2025-10-23 Still Nothing

Posted on by Dave Stucky

Through a clerical error, I have now been off probation since the 13th, but wasn’t informed about it until yesterday.

What that means, plainly, is that what happened a year ago never legally happened.

This doesn’t change the context of my family situation, but I’ll get to that.

Most of my free time has been in a gargantuan data entry task, and that has now been completed.

  • I’ve downgraded nearly all my essays that I prized so heavily to simple text-based notes, viewable here.
  • Some of the remaining essays I’ve found with any legitimate significance have been renovated and tuned up.
  • I’ve also moved everything around to approximately where it needs to be: no more dehoard project.

Among this, I have also made new-ish content:

My Family Status

My last post has a mistake. I said “I only know a little more than I knew 11 months ago” regarding my family, but the bullet points I provided are actually more uncertainty about the state of my family. Their absence casts even further uncertainty for me about Tori’s intentions.

My wife’s decision to stay hidden has only proven one thing: unless she has been in legitimate trouble, she has prioritized something else over the interests of our marriage and my well-being.

This absence of information is a true shame, since I still must decide things and move forward, which I’ll get to later in this post.

What I’ve Learned

God judges us on the actions we take, and the context only defines its severity. If I retaliate to a French guy calling me an “empty-headed animal food trough wiper”, it only changes the severity of how wrongly I behaved, but not its immorality.

Marriage is the ultimate in complex human interaction because it’s the fullest form of two people joining their lives, with the direct consequence being more lives that represent the convergence of those lives.

With that closeness, one partner’s sin has a 95% chance of the other partner having fault as well through their response.

In the certainty of eventual wrongdoing, there must be a path forward, and that path requires 4 conditions to be fulfilled:

  1. His repentance for his sin
  2. Her repentance for her sin
  3. Her forgiveness for his sin
  4. His forgiveness for her sin

Without this clear set of releases, there is no possibility to restore the relationship back to indemnity.

Our marriage will be particularly difficult. Victims of covert narcissistic parenting tend to have hang-ups:

  • Repenting is difficult, since it was once a means of exploitation.
  • Forgiveness is difficult (since the apologies were nothing but theatrics).

What I Feel

It has now been about 1.15 years since we’ve last seen each other or communicated anything.

I don’t know how to feel. We would need to have a discussion about what she did and why she is doing it to find that out.

So, I’m waiting in limbo. Her upcoming decisions in the next few months will say more than what she says.

What I Expect

Everything on my end is now completely cleared up. At the same time, it has been over a year with nobody reaching out or indicating anything whatsoever.

Our family’s restoration will come through three distinct phases, each one defining the next:

  1. Connect: Establish a line of communication again.
    • Unless Tori reaches out back to me, this will be institutionally assisted, and my church has indicated there’s little they can do in light of our prior anti-establishment decisions and her continuance of that tradition.
    • Tori’s decisions regarding her availability, and the timing of those decisions, will determine which institutions will be part of the reconciliation.
    • This phase ends when intentions or expectations have been mutually expressed in some capacity.
  2. Engagement: Dialogue indirectly and directly between her and me, as well as my direct interaction with both Victor and Mia.
    • This will start through third-party interaction, then move to direct discussion.
    • It ends when we know what we want to do next with our lives.
  3. Logistics: The joint decisions and actions encompassing the family coming together again.
    • This may involve moving across the country for one or both of us, and determines what happens next.
    • Depending on what has happened with Tori and the kids, as well as her decisions, this may become more complicated.

If it was just my marriage with Tori, I’d respect as much space as she’d prefer.

However, Victor and Mia need their dad, and I am morally and spiritually responsible to fulfill that role.

  • Tori’s opinions and preferences don’t change that reality, and I’ve withheld exercising my full rights in the hopes that she’d make the right decision.

Unless Tori can summon the courage to communicate something from the void, I will be required to take legal action soon.

In this, I have tremendous peace, since I really don’t have to think about anything but the current phase.

I don’t have a lot of money, and a limited network, but I have God on my side, and that’s all that really matters.

What I’m Doing Now

To the extent I’m capable, I’m doing everything possible to bring my family back together.

I am still waiting on some information before I make my next decision regarding my family, so nearly everything else is on hold until then.

In the meantime, I’m biding my time and working through my hoarded content. As of 2025-10-23, I have:

I’m also doing a few other one-off things when I feel like it:

  • Learning how to build a website from scratch to help out a friend, which may become a side job.
  • Writing new essays as God strikes me with inspiration.