Richard Martin got me a copy of the Multiple Listing Service diskette so that I can do comparable searches without so much hassle.  The last week has been very full and last night, I fell asleep on him for the first time.  He was upset about how his sister was treating him and needed to talk, and I tried my best to stay with him, but kept fading out.  He thinks she hates him and that she thinks he abused his relationship with his mother by making her work for him and then firing her after she lost close to half a million dollars in poor management of some convenience stores he started.

 

She is apparently very wealthy by marriage and looks down on Richard Martin because of his failure at marriage, his involvement with a stolen boat and the condition of his office and his staff, according to Richard Martin.  I suggested that she is the little sister who could never be as popular, nor as successful as her big brother and that her hostilities are merely a defense mechanism for dealing with her own failures to ever accomplish anything for herself.  I hope I am right.  I would hate to find out that she is right and that Richard Martin took advantage of his mother and treated her poorly.  She has been diagnosed with cancer and is already so frail that I fear I won’t get to know her well enough in time to learn what their relationship was.  I believe that mother and son relationship is vital to a man’s perception of himself and how he relates to women from then on.

 

Richard Martin has asked that I personally do a presentation for Tom Butler’s rotary club, because his ex-wife, Susan is its president.  I took Jamie, Daniel Capiro, Fleetwood Cougar and Windstar Bobcat and did a 30 minute slide show and petting forum.  I had seen Susan the day she signed the release when I paid off Richard Martin’s alimony, but I did not know if she had seen me.  She welcomed me as if she did not know who I was and was cordial throughout.  She is an animal lover and asked me some difficult questions about the dangers these animals face in captivity, but her questions did not seem aggressive toward me.  I found her likable and motivated to do good in her community and wondered where it all went wrong between her and Richard Martin.

 

I would like to speak with her in another place at another time to find out what she can tell me about their situation, so that he and I do not fall into that same quicksand that sucked the life out of their marriage.  Richard Martin keeps saying they couldn’t communicate and that she was unreasonable in her opinions.  I’ll bet he has said at least two dozen times, “If I said the sky was blue, she would still argue that it was green.”  My fear is, and I’ve told him, that he believes that no matter what he says, he is right and anyone who differs with him is wrong.

 

This is the way our conversations usually go.  If I agree we are okay.  If I disagree, he becomes hateful, accusatory, and will continue to badger me into agreeing with him just to bring his tirade to an end.  Then he’s mad, because he knows I still don’t agree and that I have only conceded to shut him up.  He keeps saying he doesn’t want me to just agree with him, he wants me to actually believe the same way he does.

 

While I understand this desire to share common beliefs, I don’t know that it is entirely feasible.  I wonder if this was the cause of the lack of communication between he and Susan.  Did she learn after a while to keep her opinions to herself so as not to incite him to rage?  Or did she retreat into silence once she accidentally ventured out onto a shelf of opinionism?  As always, I believe that I can take a bad situation and turn it into good.  I pray for strength and guidance.

 

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 thi