You might think, because of the decrease in Smoochy*/Jennie content in the Fozzolog, that things have settled down somewhat. Well, that’s just wrong. Things have been getting worse... but it’s so pathetic, it’s only barely interesting enough to mention.

Hecticity Tenacity

Smoochy*’s been living somewhere else for a while now. Since he and I had words, I guess. But, he still comes around, just about every day. When he does come around, he usually has something insulting to say to Jennie. Fortunately, his stays are usually short.

He didn’t know I was out of town last week until Thursday or Friday, so his stops were pretty brief until Friday when he stuck around for a while.

On Sunday, he showed up after church, dressed for church. Neither Christine or Jennie saw him at church (I didn’t make it to church Sunday because I didn’t make it back from Logan until 4:30 a.m. or so), so they were somewhat surprised to see him all dressed up.

Christine asked him, “Did you go to church, Smoochy*?”

“Did you go to church, Christine” was his response.

“Yes. Did you go to church?” Christine asked again.

“Did you go to church?”

Christine could see this was getting silly. She told me later Smoochy* seemed like he was ready to jump out of his skin. He seemed very tense (more the usual) and anxious. So, in an effort to defuse the situation, Christine asked him again and, I guess, playfully tickled his abdomen as she did so.

Smoochy* grabbed Christine’s arm and forcefully twisted it behind her back.

“You don’t need to hurt me, Smoochy*,” Christine said.

“That’s what I do. I go around and beat people up.” Smoochy* responded, and released her.

I was actually in another room of the house holding Eli when this happened. Nobody told me about it until later — after Smoochy* had left. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t hear about it then.

On another occasion, Smoochy* came in a door and Jennie was standing there and the door opening broke one of her fingernails. Jennie told him it broker her fingernail and asked him if he was going to say he’s sorry. All he could say was, “Are you going to say you’re sorry?”

Christine and I have tried to restrain ourselves from giving Jennie any advice. But I did tell her if Smoochy* was bothering her, she should at least suggest or ask him to leave the house. It’s a pretty safe assumption Smoochy* would refuse if she did, but I told her she should then record what he said so she’d have a written record of what he had done, her request, and his response.

Monday night, Smoochy* showed up and told Jennie he’d switched credit cards again. He does this, apparently. When he runs up his credit cards to the limit, he just takes advantage of one of those offers to do a balance transfer to a new card with a zero percent or very low introductory rate. I don’t know why he doesn’t just work on paying off his credit cards, but he doesn’t. He puts everything on his credit cards- gas, lunch, groceries, etc. and nobody knows why. It’s not like he’s hurting terribly for cash.

Well, when he announced this latest credit card transfer to Jennie, Jennie commented that he should have talked to her about it before doing it. He blew up and told her he could do anything he wanted and it wasn’t any of her business. She told him it wasn’t unreasonable to expect him to talk to her about such things before doing them — that’s what normal married people do, she said. They talk about things before they go ahead and do them.

Smoochy* didn’t like that at all. He flew off the handle and started telling her she was judging him and that she was crazy and was a liar. It was at this point that Jennie decided to take my advice and told Smoochy* she thought he was being a jerk and should leave. In perfect 10-year old social-skill fashion, he shot back, “You should leave!”

Jennie walked downstairs and he didn’t follow. He did leave shortly after that.

And these are just the highlights. Smoochy*’s behavior has been getting worse and less... shall we say, sane? I’m really concerned about his mental well-being. I’m just not saying that in a “Smoochy*’s a looney” kind of way. I mean, he’s so... impossible to talk to. Whether it’s because he’s developed some kind of schitzophrenia or other mental illness or that he’s just overwhelmingly consumed with rage, I don’t know. Regardless of what is causing his increasingly erratic behavior, he needs some kind of help.

Jennie had talked to an attorney about filing for legal separation a couple weeks ago, but decided to hold off on filing when she learned Smoochy* had agreed to participate in some counselling. Incidentally, their first appointment is tonight.

But now... sheeeeeeesh. She’s talking about skipping the legal separation and going straight to divorce. It’s sad, but the more Smoochy* says and does, the harder it is for anyone, let alone Jennie, to believe he could reconcile what’s he’s done and live peacefully with her again.

Jennie’s parents are really upset about what’s happening, but they’ve been very supportive and have offered to make it possible for Jennie to stay in her house.

So, there you go... Jennie’s holding up remarkably well considering the disintegration of her marriage around her. I’m seriously concerned about her safety and well being after we move into our house... but we’ll have to deal with that when it happens.

Meanwhile, Jennie started her new job on Monday. She’s going to be an emergency room registrar at a local hospital. She’s been doing paid training and orientation this week and, so far, she loves it.

Because Smoochy* took both the computers from upstairs, I set up my laptop for Jennie to use. When I had to take the laptop with me last week, I set up one of my computers downstairs for her to use. Because my laptop sort of bit the dust on my trip, I pulled out another computer that was just sitting around doing nothing and set it up for her upstairs so she can send and receive e-mail and do everything else she needs to do.

Well, there you go. Consider yourselves updated.