"For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night."

And so like prey, trapped in a web that had been crafted carefully, methodically and deliberately, I had been drained of the energies and resources that they required. As arachnid, both DF and KMC had danced across the web averting the viscid lines that they had spun, knowing that as I ventured forward, by virtue of their false pretenses, I would become entangled in the trap they had calculatedly set for me.

I was stunned and I replayed the events of the past year or more to see where I had been lead so astray.

• In the yahoo email account that DF and I had used as the email address for eBay purchases, a small innocuous folder bearing my name that I thought contained my emails to DF actually a receptacle for a series of emails dating from Christmas 2002 until April 2003, to and from KMC, spelling out the plan in great detail


• Emails exchanged with a declaration from DF that KMC was indeed the "love of his life"
• My emails had been placed in another folder named "done"
• My cell phone number in DF's old cell phone that I found in the driveway, now fully charged, was so respectfully listed in the phone book and on speed dial as "bitch"
• The boxes that contained the valuable collections that DF brought back to the home upon his return filled with garbage. The contents having been secreted away to KMC's home.
• The bank account in our joint names drained of all of the funds
• The equity from my home gone
• Tax returns submitted as joint returns
• Dividend checks that were directly deposited into our joint checking account gone
• A crippling mortgage rate of 8.99% on a home I had owned prior to our short marriage
• My truck whistled off and sold and its proceeds secreted away into a bank account in DF's name
• My separate assets prior to marriage ~ stock, ownership in two companies, money market accounts ~ now conveyed by agreement into our joint names
• All costs of the first and aborted divorce petition repaid to KMC by me in January
• A jointly owned company that had been abused and run-down by DF while he aided KMC in setting up a competitive venue
• And, most importantly, my endorsement on the I-751 immigration form to practically ensure DF's permanent residency
  
  
  
  Disowned by my family, alienated from employees and colleagues, two children that I'd supported for 8 years vanished
  
  I found myself completely alone...