MLC W Dates, Part X

[Wet]

Let's start the new thread with a Friday Lawyer joke - This guy called up his lawyer to tell him he was filing for divorce, and the lawyer inquired as to the grounds for the suit.

"I've got grounds, all right," sputtered the irate husband. "Can you believe my wife told me I'm a lousy lover?"

"That's why you're suing?" pursued his lawyer.

"Of course not. I'm suing because she knows the difference."
---------------

Prior Thread: MLC W Dates, Part 9

[job]

How are you doing?

[Wet]

Hi Job,

I am well. I decided against going up north for the weekend b/c my siblings did not want me to also bring my kids.

I have s13 for the weekend. I continue to rest and recover from my spinal fusion surgery. I wish I could go swimming, or do something to get out, but short walks are the most I am able to do now.

W baked me banana/chocolate chip muffins - she must love me! They were good though.

[Gerda]

Dear Wet -- It has been a very long time since I visited the boards but I want you to know I still pray for you and your wife. I am so sorry to hear that you had surgery and so glad to know you are recovering well. I know that many on this board have a different take on things, but if you are getting the daily e-mails from Charlyne Cares, I assume you will not be surprised when I say that it sounds to me like a huge amount of hope and connection is happening and that your stand is not in vain. You are looking at the circumstances and wanting things to happen out of her own volition, but from a faith-based point of view, it looks so clearly to me like God keeps ensuring that "all things [i](e.g., surgery, illness, muffins, slip of the tongue to say, "love,") [/i]work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,”[i]. It is not going to happen the way you think nor on the timing you desire. It could take years for it to happen. But to my mind, if God turns the evil of your surgery into the opportunity to go and stay with your wife, you should go, no questions asked, "rely not on your own understanding" and let her be a wife to you at the times she is willing and able to be your wife. She is your wife, according to God. Charlyne explains this much better than I do, and Heart's Blessing has an article I often return to, one on being a stanchion, that talks about how a return will take far more time than we think we can bear and never happen the way we think it should or imagine it will.

But the funny thing is that I didn't come on line to tell you any of that. Something amazing happened to me today, and I wrote a letter about it, and I was just reading the letter over and it came into my mind that I had to send it to you. I don't question when something comes into my mind in that way and seems good and true to do. There must be a reason I am supposed to send this to you. So here it is, below. Sorry for the endlessly long post.

July 11, 2015

Dear S and E (and Father W),

I wanted to share with you the story of what happened to me today. It is an intimate story from a stranger but you will understand why I felt called to share it with you when you get to the end!

As an explanation of the back story, very much in brief -- I was called to the Catholic faith from Judaism, especially over the last couple of years during a crisis in my marriage and after a miraculous recovery from a severe illness last fall. Because Father W keeps the church open, I have come to Our Lady of X almost every day for the last two years to pray – in fact it all started when I couldn’t get into a synagogue on Yom Kippur for the third year in a row and remembered that the church was always open and went there to pray instead. Being able to go there everyday has allowed me to gain strength and courage for my stand for my marriage in impossible circumstances, and to help me through my illness and recovery. Learning what our unconditional marriage vows really mean has taught me the true meaning of that sacrament, and in turn understanding marriage as a sacrament and a covenant with God has helped me to understand what God is asking of me as a wife and a mother. My journey has included what to me are miracles; and I was baptized into the Catholic faith on the night before Easter of this year.

The last couple of weeks I had been feeling very low and had been asking God to rebuild my courage and my hope for the restoration of my marriage. Finally I decided it was time to go to see Father W to talk about these things. I spoke to him early last week; he told me to stop by Saturday, before he left for Italy. This morning I called the church and was told to come by between 2:00 and 2:30. I tried to get my kids lunch and set up with something to do so that I could run down to the church to see him by two, but I kept being delayed. When I did get there at 2:15, the secretary told me that I had just missed him, he had started a meeting, and it would take some minutes before he would be finished.

I sat in the office for a few minutes, reading through Ephesians in the hope that I would find a word to lift my spirits, and then I went into the church to pray. I always sit on either the far right or far left side of the church so that I can be a little hidden as I pray -- or if I want to be particularly near to Christ or to Mary! After a little while, I went back to see if Father W was free. He was still in the meeting. I was starting to worry about getting back in time to take my kids to soccer and finally, I decided to leave a note to see if I could come back another time. I was thinking at that point of how frustrated I was that I hadn’t just been on time, and how now I would have to wait until Father W came back from Italy, that I would have to carry the heaviness in my heart for several weeks. I left the note; but then instead of going out the front door to the street, for some reason, without thinking, I went back into the church. I started walking down the center aisle of the nave instead of going to the right or the left aisle as I always do, and I saw a seat in the center of the nave where the light from the stained glass window was making this bright area of beautiful light on the bench. I didn’t even look across at my usual spots on the far sides of the right and left aisles, but headed directly for that light. I remember even thinking, “I want to sit in the light and to feel God’s presence in the light.” I felt that I was being led to that seat. I knelt down in the seat and then just before I closed my eyes to pray I saw on the seat in front of me a program; I read it, and saw your names and that it was the program from a wedding. I assumed it had just happened, and I thought, “Maybe God put me here so that I would pray for their marriage.” I picked it up, looked at your names and began to think of how I would pray for S and E to have a wonderful marriage, which to me always means that husband and wife will cherish each other and make it through all of life’s difficulties in those earlier years and grow old together and become grandparents together. I always think of this as my goal for my marriage, that our family will be restored and my husband and I will grow old together. But then before I began my prayer, I thought I would look inside the program to see if there was something I could learn about S and E so that I could pray more specifically for them. And then I saw your first reading, from the Book of Tobit.

My heart sort of stopped at that moment, because the Book of Tobit is very special to me. I read it four or five years ago and I was very excited about it because it seemed to fill in some of what was for me imprinted on my heart but missing in Judaism, about love and forgiveness and the surrender of self. In excitement, at that time, I went to my uncle, who is a pretty major theologian in the Jewish world and asked him about it. He said to me, “Where did you ever find that? We don’t even include that in the Torah, it’s just all magic and folk tale. Only Christians use that book.” I was shocked and dismayed that this book that seemed to fill in some of what I had been looking for in my faith wasn’t even considered True. But I started writing a film script based Tobit because of my strong feelings about it; and I always imagine that when my family is really restored, I will finally be able to finish that script.

So it was very shocking that “my” book of Tobit was there. Maybe it is often included in Catholic services, and I just haven’t been to as many of those, but in the many weddings I’ve attended in my 43 years of life, I have never once seen the Book of Tobit included in the service. And when I read the reading, a flood of tears let loose – I felt like I was reading the words straight from God to me, encouraging me to remember that God created the world and created marriage for husband and wife to help and support each other, no matter what -- and that I was chosen for my husband and he for me, even if the current season was a dark and confusing one -- and that our marriage was for a noble purpose, and that we would indeed “grow to a happy old age.”

I was already crying with relief and gratitude at this point; then I noticed that the program was from yesterday afternoon, and that for some reason it had never been cleared from that spot, and it suddenly seemed to me that all that had happened in the past week, with me making that appointment with Father W and then not making it in time and having to wait so that I would be “led” into the church and to a spot where I never normally sit just to find your program and to get that message that would restore my strength and courage and conviction – not to mention all the things that had to happen for both you and me in our lives to both end up at X to begin with -- this seemed like no coincidence. It was as if the message had been left just for me, through the grace that was your marriage ceremony.

I sat there for a long time holding the program and reading that reading over again. I kept thinking of Saint Paul’s assurance that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,” that we need never worry because God will turn everything to his purpose, just as he did in that moment for me. And I thought then that I had better write to you and tell you what happened, and that maybe this would make some difference in your lives together too.

I pray that you will always love and cherish each other unconditionally and that your marriage will be blessed as a testimony to others of true commitment and self-giving.

With love in Christ,

Gerda

[Gerda]

P.S. Before my post gets some fiery replies, I just wanted to clarify that I don't think that your surgery would suddenly wake your wife up. Breast cancer woke my husband up only for one day and then he slowly but surely went deep back into that tunnel, that was eight months ago. But that one day was one of the happiest days of the past year for me -- even though it was the day I had a mastectomy! -- and it let me see that my husband is still in there, deep somewhere inside that weird, mean, selfish angry -- and very sad-looking -- alien he is mostly. It really gives me strength to remember that one day of true caring, and anytime he offers anything at all, to eat dinner with us, to put up a shelf, to carry a bag, I am always receptive and as open as I can be, without any expectation whatsoever for the moments and days following that offer. So if your wife came to take care of you for a few days and was a little weird and out of place and said a few things you didn't like or it all was a little tense, I think it's a great opportunity to enact your own patience and kindness and openness and zip your lips -- and when she leaves again, you thank her warmly and with no expectation for what might follow. She might retreat deep into the tunnel for a long while, she might not. I know that on this board people are big on boundaries, but I believe that would mean, for example, that, while she is staying with you to help take care of you, you tell her you have to leave the room when she criticizes you. That's my take!

I probably won't go back on this board for a long while, as you know. But sending love and hope!

[kat727]

Glad to hear that your surgery went well. How long do they say before you will be back to normal?

Kind of strange that your siblings didn't want your kids to come. Or did they just want adult time? I think your kids need to be there for you so maybe it was all for the best.

You are going to get lots of different views here. I don't take that as bad. As someone who has gone through it, I do have to say, this experience will show you what you are made of. Have faith in yourself to create the life you want. If she does ever actually want to come back, the odds are that you will be in two totally different places. The relationship would need to start all over and she would have a ton of self work to do, not many people get there.
God doesn't do the work for anyone.

People come into our lives for various reasons. I believe my ex was here to give me my kids, but he really doesn't know how to be a dad. I think he just want to be buddies with his kids, even now he differs to me when there are issues. He will have to decide if that is enough..

Keep working on your family and making your life a good one.

kat

[Wet]

Hi Kat, thank you for your thoughts on why people are put into our lives, and your kind wishes about my surgery.

Gerda, I am always thankful to hear from you. I have some thoughts that I will share about what you wrote. But I will save that for later.

W called me several times today, on s13 being in a sour mood, ways to help d18 get more from her college loans, and her money crunch b/c she has still not received our state tax refund. It's been over 3 months now and she was counting on the refund back on April.

So the discussion with W on her tight finances, W decided to tell me that she needs to find a "a roommate". Of course, the trigger flashed in my mind of W living with another guy and my s13, and this made me mad.

But I quickly calmed myself, and perhaps the roommate would be a female friend. I know she is not thinking of me, as a year ago I tried to "rescue" W from her housing troubles and offered to move in with her, which she rejected. But whoever the roommate is, it is something out of my control.

So my focus is now switched back to me and my recovery right now.

[Wet]

I want to make you smile, so here are a couple of good lines about lawyers:

First, from a movie:

You wanna waste my time?
Ok. I call my lawyer.
He’s the best lawyer in Miami.
He’s such a good lawyer, that by tomorrow morning,
you gonna be working in Alaska.
So dress warm.

-Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface



And from TV:

As your lawyer, your brother, and your friend, I

highly recommend that you get a better lawyer.

-Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly), Twin Peaks

[Wet]

Hi everyone, I need some advice.

I picked up s13 today who was taking a shower when I arrived. So I sat and chatted with d18 who is getting ready to head to her out-of-state college at the end of August.

W came and sat down next to me on her couch. We had some light convo, but then obsessed W came out. She was obsessed about 2 things:

- Money. She still has not received the state tax refund which I gave her in exchange for my filing as "head of household." She needed reimbursement for signing s13 up for football (which I gave her, and

- Her "change of life", is this called menopause? She gave me gory details of change of moods, body hurting more (I gave her a little back massage), hair growing everywhere, her putting on 10 pounds, etc. When I mentioned I thought this was happening 9 months ago when she had an intense hot flash, she agreed and told more stories of her "hot flashes";

W continues to be fighting constantly with s13 over cleaning. Before she would let him leave with me she made him take 3 bags of garbage out. I supported W when he spoke disrespectfully to her. Finally, he got sick of W, took the final bag of garbage out, and went and sat in my car w/o telling anyone.

So here is where I need help - W continues to ask me to take over her 3 br condo, which is slightly more expensive than my current 2 br apartment. Should I suggest that we live together in separate bedrooms in W's condo?

W has no source of income, and she thinks she can get a much less expensive place to live on her own. Money is always tight for both of us, and so living together is a sensible idea for us both to save money. S13 would have the benefit of both parents being there for him, and I can keep him on task better than W on doing chores. I would ask that she pay a few hundred dollars a month towards rent, which should be less expensive than any place she could find.

Any thoughts?

[AJM]

Really wet?

You think it might make sense to move in with a menopausal woman you used to be married to that dates other people?

Masochist? Or just nuts?

Personally, I think you know better than to move in with a woman that's dating other people. Especially one that you used to be married to.

And for goodness sake, now's a good time to pull a 180 and not save her. That's part of what is needed, don't you think?

AJ