Little Gerda Goes Forward with Courage and Safety

[DnJ]

Good Morning Gerda

Was the sump pump burnt out and needed replacing? Did you manage to salvage and reuse the subfloor panels?


More importantly: Did you play some games with the kids?

Most importantly: Did you bake me a pan full of Nanaimo bar? Lol.


Have a great day my friend.

D

[Gerda]

Was the sump pump burnt out and needed replacing? Did you manage to salvage and reuse the subfloor panels?

A guy was coming to look at the mini split that is still not installed (long annoying stupid story possibly leading to return of minisplit but maybe you can put on the green cape and fly over here to install it). So I asked him to take a look. He kicked the lid just like you said and WHOOSH all the water went up the pipe. I haven't been able to go back in two weeks, it was rented, but cleaner for renters said it looked dry so hopefully all is okay. The plumbing/heating guy with the magic foot touch said he thought I'd need a new sump pump within the next year. That one must be at least ten years old and doesn't have that kind of top that really seals. Haven't worked on the floor yet. I need to get up there without the kids though now that S15 is snowboarding, he's at least off at the mountain when we go there.

G More importantly: Did you play some games with the kids?

I didn't do games yet. But I did do a movie night with D11 and have been going on long walks at night through downtown and along the river, very beautiful. We've got games and movies planned for Monday (MLK Day) though. I have been trying to take a little time to be more focused on her and not always trying to do a million things at once.

Most importantly: Did you bake me a pan full of Nanaimo bar?

Yes, I did. I was sitting here like an a$$ waiting for you so I had to eat the whole platter.

Meanwhile, back at the LBS ranch --

I am giving a very short version of this story, but I decided to send H a snail mail note every week or two, asking him to settle in various ways. I like to make my own envelopes out of magazine pages, they look really pretty when you mail them, so I even decided to do that. For the first one, I wrote a very clear and succinct note about why I couldn't sell the house without radically changing the kids lives (because I wouldn't have enough left to buy a place in our neighborhood or possibly even our city) and that I wasn't trying to screw him, just to pay him slowly so that I could do what was best for the kids by keeping them home. I also pointed to the fact that he wanted his money fast but that trial, even if it went his way, was not going to be fast. The courts here are backed up by literally YEARS at this point.

He is, as you all know, very intellectual and writes about poetry, so I included two heady and beautiful poems I found about peace which explained that the peace I was seeking was the "peace of dry bones," in other words -- that this was a deathly situation and the peace wasn't going to mean me winning. This sounds like it was long but it was quite succinct. Oh, and I also cut and pasted an 18th century painting about the "parable of the unforgiving servant." I mailed it and never thought he would respond. I figured I would have to write these letters for months and months before hearing back.

Oh and I also subpeoned his tax return because he filed fraudently, pretending that he didn't own any property or earn any rents, was head of household -- and claimed one kid. And the kid he claimed..... S15!!! The one he hasn't seen or spoken to since May, 2019!!!! So weird. He can't claim either, I have full physical custody and get ZERO CHILD SUPPORT so far, but he could have pretended he thought he could claim D, since she sees him and stays over. But S15? Delusional! The court wrote to his L saying that tax returns were basic discovery and was he going to cough it up or did they really have to sign the subpoena, so that's how I got it.

ANYHOO, a week went by so I started my next letter but hadn't finished it yet, and H texts me! He thanks me for the letter and says he would be willing to try mediation!!!!

Well, shiver me timbers!

I sent him the name of one mediator I liked and then a few hours later sent another, thinking he would want a choice. He writes back that he already contacted the first one and that he would be happy to work with whomever I hired and wasn't going to look for one -- meaning he wasn't gonna pay for it or vet them.

So tonight I write to the first one asking if he got the sense that H would do a session, and he writes back that he just spoke to H and that H was willing to do it under certain conditions, please give him a call.

If you are following this rather boring tale, you will notice that H LIED ABOUT TALKING TO THE MEDIATOR YESTERDAY. Why do they lie about such stupid stuff?!

OK, so his conditions --

1. He won't go into a session WITH me. He will only do it shuttle style, meaning that the mediator talks to him, then talks to me, then goes back to him, etc.
2. He won't use Zoom, only phone. (I guess he remembers my photo of his cereal eating with the judge!)
3. He won't pay a dime for it.
4. He will continue to litigate against me while it's happening.

Ah, peace.

BUT -- after almost three years, he is willing to try mediation.

So let's go with that as a sign of progress.

But I would love to hear what this all sounds like from your vantage point, and by "your," I mean all y'all!

[DnJ]

Good Morning Gerda

I was sitting here like an a$$ waiting for you so I had to eat the whole platter.

Ha! I almost shot coffee out my nose!

Oh Gerda, you sound, and are doing, wonderful.

Hire that magic footed handyman and get a new sump pump installed. And a moisture detector/alarm like May brought up. That way it can notify you when there is the start of a water problem.

Perhaps you want to look into a more solidified arrangement with the handyman. He is local to the cabin. If he had a key, he could fix or look after something with but a phone call.

Well, shiver me timbers!

Very apt.

Amazing that H agreed to mediation. Too anything really.

Your letter and subpoena got him through the door. Mediate gently. Let him feel he is proposing that which you are after. I suspect, he wants it as well, it’s become a matter of stubborn pridefully saving face for him. Kind of looks that way with his list of conditions. (He can’t look too agreeable. Although he is happy to work with whomever you suggested. Lol. MLCers. SMH)

Yeah, MLCers do lie don’t they. H’s lying about speaking with the mediator the day before is part of that habitual make believe they tell themselves. They are living a lie! Only when outside events or pressures force them to see the truth do they have to alter their self written narratives. Blow up, run, lie some more, cover up, or whatever. In this case, cover up. H probably meant to call the mediator, and got side tracked, depressed, whatever, and again doesn’t want to look bad (more to himself by the way).

It will be interesting to see what he has in mind. You did set out the ground rules or objectives rather plainly in your letter. This does look like progress in the right direction. It took three years, slow, yet still progress.

Enjoy the movie and game night with D11.

Have a great day my friend.

D

[job]

Gerda,

I do hope that you are keeping copies of the letters that you are sending your looney tune h. Also, I wouldn't put too much stock into his agreeing to mediation. He may very well be playing you.

Watch your back and document everything.

[Gerda]

Peace
by James Ryan

The peace I seek is like the face of shadow
Among bare sleeping stones;
Like desert sunlight sifted mute and slow
Through bleaching bones.

That's one of the poems, and I think it's a good though sombre one for us LBSers to ponder.

Good to see youse, Job and DnJ. (And I do have a handyman, DnJ, upstate, and he actually says, "youse guys" with no irony, but you have no idea how hard it is to get anyone to come by, even if, in the case of my handyman, they are hoping that you really are single now.)

Will reply more later. But yes, for sure, I save and document everything. You should see my record of visitation! It's like 25 pages plus the first two years of handwritten. My problem is that thus far, no one cares what H says or does. My only hope seems to be pure pragmatism.

[Gerda]

Don't say "I toldja so" yet but I GOT SERVED TODAY.

Motion Sequence 8, 9 and 10 have never been ruled on by judge. 10 was just me asking her to rule on 9! Last conference was the cereal sighting, and then, if you are following, I had to submit the nine billion page PDF of all three sequences. I assumed she was gonna rule.

But nope. She actually signed ANOTHER MOTION, Sequence 11.

THIS ONE GOES TO 11!!!!! (That's a Spinal Tap reference, for all you youngsters. Go watch it. It'll cheer you up.)

In this one, he asks for me to be found in contempt for not following the Jan 2020 order that said I would pay him $2500 a month and that I would have sole use. (Neither being contingent on the other but just both settled by that order.) He also asks that the order be dismissed. How that makes sense, I cannot discern. And he asks that he move back in to the rental units, presumably for free. Oh, and that I pay 10K of his legal bills.

So there ya have it, folks. The reason that he said he will only do mediation if he can keep litigating.

I'm thinking at this point that I might have to file for some kind of review of my judge. She has overlooked him filing a fraudulent tax return -- and I don't mean not declaring tips kind of fraudulent. He pretended he is not married and does not own any property or earn any rents and that our son lives with him. She has never made him pay child support. She has never enforced any previous order and lets him continue to dissipate the asset with these endless motions.

BUT all of that said, I am still gonna try to do the mediation. Talk about having to be humble. I'm going to have to stomach this latest motion while doing the mediation!

I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't, but then I was thinking about Matthew 5, Blessed are the peacemakers, and I realized that it doesn't say, "Blessed are the people who make sure that peace happens and lasts and that mean people aren't mean anymore." It means to try, to do all you can to try to make peace. And to walk with faith when peace isn't made. So I am gonna try.

It's all pretty nuts but I figure it can't hurt for H to have to speak with the mediator, the only reasonable person to enter this insanity since it began. Maybe it won't work but it can't make it worse, and it could inject a tiny bit of pragmatism into his addled brain.

But Lord, what a lowlife he has become.

[OwnIt]

Gerda, I know you know this, so I'll just say it once. Narcissists do not negotiate. Ask Pax. If going to mediation would tick off a dispute resolution requirement in your divorce, then do it for that reason. If not, save your money and your expectations and work on your response to Motion #11 that probably won't go anywhere either.

[Gerda]

OWN! I was really wanting to ask you about all this! Thank you for stopping by!

I don't know about dispute resolution requirements. Should I just research that? The court doesn't know about the mediation. I was doing it on my own.

I am at the same time researching the asset dissipation issue. H and his L are very open about the fact that he can't pay his L, that it's all going to come out of the asset, and they keep trying to get me to pay his legal bills though I am pro se and obviously can't afford legal fees. So it couldn't be more clear that he is dissipating our asset on his legal fees. I have never used equity for mine and stopped having an L at all when Covid hit as there was no money for that.

I asked for relief from asset dissipation in previous motion, asking that H not be allowed to continue to file motions before trial. His lawyer is owed at least 100K and continues to work without getting paid. I believe that his L is actually driving this thing more than H -- he is afraid that if H agrees to a payment plan with me, he won't get paid, so he is trying to force the sale of the house even though this will give H far less equity (lost to closing costs, legal fees, broker commission, taxes). She has ignored all my motions and still signed this one.

I am now looking at filing a complaint against the lawyer and asking for some review of the judge's conduct. Even if she had ruled against me in any of the open motion sequences, she would still have established some basic order in this mess and prevented the latest motion sequence. No one is following any orders we agreed on before, it's just mayhem and we need to go to trial.

[OwnIt]

Hi Gerda, I'm only aware of a judicial review panel in one of the courts where I practice. Sometimes you can move to disqualify a judge, but usually that has to be before they're ruled on anything. Don't bother reporting the lawyer. It won't go anywhere (since you are an adverse party) and will take forever. It may also give him personal skin in the game to keep messing with you. At some point he will get sick of working in the hope of fees or the godfather will tire of paying for them. Look at your case schedule and see if you have a deadline that says something about mediation/ADR (alternative dispute resolution) or a similar deadline.

Dissipation of assets is referred to as marital waste and it can sometimes result in an award of some of the other party's community to compensate for the amount. I'm not licensed where you live and don't practice this type of law, so I can't tell you whether your state recognizes it. Generally though if you want to claim something you have to have pleadings on file and put the other side on notice of the claim, if you haven't done that, a motion to preserve the argument might not be a bad idea. The other side's dilatory tactics are sometimes referred to as intransigence. In my jurisdiction it can serve as an award of attorney fees, but since you don't have a lawyer, you wouldn't likely get an award to cover fees. Still, him refusing to agree to anything and filing meritless motions (and otherwise behaving vexatiously) while shirking employment and child support obligations (which are typically presumed in an unemployment situation), look very much like marital waste and intransigence.

[Gerda]

Own, this is incredibly helpful, thank you!

I have asked in the last two motion sequences for an end to motions before trial in order to staunch the dissipation, but maybe it needs a motion of its own.

My judge has not ruled on motion sequences 8, 9, or 10. So I am not sure there is any point in filing another but I will try what you are saying in my response to sequence 11. What you say about instransigence sounds so obvious and clear when you put it like that! I can't believe that not one of THREE lawyers I had ever said that. One of them said if we went to trial, he would ask judge to impute income, but with all of them I kept asking why we weren't filing a motion about it and they were all just unwilling to stop playing defense.

One thing you may have missed in my story -- H's lawyer has not been paid in well over a year. In summer, 2019, I wrote to the godfather's wife and asked her to stop paying. She of course didn't know about it but I think it caused quite a ruckus in that household and the payments stopped. So H's L complained to the L I had at the time that my letter had caused him to stop getting paid. And since then he finally I guess pushed my H to accept a small buy out on the upstate rental, almost all of which went to the L. But he is now owed probably 80-100K, based on the last bill I saw, and is trying to force a sale of the house rather than a payment plan, because he is afraid he won't get paid. He just keeps working for free and billing. That is the main thing I was going to complain about, as well as the time he had to be pushed away from me to avoid a physical altercation. Oh and also the fake offer letters he has produced trying to force me to buy H out at an insanely inflated price.

Likewise H doesn't want to do the payment plan -- and I offered 50K (that I would borrow) as a downpayment -- because he thinks he has to give it all to his L.

Anyway I see what you are saying but I think it is important to get this lawyer's extremely unethical practices on record. Otherwise I am just passing his evil on to the next woman he targets. So I'm not sure it matters if it "works." Think of the limits that weren't placed on people in America the past couple years and what that led to recently.

Likewise my judge. She is known as the worst judge of all the divorce court judges in my city. Everyone complains about her laziness and her anger and the fact that she doesn't care about children. She also has an all-female court staff and I think they are trying so hard to show they aren't biased towards men that they are totally biased toward women. But no one ever complains officially. We all just pass it on to the next sad woman.

To all of you following along -- despite my determination here, I will say that last night, the first time I have been ALONE in years because my son is skiing and my daughter is with the was-band, I found myself face to face with that old demon, disbelief. Disbelief that H is such a terrible person and that he is unwilling to stop trying to destroy me. Disbelief that he would undertake mediation at the same time as he was filing a really disgusting motion against me. I know that that is who he is now and who he may have partly been all along, and yet my raw little heart felt that pain again last night. I tossed and turned all night despite finally having the chance to sleep in without any kids demanding anything. It's the wound of the broken arm -- it hurts and aches again and you have to remind yourself that that's the same wound. It's not a new one, nothing is going to get broken again. I am tired of fighting H's darkness, but I keep trying to tell myself all day today as I finally do the deep clean of this place I can never do when the kids are here, that all I have to do is focus on the light, walk with faith and grace, not succumb to despair or rage or bitterness, and that it may not work, but that this is what it means to do battle with darkness, the darkness in me and the darkness in H. I don't know the answer and that little demon of disbelief is still sitting on the windowsill grimacing at me but I think there is a light in telling those LBS who are earlier in this journey that you can't have as your goal to never feel sad or heartbroken again. You just have to have as your goal the ability to face it without fear.