"Why did your last relationship end? " ( Archived) (88)

The story continues:
Several years passed, she divorced her husband and our paths crossed again. By this time (late in 1991) I had relocated to Ohio for work and she flew out to see me and spent a few days ultimately moving in with me. The next couple of years she tried very hard to establish herself in Ohio even getting her real estate license but she missed her home state of New Jersey so much that one day she just up and left. Six months later I put the Ohio house up for sale and moved in with her in her apt in New Jersey.

By 1992 Our relationship was not going great and we were seeing a counselor. She wanted to get married and this was a big issue between us. Having gone through 2 divorces I wasn't too anxious to go through that again. I was committed to stay with her for the rest of my life so, to me, marriage only meant bringing lawyers and courts into the picture. My commitment to her was proven by the fact that we even bought a house together, with me putting up $16,000 and she $1,000 toward the down pmt. During this period she was also getting bad advice from the "ladies at work" who were suggesting to her (probably because I was 14 years older than her) that she should get me to put the house in her name in case I dropped dead my ex wife would take the house and she would wind up homeless. The irony of this fear will become apparent later.

She became fascinated with dolls when we paid a visit to her older sister who had a wall in her small living room literally covered with dolls in a floor to ceiling shelf unit. During the time we lived together after that visit with her sister, she would sit on the couch for hours watching QVC with phone in hand buying Marie Osmond dolls for hundreds of dollars.

When we split up she had over 100 dolls averaging $150.00 ea. If she had them in a display case where they could be seen it wouldn't have been so bad, but they were all in the boxes they came in stuffed in a closet. Her closet was so full of dolls there was no room for her clothes so she filled my closet with her clothes. My biggest fear was marrying her and her having access to my bank acct. It would have been a nightmare and she would have cleaned out my account buying "Collectibles".

Her sister in upstate NY (the same one who inspired her to collect dolls) stole a neighbors Siamese cat who she thought was being neglected and asked Barb if she could watch it until she could find a home for it. I knew if I let this mangy cat in my house it was there to stay. We had a few big arguments about getting this cat. We even wasted a whole counseling session talking about the cat. I finally said, ok, you can get the cat but if you do, I'm out of here. She got the cat and 3 months later it died, the house went up for sale and I was in the process of loading up all my stuff in my truck when she put her arms around me and tried to get me to change my mind about leaving. A few days later me & my son Stevie were heading south in the truck for Virginia and I never looked back. I guess she thought I was bluffing. In the final analysis she lost a good man, a really nice house, a major chunk of financial security and didn't even have the cat to comfort her.

Well, it's Dec 18 2018 and I just found out Barb passed away. She was 64. Some kind of Cancer of the mouth. She was cremated and now this woman who once told me I was going to spoil her with my tongue, is nothing but a little pile of ashes in an urn on somebodies mantle piece. Ironically, my first wife died from the exact same form of Cancer though this happened years after we divorced and she remarried 2 times.