Things I Don't Miss About Breaking Up: Division of Assets

The summer of 2010 was one of the worst ever.  I’m pretty sure that I will always hate summer because of it.

Within days of Rich calling off our wedding, I was told by the medical school that I’d be repeating my first year of medical school.  While my head swirled about my changing identity from Harvard-accepted undergraduate to “remedial” medical student, there were bigger fish to fry.

I was planning on moving in with Rich after we were married, so things as simple as where I would live to as complicated as how I would get all of my things out of his condo swirled.  I wrote handwritten notes to people I didn’t know for wedding gifts that I could no longer accept.  I flew to Florida and cried long, messy tears in my childhood bedroom.  And, I made that painful trip to Rich’s condo to get my things.

Worried that I’d get emotional and forget something there, I made a mental map of his condo and which of my things were in it.  I wrote a detailed list of what I needed to get, as well as where they were located, and took it with me.  

Last week, I found a folded piece of computer paper shoved in a box.  When I opened it, I started to laugh.

“Damn, you weren’t playing around!,” The Lawyer commented when he saw it.

And, he was right.

I knew that I had one shot of getting my things, both because I thought that Rich would ban me from coming back a second time and because, one doesn’t casually call off a wedding and stop speaking to his or her fiancé and expect to be friendly after that.

There was one more belonging swap after that, when I realized that Rich had some of my dry cleaning.  I bartered with him for his Volvo key, but still avoided face to face contact, by letting my building’s concierge be the go-between.

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As the unpacking continues at my new apartment (which, by the way, feels like it has been going on FOREVER.  How long should it take to fully unpack?  Is a week and a half too long?), I realized that I want an east facing bedroom window to have an additional roller shade.  It’s not like wah wah I can’t stand sunlight, but I’m not trying to wake up an hour earlier than I need to because the sun is blinding me!

The Lawyer, eager to bust out his power tools, cheerfully chimed in that he’d bring his drill over and hang it.  Then, he paused.

“Well, I need to go get my tools out of the house first.”

The house he was referencing was the house he once shared with his ex-wife.

“You still didn’t do that?,” I asked, incredulously. “Dude, go over there and get your stuff!”

I understand that when he left, it wasn’t under the best circumstances and he moved into a temporary loft for three months before ultimately moving into his current place.

Anyway, after he confessed that he had no desire to go back to that house to rifle through her belongings, I told him to just send her a list of what he needs and tell her to have it ready for him.  In addition to his tools in the garage, he has some family heirlooms that his mother wants back, and I agree that they’re worth going back for.

Surprisingly, he must have contacted his ex the same night we talked, because he gleefully announced yesterday that he was getting his stuff back.  Even more surprisingly, he said that she had offered to bring them to him that same night.

 

It almost seemed too good to be true.  (Insert dramatic irony here.)

Last night, while The Lawyer was working late, he texted me to say that she canceled at the last minute because she was “out.”

If you’re tempted to give her the benefit of the doubt, because she’s also a lawyer, so she also could have been working late, think again.  “Out” meant “out drinking,” in much the same way that she did when they were together.

“Oh well,” The Lawyer texted back. “At least I don’t have to wait up for her and then clean the vomit up from the living room floor tonight.”

(And if that, friends, isn’t a compelling image of how horrible his marriage must have been, I don’t know what is.)

So, as of now, The Lawyer doesn’t have his things back and I’m still being woken up at 5:57 a.m. when the sun comes up.  I offered to go turbo bitch on her and to confront her in public about it, but I probably never would (because it wouldn't accomplish anything). Another friend also offered to be the go-between to go pick up his things.  Sadly, what may end up happening is a surprise intervention at a bar, in which one of her friends drags her drunk behind home and we rummage through the house in the early morning, while she pukes like a wasted college student in another room.

Breakups are so lovely, aren’t they?