Against this was a recurring stream of IMs, e-mails, and text messages from the woman who had been my wife for 14 years, two months, and three days. The 60-day waiting period from filing to decree review passed over the weekend, so she developed the (unreasonable) expectation that the document would be signed and ready to go on Monday.
When I called the office on Monday to check on the status, I got an answer that it wasn't done yet and that I should check back on Wednesday. She was not happy about that, badgering me to call the office back to find out why. Sure enough the slow grind of justice delivered on the schedule that they told me.
After her last nag message, which included the text, "Divorce ? ? ?", I was finally able to write back that the documents were ready and that I would pick them up in the afternoon. She texted back saying, "Thanks for taking care of this." I wrote back saying, "No problem. I guess you can now make it 'Facebook official' as they call it :-p ." She wrote back with this statement:
U know I didn't mean to hurt u. I'm sorry it had to end this way. I'm glad we can still be good parents to the girls. Thank u for giving them to me.
I didn't know what to make of that.
I felt a deep sadness after picking up the papers, a sense of acceptance that I had failed in this relationship... a lingering doubt over that feeling of being different, defective, and inadequate. I could not self validate in the moment.
Where do I go from here? There are still loose ends... getting the mortgage re-fi wrapped up, getting the house restored to order. Right now it looks like a scale model of the 9th Ward in New Orleans circa mid September 2005. I need to start making time for making new real-life friends. I need to start getting resumes out there before I lose my sanity on this job. I need to get some help.
