Brave Little Gerda, So Chilled She Could Not Speak

[Gerda]

Thank you for checking up on me, Job!

Things are so insane here. I have not had time to write and even now I really can't answer you properly. I think my life is really different from most of my friends here because I have battles on so many other fronts besides MLC but all are sort of a result of MLC -- e.g., having to sell our biz and that going poorly, my H not helping me with our other biz so everything falling apart, my H not giving me any money so I have to work so many jobs. I am in a haze of work, court, negotiations with landlord of old biz and various potential tenants and brokers who might take my lease, kids, work, court, negotiations again. Then I come home and sometimes my H starts up and despite miniature you and DnJ and Gordie et all sitting on my mantle, I forget you are there and freak out and run out of the house (my H does not realize I am freaking out, just thinks I am not really answering his questions) and hide in my church talking it out with God for as long as I can.

H also gave D9 his old iPad for X-Mas, leaving me with the inevitable fighting and problems it would cause. One night when kids were fighting over it, I took it and hid it. AND I CAN'T FIND IT AND HAVE TOTALLY BLACKED OUT THE MEMORY OF WHAT I DID WITH IT. I cleaned out my whole admittedly horrifyingly cluttered room and still can't find it. Now have to tear apart the whole apartment to try to find it. So H has been at me about that to the point where I promised I would pay him for it if I didn't find it. Apparently it was worth $700.

I feel like my H is completely spiraling. It's like he was after BD1, this awful dark and desperate feeling emanating from him, along with hatred for me and a sort of miserable smugness, but it's worse because of his friend funding the D. I came downstairs on Friday night at about 1:30 in the morning and he was gone. Didn't see him again or hear anything and I started to wonder if he had left us (and felt relieved, honestly) and then at 7 pm Sat night get a text asking if I needed the car as he was at the house of the friend who is paying for his D, doing "paid renovation work."

Our house is completely falling apart because he never helps with anything -- I mean, roof leaking, in the rentals (and our apt) the windows don't work and the bathroom tiles peeled up, leaky basement -- major things.

Sometimes I wonder if he is really with this friend as often as he says. I think maybe he is still in his A or has a new one.

He continues to corner the kids to tell them how I control the money -- on X-Mas, when I thought everything was so nice, he did that with my S while I was at mass with my D. My son finally asked me about it two nights ago. My S told me that H said that he wants to explain "his side" -- I think he forgets that he has already done this many times. H told him I control everything and won't let him do anything and that it's not right, that a wife should not be like that. He told him that I am jealous when he hangs out with my D! Can you imagine talking to a child this way? And H never ever hangs out with my S, can go days without seeing him, but when H does see S, if I am not home, H does that and then S has a panic attack. When S13 told me about this time, S followed it by saying he couldn't imagine a life without the depression he feels, talked a lot about how he wants to do drugs to escape the pain, etc. So that is why I am scared to leave for overnights, since my S refuses to go and I am scared to leave him with H.

Anyway this is getting too long, I have to run back to work. It was really nice of you to check up on me, Job. You are such a good mom to the LBS's. : )