AND ANOTHER THING…. › Edit — WordPress

via AND ANOTHER THING…. › Edit — WordPress

Does he want blood?????

OK. Divorce isn’t nice. Don’t know anyone who has a good thing to say about it. But does it have to be this cruel, twisted thing that has punched me in the neck after 19 years of a good-to-middling marriage. I’m not going to pretend the marriage was anything it wasn’t. Pretty nasty sometimes, absolutely gorgeous others but mainly just somewhere inbetween for most of the time.

But six months ago I get divorce papers through telling me (I’m summing up here) that I’m an alcoholic abuser who has grated her kids with a cheesegrater and been an embarassment to all the family.

Several cups of tea later (wouldn’t an alcoholic have had wine?) I’m still pretty stunned by the accusations but guess that he’s going through some kind of a breakdown and needs my sympathy. Yes! This awful husband-beating, child-grating woman is actually considering sympathising with the madman who has just told a lawyer that I should be in jail for all the menace I’ve caused.

Oh – and another ‘detail’ – the letter tells me he wants me out of the house:immediately.

Of course I don’t go – because it is my house and the only one I have, so even if I wanted to get away for a while it wouldn’t be an option.

Much to his chagrin, I don’t get angry, I don’t in fact behave in anyway badly and he has to do something else to see if he can get my raging juices flowing.

Who better to turn to than the kids (now 16 and 18). Within a few weeks of the first letter/papers I receive another – purporting to be from them: confirming that I am a horrid monster. They have signed the letter. It is the most hurtful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Could they have written it and sent it via his solicitor?

No!!!!!!!!!!! It doesn’t take very long before one of them admits that their father wrote and they were asked to sign it – otherwise they would have to appear in court and life would get very messy.

Flaw in that argument is: I’d already agreed to the divorce before receiving their letter, so there would never have been a court case. One of them is certainly, as the law says, old enough to ‘vote with his feet’ and therefore would live wherever he chooses. The other isn’t far off that age and could be ‘mentored’ into thinking she wants to live with one parent – but would fairly soon have the privilege of voting with her feet too.

We are six months on and nothing much has happened – to his immense frustration, I presume. I haven’t argued a jot and have asked for civility. Of course I don’t blame the kids for signing that horrible letter because, however the law ‘ages’ them, they are kids and confused. So he hasn’t had the satisfaction of me going mad over that letter or falling out with them.

Then came the credit crunch. He hadn’t planned for that. Well, he hadn’t planned for anything really. Now we are stuck in a house where I’ve agreed to take boxroom so that he can continue doing what he does best (sleep) in the marital suite and although the house is on the market, not many people seem to want to buy. In fact, we’ve had nobody round to even look at it.

I have a brave face which I put on everyday although actually I feel miserable and want to move on – but can’t because of financial constraints. See, the other thing is, he doesn’t even work so the only money coming into this house is the ‘pocket money’ I manage to earn by writing.

What the hell shall I do??????????????????