There is a love seat and a couch in our family room. Over the years we’ve played with the kids on them, had tickle fights, naps, and foot rubs. Tonight, my husband sat across from me while I coiled up on the love seat, behind this very same laptop. He shuffled the paper version of what I looked at on my screen; a bizarre, coldly-worded and very legal-sounding divorce decree and property settlement agreement.
A few weeks ago, I sat across from a friend who is also a divorce attorney. I wrote him what felt like a big check for an “uncontested” divorce, but compared to litigation, a very small one - and he handed me a bunch of documents to fill out.
These same documents floated around our family room tonight. Between us, a large Groovy Girls tent sat on the coffee table. An empty Capri Sun pouch listed to one side and a random stuffed penguin sat still near the fireplace. It’s the same house we’ve been in for over three years now, the same messes and weird items, the same farting Labrador and carpet that could use a good vacuuming.
My mother has mentioned that she feels uncomfortable now in our house. Welcome to my life, where all aspects of my living situation and relationships feel weird and uncomfortable and sometimes downright scary.
My reality is now my surreality, because there is nothing normal or expected about calmly discussing how you are going to tear your marriage apart. It is a little like buying a car - you know how much you have to spend, but you don’t want to spend too much. In fact, if you could get it for free - steal it, so to speak, you know you totally would. You want to get out as cheaply and as unscathed as possible. Only this new car feels like an alien spaceship you don’t know how to drive, let alone fly. Things that are weird in my life? Where to begin? Having Nikki living here is weird, but comforting. For people who don’t know us, we probably look like a happy lesbian couple, alternating lunch-packing for the kiddies and driving the station wagon to and fro the library. It makes me giggle, and I’ll take all the giggles I can get. My mother asks if it’s weird. Yep. Is it weird having Mike gone? Yep. Is it weird renting a room at John’s? Yep. Is it weird breaking down your lives, and your children’s lives, into tiny paragraphs with checkmarks and annotations and schedules A, B, C? Hell, yes.
Want to make me gag and feel like dying? Use the word “alimony” in my presence. “Spousal Support” is only mildly better. I am Carol Brady after Mike Brady has told her he’s gay and left her ridiculous winged hair for a greased-up body builder with a 6 pack of abdominals and a tacky Popeye tattoo on his ass. Carol would have to fire Alice the Maid. She’d ruin her cat-like nails by scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees (Alice was always so sturdy! No amount of Clorox would dare mess with Ms. Alice). She’d throw herself down at Mike’s feet and beg for some of his architectural income so she could continue to get waxed and put tv dinners in the oven. My feminist self rears its unkempt head and hairy legs; then it burps. This cannot be happening to me - and I brought it on myself! Spousal Support??? Who makes this crap up? What woman born in 1971 is stupid enough to ever lose financial independence? Watch out, ye womyn in yer 20’s - never let yourself become dependent on a man. Bringing forth those children, we all make choices and sacrifices. My career came second. It was still important to me, and I still loved it, but after the moment I found out I was pregnant with Lily, it was never the same for me.
I “wanted” to start my own business. I sure did. I wanted something that would allow me the flexibility to have it all. I could be around for my children, but still work. I could be well-networked, use my brain, make some money - and still be Carol Brady but without the random winged hairdo and the tv dinners. This is all a myth of course, but other women have written about it much more eloquently (and succinctly) than I ever could.
For now, we sit across from each other, a pink tent with leopard-print piping between us. The meeting lasts all of 20 minutes. We attack the document like lawyers do, even though I’m not one (I only play one on tv). We hit the bullet points, cross off the numbers of the pages we’ve agreed on. With the minor exception of spousal support, we’re pretty much on the same page. I will live in the house until it sells; he will get an apartment with hopefully enough room for the girls during his scheduled visitation. Everything is explained on paper and neatly drawn up. At some point the paper will go back to the lawyer, and the lawyer will do whatever lawyers do with paper and courthouses and stamps from clerks of courts. The paper will end up in both of our filing cabinets, with addendum A showing who gets the love seat and who gets the couch. Those same couches that held our warm soft asses will be divided as efficiently as our marriage.
