This is a continuation of our real life story of You, Me and Dupree – Part II. If you haven’t read Part I I suggest you read it first.

(continued …)

Mr. Z wore on my nerves and his presence was taking a toll on Chris too.

Chris was going to Devry at the time and having a very hard time with a couple of his courses. He’d also just discovered that he was dyslexic and he was a bit depressed about it. All the partying, drinking and too much time being taken away from Chris’ studies was hurting Chris. He was definitely depressed, but he was starting to get better before Mr. Z came along. Z’s presence did not help. Not a bit.

Lets say at some point Mr. Z became our constant house guest. By this time Chris and I didn’t want him around at all, but he was there … all the time. He was so pathetic we couldn’t turn him away no matter how much we didn’t want him to stay. Remind you of a certain movie?

I sat down with Mr. Z one night after Chris had gone to bed and told him what was going on with Chris and how his presence was causing us both a great amount of stress. Mr. Z agreed to only come around when he had his opera practices and he’d give us a break.

He also agreed to help around the apartment when he was around, pay for his share of groceries, pay for the damages to our furnishings that he’d caused and since he’d been pretty much living in our apartment for three months or so – pay part of the rent. Of course … that never happened. I figure he still owes us a couple thousand bucks.

Everything he said was a false promise. He was good for a few days, but then went back to his disruptive partying ways.

Chris and I had to bail him out of trouble a few times too. He was constantly losing his wallet. For a guy who’d purposely leave his wallet at the apartment when it was his turn to pay for something he sure lost his wallet in a lot of different places.

I don’t know how many times we got calls from him late at night. He’d be stranded somewhere because he’d lost his wallet. We’d have to go and pick him up.

The final straw came when it happened for at least the 10th time. He called us at about 3 am one morning and we refused to help him. We’d had it.

He eventually showed up at the apartment all hurt and upset that we’d abandoned him and left in a huff. As if everything was all our fault. Right … we’d put up with way more than most people would all because we’re too nice to say go to hell.

We didn’t hear anything from him for about four months. We slowly got our lives back together and Chris resolved some of his problems with his studies and the depression that his schooling and his dyslexia diagnosis had caused was really beginning to lift.

Then one day in November I came home from work. I’d had an argument with Chris earlier that day over some stupid little thing. When I got home I had a bad feeling. The apartment just felt too empty. I don’t think there was anything missing. It just felt empty. I was overcome with a feeling that I’d lost my husband – that he’d left me.

I was half right. He’d been abducted by another friend and taken to his sisters home! Seriously!

His friend had invited him to drive with him to a small Southern Ontario town to deliver a new (used) car to Chris’ sister. Chris went because it was a chance to see his family. As far as he knew it was just to deliver the new vehicle and then return home that night. He had school the next day after all.

I didn’t know any of this of course because it’d had apparently been a spur of the moment thing with Chris friend calling him up and inviting him to help him with the car. Chris didn’t call because he thought he’d be home by the time I got home.

I didn’t find out what happened to him for about 24 hours. My intuition was correct. When that bad feeling had come over me I’d called my sister and told her that I thought I’d pushed Chris over the edge and that he’d left me.

Hours went by and I didn’t hear from Chris. My sister came to stay with me by that time.

Then the phone rang and it was my brother in Vancouver! Chris family had called my brother in Vancouver to tell him that Chris and I were in terrible trouble and that he should help me. Huh … if I’m in so much trouble why not call my sister who lived a few miles away rather than someone that lived 2000 miles away? Huh?

I still didn’t know what was going on with Chris. All I knew was that he was with his family and he was there because a “friend” of ours had told his parents that Chris and I had a suicide pack! Guess who the friend was?

Mr. Z himself who hadn’t seen us for four months!

Of course no such thing was going on at all. In fact things were better than ever without the constant stress of Mr. Z in our lives and Chris resolving some of his troubles at Devry.

Chris’ mother and sister wanted Chris to be committed to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation before they’d let him return home to me. Chris’ friend that had used him to deliver a new car was in on the abduction of course. They didn’t tell Chris what was going on until they got him out of Toronto and surrounded him.

If they’d just sat down and talked to us about their concerns none of this would have ever happened, but instead they came up with an elaborate plan to literally kidnap their own son.

Now … if I really had been suicidal (I most definitely wasn’t!) don’t you think that would have put me over the edge leaving me along like that wondering what had happened to my husband? I guess they didn’t really care what happened to me eh? Nor how much it would hurt Chris if something were to happen to me.

I’ve written out the full story in an earlier post that I did perhaps in April or so of 2006. I’m not going to look for it or link to it It’s something I needed to write, just like this is I suppose.

Needless to say I’m still very mistrustful of my in-laws and didn’t even speak to them for about a year and a half after they did that.

I speak to them now because they are Chris’ family, but nothing will ever make me trust them again.

I don’t speak to Mr. Z even though he shows up at Chris’ parents house at Christmas time and for other occasions. Oh and get this, Chris’ family doesn’t understand why I’m still upset with Mr. Z … yet they refuse to talk about the incident themselves so nothing will ever really be resolved.

In the movie You, Me and Dupree – Dupree actually kind of fixed all the problems he caused. In our case, our Dupree – Mr. Z never did fix the problems he caused. He just made everything worse, and in fact almost caused Chris and I to break up! Perhaps this was his form of revenge?

Watch out for the Dupree’s in your life as they can be dangerous!