All that glitters......

I have been trying to keep our friends and family facebook page updated with mostly positive things but I want to tell the whole story. Its hard to do though because when I put some posts on there I don't want people to feel bad for us or think we are a "charity case". I want people to care of course just as Kari and I care for others, but we know there are a lot of people out there that have way more and way worse problems than we do. But there comes a point when a person just needs to vent and just put down all the negatives and look them over and find all the positives that can come out of them.
It has been a tremendously hard past 3 years and I am glad it is Kari and I going thru it, I know there are so many couples that would have never made it as far together as we have. Our society has become such a "throw away" society. If you don't like something, including your partner, you just throw it away and get a new one. Don't like that flavor of soda, throw it away, it's that easy.
But I think thru all of our hard times, our relationship has grown closer and stronger. I know we are more in love today than we were yesterday and we work together thru everything.
It hasn't come easy though, and it's not all due to Kari's illness. I brought baggage into our relationship also and she has accepted it and lived with it as well.
I have a daughter that was born not long after high school. I will never call her a "mistake" or an "accident", and I am so proud of her, she has accomplished way more things I never did. She graduated high school with honors, and she graduated college in the top of her class and is now contemplating going on to graduate school. I had a hard time graduating high school. I wish I had gotten to know her better over the years though, its so hard to try establish that now, but I will keep trying. Megan is my only daughter and I do love her and am so proud of her and her accomplishments.
I was divorced before I met Kari also and have two boys from that and an ex wife that I feel is trying to ruin my life since I have a wonderful wife as well as a good life now and had we not divorced I would still be under her thumb. I have been losing touch with the boys due to not being able to see them as much as I would like. If they or Kari are sick its best that they don't come here, there has to be that measure of caution. Last year we spent most of the summer and part of the fall in California at UCLA Medical Center trying to figure out what was causing Kari's pain and getting it taken care of so I wasn't able to see much of the boys. All winter it seemed they were too busy on the weekends as well as she always had plans for them on my weekends. But when I would call them they hadn't done anything over the weekend. This past year and a half I have been in a financial fight as well that has worried us both. My ex wanted more child support since I wasn't spending a lot of time with the boys and it was costing her more. We went to a mediator twice and in front of a circuit court judge once. I presented all of our medical bills and other bills and argued that Kari had lost her job and that a raise in support would be detrimental to our finances. Both the mediator and the judge agreed and support was lowered by $48.00 rather than the nearly $300.00 increase that she wanted. I had represented myself thru all this without a lawyer since we couldn't afford one. She appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately I had to take out yet another loan and hire one. Our case will probably be heard later on this month or sometime next month, not sure when, but either way my loan was nowhere near what the lawyer cost us. Due to all this we are now facing filing for bankruptcy. Kari and I are trying to come to terms with doing this since we were both brought up that you pay for what you bought. It's hard to open up a bill and try to decide how much to pay against it. We have health insurance thank goodness, and it does take care of a lot, but not all, our non-medical stuff out in California came up to nearly $28,000, that's hotels, gas, car rental, plane tickets and food. What sucks is none of that stuff is payed for so it goes onto a credit card that we can pay off over time.
I am sure God has given us these challenges for a reason and I just can't see it right now, but I know Kari and I are still together, and that is what matters.
There, its all laid out and over the next few weeks I am going to read thru this and find the positives and put them down also.
Thanks for listening.
Steve