Brave Little Gerda Faces the Icy Game of Reason

[Rita]

DnJ, SJohn, Gordie, Job, I know you are right. I even showed your messages to my friend to convince him that it was a bad idea. (Though I would love to open my front door and see any of you there.)

I still think that in another time of history, friends and family from the church would be a big part of our lives, and that the MLCer would not be able to do so much damage before getting the boots kicked out of him in an alley, and I think that was probably a good thing. There are no limits on my H's horrible behavior. Even the court limits him hardly at all. I had to go through months of woe getting this custody agreement down and so far I have not seen a penny of child support, a minute of planned childcare nor has he moved off the couch. This weekend my D was at a girl scout trip and I had to go out of town for a night for a work thing and was in terror leaving my son here. I do not speak to H anymore but I e-mailed him that S had plans but would be sleeping at home and knew that H would be there if he needed anything. I left S money for food. When I got back, S told me that he ate out for every meal, by himself, and that H never offered him any food. When I got back, the food I had left S for the first dinner was still out on the stove, mostly eaten, there was food and dirty dishes everywhere, filthy counters, fruit flies, trash overflowing.

I keep seeing people around town who know us -- I live in a huge city but we owned a very popular biz and know a lot of people. They keep asking me if we are divorcing. I am vague about it but mention that he is not in his right mind and that it's time for him to leave the house for a while. I do not want that identity, and all I can think of is that Christ willingly took the worst punishment, created for criminals (and this is also compelling to me now that I work in a prison and consider many "criminals" my friends) for my sake -- and for H's too -- so I can wear this horrible title that I never wanted or thought would be mine, divorced woman, like a crown of thorns, with confidence in Him.

I am stronger now, as you have all noted. As I return to a more confident self, the one I was before marriage, it erodes other aspects of myself and gets jumbled into my lingering feelings of ugliness and then the whole temptation issue I have alluded to, etc., so it's all a bit confusing. But I am definitely stronger and clearer. I am glad you noticed.

Well, today is my 19th wedding anniversary. So I am ready for a series of comforting notes from all of you.