Plastic Bins and Financial Ruin: The Real Cost of Starting Over

 

Someday soon she’ll learn that divorce ends with math 

 

 

Libby, my beagle, and I were on an afternoon walk when we saw our neighbor, Abby, carrying clear plastic bins filled with clothes to her SUV. She was walking with purpose and amped intensity.

 

“What are you doing?” I asked as if it was any of my business.

 

“I found out two and a half weeks ago that my husband is having an affair with a coworker,” she said. “When he got home from a business trip, something was off, so I started asking pointed questions. He admitted to it.”

 

“Are they still having an affair?”

 

“I don’t know. I told him I didn’t want to know any more than I needed to know.”

 

“So where are you going?”

 

“I found an apartment down south. This is the last of my stuff. He can have the rest. He’s at his parents’ house while I get out.”

“Who gets the dog?” I asked.

 

With a full throat of defiance, and probably all the strength Abby could muster she declared, “I do. She’s coming with me.” 

 

 

Abby put a stake in the ground. The dog was the most important asset.

 

“You’re going south?  Don’t you work two miles from here?  You’re going to add an hour each way to what used to be a five minute commute,” I said.

 

“Yeah, it’s a nice place. Not as nice as here, but I’m far away from all of this. Tonight’s going to be my first night there.”

 

Abby was on the periphery of my daily life so I didn’t have anything profound to say.  The last thing I was going to tell her was how messy divorce gets.

 

I defaulted and said something lame–I’m sorry.  Then I tried to lighten the mood by mentioning that she was leaving at the beginning of football season, so I couldn’t tease her about the Packers anymore.

 

“I don’t care about the Packers at the moment.”

Of course she doesn’t.

 

Libby and I headed home. “Well, that went well,” Libby said to me in beaglese.

 

Yeah, no shit.

 

Abby’s somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-five. As we walked, I told Libby, “She doesn’t understand that a drone just hit her life. The thirty-thousand-ton bomb is coming in the form of accountants, forensic audits, 401k liquidations, lawyers, or possibly mediation. They should just take the money and other assets, divide by two, and give her alimony that covers half the marriage and be done with it.”

 

But divorce is hard because comes down to math.

 

Less than a month ago, I saw Abby and her husband returning from the mall. He carried all the bags inside, and I remember thinking, “She’s taught him well.” 

 

Then came the explosion.

 

It’s been two weeks since Abby left and during that time neither she nor her husband were in the apartment. Their place was nearly all glass and when she was there passersby could hear music and see inside.  The place had life.

 

He came back this week, but couldn’t be bothered to open the blinds. 

 

I found myself thinking: “If you’re still having your affair, you probably don’t care about Abby. You got what you wanted and now you have a love shack. That’s not right. But if the other woman dumped you and you’re truly alone in this world, that 900 square foot apartment echos of a massive fuck up.”

 

Tonight Bentley, my other dog, and I walked by. The shades were still closed, with just one window cracked open about eight inches. It was lifeless.  It was Abby who brought the energy.

 

I’m sad that I’ll never see her again. We saw each other a few times a week when we used to hang out at the park with the dogs or during halftime of whatever game was on. 

 

I’ve kicked myself for not offering her the names of family lawyers. She’s going to walk into an attorney’s office and plop down several hundred dollars for an hour consultation, and even if she doesn’t like the person, that money’s gone. At least when you go to a new doctor because you’re sick, you get medication in exchange for your fee. 

 

I wonder how many attorneys she’ll interview before she settles on one. Then comes the retainer. If it’s a simple divorce, maybe seventy-five hundred. If it’s complex, fifteen thousand. Whatever the initial retainer is, plan on doubling it. That 401k she thought they’d split is headed to the lawyer’s bank account.

 

She’ll have to tell the whole story.  Reliving the details.  Or maybe she won’t and all the lawyer will focus on is the money.

Dollars and cents is a brutal way to end a marriage.

 

Welcome to divorce land where the years of dating, a wedding, love and commitment gets boiled down to retainers and the splitting of assets.

 

Abby and her husband moved here about two years ago from Wisconsin for his job. Now she’s living elsewhere, starting over again in an unfamiliar place. On the back of the Tesla which he kept they had a magnet that read, “Happiness is having a dog.” The magnet is gone now.  The dog was her victory.

 

The last thing I said to her was, “Thank your lucky stars you didn’t have kids.”

 

“Yeah, no shit.”