Brave Little Gerda, So Chilled She Could Not Speak

[Gerda]

DnJ, thank you so much for checking up on me so much today. You knew I would be desperately looking, and, as usual, you delivered. (((DnJ)))))

I am totally exhausted tonight, spiritually I mean, though physically too, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. (Do you know that poem? If not, go read it immediately, it's basically Robert Frost channeling DnJ.) so I am not going to write much of anything now except to thank you for your post and to say that it all makes sense.

I think if I knew that I could win in a trial,over the kids, it would be clearer.

Because ultimately it is King Solomon and the baby to me. My mind cannot adapt to this worldly idea of dividing children. I was a child of divorce and the idea of living in two different houses was insane. Thank god I was spared that, though I was not spared any other of divorce's horrors. Now the thought that I would have to divide my children, well, I can't get my head around accepting that but I can't tell if I have to. I don't care if H sees them every single day. I just want them to have one home, one place they sleep. And that is what they keep telling me they want.

Alright, that's all for now. I will read your post a dozen more times tomorrow and answer more soon.

Thank you so much, truly.

[Gerda]

Woke up very early with a raging migraine and couldn't find any advil so I had to go downstairs to get some. H was up and said, "Hi," when I came in. I could not control myself and said, "Don't say hi to me, you've become so evil I --" and then cut myself off. He snickered. I went upstairs with my advil.

Thinking all night about what you said, DnJ, and about the other perspectives I got.

I am always cleaning up my H's messes. Now my only choice is to try to once again find a way to feed his voracious appetite for money or otherwise either come up with the money to pay for the child advocate or to pay him. I haven't spoken to my dad yet, but my only option would be if he is willing to dig into the money i would inherit one day, a very uncomfortable conversation. He is 91 so it's not totally absurd but it's awkward and he does not like to part with money.

And this is all assuming he will take money in order to end this quickly and will give up on the kids.

Or I can just wait to see what will happen, hoping that he won't be able to afford to keep going in this way. But it seems like the court in my state is incredibly harsh and my judge is incredibly horrible so it could be that because I am refusing to do a "reasonable" custody, they will make me pay for the GAL.

But maybe that's what you mean,DnJ. How far am I willing to go?

In his mind, it's me who is weaponizing the children. In mine, it's him. But neither kid wants to have to leave our home and neither one knows that his entire plan is to liquidate our home, changing our lifes completely because where we live is so expensive and we can't just pick up and move, even if I ended up with a chunk of money from our house sale, it would not cover even a 1-bedroom in my city.

I guess I will talk to my dad and find out if he is willing to give me inheritance money in advance instead of spending it on a GAL. If he is not, I guess I have to dig in but then my dad would still have to be willing to fund a GAL because I can't come up with it. I am short thousands of dollars on mortgage again this week.

I need my H to move out so I can at minimum rent out part of our apartment to pay bills.

Maybe I need to play hardball and say that we have to do that and I will pay him some of what I earn doing it and otherwise I will let the house go into foreclosure. But that would only screw me too.

It's funny how you said, "now you know how far H is willing to go." Because I still don't. I still keep thinking that something will wake him up. And for me the hardest part is that he thinks what he is doing is righteous and in God's will, and that every move I make shows what a controlling horrible person I am. He has convinced others of this to the point that they are paying for his D lawyer. There is something about that that destroys my confidence. I can't figure it out but somehow in the face of his perversion of reality, I can't feel confident in what I know to be true about this. I can't even figure out how to phrase it to him -- e.g., "H, what you are choosing is... I have to choose...." I don't even know how to fill that sentence in.

And underneath it all, to keep feeling that I am standing for this marriage. I don't understand how I am supposed to play this horrible game and still feel in my heart that I am standing, they are two opposites. I need to reread all the old posts you and Gordie and Job have written on this topic to me. But maybe now it's a little different.

[DnJ]

Good Morning Gerda

I know you have much on your mind, and lots to consider. When I read your post two things jumped out at me, well one really - the root of my response this morning. Accuracy.

My mind cannot, for the moment, adapt to this worldly idea of dividing children. I was a child of divorce and the idea of living in two different houses was insane. Thank god I was spared that, though I was not spared any other of divorce's horrors. Now the thought that I would have to divide my children, well, I currently can't get my head around accepting that but I can't tell if I have to. I don't care if H sees them every single day. I just want them to have one home, one place they sleep. And that is what they keep telling me they want.

As I said, things are settling with you, be accurate with yourself (and L). Accurate in thought and heart.

The mind is powerful and you will create more barriers and stumbling blocks when you think “cannot”. I changed your post a bit, added some text. A much better change is to replace cannot with won’t or will not. This probably seems small and inconsequential. I assure you it is not. Can’t is beyound our control, won’t or will not is within our control. Be accurate, especially for things you control.

You stated “I just want them to have one home, one place they sleep.”. Is this the truth? What if they live with H and you visit? That fits the criteria.

I will assume you mean you want them to have one place and that is with you. Be honest with your desires and wants. You may have to adjust them, and it will be easier if there are out in the open. To ensure I am being clear, this openness is within yourself and with your L - DO NOT TELL H ANYTHING!

Seriously, you and H are battling over division of everything, do not fall for any of his tricks or scams and share stuff with him - it will cost you - in more ways than money.

Take care of yourself.

Will talk soon.

DnJ

[job]

I agree w/DnJ...do not share anything w/your h in the way of what you are attempting to do w/the settlement.

I have one question...why don't you take half of what is in the bank account and let him have the other half? I would be very transparent w/the paperwork once you have done this w/his lawyer...not him. He wants access to the account, then give him his share and let him have all the access to his portion of the account.

As for the children, I can't see this man being accountable and responsible for their daily care.

If you should ask your father for assistance, be sure you not tell him or his lawyer at the moment where the support has come from. He's already made up a story that your father has been supporting you.

Come here before you do anything and bounce your ideas off of us.

[Gerda]

I got a doozy of an e-mail from him this morning, I guess my "evil" comment combined with Catholic friend's look of horror and shock in the courtroom really is bugging him. In the upside-down world of MLC, his guilt gives me a little hope for the "one day."

Job and DnJ, your support is immeasurably wonderful. I am rushing to work so I have to pore over everything later. I am just amazed that these people out somewhere in the world who don't even know me take so much time from their lives to help me. It's incredible. I am so very grateful to you and wish I could leave a box of my best chocolate chip cookies on each of your doorsteps.

I have a lot of questions for DnJ; your posts always make me realize that I am not seeing something that is standing in front of me but usually I still can't see whatever it is without a few more clarifications, so I will write again tonight or tomorrow.

Job, my husband is a joint owner on the account and can empty it any time he wants. He doesn't do so because somewhere in his addled brain he knows I am already struggling to pay the mortgages, debt and kids' care. This week there is currently $800 in our joint account and over $8000 in scheduled bills to go out on Friday. This is pretty typical for each month and I usually put 100% of my income in to cover the bills, while he puts in 0% of his income; but in January I don't get paid at all because it's in between semesters.

As far as giving him any money, my L has told me I must never ever give him any money ever again. It has been great actually to be able to tell him that boundary.

Love to you both, thank you!

(You can probably tell I am feeling a little better. I had an idea of a proposal for him but haven't hashed it out in my mind yet.)

[kate11]

Your situation is so enormously difficult I cannot even imagine what you are going through. Being new to this I have no advice but wanted to send along my best wishes. Hoping for the best possible outcome for you and your children!

[Gerda]

Thank you, Kate. I really appreciate the compassion. I am leaving out half the story, my life is truly impossible right now. I sometimes feel like I can't move.

But to all -- I already got an offer from his lawyer, but it really weaponizes the children, just like DnJ said. They started the whole thing demanding 100% custody, alimony and child support and now already it's visitation (too much but still) but says it will all only start when I either sell my house or buy him out. It's so openly using the children that it's frightening.

And I keep hearing from so many people that no one cares if he is crazy, etc., that it is his right to have them half the time no matter what. I have to talk to my L to ask her what the worst case scenario is to decide what to do next.

But overtime I get a letter from him or his L, my heart turns to lead. I was so chipper all day and then as soon as I see that, I just become paralyzed with sorrow. I still can't believe this is happening, keep thinking he will not go through with this.

Probably no point in posting this but I thought it was interesting that he could not bear to admit that he is leaving the marriage so he had to write this long essay proving that we don't have a marriage. I thought this might be useful for others to read such a clear example of the MLC mind.

But it still hurts. I don't take it seriously or to heart, per se, I don't think anymore that it's really my fault. But even after 5 years, it still hurts to be rejected by him, I still want him to wake up, I still read this and feel so sad at his mind so overthrown, and I still shudder to think of the children having to face what is coming.

On Jan 16, 2019, at 7:48 AM, H wrote:
(Uses my most formal work name),
I am not leaving a marriage but literally leaving feudal arrangement, an invisible —invisible to you — texture of servile dependency — a maladaptive and dysfunctional habitus of family and of home and of love and of vocation which you would wish to solidify for the rest of life.
Let me explain: A marriage can be said to be happening when two people stand — naked, vulnerable and at great mutual and equal risk — in an absolute and unequivocal relation of equality before the powers of decision-making on all matters and manners of thing that we own/ share together, including the kids.
Therefore, I am not in a marriage: you are very ready for me to absorb the risks of your unilateral-preemptive (Type-A) decisions but you are absolutely not ready to absorb the risks of another decision maker who (me, your husband) in the context of a so-called “marriage” should be an absolute equal and not an adjunct, an emissary, an errand boy.
I did not come into existence to be an errand boy, and to have all my agencies — as a husband, homemaker, father — micromanaged and unto a point impotency. Admit to yourself, Gerds, that you want someone with whom to be married who takes orders and who shuts up as a whole universe of action ceaselessly unfolds around him, unilaterally controlled by you, and of which he often has no agency to alter and with which he has little affinity. Convenient for you who has no bandwidth to take order and orders and all and only bandwidth to make order and orders. Please really see yourself, Gerds. We don’t have eyes behind our heads. We have to ask people to show us our true selves.
You are very ready for me to quietly passively servilely absorb the risks of your unilateral-preemptive (Type-A) decisions on matters of finances, your unilateral-preemptive (Type-A) decisions on the manner of how an ordinary family day and an ordinary family life may unfold and feel like, unilateral-preemptive (Type-A) decisions on the matter of what is and is not an “education” and is and on the matter of what is not and is not an exposure to truth and beauty and goodness, and very ready for me to quietly, passively servilely absorb the risks of your unilateral-preemptive (Type-A) decisions on home renovations, food shopping, kids menus, S13 spending tens of thousands on trivial things of commodity culture, on the matter of the narration to the kids on the meaning of life—- but you are absolutely NOT ready to open your obdurate borders and Gerda orthodoxies enough to expose yourself to the risks of another human’s (your very own husband’s) powers of seeing, feeling, and decision making on all (not some) matters and manners of things that we allegedly (but not actually) share.
I am not leaving marriage. A marriage (to perhaps my own idiosyncratic mind) belongs to two people who stand equally, nakedly, vulnerably at risk before the powers of decision-making on not only all matter of animate and inanimate thing they possess together but also on “the meaning of life” from which flows all powers of decision making. Again, it’s been very convenient for you to instantiate — to despotically and muscularly insantiate — a reality in which I am silently and invisibly called to absorb all the risks of your decision making, but the very notion — a beautiful notion to me — that you might be called by God, by the universe, to bear the risks of decision making by another is - in my lifeexperience with you— entirely beyond your emotional and intellectual and spiritual bandwidth to comprehend. I am not leaving a marriage.
- H

Then added another e-mail --
PS— it has been said, Gerds, that the “Clash of Civilizations is a Clash of Definitions”—the clash of all of the identities of things and that make up the identity of one and not another civilization. Our so-called “clash”— as I feel it and know it — is a clash between one and another definition of what a marriage “bond” is, entailing the question of whether a “bond” is feudal or equal. (See Cordelia’s use of the word “bond” with Lear.)

But here I importantly add that I have finally — after many decades alone and with you — have arrived at phase in life in which I want no part whatsoever in a “clash” mentality. And it is because every single time I gestured in the direction of a radical “equality” milieu, I experienced with you nothing but “clash,” combat, a clash of definitions: for I unremittingly was violently hostilely shut down, disavowed, Grendalized for urging toward absolute unequivocal marital equality and absolute equal risk before the powers of decision making on all we share together.

Which was for me to urge a new paradigm, a new healing definition — my own definition — not only of what marriage is on paper but also what it can and must and will be in practice. It is because I refuse to participate in a “clash” mentality anymore that I am doing what I am doing: getting a so-called mediator who solely exists to give rise to “the new,” a conversational milieu of equality and to vanquish “the old,” a conversational milieu of “clash” that over and over went always in the direction of what is (despotically) favorable (in a feminist-liberated epoch of history, the epoch that despotically owns all our “definitions”) to you, Gerda.

I am in other words, leaving a clash-of-civilizations mentality to embrace the reality that there is (for better or worse) only one civilization with an illimitable variety of different definitions for the identities of things in it. And yes, while I axiomatically assume that some definitions and practices are better, truer, more beautiful than others, I also trust that the lesser-lower (and least poetic, and more totalitarian) definitions and practices can coexist alongside the other higher ones (albeit they are the subaltern dissenting ones) in one reality of civilization, in one reality that doesn’t require the necessity of “clash.”
- H

[DejaVu6]

Gerda... there are no words. You are right. Certifiable. Do what you need to do to move on. I would take a WAH over this craziness any day. I am so sorry you have to deal with this. (((HUGS)))

[Pax_luv]

Oh Gerda,
He is something else. I’m so sorry you are going through this. As long as he is around and demoralizing you, you aren’t going to find peace. Protect yourself and the kids. Do what you need to do. I’m so sorry you are going through this. I can’t even imagine.

[DnJ]

Hello Gerda

It looks like we posted this morning at the same time. I never even seen your post until tonight, along with the one with H’s letter.

Goodness gracious that man can string together the obscure parts of the English lexicon. (That’s the best I could do right now ). Seriously, I am pretty skilled at active listening and/or reading; half way through his letter I’m looking for a fast forward button and have shut off my mind to protect it from the numbing barrage of verbosity. (Oh, that was better).

I read what he wrote, three times actually, all I have is a unilateral-preemptive (Type-A) headache! Man oh man what a jabber box.

Gerda the sooner you get out from under this yoke, the better. This man has some big time issues and you are the women in his cross hairs. The most compassionate thing to do for him would be to allow him the chance to heal. It is also the best thing for you and your kids. Give him all the space and time he is demanding. He feels he needs to get away from you. Let him.

I know that hurts, I truly do. That is the single most compassionate loving thing you can do for him. Nothing you can do is going to fix him or wake him up - only himself. Let him be. You, look after Gerda and her children.

I haven't spoken to my dad yet, but my only option would be if he is willing to dig into the money i would inherit one day, a very uncomfortable conversation. He is 91 so it's not totally absurd but it's awkward and he does not like to part with money.

This is not an uncommon arrangement. It is only an uncomfortable conversation, until you have it. In my case I did get an advance on my inheritance to help out. Parents, no matter their age still would like to help their children. I have an agreement that I can repay them back over time, if I wished to, or am able to. Otherwise it just comes off when the estate is shared between my and my sister.

You should explore this avenue before seeking alternative sources (other loans) of income.

And this is all assuming he will take money in order to end this quickly and will give up on the kids.

Big assumption, however not beyound the scope of a real possibility. Just look at what my W did. Keep negotiating and see how eager he is to end things. He may want his money rather quickly and will settle in your favour for a speedy end or a little more cash.

But maybe that's what you mean,DnJ. How far am I willing to go?

This is a difficult question. To quantify one’s willingness. There are so many factors.

Custody is, from what I’ve read, you biggest concern and fear. You and H had kids. Each of you has rights to your children, hence the 50/50 scenario I spoke about. From what you have said H is already weaponizing the children, so it looks pretty obvious this is a big point to him, whether it is also a bargaining point remains to be seen.

From this point on only use your L for negotiating, unless she says otherwise. I am figuring you would like more than 50/50 and there is a lot that can be offered, however H still has to want it. And with that in mind if an idea comes from you, his first instinct will be to reject it. Let the “ideas” come from the lawyers (in his view). The best is if he thinks he came up with the idea. I hope you understand what I am getting at.

The other part of how far are you willing to go - is reasonableness. I really hope H gives in and you get custody, but if he digs in, is it reasonable for you to go to trial. How far will you go, and is it reasonable? These are things you need to discuss with L, and keep an open mind too. You can see how things get cloudy very quickly, that is why it is best if things can get settled in an agreement between the two of you.

It's funny how you said, "now you know how far H is willing to go." Because I still don't. I still keep thinking that something will wake him up. And for me the hardest part is that he thinks what he is doing is righteous and in God's will, and that every move I make shows what a controlling horrible person I am. He has convinced others of this to the point that they are paying for his D lawyer. There is something about that that destroys my confidence. I can't figure it out but somehow in the face of his perversion of reality, I can't feel confident in what I know to be true about this. I can't even figure out how to phrase it to him -- e.g., "H, what you are choosing is... I have to choose...." I don't even know how to fill that sentence in.

And underneath it all, to keep feeling that I am standing for this marriage. I don't understand how I am supposed to play this horrible game and still feel in my heart that I am standing, they are two opposites. I need to reread all the old posts you and Gordie and Job have written on this topic to me. But maybe now it's a little different.

...you said, "now you know how far H is willing to go." Because I still don't.

Gerda, you are in denial. (((Hugs)))

You know what he is willing to do. He is ripping apart your marriage and family. I know you would work to fix whatever the problems are between you. That’s the thing. The problems are not between you, and not your’s to fix. Read exactly what you wrote, in his mind he is fully justified in his position - righteous and in God’s will.

You know. Make your way out of denial.

As for standing and understanding how to play this horrible game. It does seem opposite, at first. I am hoping by now some of what I wrote is allowing you to see a bit clearer. I really mean it, this is the most compassionate and loving thing you can do for him and yourself.

His journey is all about him. You can’t help him.

Your journey is all about you. You can help you.

Standing is not based on any of this horrible game, on this ugly and necessary step in his path. Standing is for you. Stepping down is for you. Neither is for H. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense at this moment, be patient it will. Right now you have to focus on you and kids, and get through this part. You can think about how this affects standing after, for now your standing and doing what you need to do.

Gerda, I am glad to offer what help I can. Let us know what offers he makes (if you would like too). There are a lot of caring people here with good viewpoints that can give some really good advice.

Take an Advil, ignore evil H, and get a good night sleep.

DnJ