The Joy of Being With Howie Makes Up For All The Former Abuse By Men

Carole writes Howie 3/26/03:

Dear Howie, I had to start the USDA meetings at 7:30 and just now broke for lunch and wanted to come spend it with you. John Kirtland is here from Ringling (you met him at the open house) and he asked me to contact Richard Froemming again about allowing John to sit on our advisory board. He said Richard has cancer and is spending most of his time in the hospital these days, but still has a

tremendously strong outlook. I like Richard and wish to make contact with him to see if there is anything I can do to help him. John seemed to think this whole experience has made Richard a better man from a spiritual standpoint and often that is just what illness is meant to do. No sense suffering after you got the message though.

After you had filled out answers to 200 questions earlier in the day, I am sorry that I burdened you with two more (essay types at that). Thank you for your heartfelt answers and for taking the time to further contemplate the one about your business decisions and to clarify your position to me. It takes a lot of courage to admit fear.

My reason for asking that is to try and figure a way that we can help each other reach our fullest potential and to help us find ways that will enable us to experience our greatest satisfaction. I can't even begin to know how to implement something like that if I don't know what you want. Thus the question. As usual, your answer was well thought out, well said and easily understood. I appreciate you sharing it with me.

My question about your desires in a mate stem from not having any idea why you, of all people, aren't one of those ecstatically happy, married to the same woman for thirty years, types. You well could have been a relationship consultant because you understand the dynamics of the golden rule and incorporate them into every one of your relationships. You really are the rake (is that spelled right? I've never read a romance novel). The dark mysterious shroud about you is, "Why is this wonderful man single?" What I am finding, as you described in the novels, is that there is no darkness in the reason. The reason is perfectly justifiable, once the mystery is removed, and it turns out the hero really was a man of honour and integrity. I'm just trying to figure out the mystery.

Also, I am fearful of inadvertently driving you away. You will never hear me yell at you or anyone. You will never hear me say nasty things to you, or anyone. You can talk to my ex-husband and any man from my past to verify that I never yell and I am never mean. I will give you contact info on all of them I can find if you wish to do so. I was absolutely appalled at the way Mary spoke to Lewis on several occasions last Sunday, but particularly in respect to the glasses. There is no thing of more value than your mate and I thought her tone and words were castratingly cruel. There is no one that I have been more harsh with than my own daughter, and I expect far too much from her, but as you come to know her, I think you will find that she would not describe me as someone who has ever yelled or been nasty with her.

I've been told that my weakness in relationships is that I don't need anyone, or at least that I don't act like I do. My second husband was having a hard time deciding between Pam and me. She was ugly, incompetent, needy, spiteful and purposefully caused his divorce from Gladys in hopes that Don would marry her. Later Gladys told me that Don had raped his 15 year old niece and that hadn't

helped matters. When I asked our secretary, who knew Pam and I well, what it was that Don saw in her, Anne said "Pam needs him and you don't". Thus began my career of cars breaking down and getting locked out of things so that Don could feel useful. Fixing cars and breaking into locked houses and cars was Don's greatest talent, so I found a way for him to shine and feel good about himself.

I actually walked in on Don and Pam in bed one day in a trailer that was on the foreclosure list. I was with my “wife” Mary at the time and was deeply humiliated by having her witness the scene. I didn't say a word. I didn't slam the door. Later, I told him that his carelessness of places; knowing that I would be coming to look at the same property, was deeply hurtful, but I didn't ask him to stop running around because he said he felt like she loved him and he couldn't give her up. I did a lot of crying over his infidelity over the years, but not usually in his presence and again there was never any yelling, threatening or hateful words said. I didn't feel he was responsible for my happiness and if knowing how I felt didn't cause him to want to be more careful then nothing else I could say or do would elicit a change. To his credit, I never caught him again after we married in 1991, but I tried real hard not to. The only threat I ever made to him, as I told you before, was to turn him in to the IRS and that was the only thing I thought would scare him enough to not try and smuggle a cat in from Central America. I just didn't want him rotting in some third world prison over something that stupid and didn't know how else to get through. He felt that he was above being caught, so I had to use something he knew could clip his feathers.

Since Don there was Richard Martin for 6 months, Alan Schreier for 2 years and Peter Kent for 8 months although I knew it was over in the first month, but waited until the sixth month to tell him so. Then Jay Baykal for 5 months, but that was only because it took me two months to get him out of the house via a restraining order and tenant eviction. I chose Richard for all the wrong reasons. I didn't love him, but I made him feel loved. He was worth 10 million with no heirs, no family except a sister

and dying mother and in very bad health. His assets were commercial real estate and he wanted me to run everything for him. I couldn't do it. I couldn't sell out for money and broke up with him. He surrounds himself with drunks who are all yes-men that take full advantage of his condition. I might have stayed and run the company for him if I could have divested him of this group of derelicts, but he didn't want to give them up. He still calls and emails and faxes me asking me to give him another chance and telling me he will fire everyone and let me do the hiring, but my motives were not pure and I just don't respond. I don't know a nice way to tell him the truth and haven't.

Alan was 70,000.00 in debt and slept all day from depression when I met him. I bailed him out of debt, gave him 13 houses in Bartow, a 13 unit boarding house in St. Pete, for just the 85,000.00 that was originally owed on it, bought him an assisted living facility when he said that is what he wanted to do and invested 200,000.00 in a parcel of land he said he had presold and didn't. I tried to give him 3 commercial properties in Ybor, but he wouldn't collect the rents and I wasn't allowed to and they were lost in the conservatorship. Don had bought a 600,000.00 mortgage for 60k on those three, because of contamination and it was bringing in 3200.00 per month in rents. The boarding house brought in 3500.00 per month and the 13 houses in Bartow brought in the same. I tried to cut him in on the 3 gas stations in Pinellas and all he had to do there was collect rents, but he wouldn't do it and that is the one I later tried to run through Peter and hope to close on this week.

All I asked of Alan in return was that he pay a percentage of the water and lights, our vacation expenses (because he wanted to go somewhere every 3 months) and at the end of the 5 years that he put in the pool I just did. His days were spent laying on the couch watching golf. He loved to throw outrageous parties at the island, at my expense and wow all his friends with how successful he was in real estate. I figured he knew better and if he wanted them to believe he had done it on his own there was no harm in that. When he tried to convince me he had done it on his own I asked him if he was serious and when he assured me that he was I just said, "I am ready to move on." No drama. No yelling. I was dumbfounded and barely said it above a whisper. When he asked me what I meant, I said I wanted him to move out and gave him the option of me moving out until his new place was ready. I lived in the cabins for the month of October so that he wouldn't be inconvenienced by my presence at the island. I sold the ALF and the 200k parcel on time. He kept the other properties as if he were

somehow entitled to them. I let him, without a word.

I fell in love with Peter's words before I ever met him and explained to you that I was never sure he actually wrote them. He was homeless when I met him, but had 4500.00 a month in debt that I assumed for the entire time we were together. He insisted that our relationship be monogamous, but was still soliciting for sex online two months later. I let it ride for a couple months longer, during which time I watched him, solicited him via match.com and I kept asking if he wouldn't rather have an open relationship. He said he didn't. After intercepting 42 such solicitations for sex, I told him that I couldn't take it anymore and that I wanted him to move out in April. He asked to stay until he got his contractor's license in June and I allowed him to do so, but it was over for me. When he refused to move out, I moved him out while he was out of town, but again, there was no fighting. I couldn't take being lied to.

Jay asked me to marry him within 3 weeks of meeting me and that should have sent up a red flag. I was so impressed that he wanted me to give up everything to my daughter and come be with him. I had come to feel that all any man wanted me for was monetary gain. He quickly became very possessive, abusive and as I said before, the last straw was when he threatened my mother and

daughter. I can tolerate virtually anything aimed at me and have been beaten, shot with pellets, gagged, force fed, sold, traded, humiliated and emotionally ravaged, but I won't allow a threat to the ones I love. I never left Jamie alone with any man other than her father and even that cost her everything. I got the restraining order after he dragged me by the hair with a 9mm Glock pistol to my head. It took that much to get the order. Still, I never yelled, never threatened and never said anything mean to him.

Daniel Capiro and I butt heads more than anyone, but he will tell you that we resolve our differences respectfully. Most of the above are things you already have heard from me and I understand that all you have is my word thus far. You are welcome to inquire with each of these people under whatever guise you chose to see what the other side of the story entails. Richard Martin, III is in the St. Pete phone book but I don't have his #. Alan Schreier 263-8457 al1207@aol.com. Peter Kent psage1@mindspring.com Jay Baykal 407 797-4013 home phone 407-345-9405

I am embarrassed at the number of times I have failed in relationships, but in retrospect I think it is because my only criteria for loving a man has been that I thought them to be tolerable. As you have correctly observed, you have a very easy act to follow. All you have to do is not lie to me, not steal from me and not physically abuse me and you can't possibly go wrong.

You do bring so much happiness to my life that I feel I have been compensated for every evil that ever came my way. You have given me faith in mankind and allowed me to experience trust for the first time in my life. There is nothing in your character that could cause me to give up on loving you.

As for the future; I agree with you. All we have is today and today is marvelous. The meeting has restarted. I will talk to you later. Talk about confessions! Wow. - Carole

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story. My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.

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Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.