Until very recently, I had been desperately missing Charles. I was horribly jealous of the new “love of his life,” not because I enjoyed the way he treated me—which is almost certainly the way he treats her, too—but because I thought she was getting to be part of the interesting and creative empire he was building, while I am trapped here in no-man’s land spinning my wheels.
Every few months I would torture myself by googling his new business name to see what exciting projects they were working on and what adventures they were having. For a long time, all there was to find was a website with a single page to “contact us.” This didn’t really surprise me, as Charles has always struggled with the importance of the internet in building a modern business.
Charles, laboring in futility
A few days ago I engaged in my ridiculous ritual of googling “Creative Constructs NOLA” and, much to my surprise, an Instagram page popped up. It’s a very sad page.
Half the projects on there are things I recognize, projects from years ago. Other projects are things Charles didn’t do himself, but merely found someone else to do. For a man who claimed I was the one holding him back, he sure hasn’t accomplished very much since he cut me out of his life.
The most pathetic post of all was one he made on February 20, 2026, about taking a birthday trip to Maryland to get out of the Louisiana for a bit. It was bold of him to admit it was a birthday trip, because anyone who actually knows him is aware that his birthday in August.
I arranged that trip for his birthday in August of 2023. We spent every moment of the trip together. That was when I told him that I didn’t want to have sex with him if we weren’t going to be in a real relationship, and he swore to me that I was his soul mate and we were going to take on the world together.
That was the trip where he said “I’ve often felt like my life is a movie, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt like it was a romantic comedy.”
On the way back to Louisiana we stopped in Chattanooga because he had never been and I wanted to show him someplace I loved. Even the drive was incredible; we went for hours without even turning on the radio because we had so much to say to each other.
That trip was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me. It was probably the most romantic thing that ever will happen to me.
Norman wasn’t big on romance. Norman wasn’t even big on kindness; romance was far too much to expect. Norman hated doing things with me. He used to bring up things that he knew I would like to do, like going to a play, and when I would ask when he wanted to go he would say “that doesn’t interest me, but I don’t mind if you want to go alone.” I never understood why he even bothered bringing things up.
Norman was really big on telling me he didn’t mind if I did things alone. He would tell me I should be grateful that he was okay with me doing things alone. He loved to point out that there are a lot of men in the world who won’t let their wives leave the house alone, and he considered himself far superior to them.
Norman did “allow” me to do things alone, but he also tracked my every movement. If I wasn’t with him, he would call me every hour or two to ask where I was and what I was doing. Never how I was doing. That is a different question and one he never asked. If I didn’t answer the phone he would go nuts, calling over and over and over again until I answered.
He even did this when I was at work. Multiple calls throughout the day, just so that I could tell him that I was still at work, and I was still doing my work. If I ever got called into an unexpected meeting or hearing, I was guaranteed to come back to a dozen missed calls. It was only ever to ask where I was; if I tried to start a conversation he would either say he didn’t have time to talk, or that he wasn’t interested in what I had to say. “I’m not interested” was something I heard a lot during my marriage.
Norman even tracked my every movement when I was at home. If I was reading a book and stood up out of my chair, he would immediately ask me where I was going and what I was doing. I had to report to him to even be able to go to the bathroom. It sounds like a small thing, but it was actually pretty stressful. I felt like I had no freedom of movement at any time.
I never asked Norman where he was or what he was doing. I trusted him completely. Which is really pretty stupid, because I knew he had a history of messing around.
It astonished me when I found out that people thought Norman had helped me financially when I was in law school. When I was in law school Norman was still fucking strangers he picked up in bars. The first time he told me he loved me was when he was telling me he had just fucked some woman he didn’t know the night before. That’s some real romantic shit right there.
Norman didn’t decide he wanted to be in a real relationship with me until my last semester of law school, when I said point-blank, “I’m planning my future, are you going to be in it or not?” He told me he wanted children, I told him I wasn’t having kids unless I was married, he said okay, and that was that. I picked out and bought a ring; he gave it to me one night while making a speech about how I was the smartest woman he ever met. That part is true, at least.
Norman didn’t do romance, but Charles is the master of it. He’s good at listening to a woman and parroting back the things she wants to hear. He bombards her with attention until they think they’re the most important thing in the world. Those first few months with Charles were the first time in my life that I felt like I was a priority to someone.
I’ve always wanted to be someone’s priority. I don’t think it’s such an odd thing to long for. I think it’s natural for humans to want to feel like they’re important to someone.
Charles likes to say that his biggest personality flaw is that he’s “always trying to rescue crazy bitches.” He targets vulnerable women, and I was certainly vulnerable at the time.
There were plenty of red flags on that trip to Maryland, most of them involving Robert Gore, Charles’s “right hand man” and drug supplier. I didn’t know that second bit at the time. Charles had told me he was clean, and I believed him. Rob was very clearly an alcoholic, but he’s devoted to Charles and Charles likes nothing more than being worshipped. I honestly didn’t realize until a few months ago that the reason Charles has trouble being apart from Rob is that Rob gets Charles his coke and meth and whatever other nonsense that man puts into his body.
When I miss Charles, I imagine him clean and sober and productive. His new Insta page was a big reality check for me. People who are productive and successful don’t need to post pictures that are several years old, passing them off as current events. People who have full, happy lives don’t need to resort to on-line trickery to keep up appearances.
One thing I learned as a public defender is that it’s almost impossible for an addict to get clean without substantially changing their entire lifestyle. I’ve had numerous clients tell me that in order to get sober they had to abandon all their former friends and start over from scratch. I know at least two who packed up and left town specifically to get away from their old lives, with all the old temptations and opportunities to fail.
Charles hangs out with addicts. All of the people he sees on a regular basis are hooked on something. Many of them are unable to hold down jobs. When I was with him, there were always two or three men sleeping in the shop Charles rented. The odds of getting and staying sober while surrounded by addicts are very low. The odds that they all got clean together are astronomical. In all probability, Charles is still just as hooked on coke and meth and booze as he has been his entire adult life.
He’s probably still living in that warehouse, too. When I was living in the shed I often fretted about how even if I could get together the money for a deposit, my credit score was too low for me to qualify to rent a place to live. When I would share this worry with Charles, he would get pissed off and accuse me of “being negative.” He told me repeatedly that I needed to stop looking at “corporate apartment buildings” and find a private individual with a house to rent.
Charles refuses to accept that a decent credit score is now a base requirement for any rental. Even slumlords who rent their properties out on Facebook marketplace require a credit and background check. And they make the prospective renter pay for it. This is totally legal. It’s considered a kind of application fee.
Given that Charles’s credit score tanked even worse than mine did, I’m guessing he’s still living in that warehouse, with a bunch of addicts sleeping on the floor around him, like a pathetic little pack of feral dogs that were thrown out of good homes for bad behavior.
Of course, he could be living with the new love of his life, but I doubt it. Charles is all about control. The ability to say “this is MY house, you have to behave the way I tell you to” is very important to him. He would never risk the tables turning and having to defer to someone else’s power structure.
I’m not foolish enough to think that Charles was missing me or even thinking about me when he posted those pictures. Charles was thinking about nothing more than how people perceive him, and hoping to make them perceive him as a successful, carefree business owner living a fun and exciting life. But it does amuse me that his public image is being supported by something I did for and with him, rather than anything he is doing with the new love of his life.
I’m grateful that Charles set up that Instagram page. Seeing what he has been up to–or rather, what he hasn’t been up to–has been very freeing for me. I didn’t lose out on anything. If I had convinced him to let me stay, my life would be horrible. If I even still had a life at all.
Since Charles cut me out of his life almost a year ago, my life has done nothing but improve. It’s still hard for me to be in this town, with all the pain and trauma from my childhood and from the past couple of years, but the situation is no longer unbearable. I’ve made friends and built connections, and there are people I can call when something happens to trigger a panic attack. I am cared for, respected, and even admired.
Terry Pratchett was right. You cannot be a witch alone. I finally have a coven, the cackling in my head has stopped, and Poppy told me the other day I haven’t had that scary “demonic” look in my eyes for a long time now.
I have a comfortable apartment, where my kids each have their own room. I have a five-year plan that will get me out of this place and on to a life that I actually want to live. Some days I still feel trapped and restless, but it’s a lot easier to ground yourself in the moment when the moment is not a terrible place to be. When I look to the future I feel hope and excitement, not despair. I haven’t felt that way for over a decade.
I’ve also stopped caring what Norman thinks. He’s a liar, a sneak, and a bully. His opinion of me is worthless. I have nothing to prove to him, nor do I owe him anything. I gave him everything he wanted out of life, now it’s up to him to keep it. He can play the victim all he wants, but women are past believing the bullshit spouted by men like him.
Norman always told me he wasn’t responsible for my happiness. Norman always said the best thing about our relationship was that we lived entirely separate lives. Now I’m living my own life, in pursuit of my own happiness.
He should have been more careful what he wished for.
