No one's immune.

[Madman]

I've know this elderly couple for several years now. Both, in their time, were professionals with PhD's (he still works). They are well off, but live modestly. A little too modestly in my opinon, but I'm not them.

They've been married for just over 40 years. Couple kids and a few grandkids. They only have one son that visits regularly. The others - they rarely ever mention them. The husband, I've spoken to several times over the years in short conversations. When he refered to his wife, he does so in a derogative sense - damn near insulting, definitely demeaning. About a year ago I lost my patience with a remark he made and I told him off in a not so loud manner. To summarize; I told him he should respect his wife and not put her down to other people. After that he pretty much avoided me.

Well, yesterday I get this phone call. It was the wife - she had apparently gone to a lawyer and got an order of protection and filed for divorce. The sheriff had come by and had him vacate the house. The wife, had apparently moved to a motel for a few days while the husband was being served.

Long story short... She asked for me to come over and rehook up her television because she thought her husband had messed with it and broke it. I went over and, man-o-man, what a mess. The house looked like something out of a bad reality TV show. The husband had literally taken every square foot of the house over for his own amusement or purpose. The living room was full of boxes with papers, books, magazines and other junk. These boxes were stack as high as four feet and there were narrow trails weaving in and out of chairs and other miscellaneous furniture. He had a desk with a couple tables in the middle of the living room floor that made a "U" shape. Then two more desks against the opposite wall which the tops weren't even visible. Across the room on the fireplace mantle was a couple 5x7 photo frames with pictures of, what I guessed were their kids and grandkids. It was rather obvious the mantle had, at one time, several frames lined across because of the gaps on the mantle. There was also some nice little things on the walls where she had, maybe once, tried to decorate and make the home look nice.

I followed her to a back room to where the TV was. It was the master bedroom. The closets had bookcases in them and the bookcases were full of junk. There was a large dog cage in the bedroom where they apparently would lock up the dog (when, I have no idea - there was no dog there at that time). There was a pile of lady's pajamas piled up in a heap with a bunch of other junk scattered amongst them. Clothes were hung on a loose clothes rack against the wall. The television problem wasn't a problem. I just turned on the cable box and told her what to do if it happened again.

It was easy to see why this old lady always seemed so unhappy and depressed. Her husband was a creep who treated her poorly. She told me a little bit about what happened. It was pretty sad really. The lady is in her 70's, stayed with this man for 40 years and the last 20 he was emotionally abusive to her. I stayed for a little while and gave her a pep talk. Pretty much told her that she paid her dues with interest in life and that she deserves to be happy. I told her to focus on getting through this and whatever he says - do not let him or anyone else take your happiness from you.

It's just so hard to believe how someone can be married to another person for so long and be treated so badly. It's a damn crying shame.