“So, you still want to keep the last name?” My lawyer has asked me this just about every time I’ve come in to sign yet another form to be filed.
There have been a lot of forms.
Since she asks so often, I wondered if it’s weird that I do want to keep my married name, but she tells me that it isn’t very unusual when you’ve got minor children- it’s just easier to change it as part of the divorce process. If I decide to do it later, I’d have to pay for the filing fees.
Next month, my name will be the only part of me that’s still married and I’m keeping it because I want to have the same family name as my children. Changing it would be the smallest measure of division between us, and I don’t want that. I mean, if anyone should have to change their name because of this divorce, it should really be him, but I doubt he’d go for that.
Maybe when the girls are grown, I’ll end up changing it, but like the whole thing. I’ll change it to something that matches the crow-taming, moon- worshiping, tattered- ball gown-on -a-Tuesday- afternoon- because- why-not, Miss Havisham in Grey Gardens-style of existence that my life will have likely evolved to by then.
For anyone wondering why I’m still not divorced yet: In Louisiana, if you have children, you have to first be separated for an entire year. It’s sad when you think about it. That time period is to give you the chance to change your mind, and it’s longer when there’s kids involved to give you a better chance to work it out for their sakes- but he had made it clear from the start that there was zero chance of that happening this or any year, so that mandatory wait was pointless in our case.
He actually very much wanted to end it even quicker. He has told me to get a move on with it because he wants it done, but really, I’d been as prompt as I could be on the whole matter. Despite the still new pandemic in full swing, only about month after he declared that he wanted to be with the hostess instead of me and our kids, I’d fundraised a whole lawyer while finding and setting us up with a mediator as well. Consent agreements (which are the important bit to us newly abandoned mom-types because they lock in things like child-support, custody and alimony) were filed that August, along with the divorce petition- which officially kicked off that waiting period.
When that August date recently came back around, it was right at the start of the new school year and along with my car also breaking down, there was a lot I was dealing with. Yet, I was still set to get things moving along for this divorce. Then we had this *smidge* of a hurricane named Ida blow through town which put a real damper on things. By October, the courts were back up and running and I rolled into my lawyer’s office to sign what I thought were finally the last forms.
They were not.
I’d joked that how this process seems to work is that after I sign something, he has to come in and sign the same thing and then it gets volleyed back to a judge to sign and we wait, and then I sign something else and he signs something else, and the judge signs it…over and over, until finally one day, when the clouds are just the right shade of gray, a sad, black and white clown shows up and hands you a dead rose and a scroll and sings a ballad to the tune of “Sally’s Song”, announcing that your divorce is final.
In reality however, you eventually just get a hearing date.
Mine is next month. Covid changed things so there is a chance I may not have to even go to court because my written statement might be enough. If not, then my lawyer warned we may have to sit there for a very long time while we wait our turn on that day. In a courtroom full of marriages ending. Families breaking. I’ll have to sit there for hours and try not to think about any of that while I wait to testify for a divorce I never wanted. Two weeks before Christmas.
You know, if you’d asked me a year ago, I would’ve said that I could relate to why some women throw divorce parties. It was stressful, emotionally exhausting, and costly getting to the point where everything was sorted out and ready to be filed. I was forced to interact with my husband in rooms that were never big enough when his walking out and my discovering his affair was still raw and excruciating. It seemed like it would be a relief to have it done. Yet, when the waiting period was over and I had to sign papers confirming that yes, I DO want to go ahead with this divorce I didn’t want, I didn’t feel like celebrating.
I’ve been told that I should celebrate this next phase. That congratulations are in order because, I should be happy- since now the next part of my life can *really* began and folks…. I’m really sorry to disappoint you, but having my divorce not be “official” was NOT the thing standing in the way of my healing all this time.
I honestly don’t know how anyone missed this given everything I’ve said here, but I haven’t been in grief and mourning because those final papers hadn’t been signed and stamped by a judge yet. A switch will not be thrown in my heart when that finally happens. Divorce is a word that still feels foreign in my mouth. It’s such a disfiguring end to something I was so proud of and grateful for. I don’t want to celebrate the end of what contained the best years of my life and I certainly won’t be celebrating the ripping apart of my family. My husband unilaterally decided all of that was happening months before I even knew my marriage faced any kind of danger, the paperwork making it official is just a way of sweeping the debris of that bomb he dropped on the girls and I into a tidy pile.
To me, the finalization of this divorce is nothing but a death knell.
Of course, for him it’s different. Divorce makes me a single mom, but it makes him single.
When I think of that, I remember that after the storm, so many of those massive, great oak trees that had stood for so long here had fallen. Just toppled over in the wind. The problem was their shallow roots. No matter how something grows, if the roots cannot go deep enough, then it’s doomed to fail. I looked at all those once majestic trees now laying in the dirt, and felt a strange, fleeting sadness for my husband.
I’d like to think that’s a good sign.
So many times, I’ve had to see the confused hurt and fear in my six year old’s eyes and hear it in her little voice as she pleaded that she just didn’t understand why daddy couldn’t just come home because, “This just feels wrong.”, I’ve held my daughters while they cried with heartbreak deeper than children should ever know because he isn’t here, and after all of this, I know forgiveness will never be an option for me.
Oh, I’ve had too many people tell me how “One Day “he’ll be all alone and regretting all that he did here. But what they fail to realize is that whether that wishful thinking ever comes true or not, I am all alone and regretting all the things he did here. At best, all I could hope for was to one day be enough passed all of my hurt and anger and in a place where I could start to feel sorry for him.
Not that it wouldn’t be a good sign, for him, if he did actually regret it. It would show growth and maturity and self reflection- a glimmer of who I had once thought him to be. One of the many blame-shifting things he told me after he left was, that it takes two people for a marriage to fail. This was actually a funny thing for him to say. It’s a take on a fairly famous quote from Margaret Trudeau, a woman whose bipolar disorder and multiple affairs were factors in both her divorces. And sure, in some cases those words might prove true, but not in ours.
I’ve had to try and create my own closure when it comes to all of this because that’s not something he’ll ever be capable of giving me, so maybe I should do something to mark the occasion of my divorce. Not a celebration though, more like… a wake.
I mean, I’ll have to check my closet, but I think I can find something black to wear. I can hire that same black and white divorce clown and they can go around making everyone balloon hearts…and then pop them when they least expect it. There can be a pinata in the shape of a heart and when it finally gets savagely beaten apart, heavy stones fall out. Or salt water representing tears. Or it’ll just be empty. And there should definitely be a bonfire. I’ll serve a menu of phoenix and serpents and cake and I will burn things away as the night goes long.
The guest list will be very small and it will be BYOB.
Maybe afterwards, my mood will be magially shifted and I’ll happily move on that exciting next phase of my life, start thrifing gowns, and training up those companion crows.
