Howard & Joanne Lawrence
Marriage Overview

Preface: In order to understand my marriage to Joanne, I had to understand Joanne’s marriage to Dewey, Narcissistic Manipulator and chief bully. In our marriage, Joanne Lawrence was a “uniter” to all members of our family. In Joanne’s marriage to Duane Menter Joanne is a “divider”. I had to understand how the same woman could have a positive emotional flow with our children and how that behavior could transfer and support a man determined to sever the close and loving bonds I had with my children. This reckless man overcame his insecurities of accepting me into their family unit by using force, anger and control. Joanne was accepting and compliant in his directives in spite of the fact that she was required to impose hurt on our children to please Dewey in his quest to separate me from my children. His ever present determination not to include me, the father to his wife’s children was not only immature but his verbal and deliberate actions combined with anger resulted in traumatic emotional abuse to my children (I say my children because Joanne did not care about the emotional impact to the children as she was focused on being a good wife to her “soulmate”). As the mother to our children, I had to understand how Joanne could be manipulated into accepting and aiding in the emotional abuse our children endured. It seems like yesterday that Amanda and Ryan were the primary loving focus of her life. The last paragraph demonstrates Joanne’s mindset to maintain an emotionally even keel in both marital relationships.

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NOTE: Throughout the text, “Mrs. Lawrence” refers to Joanne’s attitudes, values and behavior in our marriage.

We were married young and did not have our share of partners to form an emotional connection of monogamy. If fact, we knew very little about sex and that is a key ingredient to an emotionally fulfilling and long-term marriage. We were unable to talk about our intimate relationship. We were unable to talk about all those things that make two people best friends. 

We were team players. We cared about each other and I was proud of Joanne Lawrence as the wonderful mother of our children. Joanne was a teacher, a homemaker and supportive of me except for one most important phase of my career (explained later). I do not fault Joanne because in her home the emotional highlight of the dinner conversation was to hear her father say, “Mother, would you pass the salt please”. There was always tension in her parent’s marital relationship (her mother did have a blissful second marriage). I grew up in a similar situation and one day my mother bought a dog house wall hanging. There were four dogs and my mother wrote each family member’s name on a small dog. Three dogs hung outside the dog house and one dog was hung inside the dog house. My mother Sylvia, put my father Sam in the dog house and he never came out. Joanne and I had an emotional sterility in our relationship but knew how to communicate to form a marriage our parents did not enjoy. Like our parents, we were focused on raising our children and earning money, but with civility and without anger or animosity toward each other’s decisions and feelings.

Joanne is Irish Catholic and I am Jewish. Joanne blended Christmas and Hanukkah into our home in a spiritual way that was most enjoyable. I am a spiritual Jew. I cannot deny my culture, however I enjoy diversity in friendships. 

I will tell you a special memory about Joanne. We were living in Skokie, IL and I enrolled to take a review class for the CPA exam. I had to travel two nights each week to Chicago and for the second half of the review, I had to attend three classes each week (7-10 pm). I told Joanne I was going to use our second bedroom (mostly my office) to study for the exam each Sunday from 9 am – 5 pm. Joanne understood as I took the exam in San Francisco simply to experience the difficultly. Everyone in my San Jose Price Waterhouse office used coffee breaks to make small talk about different people and their inability to pass the exam. Those who could not pass had their business career permanently altered. It was a very difficult exam, I failed but understood the type of effort required to pass. I studied every Sunday and attended every class. On the day of the exam, I drove to McCormick Place in Chicago and studied for one hour in the car. I shut the car off, got out, locked the door and regurgitated. One month later, we placed a down payment on a condo. Three months after the exam, I returned home after playing my best ever round of golf – 82 on a 6,400 yd. par 72 course. I walked in the apartment and it was decorated for New Years’ Eve. Joanne says, how was your golf game and I told her. Joanne says, when I opened the mail, I found out we were approved for our mortgage on the condo. Then Joanne says, very cautiously, there was another letter addressed to you from the CPA’s and I knew it was about the test. Very shyly, Joanne says I could not wait for you to come home to open it – you passed the entire exam!! It was simply another methodical step on my perceived path to success and the CPA opened the door to business opportunity. Three wonderful things in one day and what a special thought for Joanne to decorate the apartment!!

Two years later I changed employment and with a meaningful increase in pay we placed a down payment on a home. Joanne became pregnant in the condo and went into labor after our move into the new home. Joanne is in the delivery room and after she is prepped the nurses allow me to stand behind her. Everything goes smoothly and the doctor says, “We have a baby girl”. That was euphoric – as good as it gets until we had the same euphoria with our second child, a boy! We were fortunate to have two healthy children! How blessed!! I believe having a child is everyone’s Sistine Chapel – an unblemished human and the opportunity to develop that child in a manner that will make you feel pleased and happy with all the pictures that come your way throughout your life. Joanne and I were committed to raising our children and we were proud of our accomplishments – we wrapped our lives around parenting and were doing a good job because we had a passion for the responsibility and it was fun. My earnings were a comfort zone above our lifestyle. Who knew diets would change so dramatically and on hindsight, Sunday should have been family day at the gym!

One year we visited a business friend in Fort Collins, CO for an RV trip to Yellowstone. In the backyard my associate built a castle from wood as a playhouse for his children. I memorized and wrote down as many details as possible. We returned from this scenic and memorable vacation and I built a castle in our backyard. I always knew where our children were because all the neighbor’s children were in our backyard playing in the two-story castle with a ladder to the roof. Joanne and I made countless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and of course we served milk and junk food.

We agreed that Joanne would stay home and raise the children until they were in school. When Joanne returned to school, we used her income to buy a 2^nd home in the “The Galena Territory” where the NW corner of IL meets the NE corner of Iowa. We bought the second home in February, 1985 and I believed we had all the material possessions to enjoy the remainder of our lives. Three months later, in May, 1985 after signing as 1/2 owner on the Galena home, Joanne stood in the hallway and said, “I want a divorce”. I said why, and Joanne said “Just Because”. I was dragged through a divorce for several months and “Just Because” was the only answer Joanne would give me. Three weeks after the divorce, Joanne married Duane Menter, an insecure and cruel person. A human species raised without compassion or empathy.

Our marriage could not go the distance because Joanne did not know how to be a wife to a corporate man (her father owned a Well Drilling business and our childhoods were different – city vs. rural and Catholic vs. Jewish). The fork in the road occurred when my career entered a “crisis phase” and I experienced more corporate stress than I could tolerate. Joanne was never there for me. Joanne never looked at me when I returned home and said, “you look tired and stressed, let’s go upstairs and talk”.  Joanne never said, “Let’s get away for a long weekend and relax”.  The stress became overwhelming and I was admitted to a hospital. Hospitals did not have insurance codes for “corporate stress” so they chose “bi-polar” and misdiagnosed me with the wrong medications and treatment for decades. I needed a meaningful marital relationship. I recovered and moved on to two senior positions. As a result of my corporate life, I traveled and stayed in good hotels. In 1975 I wore $700 suits and became attractive to other women. Women who could bring the verbal know-how into a relationship to make a best friend connection. My heartfelt connection to the lives of our children would not allow me to even think about leaving Joanne. My hospitalization created ammunition for an emotionally degenerate man, a man to be the stepfather of my children who would use a seven-year-old hospitalization in the theme he developed and told his ‘woman’ to use in explaining the following to her children: “The reason mommy has to divorce daddy is because he is mentally ill”. Dewey and Joanne continually used that derogatory message during the time I was earning $125,000 in 1985 while Dewey was earning $40,000. The woman lying beside me in a King size bed was a marital backstabber. 

How Joanne maintained two conflict “free” marriages.

I thought Joanne was agreeable because what I wanted was “constructive” for our marriage and children and now I know Joanne was a mother first. Everything else was generally benign to her thoughts and conversational energy. I do not blame Joanne; she did not have the know-how to be a wife and I did not have the know-how to select a marital partner. It is best explained in the following Q & A:

Howard: This name Amanda has come on the horizon during the past year and if we have a daughter, I would like to name her Amanda Rae. The “R” in Rae is for my grandmother Rose.

Joanne: Ok

Howard: There are five models in the housing development and I mostly liked the tri-level.

Joanne: Ok

Howard: As you are Irish and if we have a boy, I would like to name him Ryan Matthew.

Joanne: Ok

Joanne had objections only to situations that would take her away from our children. She did not want to go on a business trip with me to Europe because she did not want to leave the children. Many neighbors became furious and she changed her mind due to social pressure. I had a corporate membership to an exclusive men’s club, the Union League of Chicago. It was designed as a hotel for men traveling to Chicago during the week. On the weekend, they offered members an opportunity to rent a room for $15 dollars a night. I wanted to go with Joanne as we could spend some marital time enjoying theatre, restaurants, etc. Joanne would not go as she did not want to leave the children.

Duane Menter, Narcissistic Manipulator and Joanne’s second husband. The statements change but the answers are the same –

Dewey: Joanne, I never again want you to talk to the father of your children.

Joanne: Ok

Dewey: I will be the surrogate parent to Amanda and Ryan, and I will make the parental decisions.

Joanne: Ok

Dewey: Howard wants you to meet him in Fort Hood to spend time with Ryan before his 3^rd tour of Iraq.  YOU ARE NOT GOING. (what would military personnel and families say about Dewey, controlling his wife by depriving her from the opportunity to visit her son before deployment to Iraq for a third tour, or any tour? How should her son feel toward his stepfather and mother for being deprived of that visit? What would people say about the mother for listening to her husband at this level of ignorance? Many women with common sense would simply walk out on this man as their love for their son would overcome the angry demand by the stepfather not to visit her child preparing for deployment to a war zone or for any deployment. Dewey did not have any emotional capacity to care about Ryan).

Joanne: Ok

Dewey: Get me a third portion of spaghetti and meatballs.

Joanne: Ok