I am so sorry about your upper respiratory cold that is giving you the laryngitis. (That's what gets me nearly every other year if I don't watch out. I hate losing my voice.) And such an awful time to get it too! 12 days is too much. Wish I had a magic cure for it to pass on to you -- just make sure you get plenty of rest.
I am sure you are wanting to get this legal battle over with, or at least part of you does. I know I wouldn't want anymore delays. Then again if it does get delayed, it might really be a blessing, I don't know.
I think it is great that you have such good people willing to put themselves at your service and are so ready to vouch for you. Your pastor is really amazing to be willing to show up in support of you in court -- it says a lot about what a great person you are.
I'm not quite sure why you think you have some sort of exposure on the space heater thing. You were still M'ed to your STBX and it was very early in the S at the time, so you were still quite dependent on him for the duties he had performed and was supposed to have been responsible for prior to walking out. So who can blame you for wanting to compromise with your albeit estranged husband and at the same time take care of your kids. You needed him to continue to honor his duties and he failed to do so even remotely adequately.
You only acquiesced to keep the peace and avoid hostilities, right? I think that would actually work into your L's case in attempting to show you as being verbally abused by H -- she could show that you didn't object to his half-arsed solution because of the prior abuse pattern.
I can say that I am not so crazy about these battered-wife arguments, as all L's try to play that card, even where it doesn't exist. But in your particular case, Karen, given what you have described to us and how he has treated you (especially his public castigations of you, and that crazy stalking stuff), I am thinking your L might not be so far off the mark here.
I really hope you get the job. You deserve a good break, given all you're dealing with right now. God willing, it will turn out as you hope it will.
