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briefly..... Day One Journal...The first time I was married for 25 years... we had 5 kids together. He abandoned us. Second marriage, which was a mistake!!! 12 years. I don't want to be married to him any more. We have not lived together half our marriage. Now, he sold the house I was living in (his mother's-- I lived there to care for her) and I moved back home. Since I have not been here keeping up with THIS house, it is full of his JUNK... he's a hoarder. And now that we sold his mom's house, her stuff is here too! There are little paths from room to room. I don't want to live like this. It is overwhelming. He doesn't think it's a problem. He has NO friends; he won't get involved in church (and I haven't either since I moved here)
I am also helping to care for my parents so I am there often. My daughter is going to have her baby and I'm helping her get ready too. I am so tempted just to move to either place-- I had a refuge (his mom's) but that is gone. I could deal with things as long as I am not here all the time. Now I am.
When I am away, things are more clear. Here, I just want to escape.
Day Two...
Weed the garden. I don't even know where the garden is sometimes. And clear my mind of all problems? HA. "Let Go of your problem and let God Remove it" This is NOT going to disappear. I pray OFTEN about it. This stuff doesn't go away. All I can see is that he will live here and die here alone and someone will find his body. That makes me feel AWFUL.... but I can't change him.
So maybe what I am asking is for permission to give up. Nobody can give me that except God... yes I am accustomed to things going wrong. It isn't that I haven't sought God.. I pray every day! I made a "let it go" list of things I need to forgive. I ask God for mercy, that I would be able to forgive. Yes there is a part of me that doesn't want to forgive, that just wants to go away and forget it. To let him drown in his own stuff. I've mostly removed my stuff either to boxes or donated. This is not my home. "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Lord have mercy. I think I am going to like Day Three, to begin surrounding myself with reminders of my purpose... I was doing that well at my mother in law's, playing piano and singing daily, reading my Bible, spending wonderful mornings in the garden.... here it is much harder. I am surrounded by garbage. Yet, I am reminded of the Holocaust... and how Christians found peace in flea-infested places... and God has not left me there...I can already feel an attitude shift...
Day Three...
One could get lost on this site, following trails. I read several different studies, getting over a lost love, the one on divorce, and the pets one. The pet question always makes me laugh. I have always had pets, and I think I counted up at least 20 cats, and many dogs; chickens, cows... I'm glad God's in charge of such things and I don't have to figure out how that all works. He can do it any way he wants.
Thanks to those that have responded. Pine, I have thought about what you said:

If someone needs an ambulance they can't get the gurney down the hall to the bedroom. It's also a fire hazard.

it is scary. That's one reason why I want to go.
I made a list of all the things that have been bugging me. As I re-read it, I see some pretty petty stuff, some serious problems that must be dealt with, and that I need to Grow Up in some ways. That was helpful, seeing which ones "let go" is appropriate, and some that "deal with" is the solution.
Even though the ending of my first marriage was really traumatic, it didn't make me lose my faith, it strengthened it in a lot of ways. However, I gave in to fear-- which is why I ended up married again, to my childhood sweetheart. Seemed safe enough, he SAID he was a believer... but I don't see evidence of anything more than simple belief. He has lots of baggage, this is his third marriage, and that should have been a very red flag... but I ignored that. I chose security over trust... and that was very wrong.
The thing is, Let Go and Let God is wonderful for your sins and forgiveness. But we still pay the consequences of our sins, our unbelief, our lack of trust. Yes I am forgiven!!! Hallelujah for that. But dealing with all these consequences of my attitudes and actions is TOUGH!
My list is helping. I can see more clearly where my attitude is still childish and selfish. And I can see where I must speak up and change things. I know if there is too much he is not willing to change (like piling things up near the water heater, and using the living room for his closet) I will either have to accept things as they are, or move on. Doing the study on divorce helped me see that it IS my choice to walk away from this Unequally Yoked marriage. It would be one thing if we could really be partners even without a spiritual connection. If we can manage that, and work on the things that need working on as PARTNERS then maybe. So far I will just wait on the Lord for his timing for whatever.

March 12....BIG BREAK but I am back. I do what I can. My mother in law got out of the hospital today, and my father is still there, will be for a long time. He broke his pelvis and his shoulder... he's 88. My mother in law is 98. They both don't want to live any more and make that very plain. I go back and forth between hospitals, as well as having to deal with moving my mother in law to a skilled nursing facility, and my father as well will have to move. Stretches me to the very edge. I will get back to Day Three when I figure out where it is, LOL... I'll get there.
DAY FOUR.... forgiving myself. I have worked hard on this and mostly what I have discovered is that you cannot do that one time and think you are done. Forgiving myself is a daily thing. It would be really nice if it was only one thing and never have to deal with it again. But it isn't that way. Every day we stumble, and must get up and move on.

Or you might write a private journal and then put highlights in more general terms on here. Sometimes we need validation.

thank you dema... journal edited.

Hi Rose, welcome to the counseling steps....you are well on your way to growing in the Lord....I think of a few Bible verses that come to mind after reading your shared thoughts. I will post them here for you in hopes they will bless you.

Colossians 3:12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; 13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

1 Peter 5:10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Praying for you...may the Lord be your strength....He doesn't say our lives will be easy....or even the paths we are given be straight and debris free....but what He does say is that He will never leave us nor forsake us and that we can find peace amongst all the chaos in Him.

Take care

My mother was forced to live that way. She was very depressed over it. Also It is dangerous. If someone needs an ambulance they can't get the gurney down the hall to the bedroom. It's also a fire hazard.

During the Holocaust the victims lived with fleas because they had to.

I'm sorry this isn't encouraging. Just realistic.

Praying!

It is a mental illness. And I guess the people churn through things. So, if you move things they know it. It is a substitute for attaching to people. They attach to things that somehow tie them to people or events.

I don't know if you've watched the television show - but the hoarders usually bog down. They try to clean up - but if one room gets cleared before they bog down it is doing really good.

I couldn't live that way. I'm so sorry for your pain in this.

Do you know why you married him?

Letting go doesnt mean not figuring things out. That's important too. If you figure it out, then you are more likely to not repeat it.

I was afraid of a neighbor man who quoted scriptures and beat his family. I had buried the memory. But when it came out - and it took a lot of work to get it out - then I realized that I had married men who were not spiritually mature because I basically equated a man quoting scriptures and beating his wife and kids.

We get these images in our heads and bury them, but they still affect us. Ironically, the unspiritual man I married ended up pinning me against the wall, screaming in my face for hours and hitting me if I tried to escape. Bad stuff.

But I'm married to a kind gentle man now. Who sometimes has to deal with me going through a period of being triggered and getting back on track. We are human. And we need to face our own humanity.

When I get triggered, which I did yesterday, we talk it through. In a day or so I am back on track. It isn't realistic to think that I could just walk away from being pinned against the wall for a year and not have any residual effects. Most of the time I don't. Last trigger was months ago.

What happens when you bury the underlying reasons is stuff like me marrying the wrong guy. In avoiding what I buried, I walked into a similar situation. If I had faced the original situation earlier, then I never would have been pinned against the wall.

Anyway, this kind of thing is common. We say, "Oh, I gave it to God, it's gone." But really we are just doing what we were told to do by people who maybe don't know or maybe just really don't want to go through the work that true healing requires. But when we really give it to God, a lot of times he urges us to face it. And he helps us find people to help us face it. And then, when we get the evil, stinky stuff out, there is more room for God's love.

Emotional hurt is a lot like physical hurt. When you break your arm you go to the doctor. When you break your heart - there is healing to be done too.

thanks for your reply, Dema. It helps to be reminded that others fight the same fight as I do.