![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/divorced-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
How tempting it is, in this place I sit now, to air my grievances. How satisfying in the short term to make a scene in words. To have the waiter say, “Ma’am, you are shouting, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”<\/p>\n
No good can come from that, I think. Perhaps a momentary satisfaction, the kind you get when you have a good scream into your pillow. The sound of pressure being released. But it wouldn’t last; one scream would not be enough.\u00a0 Were I to unleash my grievances, I might not be able to stop.<\/p>\n
Instead, I will allow myself a few spare statements.<\/p>\n
I had to sacrifice half my retirement to end the process. I chose this over going to court, not because I felt the settlement was fair, but because it would end the process.<\/p>\n
I chose not to fight over two pieces of art he had given me as gifts and took back. One was a birthday present and the imagery is meaningful to me. The artist is a long time friend. I chose not to fight over this request not because I do not regret the loss of those pieces. I do. But I am more focused on the act than the objects.<\/p>\n
I kept my house. I had hoped this would be the case and my lawyer was confident, but I wasn’t sure until it was over.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The\u00a0week before mediation, I started my first staff position in 15 years.<\/p>\n
I’ve been working with this client for two and a half years; they really<\/em> wanted to hire me. I got everything I asked for: 100% remote, a senior level salary, 30 hours a week, full benefits. I am thrilled. The base vacation package is ten paid holidays plus three weeks of standard vacation time. There is unlimited sick time, but they just added an additional<\/em> five personal days.<\/p>\n Say, for example, you have to attend mediation and the next day you are destroyed? There’s a paid day off for that. There’s some other stuff. A stock grant. Some nice perks. There’s 401k matching, for crying out loud. I’ve never<\/em> had that.<\/p>\n Also, my day to day work life has changed very little.<\/p>\n I didn’t know how the divorce would play out, but I chose to plan for the worst, to give up freelancing in case things turned out very, very badly.\u00a0 Things turned out badly, but my recovery plan was in place.<\/p>\n The financial hit is no joke. I expected that. I didn’t expect he’d take back the gifts he gave me.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I took a long break during mediation to pace in my kitchen. I made coffee, washed some dishes, and stared out the window. I talked myself through where I am today and what I would lose if I accepted the settlement. I considered what court would cost, not just in dollars, but in opportunity costs and the emotional load of not being done. I considered what it would be like to tell my story in court and to have a judge decide what was fair.<\/p>\n I’m a writer; I can tell my story any time I want. I don’t have to go to court for that.<\/p>\n I chose done.\u00a0 I’m divorced now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I didn’t think it would be fair, but I underestimated what it was worth to be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":13080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-op-ed","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13078"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13089,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078\/revisions\/13089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}