These Words Should Hang in Every Divorce Lawyer’s Office
Maybe angry spouses would listen.
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“I need money for groceries,” I say.
“I’m not a bank,” says my husband.
“You’re going to leave town and leave us with no money?” I say.
“That’s right,” he says.
My husband is using divorce as an excuse to exercise his anger. This is just one of our conversations during a long and overly abusive divorce.
How dare I leave him!
He’ll show me!
My husband enjoys his weekend away with zero remorse.
When he returns I plead with him. I don’t know why I try because nothing works. He can’t hear me. He lacks empathy. He has no ability to feel the pain he is inflicting even on his own children.
“When,” I say. “Are you going to decide you love our children more than you hate me?”
These words should hang in every divorce lawyer’s office.
Maybe it would capture the attention of angry spouses.
Maybe they would remember they are adults.
They are parents. They consciously made decisions that led to this end result. And for the few that didn’t, they still have to do the right thing. Because that’s what grown-ups do.
When we become mothers and fathers we lose the luxury of immaturity.
But my husband is the angry child on the playground.
The one who didn’t get his way. He’s going to throw a tantrum that can’t be missed. Even by his own children. He’s going to stomp his feet and bring all the attention back to him.
The problem with bullies is they are hard to stop.
Especially when you have made yourself financially vulnerable.
That code for staying home to raise my children. One person now controls every aspect of my life and my children’s lives. We had food and gas money when I was miserably married.
But he holds the cards now that I’ve chosen to leave him.
“When are you going to decide you love our children more than you hate me?”
