Gerda Rises Up to Go On

[Gerda]

DnJ and Job -- Thank you so much for weighing in.

Don't worry, I was actually never on the title of the car and I cancelled the insurance and he did get his own license. So that's all his problem now. He even somehow managed to find the money to get the car fixed and pass the inspection! So I guess the car was worth more than I thought!

I've been trying to figure out why I feel so terrified all the time, unfocused, etc. The peace that came with his moving out was intense, but it is being eroded by dealing constantly with the divorce horrors.

I have been reflecting on my stance on this divorce and if I would do better to give in to all his demands and be done with the horrible interactions and his ability to keep harassing me. But what I always come to is that what I am asking for is more than reasonable, and that I have the right to try to keep a half-decent life for my kids if I can. I am not asking for alimony (not that he has any money for it), I gave him the car, I have rented out half my own apartment to be able to give him money every month until now. I am pretty much solely responsible for the kids in every single way and don't really even get any child support -- I just took a deduction off paying him, and when I tried to do that this month, I was forced to pay him the whole amount so I got no child support at all! And I am not disputing that he will get what he is due, only when. I am running the rentals entirely alone (as I have since before BD) -- and that means doing all the reservations, bookkeeping, greeting guests and dealing with issues, cleaning toilets and rooms when I can and managing cleaners when I can't, doing all the garbage and maintenance and what limited painting and other stuff I can manage -- all to keep his asset warm for him and pay all our joint (largely his) debt and get nothing for it except that I don't pay much rent. I am not even fighting for the right to stay in the marital home with the kids til D10 is 18, though I would like to. I am only fighting to stay here for sure until June so I don't have to move the kids during the school year -- esp my son, who has such severe school refusal problems already. And that I be given until then to repair my credit and get the refinance that I have been told by the bank I can get as soon as my credit reaches 650. I have implied that if I can't do that by June, I will sell.

I would really like to insist that we stay here til S14 graduates high school, since it's his school refusal issues that are the most severe and the reason that I have to be home every morning to work on getting him up and out, often for two hours.

I feel like what I am asking is more than reasonable and in fact it's not even fair that he would get so much when he does nothing in any way to support either the family or maintain the asset -- and that I have nothing to be ashamed of for holding my ground. But I am in a constant state of doubt. Everyone is always screaming at court that I am trying to hold on to what is his. The judge has told H to get a job and support himself but she keeps allowing him to demand more money out of me when he threatens to move home. Sometimes even my L pushes me to settle for these absurd timetables H keeps pushing. My L has no kids and does not seem to understand the impact this is having on the kids and my desire to limit further stress until the summer. There was never a GAL because we settled custody, so the extreme issues my kids have with learning disabilities and emotional disturbance of my son has never been openly discussed in court.

H does not want to wait until June. He does not accept any of the court-ordered appraisals and is insisting that everything get put on the market, despite all the appraisers being who HE chose -- because he thinks there will be some kind of bidding war to push the price up higher than the appraisal. Today his L made an "offer" that I sell everything but don't have to close until June.

Sometimes I think that as much as he wants money fast, what he wants most of all is to get control of everything and prevent me from having any agency over anything "left over" from our married life. He is so vengeful and vicious.

I think the biggest problem with MLC in divorce court is that the same rules are being applied here as to any other divorce, and the MLCer is taken seriously, as if all the demands make sense. So something that is totally way out there becomes the starting point for compromise, and thus compromises are not comprises at all, but more of the same insane demands watered down only very slightly. And whenever we do go to court and to my mind H is getting reamed and chastised all over, he thinks that he is succeeding! So we aren't even reading the reality there in the same way either!

I am not really even sure what I am asking here.