Good questions Dotsie! Why does a man who earns $350,000.00 a year live in a mold-infested house? His rental home definitely looked a bit shabby to the naked eye, and the very first time I set foot in it for all of about five minutes I developed an instantaneous headache, nausea and had to go outside to throw up, which is a typical reaction to that kind of intense toxicity. But I think the bigger question is why would any normal father take on a 2 year lease before having the place professionally tested - no matter how good it did or didn’t look, bargain or not, after what we had already been through? After all, that’s why we uprooted ourselves and moved to Colorado: so we could have less exposure to environmental mold and live in a drier climate. He told his children that they were hypochondriacs when they claimed they were not feeling well, and ignored their feelings entirely, even though every time they stayed with their dad for the court-mandated 4 days of visitation once every two weeks, they immediately got sick, and returned home to me just in time for me to nurse them back to health in preparation for the next visitation. The attorneys turned a deaf ear to my pleas, claiming that my boys were old enough to stand up to their father, and that it was inappropriate for me to intervene on their behalf.

During the divorce proceedings, both attorneys overruled the ex’s refusal to deal with the issue and forced him to have his house tested. I even paid to have his car tested when he refused to. Both tests came back high positive, but he never went through with remediation because of - I suspect - the expense, for one thing. He was never a generous man (believe me I’m being kind when I say that) and remediation if done properly, is not inexpensive. But the real issue has to do with his being a sociopath and on emotional disconnect. When our doctor in California first informed him that he himself had developed a rare lymphoma as a result of his exposure to the toxic mold in our house, the ex decided that the doctor was a quack and blew him off. (Never mind that this same physician - affiliated with Stanford and Harvard Universities - is now considered the top mold authority in the United States, and the number one expert called in to testify for mold litigation!) If the ex was not able to acknowledge his own illness, how could he accept that anyone else had a problem?

He is currently looking for a new apartment, but only because his lease is up in August. He took my youngest son apartment hunting with him last week, and the child had an allergic reaction to one of the places they looked at. The ex tried to convince him they should consider leasing it anyway, because it was such a good deal. My son seems to have convinced him otherwise, at least that’s how it appears for the moment. We’ll see.

As far as your question about whether I had any of the same passions or zest for life during the marriage that I have now, the answer is sadly “no”. I remember seeing a therapist who asked me to describe what my fantasies were, and I replied that I no longer had any. I was emotionally and spiritually dead, having emotionally and physically bankrupted myself in order to keep the peace and protect my children who were truly at risk. There was no hope to be myself under those circumstances, and the sad part is that I did not even realize how much of myself I had lost until the marriage was over and I woke up to discover that I no longer had a clue who I was.

Thank you for all your words of congratulations and encouragement. I still have a lot to work on, but at least I am finally on my way! Your support means the world to me.

And yes - if anyone of you has a story you’d like to share with me about a bad divorce, one in which you started out pretty shaky but managed to survive and thrive in spite of, I would love to interview you. Thanks so much for inquiring!

Namaste,
Foundhervoice-atlast