Dissolution by Paper

The papers for the settlement agreement and the custody agreement have arrived by mail today. I looked them over and they looked correct. But it is funny how a huge investment in a life and relationship can boil down to 10 pages of double spaced legalspeak. It is rather sanitary and devoid of the messiness of the whole affair. It is a little scary, too, to realize this is the instrument of destruction.

Of course, it is also a new beginning, but for the moment it seems more like an ending.

This is certainly not the ending I wanted, but it was clear that my wife was not onboard with the marriage. She wasn't trying to be a couple. And I think the thing that gave it all away was when she told me that she decided two years ago that she wasn't going to try. Too bad she waited two years to let me know.


Hopefully she will sign this and the process of divorce will start. It will take three months for her to collect my retirement savings (I won't collect hers because she didn't save anything). So for three months we will live in the same house but have no claim to the other. That is a little stressful.

The lawyer tells me that for him to get a court order for the retirement payoff, we need to file the complaint for divorce, and I guess there is no reason not to go ahead and do it. It is necessary and appropriate, but still feels like a blood vessel bursting in my head.

Since we are living together, I have to have cause for divorce. You can't use separation. Rather than use the common Mental Cruelty, I've asked him to use Constructive Desertion. It is a cause that is not often used but appropriate in my case, and I really like the sound of it. Constructive Desertion. She has deserted the marriage in search of an all-night club and unending rap music. (Did I mention that after a few drinks and dancing, she overheats and pours ice water down her shirt??)

Constructive Desertion means the act of one spouse forcing the other to abandon the relationship. In reality, it usually means that you haven't been intimate in one year. I think that means I could file three times, but once is enough for NJ.

I tell my therapist about it all and she asks me why I am still a little attached to a very damaging relationship. Hmm. I don't know. Generally I'm not attracted to torture (as the victim), but I suppose we did share a lot of good times too. Well, maybe a few good times anyway.

In any case, I present the papers to her tonight at home. Hopefully she will sign and the long marital nightmare will be over.