I'm going to file for divorce

So many reasons.  The main one, I think, is that he is a narcissist.  Everything else flows from that.  The constant need to blame me for everything that ever goes "wrong."  The accusation that I "don't do anything" towards cleaning the house. (For the record, yes, the house is a wreck.  Neither of us does much to fix that.  But his overblown idea that he does "everything" is right in line with the narcissistic personality disorder.)  His complete refusal to listen.  His rude, condescending, mocking attitude and words whenever I try to talk to him about our marital issues.  His repeating things over and over and over unless/until you concede that the thought was brilliant just so you don't have to listen to it again.  His constant bragging about how great he is at his job (teaching sixth grade) mixed in with occasional disturbing stories about how he said something mean to some kid, "but I told him they'd never believe him because I'm the teacher so they'll believe me."  Ugh.  What did I ever see in this guy?

God help me.  Divorce is hell.  Divorcing a narcissist is hell on steroids.

Divorcing this narcissist will be hell on steroids...

No one gets married thinking they will get divorced.

Well, maybe some people do, but then they are fools.

But let me give you some free advice:  Before you get married, think about how a divorce would go, if it were to come to that, sometime in the distant future.  And then don't marry anyone who you would not want to have to try to divorce.

I knew from the beginning that my then-boyfriend could be mean and vindictive if he felt he had been "wronged."  I watched him treat others badly and seek petty revenge when he felt they had treated him badly.

But I was in love, and so was he, and at the time, we were nice to each other.  He was fun to be with, creative, smart, funny, adventurous, romantic...  We both thought we would be friends forever, regardless of what else might happen between us.

We were wrong.

We have tried marriage counseling.  It helped, marginally, for a while.  The counselor would tell us both things that we should work on to improve our relationship.  But instead of taking the counselor's advice and applying it to himself, my husband too often used it as a weapon against me, as in "The doctor said you are supposed to ____" or "are not supposed to ___" -- all the while, not working on the issues the counselor had asked him to work on.  He wouldn't take seriously the "couples exercises" the counselor assigned -- the ones in the book designed to build trust and understanding.  He would say they were "silly" or "goofy" and he didn't want to do them.  If I pushed the point, he would give short or flip answers to the questions asked.  I gave up.

Eventually, I gave up on the marriage. I got tired of giving and not feeling appreciated or loved.  The constant criticism is just too much to bear. I guess a part of me felt like, if he was going to criticize constantly, he might as well have something to criticize.

At this point, we are not friends, and we are not lovers.  There is open hostility, snide remarks made in front of the kids, and a complete lack of communication about many issues.  It is time to end this marriage.

It is not good for me.  It is not good for him.  It cannot possibly be good for the kids.

And yet I dread it, because I know he will be manipulative, vindictive, and downright mean.  He thinks I have treated him badly.  I think he is wrong, but it doesn't matter what I think.  I know what is coming.

I have assisted so many others through this process.  I have seen the damage a manipulative, vindictive, and mean person, with the "right" ("wrong?") lawyer, can inflict on a soon-to-be-ex-spouse, on the kids, on the family as a whole.

I do not want my kids to be in this crossfire.

But the only way through to the other side, to peace and the potential for real happiness, is a divorce.

Sad News and Puppy Training

So much going on lately... so much to write about... I hardly know where to start.

First, I'll mention that my grandfather died two years ago. See this post. And now my grandmother is probably dying. We were all surprised that she lasted past Mother's Day and past my grandfather's "death day," May 10. Perhaps she will surprise us more, with a miracle, and heal herself and rise from her death bed to live another 10 or 20 years. More likely, she will continue to decline and eventually die from the kidney infection and kidney stones that are currently inoperable because she is too weak.

This breaks my heart. I'll write more later about it. Right now, I just can't manage it.

* * *

My uncle, the one who lives in Japan not all that far from the Fukushima nuclear plant, came to visit. He was cleaning out his storage locker in L.A., where he and his wife placed all of their stuff before moving to Japan nearly 20 years ago. He has paid to store the things all this time, but has finally decided it is time to part with most of it, and quit paying for the past. He rented a truck and brought me his piano and some other items that he wanted to "keep in the family," as well as a few boxes of papers and memorabilia that he asked me to store for him indefinitely.

It was great to see him. He is as much fun with kids as I remember from my own childhood, and my kids absolutely loved having him around.

He is also having marital problems and spent a lot of time while here talking with my mom and me about the issues in his marriage.

This also breaks my heart. I'll write more later about it. Right now, I just can't manage it.

* * *

We got a new dog about 6 weeks ago. Another St. Bernard. She is about a year and a half old, and absolutely beautiful. We got her from some folks who were about to have a new baby and said they just could not handle a big dog, too. Particularly a not-very-well trained one.

She is housebroken and sits on command. But when we got her, she had a terrible habit of jumping up (not a good thing for an 80-plus pound dog, who will be 100 to 140 pounds when she is full grown).

Within just a few days at our house, she mellowed out considerably. She loves that she can go in and out as she pleases. She loves that she gets lots of love and affection from all four of her new humans, plus gets to play with two other dogs. She has quit jumping up and instead sits next to you and looks up with the sweetest brown eyes ever. You just can't help but pet her, and I swear sometimes she purrs like a cat....

She was somewhat neglected by her former owners -- they left her in their small back yard a lot, and never took her for a walk. I had to buy a "head collar" to control her; a regular collar was not workable at all -- she is far too strong and pulls way too hard, and she resisted all efforts to keep her from simply taking off to run where she pleased. But she is getting used to walking with some slack in the leash, and enjoys our fairly regular outings.

She still has some issues. She barks at lots of people, and most dogs, when we walk her. She is just trying to be friendly, to get their attention.... but it is scary for them, and other dogs tend to get offended. We are trying to train her not to do this, but it takes time, and patience, and it is hard.

Just had her spayed yesterday -- had to wait until she was out of heat to get it done. Can't believe the former owners didn't do it, as they stated that they had no intention of breeding her, even though both her parents were registered purebred Saints.

I'll post photos and write more later.

* * *

Work is busy, too. A good thing, after last year's fiasco of clients who didn't pay and slow business. I think the economy is getting better. More of my clients are paying, and there are more of them this year.

I'll write more later.

* * *

Just wanted to give you all a quick update. I'm not gone. Just busy... and somewhat preoccupied with sad news and puppy training.

Regarding Same-Sex Marriage

One of those facebook blurbs caught my eye and I thought I'd post it here, too:

So, let me get this straight . . . Charlie Sheen can make a "porn family," Kelsey Grammer can end a 15 year marriage over the phone, Larry King can be on divorce #9, Britney Spears had a 55 hour marriage, Jesse James and Tiger Woods, while married, were having sex with EVERYONE. Yet, allowing same-sex marriage is going to destroy the institution of marriage? Really?

Re-post if you are proud to support equal rights.

Happy Anniversary, Reprise

So last night the kids were gone - one at her friend's house, the other at his grandma's house.

As I mentioned, I was exhausted and emotionally drained. And frankly, my husband and I had been having a rough time lately - miscommunicating a lot and being snippy with each other. I really just wasn't in the mood to celebrate. Heck, our anniversary was actually a few days before, and neither of us had been in the mood to celebrate so we had already put it off until yesterday. Not exactly a recipe for a great anniversary celebration, is it?

But we talked a little, and got past the snippiness and miscommunications, and then my wonderful husband, who has so many awesome qualities including being a fantastic cook, made dinner.

Then he installed new baseboards in the dining room while I dozed off and on and did some work. (Did I mention he has many awesome qualities?)

Then we rearranged the furniture in the dining room.

Then we just hung out together for a while and drank a couple of glasses of wine and ... had a nice evening.

We'll celebrate in style later, when I'm not exhausted and emotionally drained and he's not feeling sad and ignored by his exhausted, emotionally drained wife. Next weekend has possibilities.

But I must say, last night accomplished, for me, what I think is the main purpose of recognizing an anniversary: to remember and celebrate the reasons why you married this particular person.

He's a great guy, with many awesome qualities, and I love him.

We've been married for 12 years so far. I'm hoping for many, many more.

Happy Anniversary

Here is what I have done today so far:

Made appointment and took my 16 year old cat to the vet to be euthanized.

Cried.

Showered, dressed, drove to law school.

Met with 12 students regarding their progress in my legal writing class and provided assistance as necessary with the pending assignment as well as answering questions they had about anything we've discussed all semester, including grammar and writing style, proper citation form, research issues, and organization and legal analysis. (I met with the rest of the students in the class a couple of days ago).



Here are the things I was supposed to do today that did not get done:

Pay insurance bill.

Grade papers.

Draft joint pretrial statement.



Here is what I'm supposed to do tonight:

Celebrate my anniversary with my husband.




Here is what I feel physically and emotionally capable of doing tonight:

Curling up in a ball and sleeping for 15 hours.



Someone send me a giant Kahlua and coffee with whipped cream, please, so I can wake up, relax, and feel happy again. Thank you.

My Husband Is Andy Warhol

I came home from work today and this is what I found on my kitchen counter. A wall of Pop-tarts, looking very much like an Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup painting:

Apparently, they were on sale at Safeway for $1 a box. My husband loves Pop-tarts, so he stocked up.

A Meditation on the 1950s Housewife

With a recent post, Angie over at "Stumble Thru Life Gracefully" got me thinking about my career choice versus the limited choices available to the average middle class woman in the 1950s. That Damn Expat's "Wife Tips" meme also contributed to my thoughts.

There is no doubt that I have benefitted enormously from the "women’s movement." I was able to choose a career that, most days, I enjoy. I make a decent living being a lawyer. I like legal "puzzles" and helping people solve their legal problems. Overall, I’m glad I was not born in the 1930s and was not required to be a middle class homemaker for my entire adult life. And yet....

There are days when I am sick to death of being a lawyer and dealing with obnoxious people and sticky legal issues and judges who "don't get it" and I think, wow, I wish I could stay home all day and have time to clean my house and bake cookies and do art projects with my kids. Even though I don’t love cleaning, I think I would pretty quickly find a routine for getting the major housecleaning and errands done, and would then find time for fun things, too, like reading, baking, bicycling, trying new recipes, perhaps an art class, playing tennis... whatever.

If my husband could afford to have me stay home and do all the cleaning, shopping, and errands, and if I were willing, it would undoubtedly make his life easier, too. I would handle chores like getting his oil changed, taking out the garbage, shopping, paying bills, mowing the lawn, picking up uniforms for his soccer team at school, and so forth that he is always having to squeeze in during weekends and evenings, and we would have more time to just "hang out" with each other and with the kids.

I also often think how nice it would be, as a busy attorney, to have a "wife" to do things for me, like clean the house, run errands, cook, shop for groceries, pay bills, iron clothes, take the kids to music class and doctor appointments, etc.

When I worked at a large law firm, I always felt there was "unfair competition" in the billable hours race. Many (perhaps even most) of the male associates had wives who stayed home and handled all of the day-to-day cleaning, tasks, and errands for them. Thus, it was easier for them to show up at 8 a.m. and stay until 6 p.m., while remaining focused on their work throughout the day. Because my husband and I divide such tasks, I was often having to show up late or leave early to handle some errand or another, or make telephone calls during the day to schedule doctor appointments, or to rush home and clean the house because we were planning to have company that evening. It made it hard to compete in the "billable hours" game, and led to me working lots of late nights and weekends – time I would rather have spent with my husband.

Similarly, if I could afford to have my husband stay home – and if he were willing – to do all those day-to-day errands, kid-related tasks, and major housecleaning, it would definitely make my life easier and would probably help me focus more on my job instead of on the dry-cleaning that needs to be picked up or the kid party that needs to be planned. Plus I’d have more free time at home and, without the ever-growing "to do" list, I would be more relaxed and be better able to enjoy my husband and kids. (I’d be a little sad, though, I have to confess, to miss all those piano lessons and sports practices that I currently attend.)

Thus, I can genuinely understand how the men in the 1950s were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic when women wanted to stop being happy little homemakers and go get a job. I mean, if you were the recipient of all that extra assistance, which allowed you to focus on your career and get regular raises and promotions, you certainly wouldn't want to give it up, either, thereby finding yourself with a dirty house, more errands on your "to do" list, a wife who now complains that her day was stressful and By the way, honey, can you cook dinner tonight? – and on top of all that, to suddenly have to compete in the workplace with a whole new contingent of bright, motivated people who are out to beat you in the "I want a promotion" game.

"What? What happened to my paradise?" those poor men must have been thinking. No wonder they objected.

And yet, the change had to come. It was simply wrong to insist that women stay home and "take care of their man."

But the problem, as I see it, was not in the division of labor per se – one spouse staying home to cook, clean, and generally "run" life, while the other earned a paycheck. The problem, as I see it, was in forcing people into this job, particularly when the decision about who should be forced into the homemaker role was based solely on gender.

In other words, I definitely see "homemaking" as a valid choice of occupation for a woman or a man to make (assuming the other partner makes enough income for this to be feasible, and agrees that it is a good choice for the marriage). In fact, it is a choice that could well be good for many people – and their kids – if affordable and if both people want this arrangement, and if both people accord due respect to the sacrifices and hardships the other is enduring.

There also has to be some recognition of the value of the homemaking role and of the fact that voluntarily undertaking the homemaking role will severely limit a person’s future employment options, so that if people get divorced, there is a provision for the former homemaker to receive a reasonable amount of financial assistance for a reasonable amount of time from the former beneficiary of all that homemaking, so he / she can obtain a degree and get a job and/or find a new "love" who likes the idea of marrying a homemaker.

The difference between my little utopic ideal and the stifling atmosphere of the 1950s is all about the attitude and the options -- a career of homemaking should be an equal-opportunity option -- i.e., a choice that men, as well as women, can freely make without being ridiculed. It should also be a true choice -- i.e., a choice that is made only if both partners to the marriage agree. There should be no unilateral decisions to abandon the work force and the income it provides, and no attempts to force the other person into the homemaker role by any person or institution in our society.

And it should be a choice that both parties recognize has monetary value and yet limits the homemaker’s future options, so that if they end up divorcing, there is no one crying and whining about being required to pay alimony for a reasonable amount of time.

What do you think?

Should all people, women and men, get a job and split those household duties? Is it hopelessly anachronistic and only the province of the devoutly religious to have a stay-at-home parent? Or should it be a widely accepted and even promoted occupational choice for both men and women?

If you are a homemaker (male or female), do you enjoy your role? Do you prefer it, or would you rather be working?

If you have a job / career outside the home (male or female), do you enjoy it? Do you prefer it, or would you be a homemaker if you could?

Whatever you do, do you feel "judged" by those who have made a different choice?
.

My Husband Is Homer Simpson

So the other evening, my two kids were out back playing ball. They were not fighting, which is unusual. They were laughing, hitting baseballs, running around, having fun.

My husband flipped on the tv while starting to cook dinner.

Next thing I know, I hear him yelling out the back door to the kids:

"Hey kids, come on inside! "The Simpsons" is on! It's a new one!"

. . .

Fine parenting moment #283.

Do you think the neighbors were impressed?
.

Six Random Facts About Me

Here is the second "meme" that Fancy Schmancy tagged me with last week. Happy reading!

MEME 2 -- Six Random or Weird Things About Me

The assignment:

Share 6/7 random/weird things about yourself. Tag 6/7 other bloggers, link to them, put a comment on their blog letting them know they've been tagged.

As with yesterday's meme, I'm not tagging anyone, but if I have any readers who haven't done this meme and would like to participate, please feel welcome to participate and to comment and let me know you've done so.

The disclaimer:

The assignment didn't say they had to be interesting. Just random or weird.

The answer:

1. When I was in college, I worked at the CIA for two summers, through their summer intern program (available to persons who have a parent who works there). It required filling out a huge application form, including lots of personal questions, so that I could obtain a "Secret" level government clearance. Then they actually conducted face to face interviews with people who knew me – including my college roommate and others who lived in my college dorm. I didn’t know these interviews were going to be part of the process, so I hadn’t warned anyone that the CIA might contact them. Imagine my roommate’s surprise when, on the weekend I had gone "home" to visit my family, a CIA Agent knocked at our dorm room door and asked her lots of questions about me. I was hired either in spite of, or perhaps because of, whatever my roommate said about me.... She never would tell me what they asked or what she said.

2. When I was a kid, my friends all loved the "Road Runner" and laughed uproariously whenever he foiled the Coyote yet again. I always felt sorry for the Coyote, who was constantly spending all that money on expensive and shabby contraptions from that worthless "Acme" company and was always unable to catch that annoying-as-hell Road Runner ("Beep! Beep!"). Do you think I lacked a sense of humor, or did anyone else feel that way, too?

3. When I was in the 5th grade, I won the school spelling bee and represented my school in the regional spelling bee. I’ll post about that experience some other time. For now, I'll just say that I should have won the regional spelling bee (but didn’t) and I am still an awesome speller. (humble, too... but not bitter about it... oh no, not bitter at all....)

4. Instead of a "best man" at our wedding, we had a "best woman." She was (and is) a very good friend of my husband’s. He has known her since he was in high school. Her husband and both of their kids were also in the wedding party.

5. I used to run the office football pool (for 9 years). These days, I couldn’t tell you who’s in first place or last place in the NFL.

6. I had about 2 seconds of fame when I was one of many "Deadheads" featured in a made-for-television Grateful Dead documentary sometime in the early 1990's, answering the question "what is your favorite line from a Dead song?" (Answer, "Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile"). I can't even remember what station or company made the documentary (Discovery Channel, maybe?) but my former college roommate (the one who answered questions for the CIA) sent me a videotape of it. No, not a DVD, a videotape. You know, the kind we played on a VHS machine back in the last century? Someday I'll dig it out of the closet and see if I can figure out a way to post a clip from it on YouTube and/or share it here with you all.

Thanks for reading and, if you like, consider yourself "tagged."

Kid Wisdom

We're on one of our vacations. The internet access at this hotel is spotty at best. It disconnects randomly and with no warning, so this will have to be short. I'll just share with you the "wisdom" from my babe's mouth... Then in a couple of days when we're home again, I'll write something longer and more interesting, I promise.

We're vacationing in a small town in the mountains, about 3-4 hours from our home.

We intended to leave our house in time to arrive by 7 p.m., so that we could check in and then have a late dinner in one of our favorite restaurants on the mountain. We left the house at 6 p.m. This was mostly my fault. I wasn't ready at 3 p.m. I was, in fact, still working until 4 p.m., still packing until 5 p.m., and still running errands until 6 p.m.

So, we left at 6. My husband was doing a fine job of not complaining about leaving so much later than we planned. But I knew, without him saying so, that he was disappointed and somewhat sad that we did not arrive in our fun mountain town in time to have dinner there, and had to settle for the golden arches on the way up the mountain.

Halfway up the mountain, it was pitch dark and we couldn't see much of anything other than the tail lights on the cars in front of us, and there weren't even many of those. My youngest, with no prompting from the dear husband asked, in his "I'm trying not to whine but this is really hard" voice, "Why is it dark and we're still driving?"

It was exactly what my husband wished he could have asked.... and probably in the same tone of voice he would have used if he had asked. We both laughed. It broke the tension that we hadn't even realized was there. Kids. Ya gotta love 'em.

Marriage-Saving Murderess

My husband and I love to travel. At least three times a year, we pack up the car and the family and head somewhere cooler, more mountainous or beachier (new word I just invented) or woodsier or, at the very least, rainier than the desert where we live. Not that we don’t love our desert – we just like to have a change of scenery, and weather, every once in a while.

We like to drive on these family vacations because that way, we have the car while we are there. Also we can stop at random side-of-the-road tourist attractions (giant concrete dinosaurs, anyone?), see the scenery along the way (look! cows!), and, most important of all, avoid the annoying security lines, potential flight delays, sardine-style seats and whiny kids involved in flying anywhere these days. Well, ok, so the whiny kids are ours and we can’t avoid them just by driving, but it does help somewhat because at least we can stop and let them see the giant concrete dinosaurs – and then threaten to leave them if they don’t stop whining (kidding, just kidding...).

Besides, if we don’t drag our kids half way across the country while they argue and fight in the back seat of the car, who will? Certainly not their aunts, uncles, or grandparents. No way - they are much too smart to volunteer for that particular form of torture. And we would absolutely hate it if our children missed out on this particularly American rite of childhood.

But, as much as we love this thrice-yearly ritual of packing up the family for a cross-country trek, my husband and I always seem to end up in a fight. No matter how well we plan our route, there will always come a time along the way when, if he is driving, he will ask, as we are driving on the freeway at 65 mph and approximately 60 feet from an exit, "Is this the exit I’m supposed to take?" Gaaah?!?! Heck if I know. "Uh...." And then we’ve missed it. And it was our exit. Or he takes the exit. And it wasn’t the right one. One of those will happen. And then he blames me and I blame him and we are fighting about which way to go next and whose fault it is that we are lost anyway, and the kids are whining in the back seat, and it is just not pretty.

We do a bit better if I drive. He is a much better navigator than I am, so he warns me well ahead of time about what road to take next. And I am better, when driving, at following general directions (you can tell me to take Route 90 in 10 miles – and I’ll do it even if not reminded) as well as the last-second instructions that happen, inevitably, at least once per trip: "ooh! Turn here!" But I can’t drive the whole way every time. And I can’t seem to get the hang of navigating in a way that my husband can follow well (take Route 90 in 10 miles . . . . Route 90 1 mile ahead . . . . Route 90, ½ mile . . . Route 90, this exit here....). I get distracted talking to the kids, or talking to my husband, or reading, or changing the radio station, or whatever... And then it happens.... The missed exit, and the fight.

But, salvation is at hand! My wonderful Dad, who has always liked my husband more than he likes me and therefore has an incentive to make sure I don’t fight with said husband, bought us an awesome device last year for Christmas. Probably you all have had one of these wonderful devices for years now, but we just got ours last Christmas, and we love it. It is a GPS that plans your route for you and then gives directions in a wonderful British accent (and with some odd British turns of phrase) but most importantly, in a way that both my husband and I can follow – "stay on the left lane..... Turn left in ½ mile . . . Turn left." And if you miss the turn, the device immediately recalculates the route and then tells you how to get back on track. "Make a U-Turn." Or "Take the next exit left." The GPS/trip planning device we got (there are lots of different brands out there) is the "TomTom." Because it has a female-sounding voice, we call her "Mrs. TomTom" and, as I said, we love her. If you do not have one, you should immediately go out and buy one. You can find a place to buy one by going to www.tomtom.com. Or, better yet, have someone else buy you one for a gift.

Mrs. TomTom is not, however, perfect. Mind you, she is pretty much guaranteed to get you where you want to go – it’s just that sometimes you may get there in a rather roundabout way. For example, if you could get there by turning left, going one block down the street, and then turning left into the driveway, she will sometimes have you turn right, go to the light and turn right again, go one block, turn right, go one block, turn right, go one block, turn right, and then turn right into the driveway. We are therefore firmly convinced that she is the product of a consortium of oil companies – she’ll get you there, but not necessarily in the quickest or most fuel-efficient way.

As a result, we have begun to use Mrs. TomTom as sort of a "backup system." We no longer have to get stressed out and/or angry if we miss a turn, because we know she’ll get us back on track and we will not be lost forever in the hot dry desert or in the worst neighborhood in the Bronx at night, eventually running out of gas and dying a horrible death. But we don’t always follow her directions exactly, either. We look at the map, take the way we think we should go, and relax and avoid yelling at each other because we know we’ll never be truly lost so long as we have Mrs. TomTom in the car with us. I highly recommend this particular marriage-saving device to anyone who has problems, as we do, giving and following directions while driving.

But, beware! If you ignore her too much, she becomes vengeful.

On the way home from the beach this past summer, we had ignored her instructions to take Route "A" because, in looking at our map, Route "B" looked like more of a straight shot to where we wanted to go. Route "B" took us over a mountain, through a mountain pass. Route "A" would have had us go around the mountain, an approximately 60 miles longer route.

For several miles, Mrs. TomTom kept telling us to turn around – "at the intersection, make a U Turn"; or "At the intersection, turn right, then, turn right again." She was trying to direct us back to the road we had abandoned. We ignored her, figuring eventually she would recalculate the route and include the road we were on.

As we were coming down the other side of the mountain, going through a series of harrowing switchbacks with blind hairpin curves and at least a 6% grade, I guess she had finally had it with us ignoring her instructions. As we rounded a hairpin curve and headed down a long steep grade with the mountain on our left and a steep cliff on our right, with at least a 200 foot drop to the ledge below and no other road in sight she stated, "Right turn ahead," and then a moment or so later, "turn right."

My husband gazed over the edge of the cliff and deadpanned, "Mrs. TomTom is trying to kill us."