Last night’s supper turned out to be very difficult. I wasn’t expecting my old friend HF to be there and within a few minutes of our meeting, I knew there was something very wrong.
About seven years ago I entered into a complicated arrangement with him around co-ownership of the houe I live in. As a single woman I could not get a good enough bank loan and my job in media was insecure. As a ‘high-functioning’ alcoholic I was not good at taking care of my finances. I didn’t protect myself. His wife was a close friend of mine and I trusted her to help me ensure the arrangement worked. She died suddenly, and I found myself in a vulnerable position. When I went over to the UK earlier this year, HF decied to sell the house. He did not tell me what he was doing.
So far he has not found a buyer. I suspect he may have a plan to subdivide the large property and build another house on it, destroying my garden. And he is obdurate and sheepish at the same time. He knows that even if I could afford a lawyer, there is nothing on paper, no record of what I paid or of the arrangement. His face last night was closed and hostile.
Sober, I can deal with what has to be done. I have always dreaded homelessness because for so long I lived in rented places with tremendous insecurity, moving every other year. I was a student and a political activist in exile, unable to get regular employment. The alcoholism played a role in my drifting, but when I look back I would do the same again, albeit more self-protectively.
As I lay awake in the early hours of the morning I realised that the most painful aspect of this is the loss of trust and the old friendship. HF is elderly and his scheming and plotting will do him no good in the end. But that is his choice. It will be very hard for me to leave the cottage I love so much and find another place to stay. But Una will be with me and we shall find somewhere safe for the puppies, even if there is no garden.
I don’t like the suggested approach from the BB to look at others as being ‘sick’. Active alcoholics are seriously ill and deluded but others may sometimes be simply selfish or stubborn or greedy. I don’t feel inclined to make excuses for HF. He is what he is. And what is done is done. Sober, I am still flawed and less than competent at looking after myself in practical ways. It is a learning curve.
There is no panic and no blaming and that is a start. Feeling heartsore and dreading the inevitable is how I feel. I try to trust the bigger picture and just put one foot in front of another. That is the best I can do for now.
This touches a raw place inside me. The last place we lived, we had a verbal agreement with the landlord and a purchase agreement. In the end, long story, we had to move and lost all the rent money we had in the place. I’ve never mourned a place like I have that one. I still can’t drive past it. I was so sure it was the last move and I loved it so. We’d made many moves in a row where the owner was selling and buying wasn’t an option for us. Unbeknownst to me my husband prayed that God would make a way for us to have the place we are in now. And a way was made and today we own it. It’s taken nearly 3 years for this to feel like home. Life on life’s terms. Some days that is easier to do than others. But yes, there is a bigger picture and may God give us the grace to see it.
You have a great attitude about a difficult situation. I think that is one of my favorite things about recovery – knowing that I can roll with it and survive.
I agree with you about not making excuses for HF. Some people are just awful and letting them off with a “he’s just sick” doesn’t really help anyone. Not that you need to do or say anything to him. Just that sometimes it feels like a compromise to myself when I think I need to “forgive” someone who has treated me badly.
I’m so sorry. I can identify with so much of your post and I will keep you in my prayers that all will work out. Security of home is such a huge thing for me. I can truly understand how you are feeling.
Oh dear Mary, I wish you could sit and speak with him and make everything right.
I would hate for you to lose your garden and home.
Please take care. I so appreciate you here in the universe of bloggers. Ask God for help and I will as well.
That’s bad news Mary. Your doing all the right things, taking responsibility for the decisions in the past and getting ready to move forward, even through all the hurt and pain of the injustice.
When I was preparing my Step 8 list, I had a name on there of a man who I blamed for giving me lots of anger. My sponsor told me to take that name off the list, that the man had abused his position of authority and was in the wrong. My sponsor told me that there were other ways for me to deal with this anger. I have forgiven the man but will never give him my trust.
I hope, somehow, that you get to stay, but that’s selfish of me. I will miss your garden. It has given me plenty of morning smiles. I pray that God’s will be done through all of this.
Your cottage sounds like a cozy place with its garden and puppies and losing that will be hard, people are what they are.
Some are good and some are bad but the worste are the ones that are indifferent.
Cat
ill email you. as its easier
i think you have a very strong case. go see a lawyer.
I, too do not like that line in the BB about seeing others as sick. I see that approach as being not only judgemental, but self serving. He is what he is and what is done is done. But is it? I agree with our Irish friend. Talk to someone, a lawyer if you can, but please do see if anything can be done for you, not to ‘win’, but if you do have legal recourse.
And please do trust the bigger picture, putting one foor in front of the other. Oftentimes, that is the best anyone can do.
Love
Andrew.
Wow, this is the tenth comment. You DID hit a raw nerve with your post, especially with a misplaced trust, a broken promise, each which constitute a sort of theft. And that leaves any one of us feeling wide open, vunerable, violated.
But Mary, what you have–you DO have; your Una, your Pups, your self respect, your talent, and your sobriety. May God bless you.
Oh Mary! I am sorry you went through this.
I went to a meeting tonight and thought of you and the Pups.
Ah…perhaps the Universe has big plans for you…
I have been where you are, and it seems to me the big lesson is “Document, document, document” so this doesn’t happen again. Like my fortune cookie said –There are no failures, only lessons.
I despise all those little trite sayings in the BB, lol.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox