In our old house we had a kitchen faucet that leaked. When I say leaked, I mean that the pipe under the sink would fill a regular size bucket in roughly a week’s time. It started after we had lived in the house about 2 years. I discovered it one day, with a 1 year old on my hip, and immediately told the man of the house. This was my first mistake. Second mistake was thinking that anything would be done to alleviate the problem. Fast forward 8 years…the pipe was still leaking and every week the supposed “man” of the house would dump out the bucket. On and on and on it went until I finally got so damn tired of it that I called a plumber, didn’t tell Mr. Know It All and $35 later, the pipe was fixed. I was scolded. I was demeaned and so on and so on and so on.
Yes, this was my reality. For 14 years I stayed with a man who was so completely irrational, so ridiculously stubborn that he would rather empty a bucket every week for 8 years than call a repair man and spend what he believed could have been an enormous amount of money. Yeah, a whopping $35…how does the saying go again? He cut off his nose to spite his face? Yep, that’s the one.
And this is what I find myself faced with yet again. I am at the tail end of what should have been an easy divorce agreement. We don’t have enormous assets or large bank accounts. We don’t have complicated bills or agreements or investments. We have very little in the grand scheme of things. Yet here I am 9 months after finally starting the divorce process, 11 months after leaving him and over a year into my wake up call for a better life. It’s a fucking three ring circus. But I’m not the ring master on this one. No sir, not me. This is all about fucktard and his need, his drive to punish me, control me and make everyone’s lives that much harder.
We have gone back and forth, back and forth, and then, back and forth again. I feel like I’m chasing my tail. One day I have a firm grasp of things, issues, negotiating points and then less than 24 hours later, it is all turned upside down. Why? Who the fuck knows. I certainly don’t know anymore. This should have been signed, sealed and delivered long ago but time and time again he comes back with another stall tactic, another failed attempt at controlling me, another excuse as to why we can’t settle this entire matter once and for all.
What’s a smart woman to do? I’ll tell you what I did. I had my attorney finally schedule a trial date. I had my attorney send back the agreement for the millionth time and tell him that we were done negotiating. Either sign it or go to trial, end of discussion. Unfortunately, that’s the direction it seems to be heading. Off to trial to let a judge decide what we should and should not do. Granted, I am confident, as is my incredibly badass attorney, that the law is on my side and that I will get what I need from this divorce. Unfortunately for fucktard he is putting himself in a position to lose more custodial rights, visitation time with his children, required to give me significantly more spousal and child support, lose his right to overnight visits and lose his precious house.
All of this could have been avoided. All of it, all the pain he has caused his own flesh and blood, all the struggling and fighting and arguing and name calling. I’m not a perfect example of the proper way to handle a divorce, if there even is a right way, but each and every time I put our differences aside and try to do the right thing. It gets other people upset at me for not being tougher or meaner and I understand their frustration with me. But it’s my nature, my overly naïve nature, to put my anger to the side and try to move through it to a compromise or a middle ground.
That’s over. I’ve been pushed one too many times. I can honestly say that it’s a double edged sword having given him this ultimatum to either shit or get off the pot. If he signs it, I move onward and upward quickly and on the terms I have agreed upon. I’ve been craving this final piece of the puzzle for such a long time and I want it so badly. On the other hand I want to see him exposed for the man he is behind closed doors, away from this picture he has painted of himself as the victim. I want to expose the terrible things he has said to me, the way he has treated me, the way he has mistreated and disrespected his own children, refused to pay for their medical care, made bad decisions time and time again. And all of it, every last bit of it can and will be proven in court. But it delays my process of moving forward that much more. Caught between my desire for a fresh new start and my desire to make his life a living hell and take away everything he has taken away from me. That vengeful part of me is an ugly part and I rarely look her square in the mirror but right now, she’s shining back clear as day.
I never know what will happen next but it appears that I will know soon enough. All of this will be over soon, one way or another. All because he doesn’t want to pay the plumber to come take a look at the pipes, fix them properly and put everything back into working order. This may be the bucket that overflows on his ass and finally floods the kitchen. But that’s his choice, not mine.
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