July 09, 2003 - 9:13 p.m.

Divorce sucks

Mom and Karl are having problems today. Karl has a court date for a temporary settlement on his divorce with Tammy, or something like that, so he had to see his lawyer today. Mom offered to both the lawyer and Karl not to go in with him, but she wound up going in as well.

I don't know what all happened at the lawyer's and between Mom and Karl on their ride home, since I wasn't there, but the general gist that I was able to get is:

Karl and his lawyer want to give in to whatever Tammy wants with the divorce.

Karl is never getting married again, ever. (Last fall, he was saying that he would get married if he found the right person.)

There is a chance that Karl will win the right to buy Tammy's share in their house (which he built) in court. Mom would then have to buy the house because Karl couldn't afford it.

Karl thinks (according to Mom) that if the lawyer changes his stategy, he might wind up in jail for accounting fraud, and it will be all Mom's fault for opening her mouth and suggesting something. (What she said, I'm not sure. And even though I have no faith in Karl's books, I don't think it's Karl's fault that his CPA doesn't know what she's doing, or is just to lazy to do things properly.)

Karl's thinks Mom is too pushy and emotional (which she is) and he just wants to get the divorce over with as little involvement from him as possible. And he doesn't want to have relationship problems with Mom in the meanwhile, or have to talk about it. Therefore, he is being grumpy and not wanting to talk about anything, which is just making matters worse.

Mom feels upset, unloved, and unappreciated. She thinks it's her fault that Karl never wants to get married again, and that she's being too much of a doormat since she helps him at his shop everyday and is still willing to buy his house. She also thinks Karl is letting his wife walk all over him because he's weak.

My take on the matter is that if Karl would just give her a hug, listen to her talk, and say a few nice words, things would be going much better. This is what I do with my mother all the time, and it works wonders. Just a hug, an open ear, and a few kind words. What's so difficult about that? Somehow Karl just doesn't get it. And I don't think it's because of her he doesn't want to get married again. It was probably something in the process of getting divorced. When he gets in a grumpy mood, he tends to say unkind things that he doesn't really mean. This is not good, for him or my mother.

I made a nice dinner tonight, three salads - a rice salad, a fruit salad, and an olive-bean salad (for a sandwich filling). The olive-bean salad was an experiment and it came out well. I had dinner all ready when they came in.

Mom still hasn't finished hers since she's all upset. Karl didn't enjoy his since he was grumpy. I didn't enjoy mine since I was too worried about my mother.

They're upstairs "talking" now.

Why can't I just give her a hug and kiss and make all her problems go away? She used to do that with me when I was little and it always worked. I wish I could do the same with her now. But it won't work, and I know, since I keep trying and it never does.