Dear Reader,
This is not on-brand for me. This is a story — accounting — of my divorce in real-time. I’m eschewing the cardinal rule of time + tragedy. I hope you’ll forgive me for the change of direction.
I’m doing this because I want it on record, to the world. Just in case.
Yesterday I caught my husband stalking me. Again.
That’s the punchline, but to get there with it making sense, it requires a little background.
Over two months ago we spent all day in a courtroom during our divorce trial.
One excruciating month later, we received the judge’s ruling letter.
When the decision finally arrived, I received it via email from my attorney. Before reading it, I called her. I wanted to know how to prepare myself for the contents. Her answer was “After I read it, I was smiling from ear to ear.” I felt relief as I sat at my desk, surrounded by the remnants of documents, binders and spreadsheets — remaining tokens of work I’d done to get out of my marriage while trying to prove my worth to the world.
No one wins in divorce court, but if there were a winner, it was me.
Breaking free of this legally binding arrangement has been tortuous, and confusing. My husband declared many times over that he did not want the marriage.
I think he only didn’t want it until I also didn’t want it.
One year after he moved out of the family home — a year of discovering what our family is without him, a year of creating a home where he no longer belonged, a year of unbecoming a wife and becoming me — I filed for divorce. It’s been freeing.
It’s also been a fucking nightmare. He has been very difficult to divorce.
The story of Unbecoming involves so many details. And I know that no one wants to see the charts and graphs laying out the underbelly of it all, so here’s a brief synopsis.
In the Great Commonwealth of Virginia, the next step after receipt of the ruling letter is to translate the information into a Final Order of Divorce, the mother of all divorce documents. It’s needed for virtually everything — taxes, name change, division of assets.
For this reason, my attorney and I spent hours crafting a letter intended to address any items needing clarification and sent it two days after receiving the Judge’s Ruling Letter.
Silence.
Less than two weeks later, still with no communication, we moved forward and sent a draft of the Final Order of Divorce.
Silence.
Until this week. Less than a week before our scheduled court date.
A court date that most people don’t need because all of this mundane bullshit gets settled long before without another hearing required.
But not with my soon-to-be-ex-husband.
In the very-close-to-the-eleventh hour, we had an agreement. No need for the hearing.
The day after the agreement, my husband’s attorney came back with an un-agreement. And so, the court date is required. As are all the legal fees that go along with it.
He can continue because he has access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in joint accounts with his father. I am broke. And he knows this.
I’m juggling credit card debt like a plate spinner who has never juggled a day in her life. I’m surrounded by the shattered porcelain.
. . .
I know my husband watches my house. I’ve seen him before. But, I ignored it. Thinking he’d get tired when he realized there was nothing to watch. The only entertainment was the activity of two aging dogs relieving themselves in the dog run that is exposed to where he sits in his car and lurks.
I thought the mundaneness of it, the lack of excitement, would quash his urge for the thrill that never materialized. But it didn’t. When he isn’t paying for a private investigator — which he has — he drives more than an hour out of his way to sit and watch.
Yesterday I saw him.
I saw how he does it.
He enters the street from the farthest entrance from where my house resides. It allows him to find a spot on the curb without having to drive by the house and accidentally be noticed. It lets him sit there — unrushed — boldly stalking and building the story he’s telling himself while waiting for some sort of confirmation.
He wasn’t afforded that time yesterday. Because yesterday I saw him and I didn’t back down.
I’d spent the majority of the day conferring with my attorney about our strategy for the hearing. By the time my attorney released me to step away from the phone and my computer where all the required divorce details lay, I needed a release from my built-up anxiety and angst. So I left my house, later than usual, for my run around the ‘hood.
Within a couple of minutes of stepping out the door and making my way down the sidewalk, I saw his car enter the street. I saw him park, the wrong way, along the curb. I kept walking toward him. When he saw me see him, he became a coward. Instead of owning his lunacy and driving past me to exit the subdivision, he performed a three point turn in the middle of the street and left the way he came. Fleeing so he wouldn’t have to see my recognition of his absurdity.
I watched as he left. Noting his license plate number and the military decal on his back windshield. He is the only one with it on that type of vehicle.
I saw the blue diamond shaped sticker with highlights of red and yellow. I know that sticker because, at one time, they were plastered on all of our vehicles.
I spent over 20 years being convinced that I was crazy. But I saw him. And, even though it’s scary and creepy, yesterday he gave me the gift of validation.
I’m not crazy. And I know it.
If you’re reading this, soon-to-be ex-husband, I’ll see you in court on Monday.
—
This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
***
You might also like these from The Good Men Project:
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock
