The chaos in our marriage is affecting our daughters.
Our oldest started cutting herself
and our youngest started stress eating.
Christy's unhealthy and it's trickling down to the girls.
My youngest has gained weight
because Christy allows her to eat anything she wants
and as much as she wants.
Our oldest is fed up with the way her dad treats her.
Please stop.
You're a rude, delusional psychopath!
My oldest is disrespectful to me
because Christy has her back.
My oldest calls me fatass
and Christy will call me the dictator.
When the girls were younger,
Ernie would tell the girls that
we could get a divorce and live in separate houses.
Ernie would also tell our oldest
that I loved our youngest more.
I think Ernie did that
because he wants us to be against each other.
He wants to conflict and the chaos.
There's no co-parenting.
Anytime I say something to the girls,
Christy will undermine me.
When our youngest was really young,
she told me that she thought
we should live in separate houses
because she knew that he didn't love me.
The girls don't have any memories of a happy family.
Their whole life has been this chaos.
Yeah, that's my whole point.
At least y'all agree that they're living in chaos.
Yes sir.
Now, there was a point that
you were making
a really good income Yes sir.
and then that changed dramatically, right?
When I had my seizures and I had brain surgery.
Yeah, and so you were making
I was gonna make almost $200,000 and I went from that
to $34,000 $200,000 in a year.
And it dropped to like 30, right?
Yes sir, $34,000.
You have to make adjustments, right?
Yes sir.
And did you make those adjustments as a couple?
Did y'all
adjust your spending
and all or?
Well she was in control of the money then
'cause everything was going to her
so she was paying the bills and doing all that,
the eating out and stuff like that.
How did you do with managing that?
Did you make the adjustments necessary
to have your income drop like seven times?
Yes, I feel like I did.
When I got sick,
I used my 401, paid off the vehicles, the boat
and the credit cards.
So you got everything paid off
Except for the house.
'cause you know, "We're going into rough times
"so I'm gonna get us to zero except for the mortgage
"and then we can get through this time."
It was all deposited to our joint account and she
sent the checks off for those.
Okay.
Then she ran the credit cards up again to $82,000.
Ernie, what was the first charge that...
'Cause I didn't wanna use the credit cards.
I know how fast that it can just snowball
and the first thing that he wanted to do was
get his boat fixed.
That was the very first charge and it made me really nervous
because I know what happens once you start charging.
It just snowballs.
I'm not gonna say I didn't charge anything I shouldn't have
but a lot of the charges were $82,000?
for our living expenses.
Do you work now?
I do.
And how many hours a week do you work?
35.
Okay and so you're able to supplement the family income.
You bring home
I use that money to take care of myself
because I don't have access to our finances.
I have no access to our finances.
Okay.
And you're working again.
Yes sir.
Okay.
So you're a two income family now
so your finances have improved from what they were when
you weren't working at all. Well, I still
pay all the bills.
Right.
When you pay them.
Do you work together on this at all?
Earnest will not work with me, even when I was
She says that it's the man's job to pay all the bills.
Earnest will not work with me.
Do y'all work on anything together.
Earnest will not Arguing.
Earnest will not work with me on anything.
I feel like I'm a single mom.