Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [40]
They were home only a few days when he stormed into the room and began berating his new bride, calling her a “pig” and a “slob.”
“Let me tell you how I expect my house to be kept,” he yelled until he was red-faced, before firing off a list of things he wanted done.
Susan was stunned at how her new husband was “so transformed and abrupt.” Horrified by how he was treating her, her first reaction was to leave. But as Susan went for the door, Felix stopped her, grabbing her roughly and throwing her to the floor.
According to Susan, he raped her that day.
As she sat on the floor trembling, she thought again about leaving him, but the harsh reality of her situation hit home: she could never try to leave again. With a single act, he had crushed her spirit, which had just begun to blossom. After years of wrestling with her father’s abandonment and mother’s criticism, now Susan had an entirely new trauma to contend with—her husband. The rape that day set the tone for their marriage. The power and control that Felix wielded would only increase, and his role as the dominant force in her life would shape her character for many years.
In the weeks and months that followed, Susan recalled waking in the middle of the night, petrified with fear. Her terror was palpable, yet she couldn’t put her finger on what exactly made her so scared. It wasn’t until her husband started to lecture out of town and travel unaccompanied to the East Coast to visit family that she noticed how her feelings changed in his absence. During these times, the weight she felt in her chest abruptly disappeared, only to return quickly when Felix came home. He was completely controlling about everything, from how she did the dishes to what time the meals would be served. Every time Susan endeavored to do anything as an individual, Felix would squash her efforts.
Part of the problem was that when he wasn’t traveling, Felix was always around. While he worked most days from seven in the morning until ten in the evening, he would come out between patients to see what his new wife was doing or where she was going. To conserve money, he moved his office into the couple’s home shortly after their wedding. Although he worked seventy hours a week for $50 an hour, Felix was $40,000 in debt. According to court documents, he and Susan borrowed $60,000 from Susan’s mother, Helen, for a down payment on their new Berkeley residence, but used some of the loan to fund their lengthy European trip.
News of the extended honeymoon infuriated Felix’s first wife, Sharon Mann. That Felix would embark on such an extravagant vacation, and then return home and claim he had no money to pay her, was stunning. Barely four months had passed since he signed the divorce agreement, but he was already incapable of maintaining his parental duties. Sharon’s outrage continued to fester when she received a handwritten letter from Felix in April of 1982 outlining his financial burden and insisting they renegotiate the terms of the divorce signed in December of 1981.
The never-before published letter, dated April 20, 1982, became part of their official divorce record:
Dear Sharon,
It is hard for me to write this letter to you but there is no choice left for me…. I can no longer afford to send you the monthly amounts that I have given you…our divorce agreement needs to be altered…. The divorce degree [sic] was held up so long and was issued so close to my wedding date that I signed it with great relief and without really reading all the fine print….
The reasons…are as follows:
Each month I borrow at least $1500 in order to meet obligations here and to you. Now, I am borrowed out. I have no savings, no credit left to borrow, nothing to sell other than the cellow [sic] which, if sold, will provide money for the kids education. I bounce checks not only to you but to the man from whom I bought this house and to others.
I work to the point of exhaustion and fear that at the