Things started amicably enough. D and I, though still doing the tiptoe-on-eggshells dance, were at least dancing far enough apart that we didn't bump into one another. There was a certain sense of relief, mingled with the fear of whatever might be around the corner. Little One was fine, doing great - and I kept reminding myself, that was what it was all about. I didn't want Little One growing up and seeing Momma treated the way that D treated me. That was simply not a thing to teach a child.
Sidebar. D was a bully. Alternately charming and fiendish, he was the sort of tortured artist with the deep blue eyes that made you feel like you could really help him, make him see the best in people. And he reveled in the power I let him have over me, finding my weak spots in the darkest of places. He pushed those buttons over and over again, manipulatively, gleefully. If you'd asked him why he did it, he'd say it wasn't him, it was me. And for a long time, I believed him. I believed that I really was the source of his unhappiness, and that I was the reason he drank and smoked dope. It was easier for me to believe that, because in believing that, it gave me some control to change it (potentially). It was so much easier than the harsh reality, which was that I had married a man who was, on his best days, a dark shadow of the man I'd thought I was marrying.
My bad.
Two days after I had told D that I was done, I launched what was the biggest project of my career back at work. Barely able to string a sentence of words together, I alternately focused on the project and on Facebook, where D's presence was now my laser focus. Sally would occasionally chime in on his posts; I could hardly contain myself from shooting back something snide. D had told me that they were now just friends, and that he was committed to doing whatever he needed to do to support me and Little One during the divorce. I, for one, could not comprehend why she thought this behavior was all right. Then again, this was a woman who had thought hip-bone-belly texts to someone else's husband were acceptable ways to interact, so I suppose I had to consider things with some relativity. ("She feels really bad about the texts," D had told me. "She's really unhappy in her marriage. They haven't slept together in 7 years and he's really awful to her." Huh, I thought at the time. Where did her three-year-old come from, then?)
But after a few days of Facebook exchanges between them, I asked D to lighten up on the commenting with Sally on Facebook. It was really hurtful to me, and he and I had a long way to go. And since they were just friends anyway, couldn't he just back off? He agreed. "Of course," he said. "Sorry."
The next day I tried to establish some boundaries. "When do you think you'll be able to move out?" I asked casually.
"I don't know. Are you going to pay me alimony, do you think?" It was a nicely laid-out, shotgun of a question. D excelled at these.
Deep breath. I'd done some homework on my home state's divorce laws. "You'll get half the equity in the house," I said. "But beyond that, it's up to us to determine what you're entitled to. There's nothing that states it has to be 50/50, legally speaking."
"Well, how am I going to support myself?" Again, politely stated, pointy words.
I don't know, pimp yourself out to more old friends and take their husbands' money? I thought. "I don't know," I replied, out loud. "We need to start looking at apartments. Have you looked into getting a car?"
"Yes," he said. "So I'll need some money for that. And an apartment, I need to find one."
"How long do you think you'll be living here?" I asked, as nicely as I could.
"I don't see how I can move out before the end of next month," he said. It was early September, and he was going to be here for another 8 weeks?!
I thought it through quickly. "We'll work on it," I said. "In the meantime, let's just establish that neither one of us will get involved in a relationship with someone else. It's going to be hard enough just living together the next 8 weeks."
"Of course," he said. "Okay."
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