My Skinny Italian Divorce

Long story short…

Yeah I ditched my wife of 24 years. Or she ditched me — not that it makes any difference.

She’s the Italian one by the way, I’m a North-East Eurotrash/German/Native American mutt; not that this makes any difference either.

So I’m in my mid to late 50s and was single for the first time since I was in my late 20s. It felt weird but not in a bad way. It felt like shit in the beginning, I had my head-meet-wall moments, my crying jags (yes — fuck you!) But those lasted about three days or so. The healing was a bit longer (and no walls or skulls were harmed in the process.)

This is “sweetie.” I have no idea what her real name is. She showed up for a couple of days and made me understand that life is good!

It’s not the end of the world.

• Change is good
• CHANGE IS GOOD!
• Life goes on
• There are other people out there.
• Being in charge of yourself is a SKILL which gets rusty from disuse.
• Get angry if you like, if it makes you feel better, but anger is like sex, it’s best done in private.
• do not — do not — DO NOT get emotional in front of your Ex. She’s going to be watching you like a hawk (at least mine did.) Any action — no; ALL actions will be used against you. Be careful what you say around her from now on. Never get flippant or sarcastic. Don’t push her buttons (she may push yours — mine did.)
• Communicate in writing, email at least. Behave as if all of your emails to her will be be read and taken out of context by her friends. (mine were.)
• Otherwise; leave her completely alone. That’s what she wants — right?

What was the result?

She took, the house, (it was underwater and in foreclosure anyway.) Our kid, nearly all of my friends, most of the furniture, the bank account, one of the cars (the paid off one,) a chunk of my retirement and a chunk of my income for a couple of years. She didn’t demand alimony - thank goodness. In the state of Florida, alimony is until death. The money I gave her each month was for child support and the kid turned 18 in a year or so. She wanted to extend that for six more years while he was in college, I told her forget it. He’s going to have to approach me himself for that. (I think that’s part of growing up anyway.)

I got, the other car (the one that was not paid off.) my clothes, a couple of tables and a futon. Some shelves. A portion of our book collection. Some DVDs she didn’t want and a god-awful 200lb CRT TV set that she didn’t feel like disposing of. Also; half of our credit card debt. I had to insist on just half because she wanted me to pay all of it. I don’t really use the damn things anyway.

And I got my tools.

I changed jobs from of my nice safe plodding one and made an extra 10k after the first year. Then I landed a civil service gig in another state that should get me into the six figures and retirement.

none of this stuff would have happened if I’d stayed with her.

What I don’t have?

5k to 10K in lawyer fees. Months and months of hassle.

How?

We did a collaborative divorce. Once both of us were convinced the relationship was over, collaborative made the most sense.

Collaborative Divorce — not that other kind.

I highly HIGHLY recommend doing collaborative. I can’t say how much this is preferable to the other way.

The other way is euphemistically referred to as a “contentious divorce” and it’s really just a game lawyers play to put their kids through college and get themselves new cars.

A contentious divorce goes like this;

1. Get emotional; get pissed; want to get even (damnit!) revenge REVENGE!!! GRRRR!
2. Find a lawyer who will fight like hell for ”your rights.” Not hard in Florida where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one (a FL lawyer told me that once.) Just look at the billboards. They are all over.
3. Give lawyer all of your money. About three thousand just to get started.
4. Spend months wrangling about every fucking detail.
5. Go before some judge who really doesn’t give two shits about you and watch your life savings go into your lawyer’s car payment while he “fights like hell for your rights!”
6. Get even less than if you and your ex just sat down and hashed things out beforehand.

You need a lawyer, just one. to draw up the paperwork. The judge is a lawyer too and they protect their own. If you submit the paperwork pro-tem, (without a lawyer) expect to get each dot scrutinized and expect to get chewed out even if everything is perfect. My Ex and I used my old lawyer and I paid for half of it.

A collaborative divorce goes something like this.

1. Meet with your Ex on neutral ground, not at your place, not at her place. Especially not in her home even if you own half of it. It’s her home now, not yours. We did a couple of meetings at Starbucks.

2. Make a list, a good one which has the important stuff at the top. If you have kids. the kids go there.

Your stuff should be at the bottom. Unless you are not in the workforce, disabled and/or on public assistance. Then you might need legal help to hash out the difference.

Most of us have too much damn stuff anyway so let her have it. Really valuable stuff should be itemized, things like dishes, electronics, furniture? It’s all yard sale fodder anyway so don’t bother. You can get more. If you have real property you will have to divvy that up, we had to short-sell our home eventually.

3. Get your lawyer to work up a formal divorce agreement. The court will need one and both of you will need to have this for future reference.

But the court is only concerned with two things, 1) who’s taking care of the kids? and 2) Who’s taking care of your debt? You will have to fill out a financial statement enumerating your personal debt and assets (at least in the state of Florida) Otherwise they don’t give a hot damn about dishes and whatnot. The Court will appreciate you not wasting their time.

In the State of Florida, a couple who has kids must attend a “Divorce and Children class.” In mine; the instructor asked for those doing a collaborative divorce to raise their hands. Out of thirty people in the course, I was the only one. Some of them were on their second or third divorce. I spoke to one poor fellow who was still paying off a previous marriage, and now this one.

Bottom line. Don’t be a sap! Sure divorce sucks. But it’s exactly like any painful chore. The faster you get it over with, the faster you get over it.

Don’t be a doormat though. Get a good lawyer and hash things out with your Ex. Be civil about it. Don’t attempt to get even because there’s no way you can.

Nowadays I work for a medium large government agency at far more than twice the income I was getting before all of this crap started. I’m doing very well!

You can too.

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G Allen is a technical geek who does various IT related things and writes on the side. If you liked this story, please mash the “like” button. Or leave a comment.

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