My Final Word On The Subject

I have a few reactions to some of the things that have been said. Then I'm done with ALL of this for good, and I will be writing more about happier topics and more of the day to day stuff.

"I don't understand what the issue is with MaryLou and Joey and Tammy and all of them. Joe wanted a divorce - he said so. How could you have served Joe here at my house when he HAS NOT STEPPED FOOT INTO IT SINCE HE GOT IN FROM ALASKA!!!???"

The problem here is that you DON'T understand what you've done to your son, and that's the problem! Yes, he wanted a divorce, and he was MORE than willing to work on this with her. However, he was NOT willing to accept ALL of the debt from the marriage and let her get off free without having to take some of it. WE offered on NUMEROUS occasions to take on the FULL debt of the car which would have been MORE than half of the debt alone. Due to her lack of communication (We called her with the offer, told her that she had a WEEK to make a decision and get back to us, and suddenly we didn't hear from her for over a month!!), that was not possible. She would have had to sign some papers and send them back to us, and it would have been done! Instead, she decided to call Joe's phone at 3 or 4 in the morning and wonder why he wouldn't answer the phone. I can't even count how many times we have been woken up in the middle of the night by her calls. Or calling him at work and SCREAMING at him about shit. That's just plain disrespectful. But then again, from all I've seen, that's apparently the norm. She could have just as easily sent the paperwork to us in Alaska, as she has had our address since he moved in back in MARCH!! I've been next to him on numerous occasions when he gave her our address. If she says otherwise, it's a damn lie amongst SO many.


"Joe is pissed off at me because I would not give him money yet again to pay for another girlfriend to fly somewhere, and then apparently has told her how John and I hate her withour our ever meeting her. You know, that I've told you that if she is his choice and he is happy, then so be it. I WAS NOT GOING TO WALK AWAY FROM YOU AND THE BABY!!! I was not going to treat her like he was treated by his paternal grandmother growing up. I guess he just can't deal with that."

He's NOT pissed that you refused to pay for HIM!! Again, he NEVER asked you to pay for me. I had MY ticket. He never told me that you hated me. He explained that what you said was that you would feel more comfortable if he came here without me. There was never a conversation about the two of us coming here "when our money situation is better." Our money situation is fine! As I've stated before, he hasn't had to call you AT ALL in the last 8 months for ANYTHING. And there's a difference between the way that Joe was treated by his paternal grandparents and her baby. THAT KID IS NOT HIS!!!! There are NO BIOLOGICAL ties there!! So yeah, you're damn right when you say that he can't deal with that!!


"I know from the e-mail he sent to John that he believes we were somehow involved with your serving him the papers. Little does he know that we just found out about it. Even if we had known, how could we have told him when he refuses to answer our calls. I am sick and tired of his self-serving behavior. I'd tell him this in person if he were man enough to call me back."

He made the comment that IF YOU KNEW, a little heads up would have been nice. And considering the amount of awful voice-mails you left on his phone , maybe you could have left something to that effect as well. His self-serving behavior? Remember who raised him! For someone who made their own child pay for his way into Hershey Park but was SO willing to pay for her boyfriend, I say that would explain a LOT. And his not calling you back is NOT a matter of his being a man or not It's his decision to not speak with someone who has been SO ugly through all of this, not just to him, but to everyone in general.


"If MaryLou has a problem with the way I am handling Joe, she should contact me directly and not hide behind MySpace. I love the way she state she "stands behind him" when I believe not even a year ago he was upset over how she had posted a comment on this very page thanking you for being such a part of his brothers' lives. Funny how things change when he sucking up to her... I am tired of being made the villian everytime I don't agree with him."

Of course Marylou has a problem with the way your handling this whole situation. You've shown nothing more than simple jealousy over the fact that we are staying here in their house instead of being controlled in yours. And you know what, she DOES stand behind him!! A hell of a lot more than you claim to. This woman and her husband, who I am VERY proud to say that I am a member of their family, have shown absolutely NOTHING BUT compassion and love and protection for the BOTH of us. These two people have been absolutely wonderful through ALL of this! And yes, she may have left that comment on her page, but you know what? The motive behind that was to get a rise out of Joe so he would contact her. Which honestly, now that he's an adult and can make decisions for himself, is NONE of your business. You're only being made the villain in all of this is because YOU have put yourself in this position. I can play back the voice-mails that you left on his phone, if you like! Maybe if you heard yourself saying the things that you said to him, THEN maybe you'd understand. Maybe you should go back and re-read everything that you've written to me about him.

"I have been behind him through more fuckups in his life, but becuase I did not send him $400 he desides to shit on me. I believe I am done with this. Sorry to dump this on your page, but since I somehow doubt he'd let me on his, I'm hoping he'll see this, or maybe his "mommy" MaryLou will tell him about it. JoeMamma no more - out."

If you had truly been behind him throughout all of his screw ups, you would not take every single opportunity to throw them back up in his face and reopen those scars. There's such a thing as letting it go. I think you could learn a very valuable lesson from that. And again, let me clarify here, it's NOT because you wouldn't send him the $400. It's the way, the words, and the approach that you took in the moment. You're failure to understand that he wanted the ONLY person that has managed SO successfully to prevent him from falling into any kind of depression and helps him manage these stress induced seizures of his under control with him through all of this. Your failure to recognize that he needs the ONE person who seems to love him absolutely UNCONDITIONALLY by his side through all of this crap, is the reason he's acted the way he has. Marylou has definitely acted like FAR more of mom to Joe than you have. And you have pretty much sealed the deal when you said "JoeMamma no more". You're absolutely right when you say "out". Because that is exactly what you are when it comes to our lives now. Out.

"1) Marylou has a telephone, right?"

Yes, she has a phone. But we DID not come into town for a simple visit or a fun vacation. I just don't understand why you people DON'T get this simple fact.

"2) If Wendy was willing to come down to Washington to pick you up, don't you think she would have come to get you guys at David's?"

Maybe if you had made us seem like we were WELCOME here, the thought would have crossed our minds to have you come pick us up. But since you made us feel SO comfortable and SO welcome here, the thought never really crossed our minds to "inconvenience" you with having to come pick us up and then bring us back.

"3) How was I to call you (while you were in Alaska)? When you called me from Tammy's was the first number I've had for you on my phone."

I do believe that your wife has ALL of our phone numbers!! You could have communicated with your wife and got the numbers to call us. We've given the phone numbers on numerous occasions, and he's called you on numerous occasions. If you didn't have the presence of mind to save his phone number, that's on you.

"4) You are living a new life with and in a new relationship. Why is getting the divorce papers so horrible? How else was she supposed to get them to you since you refused to call her and she doesn't know where you live? I would imagine you would be happy that you are getting closure on this part of your life."

It wasn't SO horrible to get the divorce papers, it WAS however so horrible to see that she pretty much lied on the whole thing. She accused HIM of being the one that committed adultery, and that HE was the one that abandoned HER, that the child is HIS, that he needs to pay child support and her legal fees. She could have sent them to our address in Alaska, as she has NOT only our home address but also his work address as well.

"Do we think you are the whole problem with your marriage with Erna? No. What she did was wrong.

Did we misinterpret Tuesday night? Sounds like we did--but a phone call would have gone a long way to clear things up.

Regarding Erna being a part of our life -- in many ways she's been a part of our life since you started high school. She's close to all of us. Does that mean we hate you or Tammy? No. Does that mean we throw out everything you say? No. Does it mean that Erna and Erika are a part of our lives. Yes.

Regarding the divorce papers -- we found out about them Halloween night. But, to be honest, this was the only chance she had to get this closure in your relationship started. She didn't have any other means of getting this started as you have refused to answer her calls or tell her where you were. The whole situation sucks--I think we'd all agree. But I think you are both ready to move on in your lives... and to do that you need this closure. Shoot, you've already moved into another family and established a new home. You should be happy to finalize your relationship with Erna. BTW--Erna didn't want anything from you... at all... but she said that her lawyer said that in Maryland that's the law. Like you, she's ready for your marriage to be over. The thing she's struggling with is the debt that was laid solely on her."

Maybe you should get the WHOLE story from her. Because she obviously has NOT given you the whole story. This was NOT the only chance she had to get this closure, has she bothered to mention ALL the times that we have tried to contact her to get this done? Has she bothered to mention how many times we have tried desperately to reach a settlement with her, because I doubt it. He has BEEN ready for this marriage to be over and done with far longer than she has. Every single time we turn around she's popping up with some new excuse to why it can't get done. We've offered to take more than half of the debt, which would have been the car. Her plans to report it as stolen so he gets arrested is just ridiculous. I've been told by MANY of the people that she constantly nags for information on what he's doing, where he's going, and pretty much ANY information she can get that that has been her plan for awhile now. This is the person that you have decided to keep in your lives and hurt your own child.

"I truly hope you can break your relationship pattern with Tammy so that things can work out for the two of you. It sounds like you really enjoy her and her kids. And she's got to be a trooper to take you back after what you did with her friend. Like we told you when you changed relationships with Amanda, Kari, Erna, the gal in Homer, and now Tammy all we want is for you to be happy. My only suggestion to the two of you is to get a counselor so that you can work through things that come up. I know that I've found counseling to be helpful in my life and you know the family counseling we had was a great help to us all."

I am SO sick of hearing how bad of person he is. He's had what? 5 relationships in his life? How is that SO awful? He's 24 years old. I know MANY people that have had FAR more relationships than that and their younger!! He never got some girl pregnant while he was in high school, he never did drugs, he graduated from high school, he went to college, he was in the air force, and just plain simply one of THE most wonderful person that I've ever met. For you to sit here and bash him the way that you have, for you to say the awful things about him the way that you have, for you to make him out to be some AWFUL person, is just plain pathetic. It's a true testament to the fact that you are so completely upset that you CANNOT control his life anymore!! You will have to accept the fact that he is a grown MAN, not a little boy any longer.

I'm SO angry at the way this man has been treated. There is NO justification for what he's had to go through. If you only knew the person that he's become, if you could only see the way he is in our home, if you could see how him and the kids are with each other, if you actually KNEW who he is, you would have to eat your damn words. At this point, I don't really care how ANY of you feel about ME. I've never been a part of your lives, and I'm fine to stay that way. I have my own family, a family that does NOT judge based on mistakes, understands that we are all HUMAN and that yes, surprisingly we're not all perfect little creatures. And it's a family that has openly accepted this man into their lives without question, simply because he loves me, and I love him. Hate me all you want. But please, for the love of God, please stop treating him like shit. He DOES NOT deserve this!! Just please stop with all the disgust and anger towards him. You are tearing him apart and I just CANNOT sit back and watch this happen any longer.