The Weight of It All

Because I try to keep these posts positive (for my own sake), it may appear that I am doing better than I am sometimes. Or, that I am in a deep pit of denial. No. I feel it, the weight of it all and it’s sometimes too heavy to bear.  To be honest, I don’t know how to do it in those moments so I just lay it down to deal with another time. I am fearful of when the time comes that I have to face the whole pile of scrap metal I’ve been laying down lately, sharp jagged pieces that can cut me if I am not careful enough.

Today I am feeling it heavier than most days.  Maybe it’s because it seems we need to head to court over money and visitation. Charles, who earns very well and is seriously considering moving himself to a bigger, more expensive apartment, is fighting over how much money to give me. He pays for Ella, but when it comes to me, he claims he doesn’t know what he has to pay since he gets so many different amounts from different lawyers (he’s on his third now).   The difference between what my lawyer says is the minimum by law and what he is being asked to pay me is 90 euros a month. Although, I think he is doubting that there is a legal minimum.  He’s even said one of them suggests he applies for welfare…they will laugh him out of the room.  He earns in the top 10 percent or so of the average German, has a two bedroom apartment for one man and drives a Mercedes. I don’t even have a kitchen, use the bus and take care of a toddler.  It doesn’t seem to matter that the money he gives me is needed to care for our child…the child support won’t put a roof over our heads. Nor does it matter that he has enough. He won’t pay a cent more than he is told he can get away with.  I have access to his PayPal history, though. Apparently, video courses about how to get rich by self-publishing are worth 40 euros in a day.

I keep thinking of all I did over the years for him. How when I had money coming in, I gave most of it to him–even when he earned three times what I did.  I keep remembering how I had to ask for money to buy a coat in the winter or a hamburger from McDonald’s, while he was sure to have cash on hand at all times. We lived two different lifestyles in the same home. How worthless he made me feel!

He has the queen-sized 1,500 euro bed we got because I needed a good bed for my health issues (one of the rare times he considered me), and I got a used IKEA guest bed from eBay.  There is a whole list of things in the old apartment that are mine…like a curling iron. What in the world does that bald man need with my curing iron? It took two months for him to give me Ella’s crib.  He still has some of her best toys. He has the things I picked out for her Christmas that he had no interest in choosing. He’s just being selfish and mean.

What did I expect though? That is the real him I saw so often and others don’t see.  I just pray I am not the only one who sees it anymore.

The money issue hurts but what terrifies me are his threats to fight to have Ella overnight. I have lots of evidence against him, but I am an immigrant and he is very persuasive. I’ve been having panic attacks even at the idea of her away from me overnight.  Along with them, I am furious. First, he never had time before, but suddenly he wants her all the time? Second, he could have been a perfectly normal human being and we would have all been living under the same roof. I knew that would never work, but he had that option.  I now see the wisdom of my lawyer doing that, actually.  He was given a choice and made it impossible. He ruined his chance of seeing her daily, of living with her, of saving money even.

I need to get a court order as soon as possible. What we have now is only letters back and forth from  lawyers.  The other night, I fell asleep while Ella was with him. I was awoken by the phone. It was the police! They said my husband was worried about me and asked did I know what time it was.  It was 8:30 and Ella was supposed to be back by 7:00. I had not heard the door or my mobile phone.  I asked the police, ‘Okay, but why didn’t he call the landline?’ You know. The one they called me on and I responded to immediately?  They had no answer, but apparently he had rung the bell and then left with Ella. Waited an hour and a half, called his lawyer, talked with his neighbors, gave the police my landline number and then kept her until 10 p.m., saying when I reached him that she was eating and he’d bring her when she was done. He said, ‘Yes, I was thinking she could sleep here tonight.’   Volcanic level panic seized me.  If he decided to keep her, there would be nothing I could do that night without a court document.

I am done with him, though. I am tired of his games and trying to be friendly. I am polite but very reserved with him.  I no longer let him push past me into the apartment like he’s been doing for weeks.  He talked about being friends, but I don’t keep friends who treat me this way.

As has been the case in most of my life, present pain gets mingled with pangs from the past.  I don’t just feel the weight of this divorce, but of years of struggling to be treated with respect regarding my health; the fear of years of instability in my college years not knowing from one school break to the next where I would live;  a childhood competing with my abuser for my mother’s love; and, before that, the confusion of abandonment at a young age.  Every new pain, every time Charles threatened to send me away during those years with him, the uncertainty of my future now, they all meld together into this giant, anvil of sorrow deep in my soul that I carry around with me, invisible to the outside.

And now, my Ella is home from her morning with Charles. I have channeled my pain and fury into speedy fingers banging on keys, too fast to be correct so then erasing and typing it all out again.   For today, I am a bit lighter having written. While Ella is home, I will lay the rest down for another day.  Thank god she makes that bit easy.