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I was married to Kristy for 19 years, two children and one house.  Ours was a loveless marriage and the only reason I stuck it out was because of the children.  My first child, I can explain.  At the time, I thought that having a child would save my marriage by making Kristy less selfish.  Boy, was I wrong! For my second child, my daughter, I can offer no explanation.  Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.  Anyway, one day leads to the next and all of the sudden, 19 years had passed.  The best years were bad; the worst were horrible.  I was counting the days until my daughter went off to college and I could leave the marriage.  I used to joke to my son how lucky he was that he was getting out of there sooner than me.

I was also married to my job. I worked for many years at a place called Software Unlimited, Inc.  I’d spend 60 or more hours a week there working to advance the firm.  One day, my boss told me that I was to fly down to Florida on a secret mission.  My ostensible reason was to teach a training class.  My real mission, should I choose to accept it, was to scout out a woman, a grandmother he told me, as a potential employee.  This seemed intriguing, a grandmother who could program so I took on the task.

During my first day there, before class started, I had an opportunity to wander around and I found a display case with pictures of the “Employee of the Month.”  I looked for my quarry’s picture there and I found one of a beautiful, tiny blonde with the same name as the grandmother so I figured it had to her daughter.  After all, grandmothers had wrinkles and gray hair.  This one was way too young and pretty to be a grandmother.

When the training class started, the students rolled in and I checked their names off the list.  When Wendi came in, she looked just like her picture so this was the right person, but a grandmother? 

I taught the class and never tipped my hand that I was scouting out a potential employee.  I’d show techniques, ask questions and I was always careful to ask her sometimes first, sometimes last, I didn’t want to hint that I was playing favorites.  She did well, seemed like a good candidate and at some point, I was able to ask her about the grandmother thing.  As it turns out, she got pregnant at age 15, gave birth at age 16 and her daughter was married, with a child of her own and Wendi was only 38 years old. Amazing!

She only finished 9^th grade, got married and then divorced, all before she was 17.  She remarried, went back to school part time, got her GED and eventually got an associates degree from a local community college; very much a self-made woman.  She was smart, ambitious and anxious to leave Florida and find a career up north.

We hired her and she came to work for us in September.  She reported to me and was a very hard worker but very sad.  We had numerous opportunities to talk.  She’d tell me about her problems in Florida, she had an abusive boyfriend she needed to get away from and I would talk to her about my marital problems.  We became fast friends.

That Christmas, Kristy and I and the children went to Joliet as we did every year.  And, as always, I had a ton of work I had to do that occupied my time.  But this Christmas was different.  I was very sad, almost depressed and I didn’t know why.  I had reason to call Wendi for work-related matters and we talked for a long time.  It was right after I hung up the phone that I realized what was going on. I missed her!  We had become such good friends and I enjoyed her company so much that it hurt.  Obviously, I didn’t share this with Kristy or her family but it was a revelation to me.

When I got back, it took me about two weeks to build up the nerve to discuss it with Wendi.  I was actually worried that the feelings weren’t mutual and I’d get hit with a sexual harassment suit but sometimes, you have to trust your instincts.  I recounted the events leading up the conversation and told her that I was in love with her.  Much to my relief, she said she felt the same way.

After a week or two, we decided that we very much wanted to be together.  It wasn’t very difficult.  Kristy, my then-wife, told me to move out on a fairly regular basis.  I just waited for the next opportunity and took her up on the deal.   This was the winter of the uncounted ice storms and on one particular night, we had to take my son to an award banquet and it was the most grueling drive I ever made in my life.  By the time we got to the Holiday Inn, I was drained.  It took me a little while to recover my strength and, after a few drinks, I became more convivial.

The ride home wasn’t quite as bad but as soon as we got in the door, Kristy started yelling at me about how I was miserable to be around and uncommunicative.  My son spoke up in my defense and told my wife she was wrong.  It was a bad situation and I really didn’t like my son getting involved.  That night, I slept on the couch as I often did and Kristy came down and said, “Why don’t you move out” so I did.

I think she was a little shocked but I never went back.  Papers were filed; words were exchanged.  It was brutal.  As I mentioned earlier, hell hath no fury like a psychopathic woman scorned.  But at least I was free to spend time with Wendi.

I told my boss that I had left my wife and he was pleased because he figured I would then be able to spend even more time working for him.  When he found out that Wendi and I had started dating, he became irate.  He removed her from my supervision, took all her clients away and generally harassed both of us until finally, she had to quit.  She didn’t want to be responsible for taking away from me everything that I had worked so hard for over the last five years.

If only it were that simple.  After Wendi left, we figured the harassment would stop.  We were wrong.  I simply started getting both barrels.  Finally, one year after Wendi and I had started, I had to quit as well.  I was very sad but it was the only way to keep my sanity.

When I quit, we had no real plans.  Just a vague idea about opening a software development shop for a business acquaintance and making enough money that he could quit his job and start running the firm.  I happen to have dinner one night with a previous business partner and when I informed him of our plan, he told me it was a bad plan.  He said that Wendi and I should start our own company and keep the money we made.  I told him that was a good idea in theory but in practice, it takes money to start up a company.  He said that was no problem; that he’d lend us the money and so Integrated Software Solutions was born.

Within two months, we had office space rented, furniture bought and three employees.  Within three years, we had 13 employees and grossed just over a million dollars.  It was a heady time.  It was an exciting time.  Wendi and I lived and breathed ISS 24/7.  We spent every waking moment trying to figure out ways to improve the business and we were successful.  Somewhere along the line we got married.

Finally, one fateful day, one of our biggest clients figured out that it would be far cheaper to own our company and pay us as employees rather than as consultants.  They made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.  In the single most stupid moment of our lives, we sold our company. 

The next year was absolute hell.  In the span of just six months, the parent company dismantled our happy little family and we were down to just six employees.  By the following January, we were down to four.  The dream had died.  Wendi found it more and more frustrating and she was certain to tell off our new masters and quit, thus breaching our contract.

But it never happened.  Just five months after the acquisition, a disk herniated in her back and she had to have the first of what turned out to be five back operations.  She never really recovered and became, for all intents and purposes, an invalid.

To top it all off, my daughter got fed up with my ex-wife’s looniness and came to live with us.  The combination of that, the destruction of our beloved company and Wendi’s back problems made for a very sad and pressured existence.

Over the next four years, we dealt with my daughter’s teenage years, building a new, less successful company and finally getting Wendi to the point where she could live a semi-normal existence.  The pressure was too much and by the time she was up and around, all that we had built and our love for each other had suffered a fatal blow.  As soon as she was able, she took off to Florida to visit her relatives and she never came back.

What had started out as a vacation became a separation and finally a divorce.  While I will always love her as a person, the love between husband and wife was gone.  And that is how I got to where I am today and why I am applying to be on your show.  That’s all I really have to say about that.  Now you have the whole story about all the women I married.