Brave Little Gerda Passes Through the Door

[Gerda]

Sage oh Sage, sheer happiness at seeing your post. Hearing from you always like sitting on the front stoop with a favorite friend and a cup of tea and maybe looking up from time to time at the kids playing tag. I guess sometimes with one of us (generally me) weeping a bit. Thank you for your return from the World Beyond to lay some love on me. In fact it made a huge impact. I called the office for domestic violence in my city and now I have a caseworker and got referrals to various services including a meeting with a lawyer and a waitlist for therapy with a DV therapist. I also hired someone to be a third party for all the communications so that H and any broker he hires go through her, not me, and I just have to agree to times to leave when it's being shown. And of course all the validation that this is in fact domestic violence, which made it a tiny bit clearer to handle the ONSLAUGHT of texts I received demanding access and announcing the long days H would be spending in my place, cleaning and repairing, all the snide and sarcastic ways he told me I was violating the order to cooperate with him, many of which indicated that he and GF were watching me though I had the second camera taken down after knocking down the first one because every time I left the city -- I have to rent a car to go anywhere, load it in front of my place with dog, etc), and when I did all that and was an hour or two away from the city, he or she would message me that they had to get into the house right away for an important repair or to show the place to a buyer willing to pay three times the appraised value, and it was always right when D14 was getting home from school so that I had to get a friend to meet her and escort her inside in case they were there. I guess their goal was to build up a file of all the times I obstructed them. Just to sum up a long list of horrors in a couple of sentences. The point is that no matter how long it's been going on, and even when Sage and the caseworker remind you that this is abuse and you have to deal with it and its impact, you still always feel like you are faking it for effect in court and have to keep being reminded. (And if KML is reading this, you were right in the early days when I wouldn't listen.) The DV lawyer did confirm what my lawyer said, that it's pretty pointless to file a restraining order, even though one was very necessary in this situation, because it would go back to presiding judge who had issued this dangerous order and who would reject it.

And thank you, Elbereth, Job, DnJ, for walking with me on this rocky mountain pass, I truly appreciate your words and wisdom and advice and care so much and read them over again often.

So many shocking details have unfolded since my last post. I will just share one and then skip to the end.

One of S17's friends still works at H's place, and GF is a partner there. They told this friend that they can't trust S17 anymore because his mom had sent him to spy on them, and that it was such a shame that D and S don't know the truth about what's happening with our house. Not only horrible but pretty stupid to think that the friend wouldn't immediately call/text/chat that to S17. Actually I guess that was the point.

The latest part of the story's end -- my L managed to get the judge to agree to a lawyers-only conference that occurred yesterday. I was a wreck all night, scared that the judge would force me to have the GF as the broker! And despite my L's repeated attempts to come to a solution with H's L and despite the fact that they had the scehduled conference and we have more trial days in two weeks, H filed ANOTHER MOTION, that is number five since August. My L didn't even read it, he assumed that Judge would refuse to sign it, and was correct. Judge took the GF off the listing and told H that he just wasted 30 of the 120 days she had given him for this marketing experiment. So that was good. I was proud of D14 when I told her, she was so relieved she gave this huge smile as if I told her the happiest news of her life, which was lovely and also kind of sad, and then when I said there would be another broker for 90 days but at least it wouldn’t be GF, she said, "Oh, well maybe he can get GF's mom this time" and started laughing! She has been so anxious and depressed through this whole time that I was rather shocked to see she could laugh about it now, proud of her! (And yes, she has a great therapist and for now has cut off contact with H and GF, though she has that confusion about it I know so well.)

And the best part was that at one point the judge said, "You know, when we got this case we assumed Mrs. H was the problem. But now we see that it's Mr. H." FINALLY.

That said, she is still forcing me to go through this 90 day nightmare though I told her no bank will fund me if house is for sale and though we brought multiple testimonies from normal brokers saying that this is an unethical and potentially illegal way to do a buy out. I already have my applications in the queue and I'm just going to take the loan if any come through and hold on to to the funds so no one can say I wasn't ready. Hugely expensive and stupid way to do it, but that's where we are.

I told S17 I was so sorry that his last summer before college was playing out like this and he was so wise once again, saying that it wouldn't have that much impact, they'd just probably be showing it once a week and we could enjoy the rest of the time, since no sale would actually happen before he goes to college either way. He has more stamina than I do!

But what a wasteland, a wreckage, all for no reason. His kids are once again not speaking to him and he doesn't even reach out to them. The GF that my D liked a lot is now hated. My L told me that H owes his lawyer over 200K. All to avoid the inevitable -- a 50-50 split of the true equity in our property and huge debts. Now that I have seen H's biz records and promissory notes, it seems that he has squandered over half his equity on these debts to lawyer and biz partner even before he gets any of it!

I sent my MIL a special plant for her garden on Mother's Day. I took D14 to see her recently, and though we have almost no relationship on the phone/email, when we are together, it's kind of like old days and we don't say anything ever about the divorce or her son. So I sent her this special plant because she has been working a lot on her garden. She sent me a very nice message to thank me, with a photo of the plant, and she said, "Next time you come it will have grown huge! Love you all."

To me that is the whole point of how we walk through our journey. I started out wanting to restore my marriage, not understanding that I was dealing with far more than MLC. Obviously I never want to restore or even be in the same city as H, but I haven't become bitter and I am rarely angry though often afraid. In this last TEN years, slowly slowly I gained wisdom and worked hard through my faith and through the wisdom I got from all of you to hold on to what was best in me, to keep knowing beauty and truth and love and light. For all of you reading -- Just keep loving however you can without bitterness and protecting yourself and your kids (and your finances!) wherever you can with the whatever clarity you can muster, and allow yourself to have hope that watered by the faith and love you didn't let die, one day something good will finally have the chance to grow.