Brave Little Gerda, So Chilled She Could Not Speak

[Gerda]

My H picked my daughter up from school yesterday for the first time in ages, I think he has done it maybe 3 times this year. He never discussed it with me, just arranged it with her and she told me, so weird. I felt very nervous about it, especially because afterwards she acts strange towards me, and later told me he had tried to arrange with her that he would do it a lot, something he has not done in years and which I don't want him to do now lest it interfere with my custody motion. But really it was more than that, some kind of lurking feeling I have when he spends time with them that it will be damaging for them because he tries to lure them into his way of thinking.

So for the last 24 hours she has been grouchy and more defiant than usual, and then tonight she cried a lot in bed and told me that H had tried to have a conversation with her all about me and how much I had hurt him and it was like she was totally blocked, she couldn't even remember or articulate what he said, so I just said, "Well, you don't have to tell me. You just mean that it made you uncomfortable." And then I tried to tell her things she could say next time to make him stop -- e.g., "That is grown-up talk and I am a child. I don't want to talk about that." Or "I don't want to talk about Mama. Just pray for her if you are worried about something she is doing." She kept saying,"Oh, then he'll be mad at me." I asked her what he was trying to do in having the conversation and she didn't know, but finally said it was like he was trying to make her not like me.

I have been doing a little better lately as far as being able to be detached but still cordial and even kind, and this was a huge set-back for me, made the little flames of fury start licking at my sad little heart. My L is extremely slow and is taking forever to edit the motion I prepared, so my H has no idea that I am about to demand the full custody and threaten to get a the forensic expert, etc., which will cost his friend a fortune, so I am pretty sure he won't fight me on the custody because he can't possibly ask his friend to cough up yet more money. I am desperate to get some discourse into this whole thing about how damaging is the time he spends with the kids, every single time he lures them into these things and then they are a mess for days.

It is so strange what absolute misery we are all living through, and how damaging it is for our children and how completely different it is from what we all thought our lives would be, not only when we married, but even just before BD. For me, BD was at 18 years of being together, 13 years of marriage. I have been with my H for half my life.