only in the LLC holder’s name, and don’t get secondary cards issued in your name. It may be convenient to have a card in the short term, but if something goes wrong, the long-term damage far outweighs the convenience. It does not matter if the spouse declares bankruptcy for the LLC; you may be sued by creditors for any debt if your name is on a card. They probably won’t win in court, but it will cost at least $3,000 in legal bills plus all the time and hassle you’ll spend to take care of this. It happened to me. The creditors will also put any missed payments or debts on your credit report, and cleaning that up will cause great frustration.

  5.Never mix personal spending with the company credit cards. If a creditor can prove you used company funds for personal goods, this opens the door for debt collection on personal assets and court judgments from frivolous lawsuits.

  6.The company needs to be set up in all business dealings to demonstrate to the court that you have no involvement. Again, this is to protect your family’s personal assets if some lowlife sues. Just remember, people can sue the business for whatever they want, and many scum-sucking attorneys make a sleazy living from doing this. Their claims in the lawsuit may be completely false, but you will still have to pay legal fees to fight it. Separate yourself as much as possible to eliminate potential problems.

  7.If the business is having financial problems, take your spouse off any joint bank accounts. The spouse must open accounts in his or her name only. This will be a hassle, but now you and your family’s personal assets will be protected from future levies.

  8.Do not file joint tax returns combining your personal taxes with business taxes. If something happens with the business falling behind on federal or state taxes, both people on the combined return may be responsible for the tax debt. The government can get a levy on your personal bank accounts and will withdraw everything. Whoever is named on the LLC should file separate business returns.

  CPAs will tell you that, as a couple, losses from the spouse’s business will give you a greater joint refund, because they subtract losses from your income, but this sets you up for being responsible for future tax and business debts with a bankruptcy or divorce. It doesn’t matter if tax returns are filed individually later. What matters is whether the returns were filed jointly while the business was in operation and whether it can be shown that you profited from the business loss. I was stuck with half of Jess’s $74,000 tax debt because I’d filed my returns jointly with our business. I also had liens put on my home. The CPA never told us the future implications of filing jointly.

  9.Do not use a CPA for preparing your business taxes. Use an enrolled agent. CPAs don’t know all the tax strategies. Enrolled agents do—especially one who is an ex-IRS agent.

  Twenty-Two

  Conclusion

  I had no plans to write a book about all my experiences with Jess. I didn’t decide to do this until a couple of close friends told me this was one of the most freakish and horrific tales of divorce they had ever heard of. They said it would make a great story to tell others to warn them what could happen if they married the wrong person. One person said he would buy multiple copies and give it to all the single people he knew to show that the living hell I experienced could happen to them.

  There is also a second reason I wrote this. The repercussions of the financial devastation Jess caused are huge. I was on track to retire at sixty, but that’s not an option now. It will be sixty-four at the earliest. Even at sixty-four, I will be worse off than I would have been with my original plan, but at least I can be comfortable. It would be incredible if book sales took off and I could retire as I had planned. Another friend said this story would be well suited for a TV miniseries on the Lifetime network. I laughed at this saying if someone told me fifteen years ago that my life story could be on Lifetime—that would be absurd. Maybe this could be a series or movie on Netflix. Who knows?

  As I wrote down all the events from the fifteen years of marriage in this book, I was amazed at how much damage Jess had done over the years, and I felt like a fool for staying with her for so long. There are instances of the words bitch and psycho in this book, but some were not referring to Jess. The number of these words is not that bad considering all the malicious things Jess did to me.

  I only think of her as a “psycho bitch” due to all the horrific and bizarre things she did to me, and I am not implying that as a medical diagnosis or trying to defame her character. It’s only my subjective opinion. Her friends may think of her as the sweetest person in the world, but my family and friends, who know the whole story, do not. The same subjective opinion applies to all my other thoughts about her or others mentioned in this book including, but not limited to, mental instability or being a pathological liar.

  These instances of bitch and psycho were a lot more frequent before close friends and family read early manuscripts. Some told me that many of the things I had written were very anti-female. I started writing this book during the divorce, and many times, I was very pissed off when I put the words down. After the divorce was finalized and I had time to get back into a better mood, I saw that they were right. There were some very harsh words aimed at all women in general, due to my bitterness.

  One friend told me she would like to read a very early version of this book, from before I had edited out much of the angry and harsh content. She wanted to see what “angry Chuck” was like, because she had never known me that way. I laughed and said all those early manuscripts were destroyed forever, never to be seen again.

  With all the hell I went through during our marriage, people will think, Why would anyone stay with her so long? There were so many bad times, but in between, there were scattered good times, which renewed my hope for a good marriage. Jess had many highs and lows, but the highs were incredible with her. It was almost like crack to an addict. The passion she showed me when she was happy was mind blowing, but the lows were really, really bad.

  Dealing with her issues and mood extremes became a normal but screwed-up way of living, and the good times became less frequent. I was living with hope that our marriage would get better and not with the brutal reality of what she was doing and how she was not going to change. Her increasingly bizarre behavior also crept up slowly. It wasn’t like it happened all at once.

  This type of incremental behavior is something I’ll keep a close eye on in the future. It reached a point where my friends wanted nothing to do with her. They stopped inviting me over because they did not want to disinvite my wife. All hope for the marriage was extinguished with the Kansas incident, and my resolve to divorce her was solidified when I was jailed because of her wild accusations of domestic violence. I took my marriage vows very seriously. But I had to get out, or she would have destroyed my life. A marriage can’t survive if only one spouse is honoring the vows.

  Other people told me that writing all this down must have been a cathartic experience for reflection or a way to come to terms with what happened to me. It really wasn’t. I had already dealt with all that had happened and had been able to forgive. There was no need to rethink all the events.

  Writing this book really took me out of my comfort zone. I’m an engineer, not an artsy author. The types of writing I do are engineering reports, analyses of CAD data, design alternative matrices, PowerPoint presentations, and interpretation of design validation test data. It’s a very logical and data-driven form of writing, where I give engineering recommendations based on analysis and facts. Writing a book with a flowing story line full of accurate emotional content was a completely new concept and very difficult for me. I don’t have the writing style or artistic flair to paint a detailed emotional picture with words. Good writers have this talent, but not me. In my world, accurate time lines and data are of great importance, but conveying feelings with words are not.

  Hav
ing a diary I started after my arrest and all the past notes of her behavior was an invaluable resource to get the time line straight as best I could. A friend reviewed my manuscript and made the comment that he could tell an engineer had written it, because it was very detailed and full of facts with a precise time line. He also said that half the facts could be removed and replaced with the filler or fluff that many other books contain in order to make it more readable to the general public. If this book does take off in sales, I expect literary critics to tear me a new one for lack of style. Oh well…their opinion doesn’t matter to me. I didn’t write this to please those whose lifeblood is ripping on people and complaining.

  I originally had a very different opening sentence from “I still remember the day I met Jess. (This is not her real name, which I’m hiding to protect her identity.)” My initial anger at all she had done caused me to put in a very harsh name, but it started the book with a very negative tone.

  I went to extreme lengths and took great care to change the names of her family, friends, dog, business, and previous workplaces to ensure her privacy. I also changed other names and family locations to ensure people could not make the connection with her. Jess can go on living her life with new friends and the public not knowing that this is her in my book. If she reads this book, I’m sure she will deny almost everything that casts her in a bad light, and she may accuse me of causing all the issues, just as she has done in the past.

  Close to finishing this book, I was talking with Chris Bailey, and we chatted about some of the malicious things Jess had done. Chris said, “Be thankful she didn’t cut your dick off!”