How to cut out a form?

[Artcraft]

Okay.... gush this is a nightmare and actually an easy task in adobe illustrator....

so, I have this two forms:

 

and i want to cut out the upper part, like this:

 

first thing i tried, was substract, which doesn't work at all, so i went the old way and used divide and like illustrator i got many little parts. Okay, i cut everything out and get this:

and now i only need to combine those lose parts, in illustrator it's "unite". Here, we have "add" and "combine" . So, i cklick on "add"and HOLY MOLLY, what a mess:

even if i select only two individual parts and try to combine them, doesn't work. ... tried combine too, but it's still loading, after 76 minutes... every time I try to cancel it with esc, the program bugs completely out. (i can click on icons but it doesn't do anything) ... So, how the heck do I divide and combine my objects correctly?

Edit: I know, i can create a path and cut out the upper part with ease but sometimes i just like taking this approach...

[firstdefence]

So the hat, is this a single curve i.e. one layer or is it multiple layers grouped?

Hat and Hair.afdesign