Mommy, tell me about Daddy...Why can't I meet him?
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Of all the questions my babies will ask, this will be the most difficult to answer. I will have to pretend as he did throughout he and I's relationship. I will learn to live a secret life, like he did. I will have paint a picture - I don't know what it is yet but the truth is just too much for innocent souls to ever have to try to understand - especially about their father.
I met Dave Dohrmann on Match.com in early February of 2012. He messaged me asking if I would be interested in seeing him even though he did not meet my stated age criteria. I told him I would be open to the age difference, however, the fact that he listed he had 2 children and he was "Not Sure" whether he would like to have more children. This was a deal breaker for me. I was 36 years old and spent most of my years focused on my career, travel, adventures and dating. Through trial and error, I knew exactly what I wanted and I was not willing to "settle". Dave replied that he would absolutely like to have more children with the right woman and he loved my profile, etc., etc., etc..
Our first conversation was easy. He talked little of himself and honed in on what he knew we had in common - my league basketball play (he told me of his son Avery's "no look" pass) and he brought the conversation back to me. After a lot of charm and a little humor, he sealed the deal on our first date. We made a plan to meet at Empire Tap Room on Emerson Street in Palo Alto on the 23rd of February at 7pm. Our glass of wine turned into a plethora of appetizers which he devoured at an impressive rate. Our first date turned into a first week of dates nearly every night; dinners, movies, backgammon, cuddles, conversations, even yoga. Our first week turned into three months of being joined at the hip. We met each others families, we took trips and we had a fantastic time getting to know one another. He was so bright, so positive, so charming and he adored me to pieces. I fell for him harder than I had ever fallen before but this time it was different. I just knew. There were no games, we genuinely wanted to be together and it was comfortable. It wasn't about sex, although there was an intense attraction from the the moment we met. I appreciated the fact that he did not push himself on me sexually like men so often do. We took our time, spent a lot of time together, laughed and played together like old friends and when the time was right it just happened.
We had a difficult time in the bedroom. It wasn't for lack of attraction or desire, it was something else. As we became very close emotionally I asked him if this was a problem he had experienced much before and he promised it wasn't. He did not know what the reason was. I assured him that it didn't matter to me. I told him I wished he would try to relax and not worry about performance or anything like that because I was adored him and it is not important in the grand scheme of things. Now, looking back I know why he was having performance issues - he had been going home and looking at websites such as
www.footfactory.com and other repulsive adult fetish sites. He later confessed he had a history of hooking up with prostitutes on redbook.com and through "massage parlors" in San Francisco. I remember distinctly one night after a fun date, we played backgammon and we sat on my couch and talked. I asked about his failed marriage, his divorce and his custody arrangements. He told me about his divorce settlement in detail. I asked what he did to meet his sexually needs while he was married for 12 years and he admitted to looking at porn and paying for sex. I had never had a guy tell me they paid for sex in all of my life. I knew it existed I just knew nothing about it and I had little basis to judge him. Instead I admired the fact that he was telling me the truth, that he was ashamed and still honest. I must admit I was a bit freaked out too. I didn't know what to think. I just knew I loved this man and I loved that he was able to share his darkest secret with me. He could trust me with it, I would not betray him.
I wish I could say that was his deepest secret or that he was honest with me. As he told me about a dark secret of his - this man was actually still married. Mind you, his profile state divorced, employed, non smoker - all lies. Furthermore, the money we were going to retire together with in five years did not exist. What did exist was about $150,000 in debt a deplorable credit record and a WIFE who hates his guts because of the 12 years she has put up with his fat, sex - porn - hooker addicted, lazy, lying ass. Throughout the next year or so, the truth unraveled just slowly enough for me to go through the stages of trauma and grief. I would miraculously forgive him, regain hope and try harder to love him with all of my heart and to be his best friend/his support in between my learning of his catastrophic lies. Honestly, the amount of compassion and patience I had for this man, Mother Teresa would not have been capable of having. I wanted more than anything to take away his problems. I knew that together we could rebuild his life after a few years of hard work and dedication. I knew he wanted the same things I did. I still knew little of the truth.
One morning in July of 2012 after Dave had moved into my condo with me, he got up and out of bed unusually early. He was unemployed after losing his second job running a gaming company that year (one of which was his own gig he was fired from) so getting up before 8 was VERY unusual for him. Anyway, he somehow snuck out of bed and when I called him and asked where he was going, he confessed he was going to court for his divorce. I was so confused. I was stunned and speechless with a lump in my throat and tears running down my face. I had been betrayed again by this man and I did not know what to do or say or think or feel. This may have been one of the more painful lies. I think because there were so many lies to cover up this lie. He had told my friends and family he wanted to marry me so bad he was just waiting until it was long enough that people wouldn't think we were crazy. What??? No, he was waiting until he was divorced first because he could not have legally married me. He even took me ring shopping at high-end jewelers and he got specs for outrageous rings that were up to $98K. I didn't need a ring like that - this was just the picture he wanted to paint for me as if I could love him more. I don't know, maybe he wanted to buy me the $98K engagement ring at Tiffany's but to my surprise, he didn't even have enough credit to have a credit card. That lie stung, it still does.
Around the March/April timeframe - before he moved in with me - he gave up porn and his obsessive behaviors I did not know existed. Apparently I was enough for him and his stress level was low enough he did not need to fall back into those old patterns of coping that caused him to hate himself so much. One afternoon in July I got a text message from his
still-wife asking me if I had done a criminal background check on him. I immediately went into panic mode. I called Dave and told him about the text and told him I was scared and I needed to know what she was talking about. He refused to tell me and that made me even more scared. Finally after begging and pleading with him, I gave him an ultimatum. I told him you either tell me what she is talking about now, on the phone, or you don't come back to my house. I just could not imagine what I would find on his record. Finally he told me he had been arrested for looking in a woman's bathroom window. He said it was a woman he worked with and he had to drop some papers off at her house and it was a mistake but he was arrested for it. Of course I believed him and he said all the right things to calm my fears. Thank goodness he wasn't arrested for something worse. Problem was, Dave was not telling the truth, again. Dave Dohrmann is a voyeur. Since he was a kid and his neighbor built a floor to ceiling window in the bathroom of their Palo Alto home - he had been watching, looking for women undressing or doing things not meant for anyone else's eyes. Now he was taking it to the next level and acting it out by following the teenage intern from his office home and watching her through her windows.
Dave told me the only reason he did not tell me about this sooner was because of my stalker/peeping Tom incident which caused me to be so paranoid I had camera's and motion detecting flood lights on my windows to monitor and scare away my predator. Dave felt so much anger for the person that was stalking me and causing me to live my life in fear, he just couldn't bring himself to tell me of the arrest. Well, I later learned the arrest was not just one arrest. Dave was also arrested for taking a photograph up a minors skirt at Pacific Athletic Club. Oh, and I also learned he was kicked out of Alpine Country Club for being sited peeping and exhibiting the same type of behavior. Before all of these truths unfolded, we were pregnant in July and miscarried in September of 2012. We were both so excited about the pregnancy and devastated by the miscarriage, it brought us really close. Dave was on his best behavior. He was the sweetest, most attentive man I had ever been with and our love felt real and deep, at least to me.
There were times when I would have flashbacks of the torment of finding out my best friend had another major skeleton and some of those times I would fight back the temptation to go searching for more clues of his past. The times I did not fight the temptation, I always found what I did not want to find. There were emails of many prostitutes he had been with, the communication was disturbing. I remember Lillian Ward was the first one I found out about because he text messaged him, emailed him, facebooked him, even tried to hook up with him on Linked in. Yes, prostitutes use Linkedin. There were countless others - Paige Dewilde, Morgan, Paloma from Garden of the Goddess, Lionie at Kissable Cuties, Sofia Rose, Nikkie Taylor - oh the list goes on - these are only from a 60 day period. I discovered videos he had taken of underage girls at ballet practice, photos or young girls back sides while playing video games. I once stumbled across a picture he had taken of a woman's crotch, standing on a street. Stupid me believed him when he said he just thought it was funny she had a "melvin." I didn't understand it, I just gave him the benefit of the doubt, as I was taught to do.
Over time, his sickness became my sickness. I would minimize and make justifications for his behavior. I was in denial. I denied the fact that he was lusting after young girls. I believed his words, I wanted so much to believe this was all in his past. All guys have temptations from time to time. I believed it when he told me he had his head around it. It took me busting him over and over again for it to sink into my head. That, a lot of therapy and perhaps the intense clarity which uninvitedly arrives when your body is flooded with pregnancy hormones.
Dave and I tried to get pregnant again from just a few days after miscarriage until we were successful with twins in June 2013. Yes, I am that stupid and naive. Naivete is both a blessing and a curse. I feel as though God or whatever higher power you believe in, I believe in, has given me exactly what I wanted, what I forced into place even though maybe this wasn't supposed to be "the plan". Or maybe this higher power thought Dave's love for me and desire to have what his Dad created the second time around was so strong that getting pregnant would sober him up, would give him a purpose and a future to hope for. As much as I wish it were so, I don't believe the later is the case anymore.
Dave Dohrmann is back to his own ways. He spends multiple hours a day watching women and children at fitness centers, yoga studios, shopping centers, tanning salons and most favorably dance studio's - in hopes of finding his next fix. The excitement of watching young women just be, not knowing a predator is watching them, gives him his thrill - at least that is what I have learned from his therapist/s and from reading of his addiction. The problem is, it may not stop here. Eventually this too will lose its excitement. Even though I will always love the man that gave me the two beautiful babies in my belly. I look forward to the day he is caught again, the day he hits rock bottom, the day he ends up in jail again or in a place that changes his core - hopefully he will not damage anyone else in the process although I believe it is inevitable. And I hope to god for the sake of him and his babies he may never have the opportunity to meet - I hope he makes a choice to change his life and never cross that path again, just as I have had to do.
Now what on Earth do I tell my baby girls....
