He quit his job the week before the wedding.
I paid for the honeymoon. I would come home from work and he would still be in his underwear in bed, watching tv. Okay weird way to honeymoon, but I had already committed to the work.
I paid off his student and car loans.
When we were dating, he took me out for dinner, bought gifts, went to parties. After we were married, he took me out once, bought gifts with my money, and never went to parties again.
He spent hours a day on the computer, blogged occasionally but never had anything to say.
I would come home from work, and have to cook and clean and shop and manage our finances.
He never encouraged my daughter to bond with me, and discouraged me, preferring to isolate me from their growing intimacy, in my own house.
Our neighbour joked about how lucky he was, as though he chose to stay home. I thought it was a joke, but in retrospect it was totally a choice, and it harmed me and benefited him.
He didn’t work for 11/13 years.
He spent his time absorbed in himself. He loved photo booth. The last holiday we took together as a family had more selfies of him then pictures of us.
If he needed something, he’d drive straight to the store and get it immediately, driving right by the place I had been asking for weeks for something.
I earned less because I was with him. I spent more time, energy and resources on his career than on my own. I put his needs before mine, which he felt entitled to, but he saw my capability as something to take advantage of.
I paid for his going back to school.
I worked.
He made me feel wholly responsible, insecure, and unheard.
He would offer to "help me out", as though the responsibility was not his but that I should be grateful for his contribution. He never created a shared responsibility. He lived as though he had none, despite marriage, despite fatherhood.
He was unreliable.
He would say no by saying yes and then time would pass and the thread would be lost.
He overpromised and underdelivered.
He earned 1/16th (see above-this was not his potential) what I did but left with half.
Both mediators have told me he is entitled to spousal support but neither have called him out on his free ride.
My financial advisors and bank account managers calculated my retirement predictions and took my management fees, but never once mentioned caution in the biggest financial disaster that would decimate my savings worse than any bull market.
I kept the house and all it’s costs, took out out a loan that I can’t seem to pay off and he has a savings account I filled to buy him out.
Every penny of appreciation in my house was lost when I bought him out, and the law calls this fair.
When he puts her in daycare on the weeks he has her, I am mandated to pay the bill, even if he doesn't inform me, even when it is her birthday and I had planned to have her after school.
We have two cats, that my daughter adores, and he never considered taking care of one, so she would always have company.
He never cut her nails, and let big knots grow in the back of her hair until I had her, and I had to cut it out.
The first months my schedule was already set, so I had her half time minus shift days, when he would take her. He was mystifying, crying unfairness over my having her 13 days to his 17!
When I offered for him to talk to a therapist he said no, but when I told him it was over, he couldn’t believe it.
He couldn’t be trusted to pay the bills, incurring late fees, and preferring to leave the budget to me, but when I worked out the split, and was splitting everything in half, he accused me of hoarding money but wouldn’t look over the numbers.
After we first split, he complained that I didn’t let him have the car enough, but he returned it full of dirt after camping, and scratched it on our neighbours car, but never made reparations.
I pay child payments and cut budget costs, and he dates a woman with 2 kids. I don’t think he spends enough on my daugher. I pay her dentist, eyeglasses, school expenses, daycare. He justifies that she lives in his apartment and sees it as her share of the rent.
His parents pick her up from daycare up to 5 days a week because his job goes long, but couldn’t watch her so we could go out on his birthday when I asked.
I bought all the gifts, cooked all the food, paid our way to special events and prioritized his family (mine lives far away), but I was cut off completely when we split.
She adores him, says he’s fun, and can’t wait to talk to him. He can’t pay her bills. How could I not share custody, despite the above?
Since we separated, the things he does validates my decisions.
Today, I am divorced. I have been separated for over four years. I am no longer grieving, and have let most of the anger go. He finally moved all the residual money out of the last shared account (which I advise against having alone, btw), so I have finished paying his way in life for good. I will continue to pay child support to Voldemort until he reaches my salary and Princess Pirate is independent i.e. for a while yet, but my unhappiness is no longer tied to him. A dear friend, also in the process of an inequitable divorce, celebrated with me, as I broke the ugly moldy wedding invitation plate that I hated for 15 years (the spirit and gift was lovely). We opened a Chardonnay Champagne (and lost the cork in her neighbours back yard) and fêted the end of an ordeal, which I needed, after so much loss and regret.
It is done.
No comments:
Post a Comment