If Terry had been there all week long, did he even wander up the steps to check on the boys? I thought. Obviously, his attention was on something else, possibly with big boobs. It really pissed me off because I knew Terry wasn’t supervising them and that was probably the reason they got into the accident in the first place. Also, I never knew of Nick driving the yellow sports car before, and I later learned he had been driving the car the entire day before with Terry’s permission. Not to mention that Nick had a restricted driver’s license at the time of the accident. He had received three speeding tickets. And one of those tickets—the one where Nick was driving the fastest—he had gotten with his father in the passenger seat. Terry claims he was sleeping! I don’t know anyone who could sleep while going over 100 miles per hour in a car with a sixteen-year-old driving. Do you? I’d be freaking out! One of the stipulations on the restricted license was that Nick was not allowed to drive after dark.
“Terry, the accident happened at seven thirty P.M. your time and it gets dark at eight,” I said. “Why was Nick even on the road just leaving for the restaurant at that time? When they left the restaurant, he would have been driving on a restricted license after dark with your permission, Terry. Explain that to me!”
He couldn’t. He told me that he was advised by the lawyer not to speak about anything. I was his mother, for God’s sake. Well, that made things pretty convenient for Terry, not to have to explain anything to me.
There were many questions swirling around in my mind. But I did find out from one of the boys that they thought they had seen a blonde at the house earlier that week, and that might have been the same blonde on the Jet Ski a few days earlier.
We had to turn our focus to John and his well-being, so that afternoon our whole family went to the hospital to see how he was doing. He was in bad shape—much worse shape than we had anticipated. During the accident, he wasn’t wearing a seat belt and had popped up out of the front seat and hit his head, suffering a brain injury. He remained unconscious and we feared for his life. We didn’t know if we were going to lose him or not. It was surreal; we just couldn’t believe this was really happening.
I had just seen John with Nick a week before in California having fun in my pool at my house. I couldn’t believe he was now lying in a hospital fighting for his life. I tried to console his mom, sister, and the rest of his family.
Terry told me that we would probably end up having a humongous lawsuit over this and explained that I should meet with a lawyer he had hired to go over some things. With all of the negative events leading up to the accident, I really didn’t have any respect left for Terry. I was just going along with whatever I had to for Nick’s sake. I was meeting with these lawyers because I was worried about my son and his fate. I couldn’t believe Terry seemed primarily worried about being sued at a time like this! I hated Terry so much. I knew we had to have lawyers because it was an auto accident and Nick was driving. But I was worried about his fate, his life—not the damn lawsuit. They can have everything we owned; I just didn’t want to lose John to death, or my son to jail.
Also at this time, I met with a lawyer Terry hired for the whole family. This lawyer kept insisting that the documents were part of a financial planning strategy. Financial planning? I thought.
Two months went by and Terry asked me if I ever looked over the documents. I told him I didn’t understand why I needed my own attorney. If this was financial planning for us, why couldn’t we use the same lawyer? None of this made any sense to me. He told me that it was an estate plan and that signing this document would help protect our assets. It just seemed weird that none of our original financial people were involved, but a new lawyer was handling it.
August, September, and October 2007 were spent in pure grief over John at the hospital. Our family dropped everything in our lives to be there every day, all living together at Willadel. We tried to help John’s mother and her kids. I was overwhelmed worrying about John’s fate and Nick’s fate. I finally called a lawyer. After I read the paperwork, he said that this was basically a marital agreement and it had nothing to do with financial planning. The documents Terry had given me were a completely different thing. Once I signed these papers we would stay married, but divvy up the monies as though we were divorced. I hung up the phone and just sat there thinking, appalled that Terry could lie to me so badly.
I was shocked. The fact that he was this calculating—to present me with papers like these—at a time like this—was unconscionable. Clearly, Terry was more concerned about how he could survive this with the least damage. This gave him an excuse to take it a step further. I realized that I needed to start looking for a divorce lawyer. Through Terry’s actions and behavior, he gave me the answer I had needed, the final piece of the puzzle that confirmed just what kind of person he really was and that was it! He had been planning to leave me all along.
Chapter Eleven
End of an Era
TERRY LANDED A JOB WITH NBC ON THE SHOW American Gladiators, which was shot in Los Angeles—the one place I thought he didn’t want to be. I think Terry thought this would take him to a higher level financially and that’s one of the reasons he wanted me to sign a midnuptial agreement. He was already preparing to split assets and discontinue sharing any future income. Huh! What a kick in the teeth! I remember helping him talk to producers and discuss creative issues on the show.
It was clear that my husband was already moving on with his life, even though he knew I was hopeful that we could get past these hurdles and try to keep our marriage together.
Despite all of the drama, I thought at least we’d be a family together on Thanksgiving. I pressed him to find out if he would be around for the holiday. However, his meetings, work, filming, and other business always took precedence over seeing his family. After all, we moved to L.A. without Terry. Now it was November. I guess I was just plain stupid for not seeing it for what it was. I was hopeful and trying to give him his space if that was what he needed, but enough was enough.
He told me that he was going to spend the holiday with his mother back in Florida since she was getting old. Well, in the end, he didn’t even see his mom on Thanksgiving. Instead, he spent it with his buddy, and who knows who else. To his friends, it was poor Terry, all alone on the holiday, but they didn’t know the real story. It was his choice not to be with his family on Thanksgiving.
Terry never warmed up to my family. He never realized that they were always his biggest cheerleaders, a true support system through thick and thin. They stuck by him after his affair with Kate Kennedy. They always tried to make him feel loved. But I believe underneath it all Terry felt threatened by such closeness, even from afar. He always thought they were “after his money”! It was a system of love and support from family—my family—and he was not used to that. Terry never realized how lucky he was to have my family in his life. In fact, they always tried to get me to see his side.
Things began to unravel further in my mind as I began to put the pieces together. Terry’s choice not to be with us on Thanksgiving after all we had endured with the accident, at a time when we needed to be thankful and come together; his minimal involvement with me or the kids; threatening Brooke that if he wasn’t part of her new TV show there would be no show; the fact that he owned two phones; the money in the safe; never giving me eye contact; canceling my credit cards; his sleeping apart from me both physically and sexually; constant bickering and picking fights; nasty phone calls; the mysterious blonde on the back of his Jet Ski; all the signs in Miami and his secrecy—just everything. And to think I still didn’t really know about Christiane.
I was tired of the excuses. I was emotionally drained. I had hit my limit, and it was time for me to move on with my own life. I found a divorce lawyer on the Internet. I knew that I eventually had to get a different lawyer. I would need a pretty powerful attorney to go up against Hulk Hogan and his deceptive ways. However, at the time, I just needed to file the papers because I knew that it was over.
I talked to a lawyer in Clearwater. He was good enough for now. I gave him a brief description of what I was going through, filled out the paperwork, and thankfully still had a few bucks in one of my accounts to pay him the $500 retainer he asked for. He asked me where Terry would be in order to have the process server deliver the papers to him. So many thoughts ran through my head. Am I really doing this? Oh my God, what’s going to happen when he gets these? Will he be sorry? Will he be angry or sad? But at that point, I knew that none of that could be the case. He was just too cold and calculating to really have any remorse or regret. I went ahead and gave the lawyer the address and location of the sound stage he was working on. I had no clue where he was staying, so it had to be at his place of business, during business hours. The papers were delivered to him at Sony Studios in Culver City, California, at one P.M. on November 20, 2007. I felt like I had a thousand pounds off my chest by just filing the papers. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the divorce . . . I just knew I had to do it.
I didn’t tell Brooke or Nick that I was actually filing for divorce. I needed to keep some things to myself at that point. Nick asked to go to the set the same day to visit Terry.
“Are you sure?” I asked him, trying to dissuade him from being in the path of fury.
“Yeah, Dad’s doing a bunch of stunts today and I want to go see him,” Nick responded.
Reluctantly, I dropped Nick off at the set that morning. Not too long after, I got a phone call from Nick. “Mom, did you file for divorce from Dad?” he asked.
My heart pounded with anxiety. “Yes, Nick. I had to.”
“Oh my God, Mom. I can’t believe it. Dad was shocked!” I knew Nick understood. He saw that I was miserable, sad, crying, and upset most of the time.
Why was Terry so shocked? How much more did he think I was going to take?
I ended up going back to Clearwater a week or so before Christmas 2007. My lease was up on my Los Angeles home, and I needed to get back to the house in Florida since the divorce was filed there. I had to charter a jet to fly across the country with the kids, dogs, and birds in tow. Once again, I went back to Florida.
Things were a bit different this time because Terry would end up moving out. When he found out that I was going to come back to our Willadel home, he opted not to live with me, and after Christmas, he decided to stay at the beach house. He packed some of his stuff and split. Now that I look back, I’m sure it was because he had already been dating his new girlfriend, Jennifer. He stayed with the family for a few days before moving out but slept in another room.
A few days before Christmas, I set up a tree and raced around to try to get some shopping done. The kids had been through so much over the year that I just wanted to make the holidays as nice for them as I could. They needed something happy in their lives.
On the day before Christmas, I was going to do a quick trip to Target. When I was leaving the house, I saw my sixteen-year-old dog Foxy sitting in the driveway lying in the sunshine. I couldn’t take her to Target with me, so I placed her on the grass and let her sit in the sun, which she loved. Twenty minutes later, the caretaker at my house called me and told me that the carpet-cleaning van accidentally ran over Foxy and killed her. I ran out of Target hysterical, screaming in horror! I wanted to die! She was like my child!
I didn’t even care if we had Christmas at that point, I was so devastated.
My mother tried to convince me to make a nice dinner, decorate the house for Christmas, and try to keep our family together. She felt that I should throw in the towel on divorce proceedings if Terry could give it one more chance for the kids’ sake. For us, for twenty-four years! Because I was feeling so vulnerable, I thought maybe my mom was right and that maybe this was a good time to try to repair what was left.
On Christmas Eve, I spent most of the night alone in the basement, wrapping presents for the kids. I didn’t want them to see the gifts before they got wrapped. I guess Terry was upstairs watching TV.
I was so tired from moving out of the California rental house, unpacking, Christmas shopping, crying every half hour over the realization that my dog was not with us, feeling like it was my fault for being in a hurry and leaving her outside, and the fact that my life was falling apart. I was trying to put on a happy face for Terry and the kids, but it was the hardest thing ever. I think at times, I was the most emotional one out of the bunch. The kids watched TV like it was old times. Terry was quiet and unemotional. I guess he was just trying to keep the peace until he could escape.
After the kids went to bed, I asked Terry to help me place the gifts under the tree. We were alone and I wanted things to just go back to the way they once were. I wished it was all a bad dream, but seeing Terry so distant I realized we might not be able to pull up the nose on this thing.
Still, I wanted to try. Once last time, I asked him if we could talk before we went to bed. We went into my bathroom—a place where we would usually go to talk. It was quiet, big, and comfortable. I asked Terry to try and make our marriage work. I apologized for everything that I had done and said. I told him that I didn’t know why it was all happening, but said that I still loved him. I asked him to “please, put his ring on and stay home.”
“No, I’m not ready,” Terry responded. “I need more time.”
Why? Don’t you love me? I thought.
“You really need to think about it?” I asked. “I’m your wife. We’re your family and we’re in crisis right now.” But I left it at that, it was Christmas Eve. He went upstairs to the extra bedroom and closed the door.
The next morning, we celebrated Christmas. Terry sat on the couch like a stiff with fake smiles and laughter. After we opened all the presents, Terry said he was tired and went upstairs to lie down. I followed him upstairs.
“Can we please just try to work it out?” I asked. “Will you please put your ring on and just come home? I’m willing to throw in the towel. Let’s try to be together. Let’s make this work and start over for our kids’ sake. Please? I still love you and I want to try. I’m sorry. Please?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I need more time.” That, along with his coldness, said it all.
At that moment I decided to take his “I don’t know” as “no.” To me, when you say that you need more time, you’re not serious.
Terry being there for Christmas, going through the motions, was a joke! “You don’t want to be together,” I said. “You don’t want to make this work! You have no intention to make this work, and you haven’t for a long time! I’m sick of all of this!”
“You win! You win! You fucking win!” he yelled. “You filed for divorce. You win!”
At that moment, he got up and went into his bathroom. He was talking to someone very quietly on the phone. I walked in and surprised him because I wasn’t in the habit of following him in there. I was pissed! Now, I didn’t care either!
“Who’s that on the phone?” I asked. “Is that your girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend?” (I knew he did.)
“It’s none of your goddamn business,” he shot back. “What I do is none of your business anymore. You filed for divorce and can do whatever you want. And so can I.”
He immediately began packing up his things and abruptly left for the beach house. He called me when he got there and told me that he didn’t want to argue anymore. He said that he left because he was afraid I might hit him and throw things at him because I had done it before. I had never done that before. In fact, he was the one who did that to me! What was wrong with him?
My attorney told me that it looked like he was setting up a false history. Terry was just trying to provoke me to hit him, so I would get arrested. I realized that he was being closely guided by his attorneys, and everything was a strategic move.
On December 26, 2007, I was alone in my bathroom and I just started writing. As the new year approached, I needed to write how I felt after everything that happened.
I like my face with wrinkles and gla
sses. I think I still look pretty and I haven’t changed for the worse with age yet. I like my light blond hair and my body. It’s starting to trim down with no exercise. It must be the stress! I love my house and the property it’s on. But that doesn’t mean it’s my home or my sanctuary anymore. If anything, my bathroom seems like it’s my only place of refuge—just to light a candle, turn on some music, or read my books. To think or be with my dogs. To dream about the future and just think about the past. It’s only a sanctuary when Terry is not here, because when he’s around my aura is invaded. His presence is disturbing and it sidetracks me from just really relaxing. I know I can make a new home that’s mine and the kids. If everything I had bottled up could just get out it would be so unbelievable what I could do. My mind has no boundaries, only my body. I am physically present, but not emotionally. I feel like a captive being held hostage with no reason why other than I continued to stay. Why did I stay? Kids? His image? The TV show? I am scared of being hurt. I feel like if the boat hadn’t taken on so much water we might have been able to weather this. I just think about the kids and how much they need us both. Way down the road, what are we going to do for holidays, weddings, grandchildren and not growing old together anymore? But he doesn’t look to the future of us or our family. I want to share my life and my kids’ lives with family and friends. We’re lonely. We’re trapped. We all have to “do as we’re supposed to do.” But really we are just living in a communal and controlled environment. We are all just pawns in his game of life. I think he’s got the sleeper hold on us from moving on or doing what we want even if it’s for the benefit of all of us, until he has something going for himself. It would look pretty bad if his son and daughter got something going before him. Or, even maybe me. Oh, but the scale is not tipped in his favor, for sure. And now the accident. Now, it’s really not tipped in his favor. But when you’re a selfish person you just can’t see it. He’s too competitive for me. It’s just constant tit for tat and counting. Keeping score. Holding people back from the dreams that they have and the things that they love. How long can you mask selfishness? All the dirty tricks in the book come out. Shortcuts. Cheating. Lying. Stealing. I have seen it all. I am very aware now. I know him so well that he’s very transparent to me and he hates me for it. In his desperate attempt to maintain his position, he’s gone even lower. Saying he knows people in the Hells Angels and if I ever left him he’d kill me. Or, he’s going to kill himself. Please, he’s way too selfish to do that. Then again, look at the track record of all the other past wrestlers. Old, sick, broke, OD’d, dead, divorced—name one that had their shit together. Terry was it. He was lucky that I stuck with him in the first place. Behind every successful man there’s a woman. That’s alright, I’m okay not taking any credit. I’m just used to it. Lately, he hasn’t trusted me making decisions for anything. I’ve been keeping things glued together for twenty-three years and now suddenly I can’t do anything. I can’t even make the decisions about my own damn life anymore. My mistake, though. I tolerated it for too long. The cheating, infidelities, the lies. If you weigh it, it was so lopsided for so long. But I stayed, big mistake. I became his new doormat. Because I didn’t want my life turned upside-down, or the kids’ lives. Maybe the money was good. Our home was done being built. There was always an excuse. And he was always dangling the carrot. He only treated me great and let me do whatever I wanted as long as it fit into his little plan. I thought this would never happen to us. I tried to be the perfect wife. And I was. But he was just gluttonous. From then on it has slowly been crumbling. Now there is nothing left but crumbs on the floor. The memories, tears, sadness. It’s so sad for me. For him, he’s probably just angry and not sad one bit. But the formula is the same—I’m sure that it’s something that I have done or said. I’m waking up to the fact that I am just no longer happy being a trophy wife for him. The bling. The accessory. The wind beneath his wings. The journey is over. He has no empathy or remorse. I meet his needs, but he doesn’t meet mine. Problems are never resolved. It’s just over and I’m ready to move on. I’m not crying over him anymore! I shouldn’t be sad because it’s his loss. It gives me everything to gain. I see the situation clearly now. He broke the deal. I guess he thought I would never find out or pay attention to the obvious signs of his extramarital affairs. He lost out. Not me.