Activity steps up with physical attacks, sleep disturbances including regular nightmares, frequent and severe illnesses, major depression or anxiety, severe financial or employment problems, and relationship troubles. While these things happen in the normal course of life, all of them happening at once or in rapid succession could be a sign of demonic presence.
4 degrees of demonic possession Kathleen Troost-Cramer | Mercury | @KTroostC
Strike One
Our custom was to go to our favorite local brewery, Big Beach Brewing, to relax from the long drive and celebrate that we were at the beach once again.
PIC of Brewery
There is also an excellent food truck, The Gnarwhal, there on the weekend. It is the best food truck food I have ever had, and I have tried a few. The menu is so creative! It is a tasty mash-up of comfort and gourmet food that you can’t find anywhere else. I look forward to trying everything on the menu each time I go because they change it up every week. I have never seen them repeat a dish.
After a few beers and delicious food, we head on home to fall asleep in front of the TV. Which isn’t much since all we have is an antenna; no cable, no internet, and barely any cell service. We had been up since 4:30 a.m. and were exhausted; especially Ron, after the seven-hour drive. However, this time was different. I did fall asleep for a little while, but when I woke up, Ron was on his phone. This was very unusual because he was normally out like a light. When he noticed I was looking at him, he quickly put his phone, face down, on the arm of the sofa. O.k., that was extremely odd because typically, if he were texting someone I knew, he would let me know who it was and what they were talking about. I pretended I was watching TV and would notice, out of the corner of my eye, that he would pick up the phone and start typing. But any time he thought I was looking, he would immediately put the phone, face down, again.
Who was he talking with? I was tired of playing this game, so I went to bed and shut the door. I noticed he moved to the loveseat and if I opened the door from the bedroom just right and look through the crack by the hinges, I could see what he was doing on his phone. It didn’t take long for me to see that he was talking with someone on Facebook Messenger; then he flipped over to some young girl’s Facebook profile. I saw the picture of a young dark hard girl and he was examining her page.
That ass!! I was so angry and hurt. That is what was going on the past few months, he was chatting with another woman. I paced the bedroom, fuming and deciding what I was going to do. The next time I peeked out into the living room, he was asleep. I was so aggravated; I needed a cigarette. I had quit about five years ago, but now I definitely needed one to think. I grabbed the keys to the car, my purse and slipped out of the house. I drove into town to find something open. The small area that we live, everything closes by 10:00 p.m. It took about 30 minutes to go to town and back. The drive gave me time to think about how to handle this situation. I was going to leave; pack up, head home with the dogs, and figure out where to go from there. I was done with his attitude and now his betrayal. I was in a marriage before where I was lied to and ignored for other women; I wasn’t going to do it again.
When I got back to the house, Ron was still sleeping, but I didn’t care. I started turning on lights and packing up to go. That definitely woke him up. He acted surprised and asked what I was doing. I told him you know why; I saw you and I am taking the dogs and leaving. He played dumb and tried to pretend not to know what I was talking about. I plainly said, so there was no more confusion or games, “I saw you texting on your phone and looking at that girls Facebook profile.” He had to finally admit it was true, but his excuse was that she was “just a friend.” Yeah, I have heard that one before.
Ron didn’t want me to leave, stating that it was too late to drive, and we had friends coming first thing in the morning and wouldn’t it look odd if I wasn’t there. We argued and talked most of the night. The one statement that was like a slap in the face though was when I let him know how hurt I felt, he said, “Well look at what you did.”” What?!? That was 12 years ago; you held a grudge that long? You think that just because I made a mistake over a dozen years ago, you think it is fine that you could do it to me now? I told him I should have left him back then when I had the chance.
Finally, he admitted that he actually did something wrong but still argued that he didn’t see a problem with it because she was just a “friend.” A friend? You just met her on the Internet, how could she be a friend? He said he would delete her from Messenger and not talk with her again and I agreed that I would stay to save face with our friends.
Looking back on it, I should have left. But I loved him, I loved the life we had the past 12 years and I wanted to get that back again.
Strike Two
When our friends arrived early that morning, I tried to act like nothing was wrong, but it was so hard. All I wanted to do was cry. Especially since Ron’s attitude towards me didn’t change one bit. He was still angry and he was still ignoring me, but then something new happened. During the weekend he spent a lot of time with his friend’s wife, cutting up and laughing; and ignoring me. When we went to a famous local fish market, he took off without me and when I finally found him, he was standing side by side with this woman, deep in conversation. That was the way it went the whole weekend, but after they left, it got even worse.
The day they left, we went back to the brewery to have a few of our favorite beers and brought some snacks since the food truck wasn’t open during the week. I was eating my favorite jalapeno popcorn; and as popcorn can, the smaller pieces were falling out of my fingers and mouth; onto the ground. Ron started making fun of me about how I couldn’t eat popcorn and making such a mess. Like he doesn’t make a mess when he eats? He always ends up with something all over his shirt and do I make fun of him? Ummm, no.
Then, he proceeded to brag about how much money he has amassed and how little I’ve got. I am the first to admit that I am not the best budget-er or saver, but I make do and over the last decade or so, have built up a nice sized 401K plan. What is this about his money and my money? I thought we were married, and it was ours together.
That was another disturbing thing that started around this time too, whenever he talked about anything, it was “his”; “his house”, “his beach house”, “his pool”, all of things I thought we shared together. It was like I didn’t exist or count. But, if anything went wrong, it was mine. For example, if the dogs were misbehaving, they were “your dogs”, or if the garage door on the house was not working, it was “your garage door.” I am sure you get the picture.
Once we got home, I was hoping things would calm down a little bit and begin to return back to the way things used to be. Not a chance.
Strike Three
I hadn’t been on Facebook in a while, my mother kept me too busy for any catching up with friends or having fun. But I was thinking that he met this girl in a Facebook group; what else was going on that I didn’t know about. I am almost sad that I even looked. There was another girl as a “friend” and it was the same girl’s profile I saw him examining at the beach house! I was able to see what they were posting on his page and got lucky enough that I was able to see her page too. I was so distressed when I saw that he had put a heart emoji on her sexy profile picture, and I could tell from their posts back and forth that they had been communicating for a while and more than “friends.”
I was so mad I couldn’t even speak. I went outside to work in my front garden to cry and figure out what I was going to do. Ron found me out there a little while later and asked what was wrong. I told him what I found and that I was leaving. He said they were “just friends” and laughed at me. He laughed at me!! He was incredulous that I was that mad at him and he thought it would be fine with me that he had other girl friends on Facebook. What? Other girls? I asked him how many there were; he said just three. Three!!! He was fooling around and have fun with three young girls on Facebook while I got all the anger, moodiness and treated like a punching bag.
Oh, that is over the top! I told him that he looked like a “dirty old man” and I didn’t want to be around him anymore. He talked pretty convincingly about how he loved me, he wanted things back they way they were and how could I throw away almost 20 years of memories and things we have accumulated. He said things would change, but things people say and do are two different things.
Nothing changed from him. He wanted me to do all the changing. He would laugh and get frustrated that only after a couple of days, I was still angry and upset about the girls. Plus, any time I pointed out things that were bugging me about him, he would say “you’re just trying to find excuses to leave.” Well, maybe I was.
I can’t count the number of times we fought that summer; yelling, screaming, crying. We fought more in those few months than we did the first 18 years we were together combined.
As far as I knew he did un-Friend those girls from his Facebook profile, but he met them on a private “Italians Only” group. That meant I wasn’t permitted to join and see what was going on. Why would he want to be in a private group where I was not allowed? I could only imagine what he was doing, and it wasn’t a good visualization. After arguing with Ron about the logic of that issue, he did finally agree to remove himself from the group.
Strike Four, Five, Six…
You must understand, my first husband was such a proficient liar and very, very sneaky. I became an excellent detective during the time I was married to him. He always thought he was pulling the wool over my eyes and there were probably some things that I missed, but most of them, I would catch him red handed in a lie. It especially surrounded his hard-core porn addiction. I would catch him every time even though he would try to remove his digital signature.
So, when I found a pen drive that Ron brought home from work when he retired and it contained hundreds of beautiful women in sexy underwear and poses, I flipped out. He said that he got that pen drive from a guy at work and those were his pictures. Every excuse Ron came back with sounded reasonable, but so did my ex-husband’s. But that was all they were, excuses. I was about to take that into consideration because Ron has never lied to me in the past (or has he and I was just too gullible?). Then I noticed on his Facebook profile, a page he was looking at just that morning about jokes, but when you clicked into it, there were those same sexy women in their underwear. Ron said it was just a coincidence. How can two sets of the same women on two different platforms be a coincidence? I am not totally convinced.
Another thing I found during my sleuthing escapades was in the tool chest Ron also brought home from work when he retired. In the bottom drawer were pictures of old girlfriends; one was in a bikini standing by his red Corvette, pretending to be an Auto Model. He’s been keeping these pictures of old girlfriends all these years? What else has he been keeping from me for so long? Do I even really know this man that I have spent close to two decades with?
I just don’t know any more. I know going forward I won’t believe a word he says or trust him any longer. And the funny thing is that his catch phrase of late is “trust me.” I would just look at him and reply, “That’s the problem. I don’t.”
After all this upheaval, I was ready to go, just leave everything and him behind. He said he didn’t want me to go, and he would change. I told him he had until Jack passed because I couldn’t take care of the two dogs on my own; especially a terminally ill one that needed a lot of care and vet visits. If nothing changed by then, I was leaving.
Giving It The Old College Try
The one thing that I did give into on was hanging out with Ron’s friend and wife, even thought I had reservations about the nature of their relationship. He assured me that there was nothing going on between them; he wouldn’t do something like that to a friend of his and I should get to know her better, I may like her. Plus, she had been spending more time with my sister-in-law, so if we went anywhere with them, she would most likely be there too.
Sure, for the sake of everyone getting along and doing things together, I will try. And try I did, but no one else seemed to.
Are we going to get the next three strikes to retire the team? Come back next Monday to find out what else could possibly go wrong.
