Colonel, That’s My Dress!

Toward the end of February, Fred Platt, my boss and mentor at the US Department of Interior, noticed Joe leaning against my car during lunchtime as I hustled from one building to another. Within minutes as I passed by his office, I glanced at him standing a foot away from the window.

“Ella, you’re marching by, so come on in here.” I turned around and entered the disorganized environment. I couldn’t comprehend how anyone could work in that mess.

“What’s wrong?”

“Joe’s pulling out a lifetime of well-mastered skills.”

“I don’t know the details, but I’ve noticed he’s in the parking lot during lunchtime. Is he threatening you?”

“No worries, Fred. He’s just been lurking nearby lately. I don’t know if he’s trying to scare me or entice me to talk to him, but it won’t impact my job performance.” He motioned into the air as though waving away a gnat.

“Ella, I’m not concerned about how well you execute your duties. Be careful. Do you pack a gun?”

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When Ella married Joe Carpenter, it was supposed to end the way it’s always supposed to, happily ever after. In her case, she thought the odds were in her favor. Her husband was five years older and a brilliant young military officer who eventually rose to the rank of colonel.

But over the next thirty years, she’d discover that he was a master manipulator and an alcoholic with strange sexual propensities. He also had no desire to battle his demons. In fact, he convinced Ella she was the impetus for his abusive and destructive behavior. At every turn, he saw injustices that he used to justify his evil ways.

Ella wondered how the man she loved could have morphed into someone so unrecognizable—a man who ruthlessly sought to control her and their two sons.

Her heart bleeds for the children who fall asleep at night having been belittled by a master manipulator, and for spouses who act as buffers while being used as pawns in the thinking and behavior of a manipulator. They are the impetus which drove Ella to exhume their lives with Joe Carpenter. Her hope is that if you recognize the ploys and strategies in this ruthless behavior and better understand the manipulator mind-set, you may heal from their effects.

As she wrote this book, the deep pain returned. She relived sitting on the basement steps in the darkness, appealing to God, placing her hands on her sons’ heads after they had fallen asleep, praying, screaming in anguish and pleading with Joe to halt the verbal abuse. Ella learned it was during those times when she most needed to abide in faith and open the pipeline of communication, consciously passing the torch of responsibility to God, standing firm that He will faithfully answer, not according to her will, but His.

Drawing on the notes she drew in the white spaces of how-to guides, devotionals, church programs, calendars, and on scraps of paper hastily stuffed into drawers, Ella seeks to reassure others trapped in abusive relationships that they are not alone—and that there is hope—in Colonel, That’s My Dress!

E l l a A n d e r s o n earned a master’s degree in business administration and conducted training and counseling about the efficient use of human resources for the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Defense, along with private sector companies and universities. She has worked with individuals ranging from at-risk high school students and prison inmates to generals and scientists. She teaches finance at the university level. As someone who lived with a manipulative and alcoholic husband, Ella is eager to help others trapped in unhealthy relationships.