My last blog entry ended with being granted a Restraining Order against LTC. Kevin Paul Landers, Sr.
While the Permanent Restraining Order was still intact, Kevin did some very odd, hateful things to try to gain access to my paper work and personal items. One sickening thing in particular was that he had our daughter climb through a kitchen window one afternoon while I was shopping and had her gather my bank information and other paperwork. At her father’s request, she gathered paperwork and was told to put it into a plastic bag and bury it in a hole in the back yard. You see per the Restraining Order that Cumberland County NC issued against Kevin, he was not even allowed on our home property and of course did not want to have any of my possessions in his care. This is why he had our daughter break into the home and bury her findings.
Now, I really want all of my readers out there to try to picture a conversation between a father and his young daughter who had strived for his affection over the years and worshiped and loved him. Read these words out loud that a father requests of a 12 year old child, “I want you to climb through the back kitchen window and look for mom’s bank statements, check books, or any other paper work of hers. I want you to get a plastic bag and put all the paperwork you find in it and then climb back out of the window and I want you to dig a hole by the fence and bury it. If you do this, it will help Mommy come back to us.”
These are the things that my daughter shared with me later after Kevin pushed her out of his life when she became useless to him. Please re-read this statement by Kevin to our 12 year old daughter and try to grasp what Kevin was doing to this child. Here is an impressionable girl who loves her dad and wants him to love her back. He was using her devotion to him to hurt her mother. I want you to think how damaging this is to a young girl who did everything in her power to show her father that she would do ANYTHING for him to gain his undivided love. Later Kevin would discard her at age 14 and have no contact with her. At age 18 years, my daughter was released from her father’s control and she fled to me. All 3 of my children that have fled their father’s control have chosen to embrace me. My youngest daughter has recently chosen to communicate with her father and his wife with the stipulation that she have no contact with me. This is the only way Kevin will communicate with any of his 3 oldest children- if they disown me and speak his rhetoric against me. I am saddened to say that my youngest daughter has chosen this path. It is still my desire that we co-parent. Kevin does not want me in their life. I will go into more detail in a later blog.
So, while I was gone, my 12 year old daughter did what her father had asked. Some of the paperwork he had my daughter steal did help him manipulate the court system and hurt me. My daughter helped Kevin in her innocence have me removed from our home and unknowingly helped her dad gain physical custody of the children thus giving me the option to withdraw the request for divorce and return to his abuse or permanently have me removed from a life I was trying to recreate without my abuser. I chose not to reunite with my abuser.
I had come home later that afternoon and noticed that my paperwork had been ransacked through. Some of my bank statements were missing and a lot of advertisements for apartment rentals in Georgia were gone off of the kitchen table. I stood there confused. I just did not think that Kevin would have violated the Restraining Order. The evidence told me that someone had been in the house. Something frightened me and I did not know why. I had a very unsettling feeling that I could not shake off my shoulders. Something was very, very wrong and I was starting to feel unsure of how safe I was. I contacted my lawyer. She later got back to me and told me that Kevin had an alibi and that he had been nowhere near the house. His alibi was our 12 year old daughter. I got off the phone and still had a strong feeling that something was wrong and I was in immediate danger.
So from thence forth, I paid close attention to my surroundings and remained cautious and alert. Darkness was slowly coming. And my instinct was correct. I was getting ready to face a battle and what would be one of the darkest parts of the mind of my abuser. His hate for me was bringing up the most evil actions from the depths of his soul. Evil consumed this man labeled “husband”. This “father” was willing to sacrifice the innocence of his loyal daughter to annihilate her mother. He was no longer a father; No longer a husband. Kevin had become a walking demon and I was becoming so anxious and afraid of something I could not see. The eerie feeling was consuming my soul. I was starting to head into a dark forest with no sunshine to be seen; Only darkness. Kevin was the instigator of pulling out the most evil parts of his being. This evil continues to exude to this very moment. It has not ceased.
“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness” Victor Hugo
My fears were soon justified that someone had stolen my paperwork and documents. I had opened a bank account in my name. For the first time in my marriage to Kevin I had my own personal banking account. This is when I realized someone had been in my home without me present. You see, in my marriage to Kevin he controlled all of the monies. We had a strict budget and Kevin tracked every penny spent. My grandma Nolan would always tell me to hide money “just in case”? Looking back on my late grandma, maybe she saw more of me than I saw of myself. My grandmother was married to a very abusive, controlling man-my grandfather. She rarely talked of her trials but every once in a while, something would come out of her memory. I think she saw herself in me sometimes and I do believe today, that she saw Kevin for what he was-a man that abused her granddaughter. My grandma would take me by the hand to her bedroom and open her bible. She would crunch up a $20.00 bill in her hand and always say, “Now Honey, it’s not much, but you keep it and hide it. This is for you and only you. If you ever decide to leave him, you have some money to survive.” Being that my grandma was starting early signs of dementia, I never took her words literal but I should have. My grandmother was sending me a clear message without saying too many words. I would follow her instruction and hide the money that she gave me. Towards the end of my marriage, I would hide money “just in case.” A couple of times, Kevin would find the money and I would tell him that I was saving some for his Christmas gifts but he would always take it. So, I would have to find another hiding place. With the little stash of money I had and my insurance policy money, I wanted to try to get my own bank account to keep my money safe from Kevin’s controlling hands. I knew I was going to have to get a job and I wanted to take responsible steps to help me gain my freedom and independence. The horrifying thing was I could not find my stash of money anywhere. I was frantic. It was gone and I started to realize, not only had my home been invaded, but now my peace-of-mind and security had been stolen. This should have been a red flag to me, but my mind was reeling with all the other challenges I had. No money for food. No money for children clothing. No money for utilities. My abuser was classic. However, I dismissed the thought that someone had stolen my money right under my nose. I just did not think in a million years that Kevin would risk coming into the home. I did not think at that time, Kevin had it in him to use and manipulate his loyal daughter for his evil gain. To this very day, Kevin continues to lie and will swear to the authorities that what he speaks is the truth. He is an out of control liar.
Back to 2005… I still went to a bank and shared my story with a lovely bank teller. I told her of my impending divorce and how Kevin was taking all the money. I wanted to make sure Kevin had no access to my bank account. The bank teller suggested I get a safety deposit box to keep my papers and documents. She said the Restraining Order was just a piece of paper and difficult to prove if ever violated. She suggested that perhaps Kevin had our daughter enter the home on his behalf. I remember telling her with conviction, “He is mean to me, but he would not do something like that to our children.” What I found odd was how this bank teller leaned over the table and talked very quietly to me. I leaned into her. She looked at me and said, “I was abused for many years in my marriage. I have 2 sons that are in college and doing well. I am free today, but breaking away from my ex-husband was hell and I can tell that you are heading for a very bad battle. I want to help you so here is what I think you should do.” She asked me for Kevin’s rank in the army. She pulled up his pay on the computer and calculated. I had no idea what she was doing but I sat patiently. Then she said, “Ok. You are legally married for a year until your divorce is final. So under his pay grade you can get a credit card of a sizeable limit in your name.” I looked at her confused. Seconds passed, and then she said, “Listen, this is just for emergency purposes. I think you are going to need this. Please trust me on this.” It made me nervous and I started to get that anxious feeling again and an overwhelming emotion overcame me. As much as I hate to cry in public, tears started to roll down my face and I looked at her and said, “I’m afraid.” She put her hand on mine and said, “I know. You should be.” And then, just like that, she pulled her hand away and started typing up the paperwork real fast. Almost like she sensed Kevin was going to walk into the bank and stop her from helping me. I signed all the documents and now I had a little peace of mind and a little piece of my own independence. A false sense of security settled in again and a moment of relief. I went to shake the tellers hand and she grabbed me and gave me a hug and then whispered in my ear, “When your ex comes here, I won’t let him intimidate me. So don’t worry about our conversation.” I slowly pulled away from her and looked her straight in the eyes. She said, “He will find out where you bank and he will be here demanding your information and ‘HIS’ money. So be ready.” The temporary feeling of relief turned to fear again and my emotions were out of control. But I swallowed down my tears, gave her a sincere thank you and walked out of the bank into the sunshine. I put my face up to the light of the sun hoping the warmth would dry away the smudge of tears that rolled down my face. I looked at my van and hesitated for a moment. Then, I turned and looked back towards the bank. I could not see inside the windows because they were mirrored. But I could feel my bank teller looking at me. I wanted to walk back in the bank and just sit next to her. I felt comfort from this stranger that became a guardian angel to me in a way. I wanted to go home with her because I was alone and felt like I had no more home; At least not a home that I felt safe in. I wanted to run and hide away from all this insanity. Every one could see me and my relationship with my abuser more than I could. I still kept convincing myself that it was going to be ok. That nothing REALLY BAD was going to happen. After all, Kevin had admitted to his abuses in a written letter that he wrote from Iraq. I still have a copy of this confession. He sent it to my parents, his parents, his sister and Chaplin Brock. A letter that he later said he wrote only because his counselor told him to. To this day he claims that any abuse he is accused of are all lies and that he NEVER laid a hand on me. He clims that “if” abuse took place, there would be a police report. He appears delusional if he thinks my 4 children, two that are adults will cover for him. My children have their own memories and to this day, share accounts that I chose to block. I will discuss this more in detail in a later blog.
Now, let us return to the moment I found out without a doubt, Kevin had stolen my bank documents from a house he was not allowed to enter.
My bank teller called me out of the blue one late afternoon. She told me Kevin had been there. She told me that Kevin was DEMANDING my bank information because I was using HIS money and he wanted his money back. He knew I had a credit card and he told the teller he was going to sue the bank for using his money without his knowledge. He also demanded that the bank give him a key to my safety deposit box. The bank teller refused and informed him that he did not have legal right to the safety deposit box. He screamed and told them that it was his money so it was his box. Kevin eventually had to be escorted out of the bank. My bank teller was a prophet. Kevin did come to the bank and at that very moment I knew that Kevin had someone go into our home and steal all of the missing paperwork. I felt violated and angry. Was there no freedom or peace from this evil man? After this, I never felt safe. I was paranoid. He was relentless and I was losing energy fighting him. The scary thing was, the battle had just begun. I was “digging” real deep to try to pull myself out of fear and persecution. I tried to stay focused, but each day I woke up there was something more. Something worse than the day before. Kevin was posturing himself methodically against me and he had no morals. I found out quickly that Kevin would, will and did go to any lengths to try to annihilate me; Any lengths to control me; He was “beating me down” without putting a hand on me. Stay with me on this blog, as there is so much more to tell. As far as I have come in my story, it is just the beginning of the horrible trials I had to go through with my husband; The father of our 4 children; The soldier that continues to blame me for his shortened career; And, to me, he has taken on the role of the devil himself….or at the very least, one of Satan’s angels.
“Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping” I Peter 5:8 (MSG)
REST…REGROUP…RETURN
No comments:
Post a Comment