He was irritated

leeful would be the apt term for KMC's tone in the phone call I received on July 4th, 2003. She chose to break the news to me that DF had left the marriage permanently, and it provided a perfect opportunity for her to revel in what she claimed was the "ultimate victory". I'd been fierce competition for her since mid 2002, apparently, or so I was told. She took great comfort in revealing that they'd never ended their affair when DF returned to the marital home to take full advantage of what he had told her was "a marriage for benefit". It was in this conversation that I learned that she had pressed DF to make sure I endorsed and we submitted the I-751 in late April so that they could be sure of his continued stay in the USA. I remember the day I capitulated and signed it, after he pressured me for hours. He'd tried to palce the entire onus upon me, with his, "If you don't sign and I have to go back to Switzerland, it'll be your fault, you'll be the one who will have ruined this marriage!" To tidy up their illicit plan, DF had demanded that he take the I-751 package directly to the post office. Strange now in retrospect. At all other times, he'd never admit to having any cash, despite the fact that he didn't deposit his earnings in our joint bank account. Joint? There was no joint contribution. He was always only too happy to expect me to pay for everything!

I advised KMC of the USCIS requirement for DF to file a change of address form within 10 days and also requested that he file a change of address with the post office and remove his new vehicle from our insurance policy as soon as possible. Her answer was that he'd already taken care of that when he registered his new address at the Post Office a week or so ago. When I asked where he was staying so that I could mail the USCIS excerpt to him but she refused to disclose a new address, but suggested that he'd found an apartment on my side of town. I agreed to email him the information.

I was also given a message from DF that, legally, he was entitled to all of his personal property right away and that it should be packed up so that she could pick it up that week. There was no way either of them were coming back into my house, so I agreed to prepare the belongings and took that opportunity to request that the keys to the home and the business facility be returned at the same time, along with the marriage certificate and my birth certificate that had been missing since the first time DF moved out in late October 2002. She advised me that she knew where they were as evidently, she'd seen DF place it underneath the stiffened bottom flap of his gym bag.

The following day DF emailed instructions on when to have his things ready and claimed he did not have my birth certificate. In the end, my birth certificate appeared in a plain number 10 envelope, slipped in my mail box 13 months later; the keys to my home and office buildings would not be presented to me until September 2004. I had changed locks in the house in July 2003, but the key DF had to the offices was a master key and opened more than 140 locks, and so it was economically infeasible to change them. During all of that time, my company was essentially 'open' to the dynamic duo and they availed themselves of that on a number of occasions.

As arranged, in mid July 2003, I placed the personal clothing and sundries in the driveway and watched through the guest bedroom window as she and several others rolled in the driveway in various vehicles to load up. She made a point of waving, smugly; I nodded and turned away from the window. Just prior to what would have been our third anniversary, I arrived home to find a letter addressed to both KMC and DF at my home from what appeared to be the auto financing company. I presume she co-signed the purchase of his new Liberty. With no address for DF, I Xeroxed the envelope showing the manner in which it was addressed and forwarded it to KMC. A number of days later a box of new checks from a local bank in DF's name and with my home address arrived. I took them to the local branch of the bank and informed the bank manager that this was not DF's residence and would they make sure it was changed. I don't know what the final disposition of the checks was.

DF continued to leave messages on the jointly owned business phone that he required his weekly stipend, even though he refused to perform the functions of ordering, as had been the agreement. In August 2003, I received a hostile call from him one day asking why he had not received payment and demanding that it be left in the mailbox the next day, "or else". I dashed off a letter on company stationery advising him that no further payments would be made as long as he was delinquent in his duties. That was a mistake. Threats to "rip me to shreds" and to have me fired from my position by the shareholder group for some alleged "impropriety" ensued.

All of this was ongoing while I was trying to gain answers to some immigration questions on ILW. I was confused, feeling very vulnerable and needed to make sure I was clear on what I could or could not do. My posts on ILW were to discover what procedures were in place for a person in a situation like mine. A range of advice was offered by members on ILW. Some wise, some positive and some, well, rather critical. It was speculated that I was an alien masquerading as a US citizen to learn how to circumvent the system. None of that was true, of course. Looking back, I'm sure few could understand the position I was in at the time. I wanted to be certain that I had all the immigration information I needed. During the months after DF's departure, suspicious activities continued and a couple of days prior to Christmas 2003 I consulted an immigration attorney to review options and to discuss some information I had received from ILW members. Although it may not be easy to understand, I didn't know whom to trust. I'd been duped by those close to me, so it wasn't that the information I'd read on ILW was inaccurate, but I wanted to be sure.

I posted the advice I received from the immigration attorney on ILW on Christmas Eve, with the hope that it might serve to help others as well.

That's when I first noticed and later learned that one ILW member that had seen the flurry of posts was "irritated".