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A reader sent me a link to this story, and the quotes were just priceless.
A 72 year-old New York man accused of stabbing his wife to death testified yesterday. He's claiming self-defense--that his wife stabbed him first as they were arguing over a separation agreement. The prosecution argues that he killed his wife because she wanted to divorce him (and that there was a history of abuse), and that he then turned the knife on himself.
But it's his explanation of how she went "crazy" that really got me:
She never allowed him to return to her bed, he said, and she rebuffed his advances, even when he brought her flowers.
Although he cooked, she refused to pick up his plate after dinner, complaining, "I'm not your maid."
"I'm telling you, this was the house of hell," he said.
I mean seriously, can you imagine the horror of having to clean your own plate and not having sex on demand? Clearly, a good stabbing was in order. Ugh.
A reader sent me a link to this story, and the quotes were just priceless.
A 72 year-old New York woman accused of stabbing her husband to death testified yesterday. She's claiming self-defense--that her husband stabbed him first as they were arguing over a separation agreement. The prosecution argues that she killed her husband because he wanted to divorce her (and that there was a history of abuse), and that she then turned the knife on herself.
But it's her explanation of how he went "crazy" that really got me:
He never allowed her to return to his bed, she said, and he rebuffed her advances, even when she brought him beer.
Although she cooked, he refused to pick up her plate after dinner, complaining, "I'm not your maid."
"I'm telling you, this was the house of hell," she said.
January 31, 2007
Murder Trial Hears Account of Marital War's Last Fight
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
An Upper East Side man testified at his murder trial yesterday, describing what he saw as his wife's decade-long mental breakdown and admitting that he grabbed a knife and stabbed her in the kitchen of their home.
But the man, Ben Odierno, said it was his wife who stabbed him first, several times in the stomach, as they argued over his refusal to sign a separation agreement that would have given their country home in the Catskills to her, rather than to their two sons.
"She took the knife, she attacked me, and she was stabbing me, several times in my belly," Mr. Odierno testified, standing up, at his lawyer's request, and miming being stabbed below the navel.
"I reacted," Mr. Odierno said.
"I put my hand on the butcher block. I grabbed a knife and went forward to her. I didn't mean to kill Christine. It just happened like that. It was fast. I really thought she was going to kill me. I don't remember anything after that.
"I stabbed her. I know that."
Mr. Odierno's contention that he acted in self-defense was the climax of about two and a half hours of testimony yesterday in which he described the progressive breakdown of nearly 30 years of marriage.
Mr. Odierno, a tall, portly man in a gray suit who described himself on the witness stand as "72, going on 73, hopefully," faces 25 years to life if he is convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his wife on a Sunday in April 2005. Prosecutors say he stabbed his wife, who was 57, in a rage because she wanted to divorce him, and then turned the knife on himself.
The prosecutor, Kerry O'Connell, has suggested that Mr. Odierno secretly abused his wife, noting that once when she had a broken wrist, she told a neighbor that her husband had broken it.
Mr. Odierno testified that his wife broke her wrist when she slipped off a stone wall near their country home.
The defense has been building a case that it was not Mr. Odierno but his wife who was the aggressor.
Mr. Odierno said he met his future wife in 1972, when she rented an apartment in a building he owned at 1520 First Avenue. Beginning in 1996 or 1997, Mr. Odierno said, she became increasingly paranoid and aggressive.
Detail by detail, his account of the breakdown of their marriage was perhaps most striking in its banality.
His wife gradually stopped celebrating Christmas, complaining that the tree was "dirty," he said.
He said she took their son's cocker spaniel to the backyard, to relieve himself on Mr. Odierno's prized fig tree. Soon she was hoarding, "bars and bars of soap, cologne by the carload, picture frames."
He traced the change to a sort of midlife crisis, when his wife became upset about her appearance. She had surgery for bunions and spider veins and banished him from their bed because she was afraid he would hurt her legs, he said.
She never allowed him to return to her bed, he said, and she rebuffed his advances, even when he brought her flowers.
Although he cooked, she refused to pick up his plate after dinner, complaining, "I'm not your maid."
"I'm telling you, this was the house of hell," he said.
A few days before she died, she gave him a proposed separation agreement. He testified that he wanted to sign it, but his sons insisted that he see a lawyer, who advised him not to sign.
At that point, he said, his wife told him that she would mutilate his genitalia if he did not sign the agreement. He called the police, but could not bear to have her arrested, he said. So he withdrew his complaint, he said.
On April 24, 2005, they argued over the country house, he said. He wanted her to promise in writing that when she died, she would leave the house to their sons; she told him he would have to trust her, he said.
Then, he said, "She took the knife, she attacked me. ..."
Dear Amy: I am in a situation that many of my friends have also gone through.
After years of my being a faithful husband, very good father and providing for my family financially, my wife has decided that she is not happy anymore. She says that it's not me, it's her. She has a boyfriend, and she wants to be with him. She also wants custody of our two children.
My wife knows that she can get custody because she has a good job and the courts usually always side with the woman unless the children are in danger.
My male friends in very similar situations have had their children taken away from them, have been forced to become part-time parents every other weekend and Wednesdays, are forced to pay child support, and their dreams of raising their children are shattered because the wife had a change of heart and feels that "she deserves to be happy."
What about me? I did nothing to deserve this.
What should I do?
-- Tom in Ohio
Dear Tom: I want to stress that any parent who gets dumped by a spouse gets a raw deal. Even those moms (including me) who are granted custody of the kids end up accepting many injustices, parenting challenges and visitation nightmares just because a spouse decides to walk away. The important thing is to make all of your decisions from here on out firmly centered on what is best for your children.
Depending on what state you live in, the system is still skewed in favor of mothers being custodial parents (many states are moving toward shared custody), and though I think that the jury is still out on what custody arrangement truly works best for children, long term, it is patently unfair to assume that fathers should take a secondary role in child raising.
I read your letter to David Levy, director of the Children's Rights Council, which advocates for fathers' rights. Levy stresses that the best way to cope with this is to get involved with other parents by joining a local parents support group. These groups meet, often with a lawyer present, to strategize and do research on divorce law and custody issues. "Sometimes guys want to go it alone, with only their lawyer supplying advice, but doing research to learn parental rights and responsibilities and advocating for change helps men to get through this," he says.
Dear Amy,
I just read the letter from "Tom", whose wife was walking out because "she decided wasn't happy anymore", wanted to take custody of the kids and be with her boyfriend.
Your advice to Tom was to be sure to focus on what's best for the children.
Whereas that phrase "best for the children" is hard to disagree with, I have found that it's more often thrown out as a smoke-screen to make sure the kids end up with mom. I think Tom should definitely take a very agressive, proactive approach to his impending divorce. Tom needs to find the best pro-male lawyer money can buy and fight tooth and nail for custody of his kids. Playing Mr. Nice Guy is the worst thing he can do. He will only suffer.
Here's why I say this: for starters, Tom may have his children's best interests at heart, but his soon-to-be ex-wife clearly does NOT. If she did, she wouldn't be tearing the family apart, she wouldn't be violating her vows, and she wouldn't be attempting to show her kids that you can be incredibly selfish, break vows, tear families apart, devastate another person, treating them as a disposable non-entity, valuing them as nothing more than a wallet, shove them out of their lives, and come out of all of it a winner. The kids would be better off with Tom, who could show them how a responsible marriage partner and parent is supposed to act.
Frankly, Amy, my guess is that as soon as wifey has custody, she won't care one whit about whether Daddy-o gets to see them. Chances are, "boyfriend" will all of a sudden find that he has better job opportunities out of state, and then Daddy-o will NEVER get to see his kids. Visitation orders are unenforceable, but as we all know, you'd better pay your child support or you're going to jail.
You are right, though, society and the courts are biased towards women in custody awards. Society is even biased towards women that do what Tom's wife is doing. Women who do this are "empowered" and "liberated". This is why 75-80% of divorces are filed by the woman. Courts and chivalrous judges aid and abet this kind of travesty daily. No-fault divorce has ruined thousands of men's lives. And to make it worse, we all know about society's double-standard: if a man decided he was unhappy, found a girlfriend, wanted to dump his wife and take the kids, society would have him tarred and feathered faster than you can say "You Go Grrrrl!"
Tom needs to tell wifey that she can go ahead and leave if she wants, but the kids stay, Tom and the kids are going to stay in the family home, and if wifey is really nice, Tom just might let her see the kids every other weekend. The kids are not her property. And, she can forget about any kind of alimony or support. She's the boyfriend's problem now. Tom and the kids will get along fine without her, and Tom will find a wife who has integrity.
Dear Mr. Miller,
About your comic which ran on September 13, 2006. This is the one where the young lady at the bar apparently asks the bartender to smash the male customer over the head with a sledgehammer.
What the @&^*?
You think violence is funny, IF IT'S AGAINST A MAN?
This comic sucks. It's not funny. I have NO IDEA WHY you think this is humorous. Do you think all women should have the RIGHT to randomly assault a man? (Shoot, in this case, the demure, sweet young thing doesn't even have to do it herself, she has the bartender, the stooge, do it for her!)
What did the guy do to deserve this assault? I, the viewer, can only assume, since you don't say in the cartoon, that she wants him assaulted SIMPLY BECAUSE HE'S A MAN.
And this is funny how?
Would a comic with the genders of the subjects reversed be funny? If not, then why is this funny?
We go on and on about how violence, for any reason, is unacceptable. It's a travesty, however, how society IGNORES how much violence is done to men, even by their domestic partners. No, for some reason THAT'S FUNNY, but violence against women is a social scourge!
You are clearly part of the problem. Your testicles are hereby revoked.
No longer a fan,
(my name)
(my city, state)
Event attendant Elmer Forrester tries to clear a clogged drain in the stairwell between the Cardinals Club and their seats behind home plate before a baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves at Busch Stadium in St. Louis Wednesday, July 19, 2006. Thirty people were injured as high wind blew out press box windows, overturned portable concession stands and ripped the tarp at new Busch Stadium on Wednesday night before the Cardinals' game against the Atlanta Braves was scheduled to start.
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo by Chris Lee) Jul 19, 2006
Man leaps to death Monday in Belleville
By Michael Shaw
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
A man who may have been distraught over a recent divorce and eviction leapt to his death Monday morning from the top floor of the St. Clair County Courthouse parking garage.
A witness in a nearby building saw Rory J. Hamilton, 37, of Fairview Heights, climb over a railing on the garage's top floor, about five stories above the street, about 10:30 a.m., according to a police report. Hamilton landed in the middle of South First Street, around the corner from the Belleville police station.
He was pronounced dead shortly after by a deputy county coroner at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Belleville.
Hamilton had parked his car on the top level of the garage. He had no court date Monday, but he did have several court appearances scheduled in the near future, including a hearing set for next month to resolve the remaining issues in his divorce.
Hamilton and his wife, Ann, divorced last year after he was arrested for domestic battery. She was awarded a protective order against him in June, and the divorce was finalized in September. At the time of the divorce, she was employed but claimed that her husband was not working. They have a daughter and a son.
Other witnesses who saw Hamilton lying in the street phoned police, assuming he had been hit by a car.
Police and the St. Clair County coroner's office listed Hamilton at a Fairview Heights address. In a case set for trial June 5, a landlord was seeking rent from Hamilton for living at a Belleville apartment.
Belleville police declined to specify a motive Monday.
"We're still investigating," said Detective Matt Eiskant. "There's no foul play. We're still speaking with family members to try to understand why this occurred."
Chief bailiff Tom Burns, a longtime county employee, said it was the first suicide from the courthouse complex that he could recall.
Q. How would you compare violence against women in America to that in other parts of the world?
A. United Nation statistics say that one out of three women will be raped or beaten, but they don't specify countries. To me that seems like it's probably an accurate statistic. Violence in America is extremely high with domestic abuse and date rape. There's no country where I have been where I would say that's not true.
The function of (V-Day) is to make (violence against women) not normal - to make it extraordinary and extreme so we find a way to stop it.
Q: Any thoughts on how to do that?
A: We normalize it everywhere. The minute we start building shelters or creating hot lines for abused women - although they're certainly necessary - we're making a space for it. We're making a plan for it and saying, 'This will happen again,' as opposed to saying, 'This has to stop.' There's a completely different mentality between treating it as though you want to end it and treating it as though it will happen again.
With domestic abuse in America, it's very difficult for women to come forward and talk about it without feeling ashamed or traumatized. There are a lot of laws that favor the perpetrator. For instance, if a woman doesn't actually hurt her abuser in self-defense but goes back later and does something, he's the victim and she's arrested. ... All the laws are geared toward the perpetrator. We still do not cherish women and hold them sacred. We still don't get that their lives are equally viable.
Q. You talked in one recent interview about two types of violence inflicted upon women: that which is inflicted from others and that which we inflict on ourselves. Can you talk about that?
A. I think the statistics are that 90 percent of all violence against women is done by men. And one of the geniuses of consumer capitalism and all the other systems that are in place, such as patriarcharcy and religion, is they don't even need to do it anymore because they've set it up so women are now doing it to themselves.
We spend a lot of time beating ourselves up because we're not skinny enough or pretty enough or rich enough or famous enough. And there are a lot of mechanisms in place to keep us doing that whether it's magazines, TV, films, mothers, father. Liposuction, botox, plastic surgery - it's mutilation, and we're beating ourselves up for not looking a certain way. But we could stop it if we wanted to.
5. Marital maintenance. Initiate "us time", and arrange child care. Help husband remember birthdays and anniversaries. Clearly designate husband tasks (car maintenance and repairs, yard work, garbage, major household repairs), and encourage their completion with affirmations. Enjoy sex. Maintain personal appearance. Encourage husband's personal and spiritual growth. If desired, arrange husband's medical appointments, financial matters, and haircuts. If desired, purchase and maintain husband's clothing. If working under conditions of biblical traditionalism, create appearance that husband has initiated and executed much of this work.
The last bold section is my emphasis. Loving it!
Separate the genders
Men slow women down in the educational arena, and that's frustrating for women.
Let's get rid of co-ed learning environments. That way, male students can take the time they require -- as they often need to pause for athletics and recess -- without stifling the academic progress of their female counterparts.
Sunday Weiss, Oceanside, Calif.
Whatever the cause, nearly 40 percent of French men...would... like to become pregnant.
A Norwegian court has sentenced a woman to nine months in jail for raping a man, the first such conviction in the Scandinavian country that prides itself for its egalitarianism