Ok, so I can't hold secrets :(
Dear Dr. Marvin,I’m going to put here the notes that I got after talking to an attorney who just helped out a bit. I’d gone through about a dozen avenues trying to find help in the McHenry area. Most places weren’t able to serve me due to financial concerns or other interests, but their legal aid society things were overwhelmed financially and they weren’t taking on new cases.
I talked to an attorney by the name of Heidi Amen from Theodore Poehlmann 202 W. South St. PO Box 271, Woodstock IL 60014. 815-459-8800. This wasn’t her area so she couldn’t accept me, but suggested she’d moonlighted and stated that Mrs. Prykop’s attorney is after Rich so they are harassing me, but since we are not a party in the divorce it is badgering (plain and simple). She stated that it was a stupid way of going about things. She thought that in discovery they’d realized that there had been a relationship and that’s true … so it’s smart they are checking for monetary gifts though they usually go through the defendant to find if he’s used marital assets that would go against him. Rich’s attorney should be willing to either recommend me to another attorney or at least file a motion to quash the subpoena and that there should be attached an affidavit from you the psychiatrist saying that my mental health is severely impacted by a deposition and that they should send if anything an interrogatory because an oral deposition would be too traumatic. It is not slander or libel because the relationship of me and Rich is true, but the court would set very firm limits as to the questions asked and I should have an attorney present if it were necessary I go to court.
So basically on that level this is what I’m going to ask of you … pretty much write up an affidavit stating … all of what has t be stated. I don’t have any qualms about saying I’m a multiple, severe depression, chronic suicidality, anxiety, obsessive compulsive AND that I have an impairment in my ability to recall because I think this is all true about me. I figure though that you’ll put things in the perspective that’s probably less challenged. Please let me know what you can do or if there is anything from me that you would need.
As to emotional health … I haven’t been able to do much concretely over the last 4-5 work days. I found out about the deposition on Friday. The attorney’s person called me AFTER I got home and then she put me on the phone with him. They said that that Rich’s attorney hadn’t had enough time to respond, so they had pushed the deposition from this Friday to the following Friday the 17th. I told them I didn’t know anything about the deposition and they were then quick to say they’d send another. But, then later when we tried to talk to Rich’s attorney, they said too that they didn’t have the deposition notice yet, although Brewer said that’s the reason they postponed until the 2nd Friday. They also mentioned money for transportation. BUT, they hadn’t written anything on their about this date or what the money was to be used for in the first subpoena so I sent that money back yesterday in certified mail as we’d shown you on Friday.
I’ve been much jumbled and on nerves end. We tried talking to Rich last night because he invited me out to dinner. But, we’ve had a couple bad days where I bring up stuff that I feel needs to be talked about like this and he goes automatically whiny and says I’m pressing him too hard. Today he told his lawyer he felt that he was being attacked on all sides … his lawyer had written him saying that unless he paid in full he would dismiss himself from the case. Rich had been paying what he could. Last night when we got home he went into the bedroom to watch the ball game and I had gone into the living room where we both usually go. I did my computer for a little bit, but then I went and laid down with him in the living room and cuddled.
I know that he’s under a lot of pressure and I’m trying to help, but the hard part’s been that he gets so immediately riled that he cuts off conversation and without talking I feel I’m going crazy. This morning’s calls were to seek some kind of help myself. Last night he couldn’t even commit that he was going to call the lawyer today – only if he had time, but this morning when he walked in he had just opened the letter saying that he would be dropped so he called right away. I only heard his part of the conversation, but it just seems that everyone is frustrated.
Rich listened to me a little bit on the phone talking to others and he didn’t seem then so eager to “punish” me for his being overwhelmed. I had taken offense when he said he was going to the top of a mountain for a year and a half ALL by himself. I’d started to think I’d caused him all these problems. I know it should be more that he and his wife had problems and I was byproduct of all that. But it’s hard.
We have been feeling a little better since now we’re thinking we might fill out more papers, but that we wouldn’t need to go in for the deposition. That worried me a lot, because our system has the tendencies to say too much just because questions are being asked - maybe part of talking to a psychiatrist or two for so long. Some part of us or another has been like trained to answer questions not suppress them. I don’t want to get Rich in any more trouble. It doesn’t make sense in our brain that someone wants to hurt him. I don’t want it to be me.
Our brain and thoughts are jittery. We know when we get to the point of looking at suicidal stuff as being a necessary way to end all this it would be wrong. I keep going back to the part where without me as much trouble as I am, Rich would be all by himself and then I feel terrible for leaving him. But, there’s this other part that says if I take something and or go to the hospital then they can’t make me say stuff against Rich. I don’t want to be sick again. Just it seems that our head is spinning. I think I’m doing better and then we hear the whininess in our own voice. I’m driving us crazy.
To make all these things worse there’s the situation of Maury and the situation of Rich being gone. I’m supposed to be off on Thursday and Friday … I’m not sure I’m going to make it through working tomorrow. I’m like really really not here. Rich then is going to see his daughter in New Mexico on Friday and he’s supposed to get back Monday morning. I don’t know how he’s going to do all that or if maybe I’m going to be bringing him and picking him up.
I asked Maury about his Easter and he says that he’s going to be over at his dads so I can probably assume Joe is going to be there too or he’s going to be at his girlfriend’s house. Maury didn’t say anything about arranging another time. I know that he’s very very overwhelmed as well.
As to that situation I think we last left off somewhere on Friday, but I’m not sure if you’d heard this part, but he’d found Lauren and the guy making out in the school parking lot where she’s taking classes, and then the next night she said she was going with a girlfriend, but at 1:30 pm the girlfriend was in touch with Maury and he put together she wasn’t with her, and then Lauren got home two hours later. Maury went from its ok that they still sleep in the same bed to him sleeping on the couch … to him not wanting to be in the same house as her.
Yesterday – Monday he stayed home from work and got the papers to be divorced. The lawyer is his lawyer but she’s given Maury and Lauren the papers to fill out together, and if everything is going as smooth as they are both planning, they could be divorced within a month Maury says at only a couple thousand dollars. He’s borrowed money from his dad – who really didn’t want to pay and he’s going to pay it back with a credit card.
Some time by the end of next Friday they are supposed to be having the house on the market. It sounds like Lauren is going to stay at her mothers, though I’m not sure it will be until insert some time in here. We told Maury that she should be the one to move out, because for one she’s more at fault for the immediate divorce and two that he needs to be the one to get the house ready for sale. That would put her over at her mother’s so there’s someone stable for the girls. Maury’s saying now 50-50 with the kids. I recommended that if they are going to split each week that he would pick up Ame and Isa Wednesday after school, get them to school on Thursday and Friday, but they’d stay Wednesday and Thursday with him on his days off. Then on Friday the mom would pick them up and then Maury would pick them up Saturday night and keep them on Sunday. He’d bring them home that night or drop them off at school again Monday morning and they’d be there Monday and Tuesday.
It’s how it would have to be if they were splitting 50-50, but it’s a terrible schedule and life for the girls. It is very disruptive though then both Maury and Lauren would get either Friday night off or Saturday night off to socialize. Neither had talked to the mother. There was something though about 2 weeks going by while one of Lauren’s other sisters were staying at the mom’s house so she’d stay at home – YEEKS!
I think it’s going to be pretty disruptive, but that’s sort of where Maury is right now. Neither of them is settled as to where they are going to be staying. Maury says that is Dad and Jackie or Alex and Sarah will each put them up for a month or two. But, after that he hopes to have enough money for a down deposit for a small $800 one bedroom apartment. He says that he has to pay $500 for credit cards a month and that leaves him with about $500 to pay everything else he needs including girls and food and clothing and other various bills. Lauren would be doing the same kind of stuff, but she probably won’t pay for the mother’s due to the mother being in a place she can’t have extra income. Maury said she’d be able to pay down debt faster. I don’t think there’s any way in hell he’s going to be able to handle that. What happens when his car needs new breaks like ours had? But, then his and Lauren’s system was to always put more on the cards. And, what happens when they find the house is going to take 1 ½ years to sell and that is taking away money for both of them to live.
As to where we were at … we spent the whole day trying to work out another scenario. We weren’t looking at it that Maury was going to be living on his own with the girls. We were pushing for the scenario that we get the new house I’d been dreaming of and Maury and the girls could live with us. Both Maury and Rich want their privacy though … I’m not sure at what point they would change their mind. Bottom line is that Rich doesn’t have $35,000 (10%) to put down on the place. Both the guys think it’s too far away (30 miles to Villa Park or Chicago), but we could have paid then $1550 a month for mortgage so that it would be in Rich’s name, I would pay $1000, Maury would pay $500, Rich would get a tax break, and leftover money to pay anything else including more money down on the house if it were available and all would get a really nice place to live including Maury and the girls. I told him the deal would be that the girls would each get their own nice room with a bathroom between them, Rich and I would have the master bedroom, but Maury would have the 2nd bedroom that had an optional private bath.
I told him Rich and I would also get the library, but the living room would be for anyone wanting quiet, dining room for dinners, Family room for anyone along with breakfast nook and kitchen and laundry and first floor bath, but that he and the girls could have the entire basement including sliding walk out doors and that was a tall 9’ ceiling on a VERY big layout. He needs a lot of room for their furniture and stuff. I didn’t think this was a bad idea, I thought it was a good idea and would resolve problems, because I’m like no one else in that I really would like to live with Maury and the girls. I even volunteered that he be able to invite his dad or anyone else he wanted over. I thought I could help, and I had known Rich had grown up with his grandparents, brother and mother after she divorced when he was just a little younger than Ame – so that he should understand. One of Maury’s reasons for saying no was that he didn’t like my multiplicity around the girls. I knew that was Lauren’s idea, but I didn’t understand that Maury was so much in agreement. Both of them are like leading this untruth that they can maintain the same school … it’s like ok … maybe you can get an apartment, but there’s so much more to consider. He’s saying that he’ll get a one bedroom. He’ll have that and the girls will have bunkbeds in a dining area and that everything is going to be ok, but he doesn’t figure he’s going to be able to take off much time on his own. Well, like Yeah! Who wants to stay over at his hermit establishment!
I’m feeling pretty emotionally spent out. I’d gone so far out in trying to make everything work, but Rich said a very strong no and Maury said he’d seen houses like that and that he wouldn’t drive out to look at it even though he was sure it would be nice. I’m really against the stubborn unwillingness of both not to consider all options. I hate it when people are close-minded. It doesn’t work in my head it’s like beating my head against a brick wall. I can see over it, but cannot walk through it. BUT, one way or another … you still gotta love the guys, even though it left me feeling very hopeless and helpless. I really love the part my own child is afraid of my behaviors so much he wouldn’t trust me around his daughters. I haven’t even begun to really process that part. I’m glad he’s open enough to say it, but I don’t know what he’s done to help it along.
I reminded him of my ten years holding a responsible position, raising him and his brothers to be pretty good people, being in a long lasting relationship, seeing soundly a doctor who helped me be more natural and less in denial and that I’d talked so well with him over so many years, and did actually such infinitesimally small wrong things with my boys that it would have to be incredible. He agreed, but said it’s just where it is. It’s like punching head on wall again. I think my disability starts at home.
Anyway this is getting kind of long and I’m feeling tired, so I can bet I’m pretty much way over using your time and that I should stop especially because you’ve got the main parts and we’re just being whiny again. I’m afraid that when we stop, we are going to go back to the negative thinking. That’s where would be at if we stopped to consider how many bad things are going on between Rich and Maury and both their divorces and my involvement in either of their lives. If it weren’t for you I’d just as soon shoot anyone of male persuasion. It’s like they are just not naturally built to get along.
Anyway …
Affidavit would be sent to both attorneys with a copy to me. I don’t know if you need a form or special request to do this first, or if you just write a note.
Rich’s attorney: Scott Ferrel, Gitlin Law, 633 E. Calhoun Street, Woodstock, IL 60098-4262
Rich’s wife’s attorney: Donald Brewer, 444 N. Route 31, Suite 100, Crystal Lake, IL 60012
I’m hoping I’m not being too bad … Just feels like we got a lot of needs today.
posted by Ann Marie @ 4/07/2009 02:06:00 PM
Comments: 1
