Tag Archives: children who falselly accuse

Bread and Circuses

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, works as a teaching assistant for Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and   Emma works leasing swanky apartments in Frisco.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Bread and Circuses

(So I started writing my thoughts just after the Ford Blasey/Kavanaugh hearing, and I re-wrote and edited after the whole thing was over.  Of course, any time I hear about possible false allegations, I think of Emma, and the mistakes we made with her, so here’s what I wrote.)

Good grief! The past couple of weeks have been a circus if you’ve been watching the news. Our politicians should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this spectacle of a show. Do I know what or if anything happened between now supreme court judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford? No, I have no idea. I wasn’t there. Do I think accusers of sexual assault should be heard? Of course I do. What disgusts me is how our politicians used this story, and I think used Dr. Blasey Ford to further their agenda rather than handling the accusation appropriately. And of course, this story makes me rethink Emma’s accusing the priest of molestation, and about the mistakes we made in handling her accusation. I also have to wonder, since Emma was such a staunch conservative (or as her dad liked to say, “Emma is to the right of right.” if Emma came up with the priest who turned politician because of his being a democrat and running for office. Maybe Emma wanted to stop his political career. Did Emma even know he was running for office? It’s possible since she spent so much time on the computer, she might have looked him up. Or was he just a safe target since he was no longer at our church and Emma was pulling a name out of her sorting hat. Maybe one day Emma will tell us why she chose to falsely accuse the man, but right now, I have some thoughts on the whole Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh thing oh, and on Emma too.

The morning of the Christine Blasey Ford/Brett Kavanaugh hearing, I stopped to have coffee with my neighbors, and I remember, when they brought up the hearing, distinctly telling them that I was NOT going to watch the hearing, and would just wait to hear about it afterwards. LIE. Ok, not really a lie. I wasn’t going to watch it. It was something that I had no control over, and it just seemed pointless to devote my attention to it, so I planned on not watching it, but when it came down to it, it was my day off from work, and I was tired and I didn’t feel like doing much, and it happened to be on one of the three tv channels that I am able to pick up with my antenna, so I put it on the tube. I really didn’t intend on watching it, but I picked up a project I was working on and spent most of the day working on my project and listening, with the exception of a 45 minute bike ride in the middle of the day.

My first thought concerning the hearing was that no matter what happens, there are two sides and one side is never going to be happy with the outcome of whatever may happen. Ain’t that the truth!

Afterwards, I was glad I watched because it made me think, and it made me reflect on a lot of things that went on with Emma that Phill and I missed with her molestation story.

I’m not going to sit here and analyze the hearing. There are plenty of political pundits who can do a much better job than I can on that issue, but I think I have a unique perspective on the hearing seeing that I was a) a victim a sexual assault, b) the mother of a child who falsely accused a man of sexual assualt, and, c) I, myself, was falsely accused of abuse by my daughter.

Having been a victim myself, and having known many women who were also victims, when I hear someone make an accusation of sexual abuse, my first thought is that I want to hear what the victim has to say, and I want to believe them. After all, who would make that kind of thing up besides my daughter. Turns out lots of women do.

In the case of Christine Blasey Ford, first off, there was her little girl voice, her frightened demeanor and disheveled appearance. I found that to be odd. As to the voice, I have known probably 2 people of the course of my life who had that high pitched child-like voice, and I figured if she was faking her voice, that would come out sooner or later because enough people would know if she really talked like that or not, so I was willing to believe it was her real voice, but being a professional woman, I was having a hard time with the scared little girl act. If the woman is a PhD that would mean she would have had to “defend” a dissertation, and from what I’ve heard, “defend” is a good description of the process, and not something that you enter into meekly. I would think Dr. Blasey Ford, having been a professional for many years, would have been able to speak to a group of senators a bit more professionally than she did.

I was also disturbed by the whole “airplane” story, and it seems like Dr. Blasey Ford told a whopper of a lie when she said she was afraid of confined spaces. She has no trouble flying for vacations to exotic locations, so I’m not buying that one at all.

Later on, I found out that Leland Keyser, who Dr. BF stated could validate her story, not only couldn’t validate her story, but also had no idea what was coming until she woke up one morning to find her name all over the news. If you were going to be testifying and bringing up the name of a witness, wouldn’t you at least have the courtesy to tell that person that you were including them in your testimony? Especially if it was a “lifelong friend?” Hmmm. Odd.

I listened to the questioning, and I had only more questions, and I sat there wondering, “Why didn’t they ask this, this, and this….” and I was shocked and disappointed in the hearing. I thought the treatment should have been more professional than it was. I say senators telling Ms. Blasey Ford how amazing her education creditials were and how credible she sounded, but I was thinking to myself, “Why didn’t you ask her da,da,da…………..!” I had a lot of questions.

When Brett Kavanaugh was in the hot seat, I saw him asked over and over again about blacking out and not remembering what he might have done, but when Christine Blasey Ford was answering questions and couldn’t answer the simplest questions about the night of the assault, they didn’t pound her about if she could have blacked out. Too many of the questioning senators did not seem interested in getting to the facts, and I had to wonder if they were just trying to get in a sound bite for their next campaign.

Did I find Dr. Blasey Ford belivable? Yes, she certainly could have been a victim of something. I know several people who are all, “I believe Christine Blasey Ford” no matter what, and think the accusation should have been enough to keep judge Kavanaugh off the supreme court. So now, we just convict people without proof? For me, with all the inconsistencies and changing her story, I just can’t buy it. Is Dr. Blasey Ford an attention seeker? Is she mentally ill? Is she misremembering perhaps some other incident where she was molested? Is she a die hard leftist who just wanted to disrupt the process? I have no idea. I just think something is not right and that unless there is some kind of proof that Judge Kavanaugh did any of the horrible things he was accused of, he was entitled to be voted on. Something I also wondered about was when people were coming out of the woodwork to vouch for Judge Kavanaugh, people who’d known him in college, in high school, through work, etc., I didn’t see the same with Dr. Blasey Ford. I saw lots of protesters and hollywood types who’d never met either Dr. Blasey Ford or Judge Kavanaugh, claim they believed Dr. Blasey Ford, but I didn’t see her coworkers, old classmates, or even family coming forward to vouch for her. Now, I work full time, have a home to take care of, and volunteer in my spare time, so I don’t live and breathe the news, and I guess it’s possible I missed it.

I have heard people talk about how Brett Kavanaugh acted during his interview, how he cried and got angry and defensive and showed all this emotion unbecoming to a supreme court judge, but on that, I do have something to say. I understand completely, Judge Kavanaugh! I understand, completely.

metoo

I keep jokingly saying to myself, “Emma Blasey Ford.”  I was pretty open minded before the hearing, but I have to say I’ve heard too many discrepancies, and I honestly do not believe Dr. Blasey Ford at all.  My mind could be changed with more evidence, but an accusation is not enough to destroy a man’s career.  

With several years under my belt, I am calm and I will be happy to answer any question you may have about Emma and her accusation of abuse. Fire away. Ask me anything. When my life went to hell in Emma’s hand basket, I had gone from a quiet/boring routine family life to Emmaland Crazy. (Phill had, since Emma was about age of 9 or 10 called Emma our little Drama Queen—-oh how prophetic he turned out to be!) Phill and I had always joked about how we liked our quiet boring life. Anytime we heard about someone going though some kind of crazy drama, we always talked about how we like our quiet boring life.

I feel like I can understand how Judge Kavanaugh must have felt, because it sounds like he was a family guy who worked and did all the routine family things, and all of a sudden his life, like mine, was turned upside down and he was accused of sexual assault, and then it gotten even crazier with Julie Swetnik accusing him of organizing gang rapes… Not only was he attacked, but his wife and children were attacked. I felt the same way. I was attacked, and my family was destroyed. At the time, I was upset, hurt, scared, emotional, angry, defensive…. If someone had interviewed me after Emma’s crazy accusations, it would probably not have been pretty. Now, I don’t mind talking about it, and I can even joke about it. The other day at work, I was on a rolling computer which was plugged in, and my coworker thought I didn’t notice it was plugged in, and said, “Wait………..you’re attached!” and I laughed and said, “No, I’m not silly, I’m divorced.” It may have taken me several years to get to this point, but I can joke about it now. (I grew up in a family that didn’t believe in divorce, and I always thought Phill and I had a strong marriage.) Going though it was hell, but being on the other side now, I can even laugh about some of the craziness.

So, as far as Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement, and some people think it was too emotional, too angry, or whatever. I completely understand how Judge Kavanaugh must have felt. If he is innocent, he went from mudane and routine to a madhouse over a couple of weeks, and I don’t think most of use would handle it well. You attack the man and his family, and he’s going to be upset. I also heard something I found interesting, and that was the difference between Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Kavanaugh. Brett Kavanaugh was protecting and defending his family. Judge Kavanaugh will be the contitutionalist who, although it’s been a million years since 12th grade Government class and college Political Science, will be making decisions for our country based on the constitution.

So, listening to some of the questioning, and how the senators were NOT questioning Dr. Blasey Ford, got me to thinking about how that was a mistake that Phill and I made. My poor baby Emma was so traumatized by accusing a priest of molestation and by having to talk to the police and the church, and DFACS, etc. that I did not push her to talk about it, and I should have. I wanted to get Emma into therapy where she could talk to someone who could better deal with her issues. I didn’t feel qualified. I should have been questioning Emma and pushing for dates. Even if Emma couldn’t remember dates, she should have been able to tell give me some idea of the times she was assaulted (if you have not read all of the blog, Emma claimed the priest stuck his fingers into her vagina on several different occasions). It could have been something as simple as the day we took the youth group bowling, or the day after the camp-out at church, or the Sunday after Jordan’s birthday party………… you get the idea. Since, at the time, I believed Emma, I should have gotten details to better prove her case, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to stress her out by making her talk about the whole ordeal. Dumb sap that I am, I just wanted to protect my baby and didn’t want to make things any more stressful for her.

Something else I’ve been thinking about since the whole Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh thing is the “what ifs.” What is a psychopath got another psychopath to go along with her, say, to accuse a priest of molestation. It’s probably a good think Emma’s only friends were on line. Or a psychopath who hated her algebra teacher got another nut job to go along with her, and they rehearsed and got their stories together to send an innocent man to jail. What if a couple of young women had a vendetta against a boy they knew in highschool and they remembered being at the same event with him and decided to make up a story to ruin his life. Or, a couple of psychopaths who went to school with a boy many years ago who was running for office and they were rooting for his opponent. It is a scary world.

Do I know what or if anything happened between Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh. No. Like everyone else, I’ve formed my own opinions after watching the hearing and I have not heard enough to make me think Dr. Blasey Ford’s accusations could be true, and in this county, we don’t punish someone one for a crime when there is no evidence.

One think I miss is talking current events with Emma. As a teen, Emma had all the answers, but she is almost 25 now, and with a little more education and life experience under her belt, I would love to hear her thoughts on this now finished business. As both a conservative, and a (ahem… cough, cough.) “vicitm,” I’m sure Emma had a lot to say.

Oh, and just a note to Emma: I’m sorry to you and Tyler that I missed your anniversary. I was on vacation during Florence, and came home to no internet for a week, but know I was thinking of you both that Sept. 19th. Three years!  So, with Tyler working on his Master’s, are you back in school, too?  Miss you, Emma, the girl who would be me!

The Police Dog Meme

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, works as a teaching assistant for Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and   Emma works leasing swanky apartments in Frisco.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

 

Just a couple of light thoughts today.

Police Dog

Ok, so I kept seeing this meme pop up, and I liked it but did not save it, so when I tried to go back and find it, I couldn’t. Darn! So……….. I just made my own. For someone who’s not too computer savy (and sadly had a husband who kept telling me I didn’t need to know how to do things because he would always be there to help me), I’m pretty pleased with myself for mastering the meme generator! I like this one better than the one I saw earlier.

Anyway, if you know the history of Emma, one of her better lies, er stories, was the one about being searched by a drug dog in high school. Emma claimed that a boy, JB, who lived in our neighborhood and rode the school bus with Emma, had a grudge against Emma’s “friend” C. (later Emma called her an “acquaintance” rather than a friend), so he turned the group of them in, claiming they had drugs on the bus……………… Emma went on to say that she got called out of class to be searched by a drug dog, and told the officer how she volunteered with a rescue………… It was a GREAT story, and Emma put so much detail into it, that it’s a shame it wasn’t true. (But her dad doesn’t think she has a lying problem.) To tell such a great story, I’m wondering did Emma rehearse it, or to good liars just work on the fly?

The other thing I wanted to share with Emma was a gift for Tyler, the Good Architect. I saw these and thought they were so cute for the Leggo enthusiast! (or appropriate for a Bob the Builder like Tyler!) So, Emma, there’s a Christmas idea for you, or you can get Tyler one and tell him it’s from me!

Leggo Mug

Love,

Maze

I LOVE This Mom!

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, works as a teaching assistant for Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and   Emma works leasing swanky apartments in Frisco.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

I LOVE this Mom!

I’m a little late to the party, but if you haven’t seen it, check out Nicole Walter’s video of paying a visit to her daughter’s college:

https://www.westernjournal.com/l/slarson/mom-shows-daughters-college-doesnt-respond-text-calls-3-days/

I’m not sure which one of my FB friends posted it first, but by the time I found it, she already had something like 7 million views, and it is hilarious! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with embarrassing your kids, especially in such a humorous way, to get them to straighten up, and there is also a follow-up video where the daughter admits her parents were right.

Of course, Nicole probably has what I would consider a “normal” daughter, and I have Emma. If you are a frequent reader, you know as Emma’s mom, I think Emma has a personality disorder such as narcissism, sociopath/psychopathy, borderline, or perhaps bits of several personality disorders (PDs). In Emma’s case, I don’t know that showing up at Emma’s college after she ghosted her parents for 3 days would have had the desired effect.

I remember Phill and I watching the Roseanne show, and I think it was before Emma was born, but there was an episode where Roseanne wore overalls and acted like a goober and went to her kids’ school to embarrass one of them, I think it was Darlene, and Phill saying that was the kind of parent he wanted to be.  If our kid(s) acted up, he thought embarrassing them would be great, not that he ever followed through with that threat.

I will admit, that when Emma was attending Piedmont College in Demorost, Ga., I did consider going up there and handing out flyers with the web address. I guess that’s still an idea. Anyone want to take a road trip to Frisco, Texas? We could visit Emma’s swanky apartment complex and hand out flyers.  Maybe one day.

I don’t write the blog to embarrass Emma, and I have offered to take it down, but as long as my daughter goes around telling people that she was molested by a priest, and abused by her mother, I will tell her story.  (Someone needs to write a country song about Poor Emma’s sad little life!  She has a dog (two) but as far as I know, Emma and Tyler don’t have a pick-up.)

As a mother, and talking to my friends who are mothers, the past couple of weeks have been pretty gut wrenching. There was the story of Mollie Tibbetts body being found, and there was the story about pregnant mom Shannan Watts and her two little girls Bella and Celeste, all murdered by her husband, the children’s father. How does someone murder their own children? Crimes of passion I can almost understand, but when you see pictures of little innocent babies, I will never understand it.

There was also a young lady from Alabama, on a camping trip with her family here in Georgia, a recent college graduate with her whole life in front of her, who was battling her own demons and committed suicide, by weighing herself down and drowning while on a family camping trip. My coworkers and I were talking about these stories, and there was almost an overwhelming sadness in the air. It just seemed like a week with one sad story after another. In at least two of these stories, there is some sort of mental illness or PD. Is Chris Watts a sociopath to kill his family and then try to say his wife killed the girls because he was going to leave her? How could he expect that anyone would believe that? He thinks that much of himself that he can spout this garbage and think people will fall for it?  That is some kind of ego!

In the suicide case, there must have been some sort of depression for the young lady to feel her life was so hopeless and it is heartbreaking to think this girl didn’t realize that she had a bright future in front of her.

Is Mollie Tibbetts killer another sociopath, someone with no regard for someone else’s life.  Random murders, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are particularly frightening because there is no rhyme of reason to them.

I’m still reading and learning about PDs even though it is not one of my favorite subjects. God bless the people who work with the mentally ill, because it is not a job for most folks. When I was a student, I didn’t enjoy my rotation working with the mentally ill at a psych facility.  I lucked out and got an pretty easy rotation working with teens, but I had decided that psych mostly consisted of substance abuse and some pretty heavy mental illness.   I learned early on that I don’t have a lot of patience for substance abuse and what someone chooses to do to themselves.  And, for the people who are truly crazy, there’s not a lot that can really help them anyway.  The schizophrenics were really sad.  Of course that’s a generalization, and some diagnoses can be helped.   Bipolars, for example do pretty well if they stay on their medication, but sadly, many of them start a cycle of thinking they are fine and stop their meds and then everything falls apart and they repeat this pattern over and over again.

In Emma’s case, I feel like Phill and I missed some hallmark warning signs, but neither of us were well educated in mental illness, so we didn’t know what to be looking out for. Emma’s whole life, we never understood how punishment didn’t matter to Emma, and she didn’t get cause and effect, but it wasn’t until I got out of my home and started some research and realized Emma’s whole life was pretty much a lie. She lied about almost everyone she ever met. I felt so stupid! I had absolutely no idea just what a compulsive liar Emma was! Almost everything that came out of her mouth! Some of the lies were silly and harmless, but what’s with the lying? Which PDs are asscoiated with chronic lying? What is wrong with my daughter?

Most children outgrow lying, but Emma was still going at it fast and furious as the age of 17, so I would be willing to bet that she hasn’t slowed down and she is still a great teller of tall tales. Getting older and more education and more life experience, I’m sure Emma has gotten more skillful with her lying, even better than she did as a teen. I just hate to think of all the people she may have hurt along the way, and I’m sure Tyler, being busy with work and school and in love, probably hasn’t caught on yet. I worry about Emma hurting others. We didn’t raise her that way, but once your kids are grown, you have no control. Apparently, we didn’t have a lot of control anyway, but I tried.

A year or two after Phill had me thrown out of our home, a friend was talking to me and brought up that she didn’t trust Emma and worried that Emma might try to hurt me. She mentioned how she knew I liked to walk my dog at all hours, sometimes in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, and she worried that Emma might run me over. At first, I laughed. At this time, I was living in the middle of downtown in a small town, a poor area, and since the road my house was on didn’t have a sidewalk, and I would have to walk on the edge of the road just on that particular street. I have to admit that I got a little paranoid for a bit there. I would walk quickly on my little street because there wasn’t much of a shoulder to get out of the way of oncoming cars, and I was a little more nervous at night when I couldn’t see who or what was approaching me with it’s headlights one. Overall, at first I thought my friend was being silly, but what she said still gave me pause.

Last week, I was having dinner with a friend whom I’d met probably right around the time Phill threw me out of our home, and she knows the whole story, but never had the honor of meeting Emma. Having known her share of crazy people though, she gets that Emma is my daughter, and I still love her even after all she’s done, but as we were talking, I said, “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever said this out loud, but I actually think I’m better off without her in my life. I’m safer, anyway.” and I told her about what my friend had said a few years before about how she was worried that Emma might try to hurt me. It’s sad, yes, and it’s strange to think about my daughter and be grateful she’s in Texas and not anywhere close by.

Hug your children and keep them safe.

That being said, if you’ve got an Emma story for me, I’ll buy you a pizza and a starbucks card! Lol.

 

HalloweenPublix2000

Happy Fall, Emma!

Parental Unit Days

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Emma works showing and leasing swanky apartments in Frisco.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

 

Parental Unit Days

Goodness, I had wanted to share my thoughts for Mother’s day, but have been so busy, I didn’t get to it, and now it’s almost Father’s Day!

I can now share from the perspective of surviving my 8th Mother’s Day without my daughter. This was the first time in 8 years that I could actually say, “Happy Mother’s Day” and mean it. I didn’t want to hide from or ignore the day. Of course, I still miss my Emma, and I’m still hoping she’ll grow up, but she is what she is, and I didn’t fall into the pits of despair just because it was Mother’s Day. I wasn’t expecting a card, a call or an e-mail, so Emma didn’t disappoint me, but actually, I had a pretty nice day. I did have to work, but then came home and went to a cook out with some friends, and had some good food and good company on a beautiful, albeit warm, day, and I even got a couple of Mother’s Day cards from my very thoughtful sister and brother-in-law (and my dog) who were thinking of me.

When you’re a mother, everyday is Mother’s Day, but it is nice to have one day to be acknowledged for all you do for your child/children. The cooking, cleaning, diapers, runny noses, vomit, tears, boo boos, sickness, homework, school projects, chauffeuring and then sitting around, bored, while your child gets to do whatever fun activity they are involved in like swimming, kayaking, softball, karate, soccer, art class, choir, youth group, brownies, piano lessons, drama, therapy….. For mom, so much of that stuff is pure boredom and a lot of waiting around, but then when you get to see some of those moments, like when your child catches the fly ball, or breaks a board in karate, or just has a fun, silly time at play group, it is pure joy. To see them grow and learn and accomplish a task or grasp a concept, those are the moments we moms love, just watching our babies thrive in life.

As a child, Emma got to do so many more activities than Phill and I ever got to do as children, but as her mom, I just wanted to open her eyes to new experiences. I wasn’t expecting her to become a great black belt in karate, or a classical pianist, but I wanted Emma to get to try different things, and to be able to appreciate the effort that goes into them. Maybe Emma would never be a black belt, but by taking karate for a while, hopefully if she met someone who was, she would understand how much work went into earning that black belt. If she took a pottery class, maybe she would see a beautiful piece of pottery one day and understand and appreciate what goes into the making, the glazing, the firing of the piece.

Like most kids, I don’t think Emma appreciated how lucky she was that any extracurricular she was interested in, Phill and I would try to work out her being able to do. And, like a lot of kids, Emma never found anything she really loved. She never stuck with anything too long, but that’s ok. I always hoped she would find something she loved and could put some time and energy into, but Emma seemed to get bored with a lot of things, so we’d finish that activity and try something else. Or, if Emma didn’t excel at something right away, she wanted to quit whatever activity it was. (Smart child problems.) She didn’t seem to grasp that you didn’t become the best at something the first time you tried it. For a while, I was a glass bead maker, until Phill threw me out of our home and kept all my supplies. I took a beadmaking class (working on a torch) on a whim because a friend wanted to do it, and I was the absolute worst one in the class. I’m not very coordinated anyway, and I dropped things, and spilled things and really didn’t do great at all, but I loved it and it just made me want to try harder to “get it.” I practiced and took more classes and later began selling my work. I found that through hard work and maybe some natural talent, I was actually pretty good, better than a lot of people who’d been doing torch work longer than I had. I don’t do it anymore, and as I said, Phill has or had all my supplies (I would guess that he probably sold all my stuff.) Just before Emma got Phill to throw me out of our home, Emma had asked me to teach her to work on the torch, so we were planning on, that summer, when she was out of school and had some time, me teaching her my craft. In any event, I hope Emma enjoyed all the things she got to do.

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Emma with Johnathan and Derek McCravy, helping with the church camp at Sunrise Baptist Church, Lawrenceville, Ga.

I have a friend, who when I joke about being the world’s worst mom, or being a child abuser, this friend jumps in and says, “You were an awesome mom!” and then she reminds me of how I was saying all the time, “Oh Emma would enjoy that, I should take her to do that….” and how I was always thinking of Emma and if an opportunity came up, I would drop everything for Emma to have the opportunity to do something. Thank goodness for friends!

Before Mother’s day, I kept seeing articles about when Mother’s day is a disappointment. One article was about women wanting to be mothers, struggling with infertility. Another article was about “when you didn’t get the mother you deserved” and I figure that one had to be written by a millennial, maybe even Emma! I started thinking of all the people I know who’ve had some pretty horrible mother’s days. I know people who have lost a child to death, divorce, drugs, and mental illness. I know other parents who are estranged from their children for one reason or another, and some of them don’t even know why they are estranged. I think my own situation is so horrible, but all I have to do is look around, and I can find someone worse off than me.

Those of us that have survived something so horrible as mothers can tell you the one thing we have that no one can take is our memories. My dear, sweet husband wouldn’t let me have any of my things other than clothes and books, and a couple of odds and ends, and what hurt the most was that Phill wouldn’t let me have any of Emma’s baby photos (99% of which were taken by me). I’ve wondered what Phill did will all the little things around the house that were gifts to me from my sisters or from friends. The cross stitch switch plate cover that a friend made me, the little tree on the mantle and the fake asparagus plant in the kitchen that my sister gave me, the glass vase hanging on the wall in our bedroom that a friend gave me one birthday, the dream catcher that hung from the ceiling fan in our bedroom along with some other dangles that Emma had made for me, and the fan pulls in the living room that I traded some glass work that I did for. I had asked Phill for the full bed in the spare room, figuring he and his girlfriend would need our queen bed, and he never gave it to me. Many of you know I was living in a furnished house, so when I bought my home, I brought my mattress and box springs, and I am proud to say after living her a year, with a mattress on the floor, I finally bought a bed. Lol. There are so many things I need, a bed just wasn’t at the top of the list.

Anyway, sometimes I’ll think of things and wonder what Phill did with my ________ (fill in the blank), but having survived Emma, I can honestly say things aren’t that important to me. I don’t even think much about all the wonderful baby photos anymore. I learned a lot more about my husband than I ever wanted to know and found out he wasn’t quite the good man he took pride in believing he was. Emma liked to joke that Phill was weak and pathetic, controlled by us girls (and then controlled just by Emma) and a dumb truck driver…. Phill couldn’t stand up for me or to me, and I had to be the disciplinarian and be the bad guy, but I still always thought we were a team, and I confused my husbands work ethic with his morals. I knew he was a hard worker, and thought he would work just as hard at his family, but I was wrong. Early on, in the middle of all the drama, I was seeing a therapist and said something about being 50 and having to start my life over, and she reminded me that I would be 70 and starting my life over, so there is that. At 50+ I’ve done a lot of things I probably should have learned to do before I got married, so I wouldn’t have been so dependent on my husband, and I’m still learning. It does make me wish Emma had grown up before she got married, because she will probably end up in the same boat, but I’m her mom and there’s not much I can do about that.

I was fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom, and when I did work, it was just a little part time job. In a lot of ways, that will hurt me financially in the long run, but I have something that no one can take away, and that’s all the memories of raising Emma. From Emma’s poopy face when she’d turn all red and you’d ask, “Emma are you pooping?” (in her diaper) and she would deny, deny, deny, which we thought was hilarious, to all the conversations about life in general, and how up until a couple of months before Phill had me thrown out of our home, Emma would come in my bedroom every night before she went to bed and want to snuggle and have “girl talk” with me before she went to bed, no matter how bad it got, I was blessed to be a mom. The hours and hours of magical reading time, to playing in the inflatable pool, or blowing bubbles out on the driveway, there are so many moments that are such treasures. Yes, the later years were horrible, and Emma turned into a pretty crummy human being, but she was a wonderful baby, toddler, and child for a while, and I got to be her mom and see it all. Kids are a crap shoot, but even with all the horrible things Emma’s done, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t know what being a mom was like.

I love you, Emma.

 

P.S.  Is Tyler done with the Flat Iron School yet?

Stepping Back

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Emma works in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area as an insurance underwriter.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Stepping Back

So, I was thinking about how, as parents, we have to let go, and let our children fly on their own. Ok, well, Emma’s leaving the nest wasn’t quite how I pictured. I assumed she would grow up and fly the coop, not boot out her mother and take over the nest, but hey, I always knew she was a strong-willed child…. (Emma should have been featured in Dr. Dobson’s The Strong Willed Child! And, yes, I read it.) and I was thinking about writing a Blog post entitled “Letting Go” but then I smiled and what came to mind was more having to do with stepping back, and in Emma’s case, it’s more about stepping back before Emma pushes you in front of the oncoming train.

In the past few weeks, I’ve heard from several people who’ve discovered the blog, and wanted to comment or ask me questions. I want to thank you all for your love and support. I also hope, for those of you going through your own difficulties, that you find comfort in knowing you are not alone.

I also ran into a friend, more of acquaintance, and heard some very disturbing news about her daughter, a young teen, who is probably mentally ill, under care, but not yet diagnosed. From the signs and symptoms my friend was telling me, it sounded pretty scary, with many symptoms that reminded me of Emma, but some were worse, and I feel like my friend is just at the beginning of her nightmare with this child. Having been down that road with my own daughter, I feel like could easily predict the future for this family, and it breaks my heart knowing what is to come for them.

A few years ago, I was at work, when a friend’s daughter came into the office. This young lady, who I think was right about to graduate from high school at the time, worked at a coffee shop, and stopped by with her mom’s favorite hot chocolate. We chatted, and this big high school girl sat in in mom’s lap for a few minutes, with her arms around her mom’s neck. I couldn’t help being a little jealous and wishing I had that daughter that would stop by for a hug or lunch or whatever, but it was not to be, and I’m really ok with that now. With all my flaws, I always tried to do what was best for Emma, but kids are a crap shoot. You just don’t know how they will turn out. (But whatever happens, it’s your fault! 😉 Emma went to college and has a good job, so apparently we did some things right, but I’m really not sure what type of person she is. Is my sweet girl somewhere deep inside there? Is Emma going to spend her whole life hiding from her mom, pretending to be this poor abused child, because her mom was the one who came closest to the truth about Emma?

There have been times when my coworkers were texting their kids, that I wish I had that daughter I could text and ask how her day was, what she was up to, etc., but I’m sure Emma would try to get a restraining order, so I’m not going to do that, and I’m really ok with it now. Or, I guess I am ok as I will ever be considering everything I lost. I accept my life as it is now. Recently, a friend was in the hospital and now she has several months of recovery to look forward to. As a friend, I’m hoping to be of help in the next few months while she’s going through this, going over on my days off to help out, drive her to appointments, etc., but it’s things like that that remind you how much worse things could be. No matter how bad things are, you can always look around and find someone who has it worse.

I guess about 9 out of 10 people I hear from are supportive, but every once in a while I get one of those emails, “if you want a relationship with your daughter, you shouldn’t write about her publicly…” and that gets me thinking, well, for one thing, I have given Emma the opportunity to discuss this between Emma, her dad, and myself, but also I wonder, would I want a relationship with Emma?  Right now, I consider myself lucky that Emma’s favorite show wasn’t “Dateline” or I might not be here to write! (Someone pointed that out to me a while back, and I thought it was quite humorous.)

EmmaSteppingBack

Emma Roey Buchheim

If Emma weren’t my daughter, would I want a relationship with her? Ummmmmm, I can’t imagine I would. Well, superficially, Emma is lovely and charming and can be absolutely delightful, but as her mother, I knew her best, and even I didn’t believe how bad her dark side was. I thought she was the typical obnoxious, know-it-all teenager, but I kept telling myself she would outgrow that behavior and if we could just keep her on a good path, if she would get her education, she would be fine.  She just had some growing up to do.

I remember years ago, before Emma was born, reading an article about an actress who was talking about teenagers. If I remember right, I think it was Jill Eikenberry, from LA Law, which Phill and I didn’t miss for a while there. (Yes, it was that long ago!) She said, humorously, something about how when your kids are teens, aliens come and take them away and replace them with these monsters…..

Knowing what I know about her now, would I want Emma in my life? I don’t think I can answer that. I love my daughter, but my daughter falsely accused a priest of sexually abusing her. Emma had no problem ruining this man’s reputation, and we all know that if a man is accused of child sexual abuse, it doesn’t matter what he’s done or does for the rest of his life, the one thing people remember is that he was accused. It’s horrifying to me that Emma would have no remorse for nearly ruining someone’s life—first the priest, and then her mom, and then once I started looking into things, I discovered Emma’s whole life was pretty much a lie. She lied about almost everyone. (A few thoughts on that coming in another post.)

Would I want someone like that in my life? If she weren’t my daughter, the answer would be a definite “NO!” but she’s still my child. I will always love that precious baby that I carried, and that little girl who was such a mommy’s girl for 17 years, the little girl I had to coax into being nice to her dad so many times, but I think I’m a lot safer loving her from a distance.

stay in your heart

Protecting the Ones We Love

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Emma works in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area as an insurance underwriter.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Ok, so I changed the title of this post, but I’m not changing the post, so if you’ve already read it, don’t bother.  Initially, I was thinking how it’s a mother’s instinct to protect her child, and so I named the post, “A Mother’s Instinct,” but then I started comparing my situation with Emma to the local story of this murdered woman.  I was thinking about how this dying woman did not want to believe her husband shot her on purpose (allegedly).  I heard someone talking about she may have said, “It was an accident.” because she wanted to protect her husband, and I got to thinking about how I still wanted to protect Emma, even though she accused me of child abuse, and even though I was just beginning to uncover her lying habit.  (At the time she accused me though, I had no idea how much lying Emma was doing.  She pretty much lied about everything.)

 

Well, after a wonderful, relaxing vacation visiting friends in Fla., and then stopping on my way home to Kayak from Amelia Island to Cumberland Island, I got home, back to the grind, had a rather traumatic welcome home surprise at work on my first day back from vacation, and then got hit by a cold. One of those colds that just wears you out, but you keep going, keep working, etc, until you have a day off to crash in the bed all day. Thank goodness I have (knock wood) managed to avoid the flu, so I can’t complain too loudly about being sick, but gosh, darn, I almost made it through the whole sick season without getting sick!

I had the radio on while running around today, and I was listening to a local talk show (Eric Von Haessler—if you haven’t heard of him, I guess you would say he’s a libertarian who talks about current events and he and his crew are very funny.) Eric was talking about a local story that I’d heard about, but really hadn’t paid much attention to– A wealthy, high powered attorney who shot and killed his wife in 2016. Murder or Accident? The trial was starting today.

I was sort of half listening, as I really wasn’t that interested in the Tex McIver case, and there was a legal analyst (Ron Carlson, I think) on, and now I’m going to have to learn how to listen to a Podcast because I want to go back and hear it again, but anyway, they were talking about all the contradictions in the case. Listening to it got me a little curious, so I did some reading about it, and here are some of the things I found out about the death of Diane McIver and her husband Tex:

Tex McIver

Wife much wealthier than he was

owed wife $350,000, hence possible new will, leaving their ranch to her Godson

Offered bribe to make case go away

tried to convince witness to say she wasn’t there

sold off wife’s things shortly after her death

broke bond condition of not possessing any guns when investigators discovered a glock in his sock drawer while executing a search warrant

did not call 911 after wife shot

instead of taking wife to closest hospital, took her to a hospital further away that did not have a trauma center

Prior to his marriage to Diane, was involved in a shooting where he opened fire on three young men in a car

acrimonious divorce from his first wife who accused him of a long-time affair

Diane McIver

while dying, stated to Emory Dr. that it was an “accident”

when Dr. asked wife if she wanted to see husband, she said, “no”

 

Ok, so that’s for starters, and I have to admit, I’ve gotten more curious, so I’m going to have to do some more reading about the case.

What caught my attention was when the two gentlemen on the radio were discussing why Diane McIver would say her husband shooting her was an “accident.” Was Diane trying to protect her husband and she didn’t want to admit that her husband might have shot her on purpose? Maybe she just didn’t want to believe her husband could do what he’d done.

Like I said, I want to go back and listen to the segment again, but I could really relate to protecting those we love, especially as a mother.

When Emma’s attorney was about to file a law suit, and Emma and I talked about how the attorneys would need to talk to her on-line friend, “Lacey” who Emma claimed was raped and attempted suicide, Emma understood that this would be necessary for her case, to show how “Lacey’s” rape brought up Emma’s repressed memories of being molested by the priest when she was 12. Emma was fine with it and said she understood and would talk to “Lacey” and tell her that the attorneys would need to talk to her.

Of course we know how this story ends, I get the email from the attorney that he is ready to file the suit, and WHAM, all of a sudden my daughter accuses me of physically abusing her to stop the law suit before she is caught in a big fat lie. (This was a brief synopsis for those of you who may be new readers.)

When the legal analyst was talking about how Diane McIver may have been wanting to protect her husband by claiming he shot her by accident (He was in the backseat of the vehicle, how would she know?”) I thought of Emma and how I wanted to protect her.

Shortly before Christmas of 2010, my daughter accused me of abuse and we had the whole DFACS involvement, Emma went to the mental hospital, etc., and after we got her home, I just wanted to get my family back to normal. I’d begun to suspect that Emma really hadn’t been sexually abused, or maybe I’d had some doubts from the beginning, but what parent wants to believe their child made up a lie about being sexually abused?

After Emma accused me of abuse, my mind was made up that the whole thing was a lie, but I didn’t pursue it. We wanted Emma home, we were in family therapy with Suzie McGarvey, (now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates)  and had Emma in therapy, and Phill and I even went without Emma to talk to her therapist. (Big mistake because when Emma found out, she was paranoid about it and thought we were just going to “talk bad” about her, even when I told her we were trying to work on making things better as a family.) With all this going on, I still couldn’t tell anyone that I thought Emma made up the whole, “I was sexually abused by a priest” thing. I didn’t even say anything to Phill, my best friend, husband, and love of close to 30 years. I still wanted to protect her and didn’t want people thinking badly of her, even though I felt it was a lie.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20 and now I feel like Phill and I should have either sat down with Emma or sat down with Emma and a counselor and we should have gotten to the bottom of things. Maybe if we’d pushed Emma to answer some hard questions, we would have gotten to the truth a lot sooner, and my family would have been destroyed by Emma’s power struggle. Even now, I have an tiny unrealistic hope that Emma will grow up and one day tell us why she did what she did, but I guess 99% of me feels like this won’t happen. In 17 years of being Emma’s mom, I saw too much that makes me think she could be a sociopath, a narcissist, and may have some other personality disorders thrown in, so I don’t really expect Emma to change, except maybe to get better at what she does.

So, yes Diane, if you were trying to protect your husband, I completely understand. I tried to protect my daughter from being thought badly of, from her own lies, from herself, even to my own detriment. My first instinct, even with all the horrible things my daughter did, was to protect her.

hurt

You’ve Gotta Have a Sense of Humor (Edited and updated 2/11/18)

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her current husband, Tyler Buchheim live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Emma works in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area as an insurance underwriter.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

A dreary, rainy day, and after getting tires for my car, and running some errands, I was looking forward to spending a quiet day at home.  Ok, I have a lot of things I need to be doing at home, but I’m also in the middle of a good book, so you probably know how that goes.

I’ve had a lot of things on my mind regarding Emma, and I have wanted to sit down and write about several things, but particularly her GI problems (aka her DDT poisoning).  I have wondered if there’s any correlation between GI problems and mental illness.    At this point, I don’t believe Emma was really sick, and I’ll explain why later when I go into all her vomiting issues.  I wonder if she still throws up when she doesn’t get what she wants, or was she miraculously cured when she got rid of her evil mother?  In any event, like everyone else, I have a busy life, and it’s hard and somewhat painful to tell Emma’s story, and I don’t have some literary agent giving me an advance so I can quit my job and sit and write all day, (Ok, I just find that thought funny, so I had to put it out there.) so I will keep plugging away.

Victim

I had to laugh when someone showed me this meme, and said, “Look, there’s Emma!”  Of course, I’m hoping Emma will grow up, and start acting like  grown up, admit what she did, and let us all move forward, but those of you that know me know that I think there’s something very wrong with my daughter.  I would like to believe that my sweet girl is still somewhere inside, but I am not optimistic.  As a mother, it’s heartbreaking, knowing what potential your child had, and knowing what a positive difference she could have made in the world, and then facing the truth, that your child is not what she seems.

Another meme that I saw on Facebook a few times, was a George Carlin (whether or not this was really attributed to him or not, I don’t know), and was something about if your child is an asshole, it’s your fault. (Sorry, I can’t find it now, or I would share it here.)  I saw that one and thought, “Well yeah, but only if you have normal children.”  Phill and I tried to set a good example for Emma, and tried to discipline her appropriately although if you’ve read some of my previous posts, Emma never cared that actions had consequences.  If she wanted to do something, she would do it and take the punishment (and then say we punished her because we hated her.)  Emma did what she wanted to do, even as a little girl.  We tried to correct her and bring her up right, and thought we just had a stubborn child, not realizing there was something else going on.

We were a small family, Phill, Emma, and I, and I guess every child thinks their family is dysfunctional.  I remember at a church social event laughing when a girl who was a year or so younger than Emma said to a friend, “Wow!  Your parents are both doctors?”  My mom doesn’t do anything and my dad just sells houses.  Yeah, her mom didn’t do anything but manage the household and take care of every  need for that young lady and her brother.

Emma thought her dad was a clueless, dumb truck driver, but I don’t really know what Emma thought about me until she decided she needed to change from playing the roll of  a sexual abuse victim, to child abuse victim.  Emma and I were very close, and she hugged and cuddled with me everyday, and even at 16 would frequently come sit in my lap and put her arms around me and rest her head on my shoulder.  Almost every night, when I got in to bed to read or watch tv before bed, Emma would come in, get under the covers, and lie in the bed with me before she went to bed.  Unless I was watching something she wanted to watch, I usually turned off the sound to the tv because she would want to talk.  If Phill were home and came in the bedroom, Emma would banish him from the room so we could have “girl talk.”  There were so many sweet moments with my girl, even almost 7 years later, it’s still hard to believe things turned out like they did.

As I mentioned earlier, Phill could not tell a joke to save his life, but he had a great sense of humor and was quick with puns.  I have a pretty good sense of humor, but am not as quick thinking as Phill.  Emma could easily take offense to Phill’s jokes, and a lot of times just didn’t get them, as he might make a joke referring to something from pop culture before Emma was born, and would would have to explain things do her, but Emma could also be very funny, and in any event, there was a lot of laughter in our home.

Often, we would want to share with Emma movies we remembered seeing when we were first married, remembering how funny they were and thinking she would enjoy them.  I remember one time saying, “I don’t remember this movie having all this bad language!” and Emma replying, “Mom, you say that every time.”  I guess all those curse words sailed right by when I was in my 20’s, but then they seem to be flashing in neon lights when you hear the same words while sitting with your child!

Once, when we heard the song, “Every Move you Make” by the Police, my mind wandered back to the early 80’s, and then Emma brought me back to reality when she said, “That song sounds rather stalkerish.”  Lol.  I was just enjoying the song and had never given much thought to the meaning of it, but she was right!

We were a close family, and Phill and I loved each other, and we loved Emma.  When Emma wasn’t around, Phill and I still had fun together, and I thought we set a good example of what a good marriage was for Emma.  Phill was always just as introverted as I was and could be very awkward in social situations.  Sometimes, he would become very talkative if he was uncomfortable, but not in a good way, just sort of nervous and rambling.  He became much more of a social butterfly once his found his niche with his RC buddies, and as for me, being on my own and going back to work, and working with the public has forced me to become much more social.  I was always horrible at small talk, and very uncomfortable at parties, but I think I’ve mastered the small talk thing pretty well.  People like to talk about themselves, so if you get people talking, it’s really not that difficult.  You just sit back and let them talk.  Even with the ones who are also introverts, you can usually find a topic they like to talk about.

I love funny people.  Thank goodness I have friends who make me laugh.  Life can have it’s tough moments, and I work in a field where I see a lot of trials and sadness, but I’m always grateful for laughter.  I admire the people going through difficult situations, like fighting cancer, who still have a sense of humor.  You see some people who’ve been through things and turn angry and bitter, and I never want to be them.  While I might make fun of my husband for being such an idiot and letting Emma get away with what she did, and I regret that because of his actions (or lack of) we may have lost an opportunity to get Emma some help while she was still under our roof, I don’t want to be one of those angry, bitter people.  There’s still a lot of things I want to do and see in this world, and I don’t have time for the petty stuff.

I’ve met plenty of women who were treated badly by their husbands and ended up divorced.  I’m surprised sometimes that someone I just met will tell me something that seems so personal so quickly, but I think as time goes on, it’s easier to talk about, so I think I can see why they talk about it so easily.  I have seen some of these women that are still so angry and bitter after many years, and I let them know that I am divorced as well, and I understand.  While I don’t share my life story with people I’ve just met, I can usually make them laugh with a joke, “Well, he’s not dead, and I’m not in jail, so it must be a good day.” (And, I hesitated to tell that story lest Phill have me arrested and accusing me of making terroristic threats, but I think it’s obvious I’m joking, although I wouldn’t put anything past Phill.)  I have nicknames for Phill like “Flatworld Phill” and I enjoyed making the bank tellers laugh because across every check from Phill, in the top left hand corner, it would say, “Alimony” in big letters, so I would add, “–from the idiot” in neat cursive writing when depositing my check.  And, I jokingly refer to Kim Chassion as Phill’s trophy wife because if you knew Phill, had someone he knew dumped his wife for a younger woman (even though she’s not that much younger), Phill would have used that term in jest.

I’ve never met The Good Son-in-Law, Tyler Buchheim, and I have no idea what he’s like, but the one thing I would wish for him and Emma, if their marriage were to last, would be a lot of laughter.  One of the things I loved about my husband was that he could always make me laugh, and when you have a bad day or are going through something difficult, or even a boring day, just dealing with all the mundane things in life, someone who makes you laugh is a handy thing to have.  Emma and Tyler are still in that “new love” stage, and Tyler hasn’t fully experienced what life with a drama queen will bring, so I hope he’s got a good sense of humor!  Good luck, Ty!

 

 

 

Emma and the Roy Moore Effect Part 2 , Person of the Year (Update 12/12/17)

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her husband, Tyler Buchheim now live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Emma works in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area as an insurance underwriter.   Emma and Tyler are the parents to two little dogs, Arya and Sansa.  (Emma is a huge Game of Thrones fan.)  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

 

Emma and the Roy Moore Effect

EmmaTimeMag

#metoo, Emma Katherine Roey Buchheim

 

Ok, when I heard about Time magazine’s Person of the year, The Silence Breakers, my first thought was, Emma made it to Time magazine’s person of the year! I have to admit, I wanted to remove one of the faces and paste Emma’s into it, but as we all know, my computer skills are very limited. I did find some Time templates, but when I tried to load Emma’s picture, the magazine didn’t show up, so some of you saw my earlier post, and now, thanks to a reader, I have what I wanted.  (I love it!The matching coat is a great touch!)  For those of you that missed it, this was the best I could do:

Time 2017metoo

 

Emma Buchheim, Emma Katherine Buchheim, Emma Kate Buchheim

I’m sure if I search the internet or look at some youtube videos, I can learn how to use a template, and I’m thinking of taking some digital photography and digital darkroom classes in the future. But anyway, those were my humorous thoughts upon hearing about the magazine. At least it wasn’t Colin Kaepernik, who, along with a few other celebs like the K family, I am totally tired of! (And I only get about 3 tv channels. Can you imagine how tired of stuff I would be if I actually watched tv?)

As a woman who has faced my share of some man’s “sexual misconduct”  along with almost every other woman I know, I used to be one of those people who thought “believe now and find out the facts later”, or in the case of children,”A child wouldn’t make that up!” I’ve known plenty of women who felt powerless to do something about the predator who crossed their path whether it was a family friend or relative, a teacher, a minister, a stepfather, a classmate in college, a boss or coworker, or whatever. I despise these people, and the prison sentence for the ones that actually do get prosecuted can never be long enough. Of the women I know who have been victims, this covers all ages from childhood to teens to college age, to adults.   It is all horrible, but I am especially sickened by those who prey on children, the weakest among us.   Personally, I also don’t believe there is rehab for pedophiles. When they get out, they will strike again. Period.

It’s about time sexual harassment is taken seriously. It’s been a well known secret in so many instances, for many years. As some of these high profile people were starting to fall, I was chatting with some coworkers and said, “I wonder how many of these men in high power positions are shaking in their boots right now.”  The next day, we heard about Matt Lauer.

Then again, as the mother of a well established liar, for the record I will say that I do not believe my daughter was ever sexually molested by a priest, so what about the falsely accused? What about those people, usually men, who are the hated accused, but then turn out to actually be the victims?  It’s like they belong to a secret club. I have known a few of these victims, and it’s not something they go around advertising. I remember talking to a man a few years ago who told me about his divorce, and how his daughter had accused him. Later it was all dropped and he was cleared when dear daughter admitted she’d made it all up, but she put her dad through months of hell and then was like, “Okay dad, forget it, but could you still pay my tuition?”

In Emma’s case, the priest she accused was retired, so it didn’t affect his livelihood, but for some people, it can be financially devastating. A few years ago, I witnessed another person who was falsely accused. This man wasn’t someone I worked with directly, and I’m not going to share the intimate details except to say that the company immediately fired him, and later a grand jury refused to indict him. Because several of my coworkers and I came in close contact with his accuser, we were all adamantly sure the allegations were false being as the accuser had a history of drug use, some psych issues, some mug shots along the way, and had pulled a similar stunt somewhere else where fortunately there were cameras to counter the accusations. And those were only a few of the things we knew of. Imagine what we didn’t know!  I’m sure if someone investigated a little deeper, there was probably much, much more.

An award winning employee lost his job and was facing a long term prison sentence if convicted. Can you imagine doing your job and all of a sudden, out of the blue, the police show up to arrest you and accuse you of a sexual crime? It was absolutely horrifying. My coworkers and I discussed how we understood that a company would have to fire you to protect it’s customers because what if you’d done what you were accused of and were still allowed to work? It could happen again. Then again, we live in a country where you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but how does that work? This man lost his livelihood until the charges against him were dropped. Can you imagine the nightmare his life must have been until the truth came out about the (in my opinion) piece of trash who accused him? What about the expense of lawyers and everything else?

If you ask anyone about the incident now, it seems like the first thing people say is, “That man’s life was ruined.” I assume he could have gotten his job back, but would most people want to go to work and face everyone who knew what he had been accused of. Even though no one believed the accuser, it was still a horrible and embarrassing situation.

I haven’t kept up with this man, but because of what Emma put me through, I can understand a lot of what he went through, and I hope he has a great job and is doing something he loves now.

I’m sure in Emma’s case, she didn’t think about what she was doing by accusing a priest of sexually molesting her. She was a dumb teenager and was probably acting impulsively. I don’t think she thought through what she was doing, but like everyone else around her, I went into that “She wouldn’t make this up.” mode. When it’s a child, everything stops and everyone bows down to the child. For an attention seeker, this would be exactly what a child like Emma would want. All of a sudden she is the center of attention in a very serious drama.  She was the star of the show! (There’s a reason Phill always called her a drama queen.) Emma got what she wanted, but whether it’s part of a sociopathic personality or just being a immature teen, Emma did not stop to think or care about the pain her actions would cause the man she accused. Is she going to repay his legal fees? Apologize for making up the molestation story? In this case, this man was a father and grandfather, so you can imagine the humiliation and embarrassment. Does Emma have any clue as to how much she hurt this man and his family?  I am ashamed for the pain we caused this man and his family, and I am ashamed of Emma for lying about being a victim when she wasn’t.  Because so many women and children are victims of these predators, I’m ashamed to be the  mother of the little girl who cried wolf, and it bothers me that someone may be afraid to tell their story because they know there are liars like Emma who hurt the cause.  Emma Tawana Brawley.  (Emma’ that’s way before your time, but you can look it up.)

I do hope one day that Emma will explain to us the motives for her falsely accusing the priest of sexual molestation. She was bored and needed attention, so was that the reason for all the stories? Since the priest was running for office and happened to be a democrat, was that the reason Emma went after this man. Emma’s story has similarities to the Roy Moore story in that she made her accusation before an election. And, when I told my sister about Emma’s accusation, Emma was FURIOUS with me for telling my sister, but later when she spoke to my sister, one of the first things she said to my sister was that the priest was a democrat. What Emma trying to have an effect on a local election by her accusation? In Emma’s case, she accused a politician shortly before an election, just like in Roy Moore’s case, but with Emma, the priest dropped out temporarily and then got back into the race. As we’ve seen in the news lately, some politicians are resigning after admitting they acted wrongly, but in Roy Moore’s case, he denies the allegations and has not dropped out of his race. Personally, I think that is the proper course of action. After all, he is innocent until proven guilty, right? There’s already some fishy things going on with a tampered with signature in a yearbook and the fact that the accuser won’t turn over the yearbook for handwriting analysis.

So yes, I am glad to see victims speaking out and I’m curious as to why it has taken the media so long to address this issue.  Some of us are old enough to remember the 90’s when accusers were being swept under the rug by the media, and some people say that the #metoo movement fits a political narrative now, so that’s why the media is finally all over this issue, but at least it is being addressed now. One day, I hope the media will address the falsely accused as well. I no longer believe every story of “sexual misconduct” I hear, nor do I believe every story of child abuse that I hear. I have learned that we need to stop and look at the situation first instead of everyone jumping to the whims of a so-called sympathetic victim because there a few of them, like my daughter, who made it up.

Emma and the Roy Moore Effect

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her husband, Tyler Buchheim now live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Emma works in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area as an insurance underwriter.  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

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My daughter, Emma Katherine Buchheim, conservative Christian, who falsely accused a priest of sexually molesting her.

Emma and the Roy Moore Effect

I have to admit, up until the latest accusation, I didn’t even know who Judge Roy Moore was. I am busy working, keeping up with my bills, paying taxes, and volunteering in what little free time I do have. I try to keep up with the news some, but that means mostly listening to the radio in the car, and a few minutes on the computer here and there reading the news. I have a television with an outside antenna, and on a good day, I get 7 channels, but if it’s raining or windy, I usually get three. Only two of them are the “big” networks (CBS and ABC) and the rest are junk. I am not that well informed. I’m hoping later to get a better antenna and get a few more stations, or at least get the stations I do get a little more reliably.

Lately, there’s been a lot of news about people, mostly women, accusing men of sexual abuse. Usually these men are in positions of power or positions of authority. There’s Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louie, CK… Some of these men have admitted to what they did, and some haven’t.

And then there’s Facebook, and all the “#Me too” posts. I had to wonder if Emma rushed to post her “Me too” to show how brave she is, or to feel included, or whatever her point would be. I don’t even know what name Emma uses on Facebook now or if she is even on there anymore. She changed her name a few times from Emma Roey, I think to Emma Kate Roey, to Sophie Buchheim (or was that Pinterest?) to Katie Smith… I’ve really lost track of all the names Emma has gone by, but like I always told Emma, if you have to hide, it probably means you are doing something you ought not be doing.

All this got me thinking about Emma and her accusation against the priest she accused of sexual molestation. What was going on in that 16 year old brain of hers? I’m hoping one day Emma will enlighten us, but I also accept that I may never know exactly what is going on with Emma. I can only speculate and make my guesses with what I knew as Emma’s mom for 17 years.

I know there was something going on with Emma a couple of months before the big accusation. She went for a few months of accusing her dad of calling her names like “bitch” and “slut” everyday, and complained about the way he touched her. She didn’t out and out say that Phill molested her, but complained about him putting his hand on her thigh, etc. She told me that she had told her friends Kayla Benifield Weaver and “Lacey” about how her dad called her bad names on a daily basis. She said she did not like her dad and told him she didn’t love him. Poor Phill, this broke his heart.

When it came to me, I stopped Emma in her tracks. I told her to knock it off because she knew what she was saying was not true. There may have been a time or two Phill said Emma was “acting like a bitch,” but he never called her those names directly. I always shut her down and refused to listen to her talking badly about her dad. Emma liked to play the “Daddy is an idiot” game, and I didn’t mind a little joking around, acting like Phill just didn’t get us girls at times, but when Emma got mean about her dad, making fun of him for not finishing college and for being a dumb truck driver, etc., I would shut her down and tell her not to talk that way. I would remind her of our nice home and all the nice things she had and all the activities she got to partake in because of her dad being a dumb truck driver. I refused to listen to Emma when she got ugly about her dad. A little joking around was fine, but she could be downright mean, and I would cut her off when she crossed that line.

Emma loved to play the “girls against the dumb boy” game, and act like she was mommy’s girl, and dumb ol’ Daddy needed to keep out. This didn’t worry me. I thought it was kind of normal, albeit childish behavior, and then there was one day, at age 17, when Emma was sick with a virus and while sitting on the toilet with diarrhea, she vomited all over herself at the same time. The poor girl was sick at both ends didn’t make it to the bathroom in time and called out for help! I was busy in another part of the house, and didn’t hear her call out, but Phill, the dutiful dad went in to help clean up the diarrhea and the vomit of his nearly 17 year old daughter. I came downstairs and Phill told me that poor Emma was sick and had bodily fluids coming out of both ends. Her clothes were soiled and she was nasty between all the bodily fluids, but, good dad that he was, he’d gone in there to help get her cleaned up. That’s what a good dad does, this poor man that Emma accused of calling her “bitch” and “slut” and saying horrible things about her, this poor man who Emma loved to say she didn’t love, got down and dirty taking care of his daughter because she wouldn’t do it herself. Emma was so grossed out by the vomit and diarrhea, that she didn’t want to touch anything!

So………………..my theory is that Emma was thinking about accusing her dad of abuse. I’m not sure what was going through her head, but she was trying to create a divide between her dad and her mom. Unfortunately for me, I refused to listen to Emma talk bad about her dad, so she had to create a new plan.

I was wondering how Emma chose the priest to accuse of molestation. She had already accused a fellow student, Johnny Boddie, of trying to kiss her. Emma had told me this crazy story about Johnny and how he (in 11th grade) was engaged….. The story was so strange, and didn’t make sense, and when I questioned Emma, she just changed the story, so I let it go, just assuming Emma didn’t get her facts straight. Whenever I questioned Emma about some of her stories, she just kept talking, I guess trying to talk her way out of it or to distract me by going on to another topic.

How did Emma decide to choose the priest of molestation? This man had been the interim priest at our church for about a year when Emma was about 12 years old. I remember, when Emma did a reading, during the service, and after she sat down, the priest complimented her on a job well done in front of the whole church, and then began his sermon. (Emma had a great voice and projects well.)

At the time that Emma made up the story about being molested, the priest that she accused was running for public office. And, he was running as, HORRORS, a democrat! Is that why Emma choose the priest? I have no idea what was going through her little brain, but I have to wonder. Emma needed attention, so she made up being sexually molested. Then, she needed to come up with a bad guy to play opposite of her role of being a victim, At first, she was turning on her daddy, but her mom wouldn’t allow that, so she needed a new victim, so who did she turn to (or on) but a former priest at our church who was now entering the world of politics.

When Emma spoke to my sister, after I’d told my sister about Emma’s claim of sexual abuse, the first thing she said to my sister was that the priest was (shudder) a Democrat. Now, we all know that Emma is a staunch conservative, or maybe even Alt-right. Phill liked to say, “Emma’s even far right of right.” I have to wonder, if you’d been sexually molested, would your first thought be about the violator’s political persuasion? Is that what is important to you? Phill labeled himself a Libertarian and liked to say he was fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I couldn’t agree totally with any party, but considered myself fairly conservative. We tried to teach Emma to think for herself and not blindly follow any party, but Emma wanted to be a conservative Republican. She loved making fun of liberals including one of my sisters and her husband, and she could be kind of mean, but I chalked this up to that teenage know-it-all attitude. Emma was right and all liberals were stupid.

Once, when a friend called and I wasn’t home, Emma had a nice chat with her “Aunt M.” (Emma called close friends of the family “aunt.”) This friend happens to be a democrat, but was still pretty close to Emma and was always good to her on her birthday and Christmas. Well, when Emma relayed the conversation to me, she told me the craziest story about how Aunt M told her that the Nazis were going to come back and she needed to keep some hair dye on hand so she could adapt to that Aryan look. It might save her life! Wait? What? This was another story that was so crazy, I questioned Emma, but she swore it was true. It just didn’t make any sense, and it did not sound like my friend, so I dropped it, and as far as I know, Emma didn’t go blonde.

In reading about the Judge Roy Moore accusation, I had to wonder about the timing. I know, that a lot of women have kept their own stories about abuse to themselves until they saw others coming forward, and then they got the courage to come forward themselves. From what I read, the (or one of the) woman who accused Judge Moore, had worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Why did she wait until right before the election to accuse Judge Moore? Why, right now? Why not earlier? And why did Emma accuse the priest when she did? Did she discover that he was running for office, so that was why she chose to accuse him? I don’t know a think about the accusations against Judge Moore because I haven’t heard much of the news in the past few days. I do believe in the order of law, and it may take time, but if the stories are true, it will come out. I sort of think there’s a double standard with the media. The same media who mocked Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones who accused Bill Clinton of sexual abuse, now whole heartily believes the accusers. That being said, I also remember when John Kerry was running for president and there was supposedly an “intern story” that would come out that never did. Also, when our home-state favorite, Herman Cain, ran for president, there were a couple of women who accused him of sexual misconduct, but those stories never went any further either.

Up until I lived through Emma’s false accusations, I was probably quick to believe the accuser in sexual abuse stories too. After all, who would make it up? Now, I need to hear a lot more facts before I pick a side. I withhold my judgment until I hear the facts, not that my judgment matters to anyone. And let me tell you, it was painful to side with the accusers of one of my childhood heroes, Bill Cosby. I was one of those kids in the sixties, lying on the floor around the stereo, listening to our Dad’s Bill Cosby albums. Early in our marriage, Phill and I never missed an episode of The Cosby Show until the last couple of years, when we kind of lost interest. Who didn’t love “everybody’s dad?”

After Emma’s accusation, she got what she wanted, temporarily. The priest that Emma accused dropped out of the race, but after the police investigated, and couldn’t find any reason to charge him, the priest got back into the election. From what I understand, he didn’t have much of a chance anyway, as he was a democrat running in a highly conservative district, so although what Emma did was an absolutely horrible thing to do to another human being, it probably did not have much of an effect on the outcome of the election.

When I told my good friend, Sandra Brooks McCravy about Emma’s claim of sexual abuse, she wanted me to go to one of the priest/politician’s political speeches and to stand up and ask him about sexually abusing my daughter. I wasn’t brave enough to do something like that, but now I wish I had. I’ll be if I told Emma I was going to do that, she would have found a reason to stop me.

Emma was always interested in politics, and even toyed with the idea of going into politics one day. After her brief stay at Charter Peachford Behavioral Health, Emma came home and said that she guessed she couldn’t go into politics now that she’d had a stay at the mental hospital in her record. (I don’t know Emma, quite a few politicians have been to rehab, and with the number of politicians who lie, that might have been the career for you!) Was blaming the priest for her made-up “molestation” Emma’s first foray into politics? Was the whole reason she accused the priest because of his politics? I hope one day Emma will explain to us the thinking behind her actions.

Unfortunately, I think there will always be women who will be sexually harassed by some man somewhere. Almost every woman I know has faced this type of harassment at least once in her life. With all the mental illness out there, there will always be men who see nothing wrong with their actions, or men who abuse their authority. I’m just sorry that there will always be women out there who will lie about such as serious issue and hurt the cause for the real victims, and I’m sorry that my daughter is one of them.

The Apology That Never Came, Part 3

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My daughter Emma Katherine Roey, now Emma Buchheim, lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story.  Emma and her husband, Tyler Buchheim now live in Frisco, Texas where Tyler, who has put architecture on hold, is studying to be a Full Stack Developer at the Flatiron School in an effort to avoid a midlife crisis (according to Tyler).  Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

 

The Apology that Never Came Part 3

I Thought My Husband Was a Better Man

All throughout the divorce process, I thought my husband would have to come to his senses. I was so wrong. I made a lot of mistakes during the divorce because I believed in my husband and just knew sooner or later he would do the right thing. I didn’t know what was going on in his head, and yes, I think part of it was a midlife crisis. All of a sudden, Phill was free and he had Emma at home to take care of things there, so he could spend as much of his free time as he wanted traveling the country going to RC airplane events and hanging out with his RC buddies, drinking beer, flying planes etc. Sooner or later, Phill would have to face the truth. Emma was a big fat liar. While Phill was off playing with toy airplanes and driving around the country, I was researching into a lot of Emma’s stories and finding out more and more lies. It seemed almost everything Emma had ever told us was a lie.

Once Emma called me from a church youth group meeting, making fun of Phill. She claimed she was so embarrassed by her dad trying to act all cool, saying dumb things and doing the fist bump thing with her friend and sometimes crush Rob Simmons. When Phill got home, I asked him what in the world he was doing and he said he only said hi to Rob and shook his hand. That is just an example of how easily Emma lied. She didn’t even have to plot and scheme to make up a story (although she did that at times, too). The lies just came out so easily.

Emma often lied about doing her chores and all the things I thought were regular kid stuff, but something that stuck in my head was how you could catch Emma red handed and she would still lie. Like a lot of good moms, I tried to limit Emma’s sweets, and we had to lock up any candy, chocolate chips, and even marshmallows or they would disappear. One day, when making a cup of tea, Emma turned up the Sugar container (the glass kind with the metal top, like you find in a diner) and dumped a heaping helping of sugar into her mouth, and I said, “Emma! Don’t eat sugar straight out of the container.” and Emma looked right at me and denied it. I was right there in the kitchen and saw her and she kept denying it. I never understood that part of Emma either.

I knew my husband was a good man, and he was going to have to come to his senses sooner or later. Emma had lied about so, so much. How could he still believe she was molested by the priest? When I emailed him other examples of Emma’s lying, Phill refused to discuss Emma with me. I kept researching and thinking that maybe the next example or the next would help Phill realize what a mistake he made in the way he treated his wife. Well, I’m still waiting for Phill to come to his senses.

During the divorce, I believed sooner or later Phill would face the truth, apologize, and we would get back together, that’s how stupid and naive I was. I always believed my husband was a good man who would take care of his family. I thought Phill believed in our marriage, and would realize it was worth saving. Wrong again.

Maybe coming from a divorced family had something to do with Phill’s handling of Emma’s problems. Phill came from a family who just walked away when things got tough. I’d heard his mother often say that life was too short to be unhappy, and Phill’d been brought up seeing his mother with two failed marriages and multiple boyfriends. I always thought I’d gotten the prize in that family, Phill, who didn’t want to be like the rest of his family and was committed to his marriage. We were a loving couple, and happy, and I thought we set a good example for Emma of what a good marriage was, and I hoped when she married, she would realize that having two loving parents, who loved each other was indeed a blessing. I never thought I’d be competing with my own daughter for my husband, but that’s what happened. Emma became Phill’s second wife until she married Tyler.

Monologue1a

Emma studying her monologue when when she was taking Drama under Bonnie Roberts and Jackson County Comprehensive High School.  All those drama classes paid off!  Emma, did you ever return that book to Ms. Roberts?

Interestingly enough, on the side of the statistics, I have two sisters who have both been married about 35 and 42 years (if my math is right). Both couples have faced some of life’s difficulties, and yet they have stayed married. Also, both my brother-in-laws came from intact homes. Phill fit right into the profile of a child of divorce. Sadly, I saw my sisters and their husbands face challenges and I always thought I was so lucky I was married to Phill because we would be able to get through whatever difficulties came our way. I believed in my husband that much. Yep, wrong again.

One of the mistakes I made during the divorce was to let Phill have the house. Of course, at the time, I thought Phill would wake up and we would get back together, so I wasn’t going to destroy our home. I should have forced Phill to sell the house, or to live in it until the market appreciated and then sell it.

By throwing me out of our home, Phill the advantage and kept EVERYTHING. I think of some of the gifts he got me for my birthday, Christmas, etc., and hope he and Kim Chassion are enjoying my things. The only things Phill put in the storage locker for met to have were personal items such as books, clothes, and old records, and not even all of my records. You would think that Kimberly Chassion, having her own home, in I think it was Auburn, Ga, would not want her new man’s ex-wife’s things. That just seems odd. Or maybe Phill is just mean enough that he wanted to get rid of my things to make room for Kimberly, but didn’t want me to have them. It doesn’t really matter. I recently bought a home and am slowly acquiring things. When you lose your husband and your daughter in such a nightmare like I did, things are not that important. (but Phill darling, I could use some tools, so could I borrow a drill, our chainsaw, the hedge trimmers………….Oh probably not.)

That is pretty much it in a nutshell. I always thought my husband was a better man. I knew that sooner or later, he would face the facts and right the wrongs that he had done. Of course, knowing Phill, I also know how hard it is for him to admit his mistakes, but I always believed in my husband and believed he’d stand up and do what was right. I was wrong. After nearly 27 years of marriage, I guess I didn’t know my husband well at all.

It’s kind of funny. I can’t tell you how many times people have asked me about my divorce and if my husband left me for a younger woman. A friend of mine once piped up, “Yes, his own daughter!” I’ve heard plenty of jokes about Phill and Phill thinking with his “little Phill” and I’ve even jokingly called Phill “Flatworld Phill.” I loved my husband and always believed he’d do the right thing, and always believed that he loved me and would honor his marriage vows. I thought Phill would do whatever he had to to take care of his family. I guess there are worse things in life than to think that someone is a better person that they actually are. I am not the first wife to be betrayed by her husband, and I won’t be the last.

I feel kind of sad when I think of Emma and Tyler because their whole marriage is based on Emma’s lies. I’ve joked about Tyler Buchheim, my “future ex-son-in-law,” but it makes me sad to feel like Emma and Tyler’s marriage is doomed. With the divorce rate as high as it is for healthy relationsips, I can’t help but feel that Emma’s marriage is a sinking ship. Maybe she’s straighten herself out before her marriage fails, but I doubt it. Emma is in too deep to save face now. I’ve wondered if Emma will get pregnant when her marriage starts to fail in an effort to hold on to Tyler. Whatever happens, it will be an interesting ride for poor Tyler.