Keith and ex wife #1, Jean, were married 11/26/1969. Their son, Rich, was born 25 days later. About two and a half years later, their daughter, Dani was born, in July 1972. Jean started divorce proceedings in July 1977, and they were divorced by May 1978.
Keith and ex wife #2, Denise, were married 6/2/1984. Their son, Rob, was born 3 months and 3 days later. A little more than 2 and a half years later, their daughter, Lizzy, was born in June 1987. Keith had shared with me that their marriage had its good moments, but he realized early on there was something “not right” with Denise. He said that if it wasn’t for the kids, he would never have married her. They separated August 1989, and their divorce was final 11/29/1990.
I had known the sister of Keith’s ex wife #3, Melissa. I had met Melissa through Keith as they lived with my sister and her family for a time. Keith and Melissa had been together since he moved to the metro LA Basin in 1989. They got married at my sister’s house in November 1993. My significant other, Joe, and I attended their wedding, with our daughter who was 3 months old.
In the Spring of 1994, I moved in with my sister as well. I made the decision to take our daughter and leave Joe after I found out he was cheating on me. It seemed like things weren’t going well between the recently married couple either. Melissa wanted to move to Florida to be near her family and Keith was not interested in that at all. He had told me that he was far enough away from his kids as it was with them being in WA State and he in CA, and that moving to FL was going to put him further away from them. He wasn’t going to do that. Melissa has become resentful and was talking stupid, even at one point telling ME that if she ever found out that my sister and Keith were having an affair, she would “k&ll her before the disease did.” My sister was very sick, plus she was also married! How crazy that Melissa would have THAT thought and not believe that Keith’s decision not to go with her was truly about his kids and nothing else. Melissa left sometime between early March and May of 1994.
Keith and I started dating in the summer of 1994. His wife left him to the “Land of Milk and Honey” as he would call it, he had no plans to follow her to Florida and I was single with an infant. He filed for divorce and we became engaged on my birthday, in 1995. Keith and I were married 5/18/1996. He was raising my daughter as his own. He had told me when were dating that we would never go anywhere that she could not go with us. He was the only Daddy she had known. Our son was born 5/22/1997. He was a planned c-section since my daughter had been an emergency c-section in August 1993. While I LOVED being pregnant, pregnancies were hard on me.
Keith and I didn’t separate. We didn’t divorce. I was always thankful that he survived his tour in Vietnam and 3 divorces to get to me. He loved me last, and lived the rest of his life with me. I will ALWAYS feel blessed and thankful for that.
~This Is My World~ 