FROM THE NORM TO THE MARGIN

Resurface despite everything.

It took us a long time to get out of the grip of this sick man. And we need even more energy not to sink every time the legal procedures force us to go backwards.

The divorce proceedings are dragging on. Either "he" doesn't agree to anything, or "he" doesn't answer. Since we left, I don't want to talk to him directly anymore. At first I'm too afraid that "he" will manipulate me. I don't feel strong enough to resist him. Then "he" scares me because I realise that "he" has nothing to lose. Now for me "he" no longer exists. It will take three and a half years for the divorce by mutual consent to be granted. The family court judge has heard about the report and finally allows the last, still minor, to choose for herself whether she wants to see her father. "He" does not respect the sums that the judge ordered him to pay me. I will have to fight again. I have long since written off the money "he" owes me, whether it is the money "he" took from my savings account, the money "he" was mistakenly paid for medical care I paid for the girls, or all the costs for my children to go to school. I dream of the time when I will no longer be dependent on him in any way. I don't want to have anything to do with him. With every letter, every summons, every negotiation, "he" comes back into my life. It's as if "he" is grabbing me to sink me.

As long as the door to the past remains closed, we can get on with life. Unfortunately for us, the follow-up team for the last two girls filed a report with the prosecutor of the city we live in. Yes I know in the long run it's for our own good. But in the long run it's for our own good, because it's more like an additional torture. I can't count the number of times we have had to recount everything we have been through, going into the most sordid details. I remember the nurses, psychologists, gendarmes, experts, lawyers, policewomen, examining magistrates in front of whom I had to expose myself and relive my guilt in shame and pain. There is always the same fear of not being believed, of not remembering correctly, of being judged. You tell yourself that what you remember is too big. You start to doubt yourself. Is it really worth going through with such a procedure? Is it really that bad? You throw up the memories during the hearings. You come out sick, shattered. It takes days to return to a seemingly normal life. It takes weeks to stop having nightmares or sudden anxiety attacks.

We are going to have our way of the cross. We meet benevolent people who treat us with modesty and do their job. And then we have the misfortune to come across people who treat us as guilty, lose our case, make procedural mistakes. At first I wanted the process to help my children heal. Then I wished that "he" would be afraid like his children have been afraid all these years. Then I said to myself that "he" should take responsibility for his actions towards them. As far as I am concerned, what I have experienced has happened and nothing can be changed. Now I don't want to fight anymore. We're four years into the proceedings and we hear that it's likely to last another two years. I want to stop everything, withdraw the complaint. I'm told that this is no longer possible. When will they stop making us suffer?

Give us a chance to turn this damn page.