PLEASE SHARE THIS POST!

I know I have like, three whole readers out there, lol. If you are one of them, will you do me a favor and share this post? You are welcome to copy the pictures, the video and the information into your own blog if you like, or just put things into your own words and include a link. Or just include a link! Whatever you are willing to do. If you need any html codes, I will send them right over. Of course when I start trying to paste html into here, it goes active, so best to do that over email, right? You can reach me at: auntyem4@yahoo.com

As you all know, my anniversary was August 3rd and I had struggled to find a way to commemorate the date. A few days before, I received an email from a woman who wanted to do a portrait session with her three little preschool-age boys. She was also 9 months pregnant with a baby girl. We exchanged a few emails before she told me her husband would not be able to be in the pictures because he had died suddenly a few months before, about midway through her pregnancy.

He simply kissed her good night one night, went to sleep, and never woke up. They aren't really sure what happened. She is now raising these four children on her own. These four children, whom she and her husband fought for TEN YEARS to have, and finally were blessed with, through IVF. They met as undergraduates at BYU before he was to leave for his mission for the LDS church. "Oh, he had his eye on me... he was workin' me!" She kind of squealed when she was telling me about it. Her eyes could still twinkle, telling me about their love story. They had 15 or so years together, but now she has four kids under the age of five, including twins that she has to raise on her own. An education fund has been set up for the children. If you can donate in any amount, a $1, whatever, I think all of the kids, and Stephanie, who was a stay at home mom and is probably struggling with how she is going to provide for her family, could really use the help and blessings you can give them.

You can see their pictures, what their video and utilize the PayPal button and get their financial planner's address over HERE, on my blog, where the full post is, and FEEL FREE to repost any of the pictures, as long as you include their story and the way to donate along with it:  http://eheizerphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/here-comes-sun-special-family.html

Here is another copy of the PayPal and financial planner button for your ease. PLEASE SHARE this information on your blog, your Facebook, your church board, or anywhere else you can think of! I have felt all month that I was supposed to spread the word as wide as I could and I have been emailing some bloggers directly, asking them to share, but some of you I know so well, or you have family blogs, so I won't ask you directly, but if you can, please share about this family. I know it is the right thing to do. They helped me when I needed it. It's my turn to help them. 

Instant! Secure, and you can go via credit card too!

 OR

Matthew Sheffield, Financial Advisor
Account number WH10988
UBS Financial Services Inc.
601 W Riverside Ave, Ste 1200
Spokane, WA 99201

Just so frustrated!

I just got off another phone call with another secretary from a law office where I spent the whole call at least crying, and trying very very hard not to cry to the point of not being understood.

When is this going to happen for me?

I want my day in court. The only way I am going to get it is if someone, an attorney, will at least listen to me, talk to me, and God willing, take my case. There is no better way to discourage him from doing this again than to make it public, financially punish him, and humiliate him in the same way he has me. He has changed my life and the person that I am, and I do not like that person.  And he should pay. He should pay for the medical bills, the therapy, the medication, and he should pay, period. It is not okay that he did this, and since he hasn't gotten the message yet, we need to make sure he gets it. I want to take him to court. At a minimum, I want to get to depo. And I want him to pay. He makes a six figure salary, he can afford it. And if the CHP doesn't do their due dilligence in investigating and handling the matter, then they should pay too. Hell, they should ALL pay.

I am freaking SUE-HAPPY today and I don't freaking care!

I need an attorney, I have called so many, emailed so many and I don't know what to do next. Someone online suggested hiring an attorney to write a summary of my case to send to attorneys; that it would be easier and better received in that matter. (Al- for dog slippers? Pbbt.) I don't know what good that will do either though.

Why does Gloria Allred have to be so freaking busy all the freaking time?

Things have been happening...

A new client (the groom) asked me today what would happened when/if his friends would hit on me at his wedding.

????

I gave a polite, silly, professional answer and quickly changed the subject.


I then spent an inordinate amount of time obsessing about that worrisome comment the rest of the day.

What exactly does that mean?

1.). Thanks, groom, for thinking I'm not too fat to be hit on. Really, with the weight I gained over LAST Thanksgiving after losing 20 pounds or whatever after not being about to eat for the first 4 months after everything happened last year, I have felt like a parade blimp. Really, that was nice of you to think anyone would pay any attention to me at all.

2.) ARE YOUR FRIENDS BLIND?

3.) ... Or just desperate?

4.) This scares me that he actually found this to be a big enough concern he brought it up. He either a.) finds me extremely attractive (is he blind too? His bride was pretty, was that just luck on his part???) or b.) his friends have some bad habits with flirting, or try to hook up with anything with girl parts. Eek.

Again, Me---> worried.

****

Next, I didn't have to meet with the investigator. 1.) Bullet dodged? 2.) Kind of wished we had. Now we are exchanging emails instead.... Eeeh.

I received the four page (five if you count his note on top) report of my statement from the sergeant. I was "excited" (if you can call it that) to get it, and it was a bit overwhelming/draining to read. Pretty thorough. But FULL of mistakes. Their timeline was all wrong, they were missing some dates... they didn't even mention that he claimed to be single but went into lots of details about Matt's online profile on the dating website where we met. Maybe that's not relevant? So when I emailed him about that specific detail I started off with... "Maybe it's not relevant, but I noticed you didn't mention..."

I also felt they severely downplayed the cuffing incident. Everything else was described to a 'T' so I don't understand why this was downplayed. They described how the cuffing took place in this way: "Mr. Matt had occasion to apply one handcuff to Ms. Emily's left wrist." What were we, casually trying on restraints while watching tv? He vertically wrestled me and restrained me to put it on. (As opposed to wrestling me on the ground, aka, horizontally.)  I wasn't comfortable with how it was described or how they discussed it in the interview either. I again, felt like they downplayed it. It was an awkward situation. Here was this great guy I was dating, had feelings for, everything seemed fine, and then SUDDENLY he tackles and cuffs me, and refuses to remove it unless I go with him out in public. What do you do? Everything was fine up until 5 minutes before... What just even happened? You argue some, he refuses... and then what do you do? For lack of any other ideas, I submitted. I did what he told me to do. About 20 minutes later we were back at the house and he took it off. I was pissed. He never did it again. It was bizarre. The entire thing was bizarre. I tried to forget about it. And I sure as hell didn't tell many (if any? did I ever tell anyone about that?) people about it. I was too embarrassed and shocked over his (and probably my own compliant) behavior. (ick)

They also somehow slipped in something which I have since learned was actually from Matt's statement into my statement. That's right. He's been interviewed. For sure. They didn't say he had been interviewed, but they might as well have. Somebody talked to him about the day I went into the house and everything happened. And they have record of it. How else they would have that? He has been interviewed. He knows.

In the summary, there is a paragraph about my going to the house. It's about half a page, which is apparently pretty brief because there is a notation about another "exhibit" which more thoroughly describes the entire incident. (::shudders::) In the paragraph, it says that Matt's wife calls him, "demands" he comes home, and he "FINISHED HIS SHIFT" and then "hastily" came home.

This first puzzled me. I was in the house about 45 minutes. It took about 10 minutes for me to talk to his wife, communicate what Matt had done, present pictures (which I had left in my car, parked around the corner and had to walk back and get) and then for us to go in the house and for her to call him and start screaming into the phone at Matt. Matt was home about the last 15 minutes I was there. This gives him approximately 20 minutes to get from work to home. Which, on a good day, without traffic (and this was during rush hour, mind you) should take 35-45 minutes, minimum. And he "finished his shift"?  Talking about this with my mom she pointed out I never told them this and that it shouldn't be part of my statement because I had no knowledge of it. At the time I believed him to be unemployed. When I told his wife I was under the impression he had been fired 8 months back, she very wryly said with a sarcastic smile that they were still receiving paychecks. In the weeks following I questioned whether she stayed with him solely to maintain their lifestyle because of how she responded. (He makes quite a bit, over six figures.) I have to remind myself I am not a mind reader, and just like she shouldn't be judging or blaming me, I shouldn't be doing the same to her. Although that is extremely difficult, and even in typing that out, I want to point my finger and screech "SHE STARTED IT!" since she is the one, who, after all, called me the "b" word when I asked if Matt would answer questions for me to explain his behavior. (Now I am making the wry face.)

Anyway, I emailed the investigating sergant, and he emailed me back this:

Officer Matt was working the early shift in August of 2010 and upon receiving the phone call from his wife responded to the Area office and requested to leave early.  He was already nearing the end of his shift and upon turning in his paperwork, etc. left on time.  By his own admission he did drive home at a very high rate of speed.  

 This statement... it put me back in the moment. It almost put me in Matt's shoes, and yet, still in my own. I know that makes absolutely no sense but I don't know how to explain it. It was like I was watching him live out that day, and thereby back in the moment again. I broke out in a sweat and my entire body started to tremble. My shoulders, neck and back tensed and clenched up as tight as they could without me even realizing. I lifted my legs and hips of the bed with the increase in tension and started to shake, hard, uncontrollably, thinking about this, reading those words.

It made me wonder if maybe I shouldn't know more about what happened. Maybe I can't handle it. Thinking about him speeding home to get there before his wife and girlfriend could exchange more information and details with each other... Driving in that car, thinking about his girlfriend standing in his living room, crouched against his hallway, talking to his wife while she screamed and cursed obscenities at him through the phone line... Typing it... it's making me sick again. My whole body... just sick. Sick, sick, sick.

He's sick.

He's married?

Watching this wedding video on a videographer's blog. Starts off with a little speech from the FOB (father of the bride) about the bride and how she met the groom and sprung this whole marriage thing on him (the dad), and then it launches into a music sequence of the bride getting her make up on, the groom getting ready, bride ascending the aisle, goofing off with the groom, giggling during their ceremony, hanging out with the bridal party...

And I realize, with this sinking, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach... he already did all that.

Matt and HER... they had their wedding day. They had A WEDDING. He has memories of getting up and getting ready and putting on a suit or a tux and hanging out with "his boys" and marching in and standing in front of everyone, and she walked down the aisle... The took portraits and cut a cake and...

I don't know what to say.

We're back to the surreal, out of body, mind-boggling part of this again. How did this happen. He had been married a little less than two years or so, maybe 18 months when he and I started dating. Those memories were fresh in his mind. Those memories... they were still new when we sat in that sandwich shop and he took the straw wrapper off his drink, tied it around my ring finger and said he would try to contain himself until the next week to propose with a real ring.

He had JUST done that.

For real.

She wore a dress.. he wore a suit... they got married. They danced a first dance... maybe he danced with his mother... And one day he got up and thought... I don't like this, let's start over? And hit the mental "delete" key and deleted ALL of those memories right out of his head. The last four years of his life, five years? He just deleted her, everything about her, his wife and their relationship out of his life and life experiences. POOF. Never happened.

One of the pieces of material I turned over to the investigators was an instant messenger conversation where I asked him how long he has been single. No hesitation. "four and a half years... as long as I have been a cop." No wife mentioned there. He even asked, "define single... do shitty dates count?"  How do you delete an experience from your life as huge as a WEDDING? Especially when you're the freaking GROOM?!

My friend Paige said she couldn't believe that they- Matt and his wife were pretending that he hadn't been in this big serious relationship for HALF of their marriage, that they were going on, having another child like everything was wonderful.

Matt went on pretending with me like he hadn't been married the last two years. He's pretending now that he wasn't in a serious relationship with someone other than his wife for nearly two years, and then, he did the same with me.  The man likes to play pretend, apparently. And so does his wife, I guess, because she ignores it. I've been told repeatedly this is all going to blow up in her face but it's hard to feel sorry for her when I still look at her and see nothing but the life I lost, including, basically, my husband. He was the man I thought would be my husband. I never doubted it from the second I felt that first prompting. And I have had the hardest time shaking that conviction. I have never been more sure of anything in my life. ... And I guess, never more wrong either. How do you feel sorry for someone who has the life you dreamed of, wanted, and thought you would have?

Today, I don't think I have ever felt more strongly that I don't want to be married. Ever.  I don't even feel sad about it right now, as I usually do. I feel... disgusted.

In therapy today I was asked what I wanted to happen with Matt and his job. Every day I have a different answer. Some days I am wracked with guilt and I just want him to [continue to] live (my inner deluded belief is that they are ecstatically happy) in la la land and have nothing come of it, and for all to be well. Some days a letter will suffice. Others, a suspension, paid or unpaid. I dream of his wife's smugness over a paid suspension because then he could be home to help with the baby. A paid vacation! Today I had a new answer for my therapist. I wanted him fired. She asked why. It took me twenty minutes to go through all the ways in which he had personally victimized me through his job and how he could do it to others. A pathological liar on a witness stand? Using your position of authority to gain trust and power in relationships? Using highly personal information, to manipulate someone for your own benefit? How do you put someone like that in a job as high powered as a police officer? He should be fired. He should never be permitted to work in law enforcement again.

That's how I felt today.

I may or may not meet with the investigator tomorrow. I don't feel so sick, just sickly exhausted/tired. I'm actually sleeping at night and my body doesn't know what to make of it. Nothing is nailed down yet so I don't know what's happening.

Are you kidding me?

The investigator just emailed me out of the blue and said that he needed to meet with me- this week preferably to have me sign some memoranda from our interview. He said he could mail it, but he would prefer we meet. My head is spinning, I feel dizzy and sick, so tired. I have questions for him; I'd rather meet him in person too, but I keep having visions of vomiting in a trash can outside a Starbucks when I see him while my friend who I have conned into coming with me (why, hello Amanda) looks on horrified. I kind of had a big dinner tonight, turkey sandwich and urban fries... I want to go throw them up. I just feel so sick. My anxiety is so high.. it's like I drank a ton of caffeine, but I am not shaky, just.. my head is spinning. I feel SO sick.

Marriage

Do men ever REALLY want to get married?

Not because "it's time," or because their girlfriend gave them an ultimatum, or it's just something you do in life. Or because your religion says you have to, or you should, or "it'll be good for you, you'll like it, " or so you can have sex without "sinning",  because they got their girlfriend pregnant and her father came after them with a shotgun, but because honestly, they really, truly WANT to be married, for no other reason, than they WANT TO BE MARRIED?

Really. Does that happen? Ever?