Brave Little Gerda Knows More Now

[Rita]

In my case the lies lodged into my body and soul until I became in part who I was accused of being... externally, not internally. The schism between the two has caused more pain and anguish than the original lies....

A male friend recently told me that he's seen glimpses of the vibrant woman I used to be, and he prays that I will let her come forward once more. She's in there, just beaten down.

If it's any comfort, bttrfly, I would never have thought this post came from you. In my mind you are butterfly-like -- full of light and clarity, just sometimes wings weighed down by a heavy rain.

In my novel there is a character who is an LBS, and she has a long monologue where she says something just like this, that after a while, blooming out of your desperation and despair, you become the very repulsive being he thought you were, you become the hate and the lies.

I think it's not only an understandable outcome -- it might even be developmentally appropriate, like when we had tails in the womb. We are just being born now, or soon, and look how long it took us to agree to that rebirth.

These comments from you and Elbereth and May and Eagle were AMAZING to ol' Gerderina, true sustenance. I sometimes opened up the forum just to read your words again, ladies. Thank you.

I have so much to report, so so so much. But drowning as usual in work and tasks, never even enough time to sleep.

But one big thing is that D12 cut off contact with H. Of her own volition entirely. She came home from their last visitation totally distraught, could not stop crying. She was grinding her fist into her face saying, "I JUST WANT TO PUNCH MYSELF IN THE FACE WHEN I'M WITH HIM." And even said she wanted to kill herself when she was with him. I asked why she wanted to hurt herself if she was angry with him, and she said she just wanted to not feel how bad it felt. I told her that I could tell him she wouldn't see him but she had to be ready to confirm this when he asked her and to confirm it if a social worker asked her. She said yes, and then we did it. Three days of completely insane texts followed, including from his mother telling her that she would not see her unless it was with H (keep in mind she has seen neither grandchild in I think three years and they were the center of her world before BD) and saying that D12 was cruel to her father and was clearly just repeating my words because she said to my MIL that her dad was "not well mentally" and that it was too overwhelming to be with him. (And of course some doozies to me from H.) Finally D12 agreed to block them. She told me that as bad as it felt to be rejected by her own grandmother, it was better than how she felt when she was with H. Since then I have noticed a real shift in D12. She is sad and emotional but it's like a huge weight was lifted -- or not a weight, more like a vise that was twisting her into knots and pretzels. She is more... normal seeming now.

D12 has been telling me various things that H told her to swear she would not tell me. And one was that he is opening a restaurant with the same friend, godfather to my kids, who paid for his divorce lawyer for a while (until I wrote to his wife and that ended that!). I was really looking forward to the idea that once he got his equity and we were divorced, he would leave my city. Nope. He is opening a restaurant 5 min walk from my home.

And I have never said before what our family business was, but I need to say it now, just so you can understand how deep this weird replay goes -- it was a restaurant.

He ran our restaurant into the ground and had an affair with another woman, his "soulmate," and abandoned our restaurant and family and our home and pursued his dream of finally leaving our city. Now he is opening a restaurant on the shoulders of a "true friend" who can finance it (which is what I did when he wanted to open ours, via loans) literally five blocks away from where he drove ours into the ground before abandoning it. He even tried to hire some of our old cooks, who I considered brothers. And somehow this hurt me more than many things -- these two cooks' wives left them at the same time as my BD. We cried on each others' shoulders many times and they hated H and saw literally in front of all our eyes what he did to our business and to me and our kids. They filled in where he couldn't -- e.g., helping me run the place without him while he took money from the register and drank cases of wine for free. They helped with birthday parties, they built a bike on my son's birthday, they watched movies and helped with lemonade stands for my daughter, they made breakfast lunch and dinner for the kids and gave them presents on birthdays and Christmas. After the restaurant life was over (documented in other threads!), we were always planning to hang out and then Covid happened. And these two guys are going to work for H again now.

That was hard for me to take, honestly. Because H now I understand to be mentally ill plus MLC. His replay is on repeat and each repeat gets more horrific. I have accepted that he is not what I thought, and I can see that clearly now, looking back. But these two other guys I thought were so good, and they suffered just what I suffered. We were so close. So that feels like a real betrayal.

But mostly just my focus in my posts now is to provide some insight to you new folks and to point out patterns that you will encounter if your MLCer follows a similar path. I did everything to save our business, everything to save our marriage, everything to just wait it out. And after eight years, his replay is starting over again, just with our business instead of with another woman.

There is nothing you can do to stop this MLC train. Stop trying. It's on its own track. Just step aside, lest you get hit by that freight train barreling forward. Like a train, he won't even notice you lying with broken legs on the side of the track. Just get out of the way and start walking into the beautiful forest or mountain or town right there where you found yourself. Find out what's out there and how and where you might end up and on which adventure. You might hear his train in the distance but just ignore it and keep walking.

OK, much more to update regarding the latest motions and court appearances but it's almost 2 am and many miles of work to go before I sleep before I sleep.

XO to all my DB beloveds....

- Gerda