Tag Archives: husband

SO APPARENTLY, IT’S BACK TO SQUARE ONE

About a month and a half ago, I received a notice “in the mail.” It was from my husband’s lawyer. My husband had filed for divorce. We had recently celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary. To say it was a shock is the understatement of all times. I had no idea, none, that he was unhappy or discontent. He was away on a business trip, and I had expected him to come home by the end of the week. He hadn’t contacted me since he left four days ago, which wasn’t unusual. He traveled quite often. He didn’t always know exactly when he would be getting home. 

I called him on his cell phone. He didn’t pick up. There was a message saying he would be unavailable for the next several weeks. Leave your number, and he will get in touch with you.

I slowly placed the phone back, I had an impulse to slam it down hard, but I didn’t since I could already feel the beginnings of a migraine headache in the top of my head. I felt a tear run down my cheek, followed by an avalanche of tears that followed it.

I sat there frozen in place, unable to think clearly. It felt like the end of the world to me. I could not comprehend that my husband, whom I loved dearly, did not love me anymore and wanted a divorce. This is the man I had intended on spending the rest of my life all the way to our golden years.

I kept going over in my head everything that had happened between us recently. I couldn’t think of a single word or event that would have given me some warning that Howard was discontent or unhappy in our life together. But, obviously, he was, and somehow I had remained blissfully unaware of his feelings and his intentions.

It just blew my mind. And even on the evening of our twenty-fifth-anniversary party, he never let on. It almost feels as if I’m living in some alternate reality. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. Do I get a lawyer, should I ask my husband if he’s willing to see a marriage counselor? I don’t know. I talked to several of my woman friends who have experienced divorce, and they all gave me the name and number of the divorce lawyers they had used. Sally, my best friend, cried along with me. And told me she would be with me every step of the way. And she was. What would we do without our woman friends?

My husband’s lawyer and my lawyer scheduled a meeting for us all to get together and discuss the details of our divorce. Who gets what etc., etc. It was brutal. My husband sat across from me and never looked me in the face. It was like he was negotiating one of his real estate contracts with a total stranger. His face was without expression, and he never made eye contact with me. He looked through me as if I was invisible to him. I was having a difficult time paying attention to what was being said. I hoped my lawyer was doing his job because I felt like I was in some other dimension.

The next thing I knew, my lawyer touched my shoulder and said, “These are the papers you have to sign. You keep the house, and the two of you will evenly divide the investments and any monies that remain in your joint bank accounts.” I stared at him and shook my head up and down a couple of times. And then he shoved the contracts in front of me and held a pen up in front of my face. Since I wasn’t reacting to what he just stated. I took the pen, and my lawyer pointed at the decree and said,” Sign, here, here, and here. It’s final. We can be on our way.”

My husband got up from his seat, shook his lawyer’s right hand, and then turned and left the room without a word said to me at all. It was almost as if I didn’t exist in his reality anymore. And I guess I didn’t. It was surreal. I tried to take it all in. I guess it was going to take a long time for me to accept my new reality, even if that reality was a complete and unbelievable nightmare.

After we had signed all the papers, the lawyers shook each other’s hands. I stood up and immediately felt dizzy. I sat down again, and my lawyer gave me a glass of water to drink. He said, “This is a difficult experience. Many people have a negative reaction to divorce. I promise you that in time you will adapt to this change. You know how to contact me if you need to for any reason.”  He shook my hand, and I think I shook his as well, but I couldn’t sware to it. I felt lightheaded. I slowly rose from the table, picked up my purse, and headed out the door and into the foyer. I didn’t even bother to look back at my husband, I mean, my former husband. I didn’t know how I would take my next breath, let alone continue on with my life like nothing happened. When I couldn’t think of a single reason to keep breathing or living. I somehow made it home safely. I don’t know how. I don’t even remember driving home.

But, one good thing did happen I decided that I was going to get a dog as soon as possible. I couldn’t bear the idea of living alone. I wasn’t ready to think about selling my house. But, it was in there at the back of my mind. Selling the house I had lived in for the past twenty years with my “husband.” And starting over, somewhere new. I had always wanted a dog. But, my husband said, “What for?” Unfortunately, we were never able to have children, and doctors were never able to diagnose the fertility problem. It just never happened for us. He didn’t want any part of adopting. And he even rejected getting a dog.

So here I am at the husk of a new life. Where I alone determine what is right for me, it has given me hope that, under my own power will make myself happy and eventually content. I will bring myself to my ultimate goal. And that is happiness and contentment. Is this too much to ask, you may say? “No, no, it is not.”

After weeks of vacillating about what I should do to turn my life around, I finally made the decision to hire a realtor and sell the house. I no longer considered it to be “my” house. It was just “a house.”

At this point, I wanted a complete change of scenery. And the night I woke up from a dream and realized that what I wanted to do was buy a house on the beach and get a dog. And spend the rest of my days in a warm climate walking my dog or perhaps dogs on the beach. At some point, I would have to find a job to help pay the bills. But, not right away, I wanted to have to accustom myself to the new home and perhaps make a friend or two.

As soon as I found “my” house, I would get myself a dog. And then my new life would begin. In the next three weeks, I spent all my time going from one house to another with my realtor, looking for that perfect home. About three weeks in, my realtor took me to a two-story home in Wildwood, NJ. And I immediately fell in love with it. I realized that it was big enough that I could rent part of the house out to make some extra money and still have plenty of room. I would live on the lower floor. Once I went to the settlement, I started hitting the local shops looking for furniture and everything else I would need. And within a month, I thought it was absolutely perfect.

The following week I took a trip to the local pound to get a puppy. There were quite a few dogs to choose from. But once I saw the little ball of fluff, I knew I had found my dog. The woman who worked at the animal shelter told me that he was actually a grown dog and he wouldn’t get any bigger. He was a must, but she wasn’t sure what kind of mix he was. As soon as I met him, I fell in love. And I knew he was the dog for me. I took him home that day. I named him Buddy because he had quickly become my best buddy. It took him a few days to become accustomed to my house. But, soon enough, he felt at home. Oh, and he absolutely loved walking on the beach and letting the waves wash over his feet at the shoreline. We were a match made in heaven.

Every day we started the day with a walk to the beach and back, and then we had a light breakfast. I had fenced in the backyard and put a doggy door in the kitchen door so he could go out back to the yard when he needed to relieve himself. He soon befriended our neighbors, who all turned out to be friendly, but not too friendly, if you know what I mean.

As a matter of fact, I began to make friends with some of my neighbors who had befriended Buddy. I started planting a garden in the front yard. And my neighbors came over to admire my handiwork. Some of them even asked me for gardening advice. I was happy to advise them, although I informed them that I, too, was a novice gardener and just learning myself.

Before I knew it, I had been living there for six months. And I couldn’t remember a time when I had felt more content and relaxed. In my free time, I decided to start writing some short stories about what was going on in my local area. And one of my neighbors suggested I send some of my stories to the local newspaper. Believe it or not, the paper said they would pay me to write stories about what was going on in the local area. And I was a little reluctant at first, but then I thought, “Why not?” 

And so, now I am a paid writer for the local newspaper. I’m not making a lot of money, but every bit helps. Who knows what I will do next? The skies are the limit.  I am quite content living in my house with my Buddy and so happy to live in a neighborhood where people care about one another. So, I guess my divorce wasn’t all bad. And who knows what good things are coming my way? I look forward to the future and what it will bring.

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AND THE WINNER OF THE LOTTERY IS

I woke up that fateful morning with a sense that something unexpected was going to happen. I’ve always had what I considered a sixth sense. In that, I somehow sensed when something wonderful or something terrible was going to happen.

And on that particular morning, I had a feeling that I was going to win the New Jersey lottery big time. I turned on the news, and I heard that someone had the winning ticket for the Mega Millions Lottery. I had written down my numbers and posted them on the corkboard over my computer desk.

I had decided to put the lottery ticket in my mini-safe in my home office. When I heard the numbers that won, I checked the paper that I written the lottery numbers on the bulletin board. They were identical. I got a chill that ran up my back. I felt faint. I won. I hurried over to the safe and opened the safe to look at the lottery ticket. The lottery ticket wasn’t in the safe. I thought I might have a stroke right then and there. Where the hell was it?

Just then, my wife came into the room and said, “What is all the shouting about? Is everything alright?”

“Do you know where the lottery ticket is that I bought the other day? I posted it on the bulletin board when I got home.”

I haven’t seen it. I thought you told me you weren’t going to waste any more money on lottery tickets and horse races and playing cards for money, not to mention going to the Casinos in Atlantic City every weekend. You promised me you wouldn’t gamble anymore.

Yeah, yeah, I promised. But I had this intense feeling that I was going to win the lottery, and I did. I wrote down the numbers on a piece of paper and stuck it on my poster board in my office, and they matched. But the ticket isn’t in my little safe. It’s gone.”

“Are you sure you put it in your little safe? Maybe you just thought about doing it, and you forgot. You do that all the time. I’ll go through your clothes and your coat pockets and see if I can find it. You better not be pulling my leg about winning the million-dollar lottery. I’ll let you know if I find it right away.

Hellen spent the next forty-five minutes checking the clothes in the laundry basket and the clothes in his drawers. In case, he put the clothes he wore that day back in the drawer because sometimes her husband thought the clothes were still “good” to wear another day or two. And the last thing she did was go through all his jackets, sweaters, and even his heavy winter coat pocket. And just when she was about to give up, she looked in his “lucky sweater.”

And voila, she found the ticket in the top front pocket behind a pack of his cigarettes. At first, she was just mad that he had cigarettes because he had promised her that he quit smoking. But then, when she found the lottery ticket. She forgot all about that.

And she ran into her husband Bert’s office and handed him the ticket. “I found it in your lucky sweater pocket behind your cigarettes. He grabbed it and checked the numbers over and over. And then he stood up and started to jump up and down. He kept screaming I won, I won, I won over and over again. The next thing she knew, she was jumping up and down too. Then they started hugging each other and screaming we won! We won and laughed hysterically.

“Bert, how much did you win?”

“Well, Helen, you’re not going to believe this, but we won ten million dollars. Of course, taxes have to be paid on it, but it’s still millions of dollars. Can you believe it?”

“It feels like a dream. What in the world will we do with all that money?”

“Well, the first thing we can do is pay off our mortgage and all our other bills. Then we can get rid of that old clunker of a car and get a new one. And then we can go on the first real vacation of our lives, anywhere we want to go.”

And then they started hugging each other and jumping up and down again. Then Helen said, “we better not tell anyone that we won this money, or everyone we know and don’t know will be calling us and banging on our door asking for money. So, it has to be our secret. And then we go to the bank and tell them the situation and ask what they think we should do, like what kind of investment we put the money in for the short and long term.

“Helen, we have to contact the New Jersey Lottery office, and they will let us know how to claim the winnings and what to do next,” Bert calls the New Jersey Lottery office and is told he has to come in person with the Lottery Ticket to claim the money and he was told what information and proof of identity he had to bring to the office.

When Bert and Helen arrived at the Lottery Office, they were so excited and wound up they could hardly put two coherent words together. They were taken into the private office of one of the managers, and they showed him the lottery ticket and their ID and proof of address, and banking information.

The Lottery official informed them that the Federal Government would take at least 25% and the local tax would take 13%, and probably tax would take more money up to 37%.

Since they were big winners, the Lottery Official said that a new rule passed that they could remain anonymous for ninety days. Before they announced the winners. He suggested they tell as few people as possible or that they would soon be inundated by people asking, begging, and demanding money from them. They suggested changing their phone number, if possible, not telling anyone they knew about their big win.

Helen and Bert left the office in a fog. They didn’t say anything on the way home to one another because they were overwhelmed by the money and all it entailed. Helen was having second thoughts about the benefits of becoming suddenly wealthy. She led a quiet but content life aside from Bert’s gambling. She was afraid that winning all this money would be the end of her life as she knew it. And she didn’t say a word to him on the way home.

It took several weeks before they were notified by their bank that their newfound wealth was deposited. They suggested having their new account come in with them to the bank to talk about where they wanted their money dispersed. And let them know how much, if any, money they wanted to take in cash. He suggested they make modest withdrawals at first. And he also reminded them that in three months’ time, the announcement of their big win would be publically announced. He once again suggested they move from their present address to a more secluded and protected housing development with security available.

Bert and Helen felt conflicted. They had lived at their present address for over thirty years. They knew all their neighbors, and they felt safe there. It would be a hard move to make. But, they both agreed reluctantly that it was necessary. And so, they hired a realtor to take them to look at new homes that had security round-the-clock.

After two weeks of looking, they found a beautiful home about forty minutes away from their former address, and they decided to sell all their old furniture and buy new. The furniture that they had was mostly hand-me-downs from friends and relatives. In fact, they had never had any new furniture up until now.

The day they moved, they said their goodbyes to their neighbors, who were shocked and sad to see them go. Helen and Bert said that they would call them in a couple of weeks after they got settled, and they would have a bar-b-que and invite them all over.

It took time for them to feel comfortable in their new home. Several of their new neighbors came over and welcomed them to the neighborhood. It took a while before Helen and Bert felt at home. Bert had gone out and bought a new car. It was a compact car, not a luxury vehicle. It ran like a top and was energy efficient. It cost more for the auto insurance he had before because it was new. But Bert loved it, and although he missed his old car for a while, he soon got used to it. Helen loved it from day one, especially since it didn’t smell like cigarette smoke.

As time went by, they felt more at ease and comfortable in their new, improved circumstances. They invited their old friends and neighbors over and met their new neighbors. All seemed to be going by without any real difficulty or problems.

But then the announcement was made about who won the Million Dollar Lottery in New Jersey. And they started getting inundated by the media, the public, and people begging for money. They had to change their phone numbers and block all calls from people they didn’t know. And sometimes people knocked at their doors all day and into the night.

They had to hire security to guard their home and themselves when they went out in public. They had to block their new phone numbers. It was unbelievable how many people begged them for money on a daily basis. It became a nightmare. Finally, out of pure preservation, they decided to invest part of the money. Enough to live on for the rest of their lives. And give money to their family members and anyone who was a long-time friend that was in need, and then they donated the rest of the money to an organization that would disburse the money to organizations where it would benefit the most people. They decided they preferred a quiet life populated with their family members and oldest friends.

They realized that a simple life was a good life for them. Bert decided that gambling was going to be a thing of the past and that being married to Helen had been the biggest win of his life and that he would spend the remainder of their lives together and be grateful for the happiness that had always waited there for them to appreciate. And that money did not always bring happiness and contentment to your life.

 

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