Thank you so much
I've been meaning to write an update and a thank you to everyone who has given us their support.Court went well. The restraining order was extended for a further 90 days with many stipulations. He is allowed to have telephone or email contact with us and allowed to be in our presence under certain circumstances, such as during counseling, this was one of the stipulations. But last week our family counselor dumped us. She said that his personal therapist will not work with her at all, and that she can't move forward, or know what to do without some knowledge of where he is at with his therapy. His therapist has also told my lawyer that she doesn't want to work with me, or have anything to do with the court either. And it's not like it's my husband who is dragging his feet on this one, he has given her his written consent and authorized her to speak to the family therapist and court. In fact one of the stipulations is that he won't get back into the home unless his personal therapist says that he is safe to do so, or in the case of divorce, he will need her to vouch for his safety to get visitation with the kids. So she's hurting him more than she is me, but since I had hoped that at the very least we could learn to be civil around each other, I am upset that we can't move forward with the family therapy.
She also said something that frightened me. She said that during their private sessions my husband has said some things that leads her to believe that he should not be in the home or anywhere near me. Because she can't talk to his therapist, she doesn't know if he is involved in any type of counseling for anger management, and that he is very impulsive when he is angry, and does what he feels like doing in the heat of the moment without considering the consequences. She is worried that I might say things during our sessions that will anger him, and he might have enough impulse control in front of her, but what happens after we leave? She thinks he might come after me and attack me if he is angry enough. That's why she can't be our counselor anymore, because she doesn't want to be responsible for that, and doesn't think we belong in counseling. We simply don't belong anywhere near each other and without the knowledge of where he is at with his personal counseling, we might never belong anywhere near each other.
He's still acting weird too. Sometimes he is so nice that I begin to believe he's back to his old self, other times he is playing head games and being vengeful. He's still playing games with money so that I'm never sure if we will have money for groceries and bills or not. Since there is a court order though, we aren't eligible for food stamps and are depending on him to pay up on time. He's skipped a couple of weeks and explained that since he has to pay the mortgage he didn't have enough for that week and that I'll just have to ask my family for help, and to budget better. The other times, our bills were the excuse too, for being late with the money and giving me only $100 for the week. I'm doing the best I can with what I've got, and can't thank those of you who have sent money through my paypal enough. You got me through some rough times and I was able to get what we need because of your help.
And...you helped me in another way you don't even know about yet. Nearly 25 years ago my father had a bout with cancer. He went through the chemo and radiation and it kicked his ass, but he was a tough one, and went into remission. Since then he's had skin cancer several times, each time it's caught early and removed. He goes every year for a thorough physical at his doctors office. This year they did a full body scan, I'm not sure what that means, but whatever it is, they found out he has cancer again. He has an aggressive lymphoma and has 6 tumors, one about the size of a tennis ball on his small intestine. He has to go through the chemo and radiation again, and he's not so tough anymore, he's in his mid 60s and diabetic. They are only giving him a 50/50 chance that it will work. If it doesn't work, he only has a few months to live. Anyway, without your help, I wouldn't have been able to go visit my father. I was there last weekend to spend some time with him and let him know that I love him. Thanks so much for giving me that opportunity.
I do have a bit of good news. I've had some of my meds switched, I ran out of Robaxin a few weeks back and didn't have the chance to get it refilled for a few days, and there was no difference. I told my doctor this and since it's not doing anything we dropped that med, and I was put on Flexeril instead. That one is working! Both meds are muscle relaxants, and I was so stressed out that the muscles in my back were in knots. Seriously, you would think I work out if you felt the muscles in my back because they are so hard. The Flexeril loosened that up, and since it was causing some of my pain, the pain has come down a few notches. I'm not pain-free, but I am doing much better. It is such a relief to be able to do something like laundry, without worrying that I will cause a flare up that will have me laid up in bed crying from the pain for days. I am so happy to be able to move around without that terrible pain all the time. The rest of my life might be a train wreck but at least I've got that!
Thank you again to everyone. Thanks for all the prayers, kind words, and donations to keep us going. I never wanted to ask for financial help because I always thought that my husband needs to take care of his family. He should love his children enough to do right by them and should be ashamed that I have to go begging to my family, friends, or the state to provide for us. He has no shame though. He hates me more than he loves our kids. I do still need as much help as any of you can give, I just can't count on my husband to take care of us, and right now I have less than $30 and that will need to go in my gas tank which is close to empty. After that, I got nothing for anything else we might need. The only good thing about this is that after the 90 days is up, this will look really bad for him, and hopefully the court won't just order support, but will garnish his wages so that he can't play his games with me anymore.
posted by Donna at
1:34 AM
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9 comment(s):
Ay mujer, what a damn sad state of affairs that his therapist won't cooperate when doing so helps to make sure you are safe. And I'm sorry about your dad pero i am happy you were able to see him.
Un abrazo fuerta
By
Maegan la Mala, at
9/21/2009 12:12 PM
xxoo
By
Lauren, at
9/21/2009 8:24 PM
Hey, Donna. I'm so glad you posted an update; I've been thinking about you and the kids. How are the kids doing? How are they dealing with all of this?
I'm not surprised that your family therapist dropped you as a couple. It sounds like she realizes he's a real danger to you and that family therapy isn't going to solve this. It's frustrating, to be sure, but her perception that you are in danger speaks volumes about your ex. I hope the court takes this seriously. In rereading your post, I wonder if your ex's therapist has come to this conclusion on her own, and is reluctant to expose you or the kids to danger?
And hopefully the court will not take kindly to it when they see the evidence that he's dragged his feet on paying support (and hasn't paid it at all in some instances). A lot of this is a little control game abusers use.
I'm so sorry to hear about your father, but I'm glad you were able to visit him. Cancer sucks--I've lost more people to that disease than I care to count. :(
Let us know how things go.
By
Sheelzebub, at
9/22/2009 3:53 PM
Now the kids are handling this better than I am. It was really hard for them at first, my youngest slept with a knife and had other weapons laying around the house handy, like leaving a baseball bat nearby, etc. He was afraid his father would come back and shoot us too. My oldest son just burst into tears randomly because he missed the cat so much. We still miss her alot, and I'm wondering if she is haunting us, because we all see her out of the corner of our eye at times. I told the kids that was happening to me and they were surprised and both said it was happening to them too. It's kind of comforting to think that she is anyway, like she is our guardian angel kitty.
I don't know what the deal is with his therapist. When we discussed this, because one of the court stipulations is family therapy, so we have to find another one, he told me that his personal therapist said that our family therapist was a bad choice and she isn't respected in the community. Uhhhhh...I researched therapist to find her. She's got a great education and background, works in an office with a dozen other therapists, runs conferences and symposiums with the university, etc. I chose her because she seems highly recommended, and respected. His therapist is more of a new agey type who works alone and was only chosen by my husband because her office is in our small town. She was chosen for convenience more than anything else. I told him that I thought it was really unprofessional for her to be badmouthing another therapist and she should have just said that they have different outlooks and styles or something like that. At least I convinced him to dump her, I told him what I said here, that if she doesn't cooperate with the court then that leaves him in a really bad position with regard to visitation or access to the home. That shook him up. I think at first he liked that his hippy therapist was "sticking it to the man" and giving everyone a hard time.
Like I said, this is all too weird. We've been together for 22 years, married for 20. He hasn't always been this way. I think his antidepressant is responsible for a lot of this and I'm glad he's getting off of it. There are times he seems normal and like the man I married and then *poof* he's gone and this angry and devious asshole is in his place. I keep hoping that eventually he will go back to normal full time, then we could work on our problems in therapy and consider fixing the marriage. Right now that isn't happening and I'm just looking at trying to get a divorce with as little animosity and trauma to all of us as possible.
By
Donna, at
9/22/2009 8:20 PM
And thanks to all of you for your comments. It means a lot to me that you stop over to read this nearly abandoned blog to check up on me.
Abandoned has been a big theme with me lately. I've gotten this paranoia about people not caring and leaving me just when I really need them. It's not true but it's a big fear of mine. So seeing that people come by and offer words of encouragement and that they just care about me means the world to me.
By
Donna, at
9/22/2009 8:23 PM
I'm glad it sounds like you're making some forward progress, even if it's a pretty wretched state of affairs a lot of the time. We're thinking of you.
By
evil_fizz, at
9/23/2009 12:43 AM
Yikes to his therapist. That's just creepy--she sounds like a major league jackass.
Donna, you have my email--if you need anything, anything at all, drop me a line.
By
Sheelzebub, at
9/23/2009 10:32 AM
He hates me more than he loves our kids.
this is pretty much exactly what the situation was with my father when my brother & i were kids and it's a pretty awful one to be in. he was a lawyer & knew every trick in the book. when the court decided to start taking child support out of his paycheck directly (after he had been avoiding it completely for more than 4 years), he quit his job. we haven't spoken in almost a decade.
obviously this isn't meant to be advice because i don't know you or your husband and i really hope things work out for you better than they did for us. but i guess i wanted to tell you that even if they don't, you and the kids can still be okay eventually. i hope that doesn't sound like patronizing coming from some random college student on the internet, and you probably know it already anyway, but i dunno, i wanted to say it as someone who's been there and come out the other side.
my thoughts are with you as you work through this. i wish you so much more than luck.
By
Isabel, at
9/24/2009 1:07 PM
Donna, has your husband been evaluated for bipolar disorder? (You may have already said that somewhere, sorry, my brain is seriously messed up right now with memory stuff.)
I ask because that behaviour, back and forth like that, reminds me of my best friend's dad. He did that a lot and he was finally dxed with bipolar disorder. And if your ex is bipolar, anti-depressants may make it worse.
*hugs* I'm sorry things aren't improving for you :(
Also, have you tried Angel Food Ministries? (http://www.angelfoodministries.com) If you're strapped for cash and need groceries, they give you a lot of food for a good price. $30 gets you a lot of food. (And seriously, looking at what they're featuring this month I may have to buy a box myself.)
By
Zan, at
10/02/2009 1:09 PM
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