To Tell The Truth

Going through that many bank statements is tedious work, it causes your eyes to go crossed. We almost want to just give up because there is so many, but yet, we wanted to know where the money went. A few charges that seemed a little odd, they weren't any type of payday loans, or shopping.

More detective work is leading us to see that she has been making payments for her son. Now let us be very clear. We have ZERO issue with helping out your child when they need it. This is not one of our complaints. However, the way she went about it, caused the issue. She paid for his land, his truck, his tractor (the one previously mentioned). Our first reaction was wondering how she could pay for her son's land, truck and tractor, but not Dads. It doesn't make sense. Now again we understand helping out your kids, and have no issues with this, we just have issues with the lying that came with it. Dad even said that he knew about a couple of the payments, but not this much. Thousands and thousand of dollars. She states that her son paid her back for this, but there is no record of that money going back to the checking account or anywhere, so again we ask, where is the money?

All of the discoveries we have made and proof we have, dad would text her or call her and ask her about specifics and she would continue to lie to him. After she would tell her lie, we would present him with the proof that she was lying. She even told my dad that Crystal "was going to bury me".

In still trying to be a part of Dad's life, she said she would do anything to fix it, so she even said she would sit down and talk to us. I guess to tell the "truth". Crystal and I agreed. We scheduled a date and time at a local coffee shop. Crystal and I did our due diligence and looked up recording laws for Texas. Texas is a one party consent state. Only one person in the conversation must agree to the recording. Well Crystal and I both agreed and so we recorded our conversation. We had a list of about 60 questions.

She started the conversation crying and shaking. We sat there and let her say her piece unaffected by her emotion. It wasn't very long before the crying and shaking stopped. Of course, she denied a lot of what we asked. We did find out during this conversation that the reason she left the real estate company, was because she was turning in invoices for work she hadn't done. The things that she denied and we had proof of she finally "admitted". And she still told lies about some of the other situations. We knew the truth and had documentation but didn't show her the proof and just let her talk.

She told us that she had been jealous of us because Dad told us he loved us every time we left. That she loved Dad more than anything and wanted to keep him in her life. She also thanked us for meeting with her because she was glad she got caught and found out the truth. (eye roll) We told her that if she really loved him as much as she said did, she would let him go live a normal life without her.

The bottom line to the whole hour long conversation was that there was so much that she had done, she didn't remember it all. And wasn't going to admit to it unless we showed her the proof we had. Honestly, she probably doesn't even know what the truth is anymore, and has told the lies so many times, that's what she believes to be real.

(Also, apologies to the guy the next table over working on his laptop, the look of shock on his face when asked questions and she answered them is forever stuck in our heads)

A lot of denial and no real answers. I'm not sure what she thought she could convince us of during this meeting, we weren't affected by her attempts of manipulation. Even after the meeting and telling us one thing, she would turn around and tell dad something different. We still don't know what is true and what isn't unless we have the documents.

After the meeting, we drove to Dad's and played the recording for him. He found out even more things he hadn't known before. The reason we did this was because first of all, she had already told Dad that we mistreated her when he wasn't around (anybody can testify that is a huge lie, we were very good to her), and we didn't want her playing the situation to him that we were rude to her or ANYTHING that wasn't the truth.

Once again, Dad was convinced he was done and the following day wanted to see the notebook of papers we had put together for our meeting with her, and because it was Sunday, she was going over to do laundry...even though he said he was through with her, she was coming to do laundry. Crystal told him that she would bring the notebook to him and go over it with him, because again he still doesn't remember it all. He said no not to come and don't bring it because she wouldn't stay if Crystal showed up. Crystal called me and we headed to Dad's with donuts.

We hooked up the laptop to his TV so he could see any and all of the proof he wanted. And it's dumb stuff too, like saying she never ate lunch but there were charges almost every day for a fast food restaurant. Not a big deal but why lie? We told him if she really loved him she would come back to his house and confront all of this. If she really was willing to do anything she needed to be accountable for this.

She came back over and sat with all of us, again. And again, no real answers for anything. We asked where the money was at and she said she "robbed Peter to pay Paul" and had just dug such a big hole she couldn't get out of it. But, why all the cash withdrawals and checks to herself? She would come up with something that would sound like it almost made sense but didn't quite. The cash she said she would use to pay for things that wouldn't take cards or checks, our response was "like what?' She said that those hundreds of little loans she took out, some would only take cash. Unlikely. And there were already tons of those loan payments on the bank statements. Plus, when did she have time to be running around paying THAT many bills with cash? When dad also asked her again about the retirement money, she said "all I remember doing was checking a box". So Crystal pulled out the notebook and says "oh, and wrote a letter." Crystal showed her the letter and she sat there in silence.

That day we told her that we weren't going away. That we didn't wish any ill on her, just for her to move on and leave Dad alone. She said all she wanted was to hang out with him and feed him breakfast every now and again. Crystal asked her if some stranger had stolen Dad's identity and done the same things to him, would you expect him to eat breakfast with them and "be friends"? We told her to go live a happy life, just do it without our dad.

The divorce became finalized February 2019. Maybe now we can help dad finish picking up the pieces of his life and help him move on from her. She told dad that the divorce papers don't mean anything to her, that she is still his wife.

Will there ever be a time that we can move on without her in our life, maybe, but

We've been wrong before

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