Statutory Limits on Ex...

It happened for the first time today. I suppose it was inevitable, you run into your ex somewhere. I know that in a perfect world, I would be able to tell you how emotionally healthy I am and I would be able to say that I felt nothing.



This is no perfect world.



I didn't actually have a run in with him, I just saw him and am under the impression that he did not see me. I was driving to a meeting and he was taking a walk. It was in a congested area where many cars pass at any given time.



I experienced a mix of humiliation and revulsion. He was wearing clothes and listening to an ipod that I recognized as I paid for them. In fact the sad and sick truth is that I was married as a financier and I married him so that I didn't have social pressure because I had never been married. There was nothing healthy to the relationship. Within 24 hours of the marriage, he was already taking my money to gamble.



Like a tapeworm, he was hard to get rid of as well. I asked him for months for marriage counseling and as he rejected any notions of my unhappiness, I asked for him to move out. He rejected this request as well. Finally, I changed the locks ~ a risky move but I had to get things going. Thanks to my extremely savvy lawyer, shortly thereafter I was divorced.



It would be very easy for me to say that I am angry because he used me so badly and was not even nice to me. In fact, his excuse for not getting me a card for our only wedding anniversary was that he was too busy playing blackjack the night before in Vegas and that didn't have time. But, it isn't about the money at all. In fact the money makes a very convenient social cover for the fact that I am humiliated by my choice. I could not have picked a worse choice. I was humiliated by his laziness, humiliated at the fact that I was a female married to a male who was the antithesis of my definition of a man. I was humiliated in the fact that he had no shame in me paying for the home we lived in, the car he drove, vacations, his condo, etc.. I was humiliated because I lied to friends and to family and told them that he wasn't the person that I knew he was because I was so embarrassed to be married to him. I was such a fool. To this day I am still so humiliated.



I will forever have court documents that show that I was married in November, 2005 and divorced in January, 2007. There is no statutory limit to that bond. I can not simply seal those records forever and learn and move on. I feel like I have a tattoo from another life.