Insults to Injury

Wednesday came and I knew you were coming back home so that you could make it to your cancer support group meeting. You bombarded me with text messages. Could I meet and talk with you for twenty minutes? Can we have a discussion? You had a proposition for me. But I had already heard the drumbeats. You had called my investment manager and asked him how much money I have in my tax shelter, left him a message that you and I had found a place we wanted to buy out in the desert. I told him not to tell you a thing unless he was served with a court order. The cascade of text messages continued. There's this great property out in the desert. It's a foreclosure, a fixer-upper but not as much work as the remodel we did on our house and right up your alley. We'd have to act fast. I said I didn't want to talk to you. And on top of it all, it was the music concert at school, then the cancer support group meeting. I literally didn't have a minute to talk until at least 9:30 at night. No, this would not be a good day to talk. What part about waiting until the 18th isn't making sense to you?

You also wanted to sit down and sketch out our finances together, see if we could make a little agreement about spousal support.

My therapist shared very critical pieces of information with me, observations she had made over the years. First, she said I have a way of deflecting your inappropriate and negative comments. I just let them bounce off my head. Second, you have a way of sucking me back in. Ok, she didn't use the term 'sucking me back in', that's mine, but what she said meant the same thing. You know every crack in my veneer, every chink in my armor. And third, she said one of my weaknesses with you is materialistic desires. I can get seduced by my desire to make money. You can entice me to engage in things with you.

The music concert came and went. I rushed over to my cancer caregivers' support group. I told them about your desire to buy a house in the desert. I spent a long time talking about what was going on with us. It occurred to me that my life wasn't about cancer anymore. My life was now about divorce and turmoil . I was feeling that I was not helping these beautiful people heal from their pain, or deal with their loved ones' cancer.

We didn't talk at home.