Brave Little Gerda, So Chilled She Could Not Speak

[Gerda]

Gordie, your post was so amazing.

It's 3 am and I got home from work and read. I drank in every word.

I will be cutting/pasting the part directed to my S and giving it to him, along with DnJ's.

I wish he had a man like you in his life. Your children are very lucky.

I then went and drank up all your other posts that you wrote today on other threads

I did not realize how thirsty I was for your words until I had drunk them all.

Your heart and your soul and your mind are so Good.

[Gerda]

DnJ, I am dizzy with the goodness of your post.

It is very late and I got home recently from working at the biz I reinherited, so this will be brief for now.

I read what you wrote and my head is swimming with all that wisdom and kindness and the gentle way you speak to kids.

As I said to Gordie -- your children are very lucky.

My son is also very lucky; this is the second time you have been so good to him.

And by extension, to me.

I will edit and print this out for him. He is still up playing fortnite and talking to all his friends who are doing the same so I will try to get him to go to sleep. I think I shouldn't give your letter to him this late. But will let you know when I do it and what happens.

And I imagine you must be dead tired after your latest ice storm operation and you still sat up and wrote that for us.

I hope as a reward for heroism in ice and at the computer, you are having a very warm cup of English Breakfast tea with a little half and half and a cream scone with raisins in it, and then don't forget to add epsom salt to bath and some extra down comforters for a deep deep sleep.

I am so lucky to have such caring friends. Despite not even knowing each other's names, you have gone beyond the beyond to be there for me and my kids.

I will write more soon.

THANK YOU.

[Gerda]

Marina, all good advice. You have amazing perspective on everything, and when I think of how much you have grown since your first posts -- it is a good reminder that suffering wanes and gives way to wisdom. You have a lot of acceptance and a lot of forgiveness and a lot of patience -- and a lot of hope. I have been working for many hours and it's very late so this is just a short note for now (more later) to say thank you for all your caring. XO

[sjohns6]

Hi Gerda! I wish I could have offered some advice towards your son, but after reading what Gordie, Marina, and DNJ wrote, I don't really have anything to add. What great advice!

So...how was your Christmas? Did you print your son a version of DNJs message? I hope all was well for you this Christmas!

[Gordie]

How was your Christmas party?

What did you do with your son re the letter?

[Gerda]

Sjohn and Gordie, thank you for the visit and checking up on me.

The X-Mas was nice. I invited my H and made a meal from the country of his birth on X-Mas Eve. I went to 5 pm mass with my daughter and a midnight mass alone and at the latter I felt so close to God that I just stood out on the city street after listening to the bells through the dark and crying with joy. The next day I took my kids to mass again even though H would not go (and lectured against it) and my son even was so happy and peaceful though he was on his phone for most of it. I took them out to Chinese food after and we were all happy.

Everyone liked the gifts I got, I did everything myself of course though my H got the kids each one thing. I got one gift from my H, who bought me a toaster -- at least I think it was for me, there was no indication of that but it was sitting there unopened. Our toaster is broken and we have been using a rubber band to make it work. It was really a gift for him as he eats toast everyday and I imagine he'll take it if he moves out, but that's okay, I wanted a new one too.

Anyway it was pretty nice except for him giving my D an old iPad of his, which he knew was my worst nightmare, and when I said it was for her to use only with him there, as I didn't want to have to police her use of it, he gave a long lecture about how he trusted her. But he is never ever with my kids, so it is like handing me a big problem. And indeed in the last few days it has been a battle with her and also with my S who keeps taking it to use too.

We acted almost like a normal family and on the third day he even said, "Don't wait for me for dinner" and had me buzz the back of his neck with his barber buzzer like a wife does.

So it was predictable that the next day he would be gone. He drove somewhere in the car, supposedly to work on his dissertation in another big city with good colleges about four hours from ours, though I said I wanted to go somewhere with the kids. So I am trapped here the whole holiday, can't even go on day trips.

But mostly all I do is run to court for my other business situation, including visits to the police when one of the people I am suing came to the business and harassed me, then the sales tax people came to see if they were going to shut us down but I was fortunately not open, back and forth to court, lawyer calls, brokers, just attack after attack all alone and many evil e-mails from my H about how he wanted to go to the business to take things to sell since I am keeping him in poverty by refusing to sell our house.

I don't engage and I keep trying to be kind but I did decide that we should try to be mature and make a division about car usage so I don't go through this again on a holiday. He has not paid for anything with the car as far as repairs or insurance since BD1 or before, and never helps to park it or anything like that, but doesn't use it that often either. But now he got a part-time job that he needs it for and has been using it. He plans to quit his other pt job, leaving me and kids with no insurance. I had to pay him back for the insurance, but at least we had some good insurance which I need as a cancer survivor! When I asked him about this he said he had to think about himself for once. Anyway, I am going to paste below the exchange we had about the car. I am pretty detached now I guess, it only hurt me for a few seconds and then I just felt sorry for him. But still it will be nice to hear you all recognize MLC in action.

Gerda wrote:
We need to work out the car situation. We were going to do two day trips and maybe go to (my cousin)’s and we are stuck here the whole vacation even for day trips. We can’t go anywhere as an overnight just from Monday night to Wednesday morning even if D9 didn’t have school on Wednesday.

My proposal if you don’t want to buy my half of the car and have it all to yourself is that I have use of the car on kids’ school holidays and every other weekend. This will give you use of the car way more than half the time and will allow both of us to make plans without uncomfortable conversations. I am fine with zip car for IKEA or whatever but I can’t use it for leaving town. When I work in (area he is working in), I just bike from the train but I assume there are Zip car drop off points all over (that area).

H wrote:
It’s 40 mins by car for me to get to work, and it’s an hour and half by any form of public transportation, and since I have had no regular use of the car in years, I’ll need it to get to work until the need to use it get to work dissolves. The alternative is quitting my job. I wish another path — besides my car use Mon- Thur— was possible, but another path is not possible. I am either forced by your plan / vision for the car to quit, or I manifest my plan / vision for the car. My vision, incidentally, is one which enables me to keep a job of which the salary helps me to me meet about 50 percent of my costs for food. I meet the other 50 percent of costs for food, including my costs for, say, toothpaste and vitamins and socks, etc, by monthly loans from (the godfather who is funding his divorce and paid everything for them to go to Rome in Nov and see all the saints, etc.).

Then a short time later he wrote again –

H wrote:

Are you blind to how very not nice it is and how very frustrating it is
when you claim — as you claim as a regular phenomenon in our shared
existence — to need the car EXACTLY at a point when I (humbly gently
congenially) ask permission to use the car? And are you blind to fact
that EXACTLY when I ask for it and EXACTLY when you claim to need it,
most of the time you ACTUALLY never even use the car.

This phenomenon, this outmoded repetition, leaves me with the feeling
that I never did not feel about you and which ended our marriage: that
you will — even despotically will — to never lose control of the things
you own with me, including kids. I cannot abide in precisely these sorts
of grotesque deranged conversations anymore — in which you muscularly and
unilaterally claim ownership and authority over something we own
together.

Your email to me this morning was frankly arrogant and expressive of
decades moral and marital malignancy.

Please ask your lawyer to call my lawyer to come to a conclusion about
the car. You don’t want to talk. You want to control. And I only want to
talk, thru mediation and not talk to you anymore.
- H


Gerda wrote:
I’m sorry you are so upset. I would rather not use the car at all than
argue; and certainly I don’t have the money to pay a lawyer to divide the
use of the car.

If you are proposing for me to have use of the car Fri-Sun and (his work)
holidays, that sounds great.

If you don’t want me to use the car, I will make other arrangements for
now.

- Gerda

[job]

Gerda,

I know that it is frustrating dealing w/him when it comes to things around the home. I'm sorry about the car, but if he has a legitimate reason for using the car during the week, i.e., such as work, I can understand his frustration.

Sometimes the written word is misunderstood and we all react differently. To your h, he may have thought you were pointing out the error of his ways and possibly making him feel guilty about the use of the car. My first reaction after reading your text to him about the car was , oh, no. I can understand why he reacted the way he did, especially if he has a legitimate need. I can understand his response to you because of the way the MLCer's mind works. My advice is start thinking outside the box and having some Plan B's when it comes to going out and about during the work week. I know, you think that the vehicle needs to be shared, but to avoid such text messages, you will need to do something different. Just remember...they do not like to share anything or be inconvenienced when it comes to them.

I am going to suggest that in the future, instead of pointing out things to him, that you try a different tactic. For example, "h, the kids and I would like to know if it is possible for us to use the car sometime this week to visit such and such. If not, we will make other arrangements. Thanks" You will get more from him if you try something different and allow him to think he's the one doing all of you the favor. The more you point out things and word your text messages the way you are, the more stubborn and uncooperative he will be. Ease up a bit because you can't rationalize w/someone who isn't always thinking rationally.

Just my two cents.

[Gerda]

Hi, Job -- that is interesting, how you put it, and I can see that. I have basically not asked him for anything in five years so I am not used to it and will try to remember what you said; but what he is writing is not true. We live in a city with a massive and highly connected transit system, and he could get to work via mass transit the few days of the year that the kids are on holiday and I could take them to see family. He doesn't want to because his commute would be longer. He also took the car to leave for god knows where, but I am assuming a woman is involved since he keeps leaving, on the days he wasn't working.

He did not care that my kids would get no trips at all over the break and was not willing for a single work day to take the train to work (increasing his commute by 1/2 hour each way) so that we could travel somewhere.

He does not give me a penny from this job or any job for five years and he does not pay a penny for the car. I pay for everything myself.

This was the first time that I openly accepted his desire to D and split everything, and that I told him I had a lawyer. I left out the exchange from the day before, which was about his rage at me over what is happening with our old business and his desire to go in and sell things to have money. It is in litigation and i I am trying to find a tenant, but he does not understand that so he is directing all rage to me on that too and does not know that I am working 20 hours a week on that and on going back and forth to court, etc., all with no help and no childcare and my other six jobs at the same time.

I am not trying to sound like I am whining but this is the first time where I tried to be mature and say, okay, you want to split things, so let's come up with a way to split the car and stick to it. The other issue is that my son is so messed up emotionally that I often have to plan a trip very last minute, and sometimes I do or don't make if my son refuses-- literally I usually spend hours the morning of the trip with him raging around the house and refusing to go to the point that half the time I have to cancel, and the other half he finally agrees to go -- but this time he really wanted to go somewhere, so I had high hopes it would work out. My H doesn't face any of that though he has witnessed it in action, he just thinks I am indecisive about traveling, and I don't want the pressure of having to deal with both my son and my H about trips, it has been horribly stressful because literally every time I plan a trip, my H starts up with needing the car and harrasses me up until the hour we are supposed to leave about whether or not I will follow through on leaving. (You will notice in his note he says I only need it when he wants it, but this is the opposite of what actually happens! He NEVER used it all these years except when I said I was going away, he suddenly decided he needed it.)

So your suggestion seems smart as far as understanding MLC but I am not sure if it fits into this scenario based on everything I am explaining here. Do you still think that based on all this? What I offered after reading what he wrote was that I would get the car Fri-Sun when he doesn't work, as well as any holidays he has from his work. I would not actually use it all those times, but it would mean I wouldn't have to have a discussion, it would just be mine to use or to park at those times.

Not that it matters, since none of it worked anyway. You'll see on my last note I withdrew. I am just going to ask my L to include the car split in the pendente lite custody motion if she ever gets off her butt and files the dang thing.

[job]

Gerda,

You have to learn to accept that your h is a selfish, spoiled brat at the moment. I do understand the situation, but nothing is going to change when it comes to his way of thinking, so you need to accept that and move on from there and figure out ways to think outside the box. I would be looking for Plan B's when it comes to taking care of you and your children. You can't rely on him to do the rational thing when all he's thinking about is himself.

When he sees/senses that you are doing things differently, he just might come around a bit. The more you attempt to talk to him about splitting things, including the time w/the car, the more he's going to find ways to aggravate the "snot" out of you. He enjoys the fact that you have to ask/beg from him. Stop doing that...you aren't dealing w/someone who cares one fig about you and evidently not the children either...unless he thinks he'll get more out of having custody of them. Unfortunately, to him you come off as a whining shew that wants her pound of flesh from him. Show this man you can be that independent woman wjo doesn't need to rely on him. The more you appear to whine, the more he'll dig his heels in.

Gerda, you are a smart woman...please stop trying to rationalize w/him...you can't win him over and neither will the lawyers. When something isn't working, try something else. I've given you a simple suggestion to try. When a person puts the ball in someone's court and gives them opportunity to actually think about it and they have a choice to say yes or no, they sometimes will say yes.

In the world of MLCers, it is either black or white...no grey area at all. Try something different next time. Don't be afraid to try something different/new.

[Gerda]

Job, I know you must be concerned if you are weighing in this much. And I consider myself a veteran round these parts, so I am confused by my confusion about your response.

I feel like all I have done for the last five years is pull further and further back and completely rely on myself and ask him for nothing. I literally do everything on my own and do not rely on him at all or even tell him anything about what I do for work or anything. I totally lead my own life and keep our ship afloat alone and pay for absolutely everything for the house and kids on my own, run our rental business alone, have all my other jobs, doing my court case alone for the biz we had that I tried to sell, etc.

But then the D got filed, and I felt like you were all encouraging me to stand up for myself and not let him take everything from me and the kids.

So this week when the car issue came up, I started out by ignoring it and trying to figure out another way to go on a trip. But then I remembered what you all have been advising, and I realized I should not be paying for a car I can't use, nor pay for a car for him to use. He wants a D, he wants to divide everything, so it's silly for me to stick my head in the sand and pretend that it's not happening.

So I think I am really confused by your response.

Do you just mean that until there is an actual D, I just have to accept that I won't get use of the car when he prevents it?

Do you mean that I should keep paying the insurance and repairs on the car?

I would like to be clearer on this not because of the car per se, but because it's the first timeI actually participated in a discussion of a division of something that is both of ours and you told me I did it all wrong when I thought I was doing my own 180 and standing up for myself for once!