Withdrawal, The Worst Stage Yet?

[Rita]

Thanks for the validating words, Gordie. It is an ultra marathon, and it means a lot to have someone who understands recognize that, so thank you.

If you read my first thread, you can see that in this time I survived breast cancer, his A, death of my mom, loss of our family business-- and when I sold it, the buyers never paid me and refuse to apply for their own lease, so I am also battling them, pro se, in court!!!! Kids are suffering a lot because of the loss of their dad, though my daughter is very forgiving and barely remembers the "real papa." When I started this whole thing, I was Jewish and fairly atheist. But I was passionately anti-divorce since my parents' divorce when I was a teen, and was already writing a novel about the normalization of divorce in the 80's.

This experience put my belief to the test and forged an even more powerful belief, based on not the world but on Christ. Many miracles happened to me along the way, calling me to Christ and providing me with courage/strength through faith (including many people sent to me through the church to help me). I have tried to trust God despite the impossible circumstances and despite stumbling. I live very close to my church in a big city and often run there several times to pray and pour our my heart, in addition to the regular church stuff. Confession is a huge help to me when I go, it works in such a mysterious way to confess your own faults when someone else is the obvious cause of so much pain (and obviously you get to talk about that in context too), and I highly recommend it!

That is how I do it.

It is most definitely not finances. My husband has not given me any money in years, and spent money like the usual MLC so there is some debt from that. I am desperately trying to hold on to our house as I run a business here which pays our mortgage. Mortgage doubled last June (predatory loan) and I have been trying to modify it ever since.

Since you said marathon -- Corinthians 9:24. But I also trust God that when he is not supplying me with what I need, despite repeated prayers, that maybe now he wants me to try something else. I am at the end of my rope and unable to be kind or patient anymore, though I mostly manage to be civil. We don't share a room in many years so that helps. The problem is that my husband has nowhere to go and no money at all. I did write him a (loving) letter yesterday asking if he could find a housesit or something for a while but generally if I allude to that possibility he rages that I have to sell the house because he owns this very valuable house and isn't going to be a 50 year old man with no money in his pocket. He says that my desire to keep the house is evidence that all I care about is money and doesn't obviously understand how much I slave to keep it going. I have been encouraging him to go to a lawyer to ask about how it would work so that he can finally understand what child support would mean if we sell.

Ack, this is more than I planned to write. I guess I needed to vent! I really just wanted to hear about how other people's experiences with this stage compare. I am not able to change my circumstances but I do love getting experiential empathy from LBS's if you have more of those!