@fb2 and @Thinker -- I get that your sitch's are different. But (as WAW has been all-too-ready to point out) "divorce" is only about the money; divorce -- conceptually, emotionally, psychologically -- is about the flip-side of divorce-busting: You, your mental wherewithal, etc. So it has been useful for me to not confound the one with the other -- to firewall off the juridical from the emotional. Lawyers are for the former; this board is (among other things) for the latter (for me, anyway).
Last night at dinner WAW was rambling on about moving out Friday, and I was rambling on about my ever-increasing to-do list and mentioned that I thought it would be useful to have at least one divorce-box checked each month.
What's the big hurry? asks WAW. And she's goes off on this somewhat incoherent discourse on how moving out "is the big thing" and once that's done as far as she's concerned the legal bit can linger and linger because we'll be "on our own" and can do "whatever we want" and etc.
After my initial -- though unspoken -- reaction, which focused on the "do whatever we want" bit, I realized -- she's stalling. She's absolutely stalling. Now why would she do that when stalling costs her more money than finalizing?
(FYI, per state/county formula, temporary spousal support > permanent spousal support, and remember that I'm the supportee, since I focused on kid-stuff > professional stuff, where WAW was professional > kids).
So, being me, I thought I'd push her to the door a bit and see what happens.
So I pointed out that, from my POV, the old Macbeth Doctrine applied: If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. I feel that there should be some forward progress toward the Final D; I can't imagine that the lingering Limboland (thanks @Thinker) would sit well with me, and at the risk of projecting I'd imagine it would be the same with her.
Ah! WAW interrupted. Limboland is okay with me. Because (then a repeat of above)....
Well, says I, I guess I just don't feel that way.
And WAW gets all suspicious and asks why I feel that way. There's only two reasons why I'd want the divorce finalized -- money or marriage, so.....
You're thinking of getting married again! says she. Oh, that would be a disaster. Oh, that would be terrible. You shouldn't do that.... (That was pretty effin' sweet, I gotta say. I mean, she went off on a thorough-going review of all the reasons why it would be a really bad decision for me to even THINK about getting married again. She was really into it. All I could do not to grin.....)
The reason, I said, is irrelevant to this discussion. What's relevant is the way I feel. And I don't know that I will be able to cope as well with the uncertainty of Limboland as I would with the finality of Divorceland.
She then said things that are very much in line with @Greek's recent comments on @Thinker's thread (and can I just say how much I love that these discussions of all of ours weave in and out the way they do?) -- she just wants to move out, get settled. It's too much! Too much! She can't think straight, etc. etc.
Well, thinks I (though don't say it out loud), tough sh*t sweetie-pie. You called the tune; you pay the piper. It's not my job to make it easy or to give you space to get comfortable with it step-by-step. I need to be comfortable, too, and I'm 50% of this thing, and I'm all about me -- just like you were the day you declared Game Over.
So I twisted the old knife a bit more. Well, look, if I'd been the one to declare "I'm done" -- and then I repeated a lot of the things she's said to me, starting with ILYBNILWY, and she got more and more visibly uncomfortable hearing them out loud -- I'd be done. Not wanting to live in suspended animation. So that's how I understand it from my POV.
We dropped it at that point because Real Life intervened, but I had to again fight the urge to grin because later that night, while we were watching TV (trying to close out the TiVo file before WAW takes it to her new house!), she paused the show in the middle and out of the clear blue asked, "No, really, why IS it better for you for the divorce to be final?"
I'm not sure what to make of this seeming urge to stall and delay. I know that time is my friend. Why doesn't WAW view time as her enemy?
