<p>I don’t want to make this thread 59 pages longer, but I did want to update with what has transpired in 2 years. So much to say…I will probably make a few updates in a series to make it more readable.</p>
<p>First of all, I wanted to thank all of you again for responding to this. I re-read the whole thing in the last few days, and remembered how much it really helped me with perspective on how people compromise (or don’t) in marriages about money. It’s not something you can discuss with friends or relatives because they won’t necessarily give you details, about how much money they REALLY have, how they compromised on big decisions, if one of them is irresponsible, how the deal with conflict, what deals were struck when they married, etc.</p>
<p>Long story short, if you don’t want to read all this…we are divorcing.</p>
<p>It was definitely ‘not about the bike’! And it is ironic that the Harley was the beginning of the end, because the first marital blow up during week one in 1989, was about a bike (a $700 Trek purchased with most of our gift money) and it should have been my first clue that the whole thing was about value differences and control and would be an ongoing power struggle. He did not show this behavior while dating. It was as soon as my paycheck became part of the picture that this surfaced. He didn’t have the funds to live lavishly between 20 and 24 - only until after we were married did this surface.</p>
<p>In re-reading the thread, there are definitely things I neglected mentioning that seem important now, or I didn’t want to get into them at the time, and things that have happened in the last 2 years, that shed more light on why I am where I am today. In 20/20 hindsight, I really married the wrong guy. He showed me who he was a long time ago…and as Maya Anelou says…when people show you who they are, believe them.</p>
<p>I have been seeing a therapist for 6 years, and she has helped me see other perspectives - how healthy relationships work, how people compromise, work as a team, etc. You would think I might have understood this, as I grew up in a very functional household. But I just didn’t see it. It’s as clear as day now. I guess I thought perhaps my parents’ marriage was just really exemplary, I should not expect mine to be like that. Well, maybe not, but not this dysfunctional. It should not be this hard. It should be a joy - at least sometimes. I kept justifying in my head…well, he’s not as bad as that guy, and they’re still married, or he has so many good points, etc.</p>
<p>So, in mid to late 2011, it became clear that my husband’s job was being eliminated. (remember back in very early posts…I had been saying that neither one of our jobs was safe short term, hence my wanting to be ultra conservative) They were told that by April of 2012, their division would be gone. He managed to get a new job in Sept of 2011, many of his coworkers are still unemployed. He was very lucky…I’ve always thought he had a horseshoe up his rear end. He barely needed to work during most of 2011, because their territory was being shut down, so he worked on the third rental property and my aunt’s house (which he spent 60k on to renovate, not the initially planned 20k…my father was OK with this and agreed that each additional expenditure was probably wise, but my husband wanted to do a lot more than 60k, so it was a power struggle with mean things said about my father, who simply wanted to get the house cleaned up and on the market) After real estate fees, taxes, additional expenses, and a slow real estate market, my sister and I cleared 60k each. (which I think is great)</p>
<p>My husband’s new job has been OK, but not great. He knows he is in a little over his head - his other job was extremely easy and he barely had to do a thing to make decent money. Some sales jobs are like that, and when you are extremely good looking and charming and can work people (like him), you can do well if the product you are selling is ok. The product in this new job is a very difficult sell. So halfway through the year, he began interviewing in earnest for another job, which he was offered. However, he could not accept it because (drum roll, please) he had been smoking pot in the last month and it would come up on their drug test. The company he is currently with did not drug test, neither did his old company so he was probably doing this all along. I had known that he was an occasional smoker, and highly disapproved of it, and told him so many many years ago. He hid it from me (he apparently does it while renovating and hanging out with contractors). I had no idea he still did it. So, since he did not accept the job, he did not have to face the embarrassment of having the drug test come back positive. He was actually considering using adulterants to try to ‘fool’ the test…however, since I am in management at a Fortune 500 company, I know that they test for adulterants, and I said, no way, don’t be stupid. Just decline the offer. (my husband is above rules and ethics, I might be able to write more on that later) The pot smoking revelation came after the decision to divorce, so it just made me feel like I have done the right thing, and that he needs to be cut loose.</p>
<p>My job is better. I simply took matters into my own hands and asked to be switched out of my job and into another on my own team. We needed additional headcount, so I became the ‘add to staff’. I was able to help hire my new manager, and he has been fine. I don’t know if I will continue to stay, but things have improved. My company did not make it easy on me in the switch either, as a matter of fact, they were quite hostile. I stood my ground, I think a few people stuck up for me, and things have been good. Many other people in my division have done this, so at least there was a precedent. </p>
<p>The third rental property cost a lot more than my husband thought it would (surprise surprise - remember, I had said, poor estimating skills - or, maybe it’s a game, where he asks for X, gets you into it, then it’s Y and you are stuck). He ran up large amounts of credit card debt and took equity out of the rental house, but that was still not enough. He suggested that I loan my inheritance from my aunt’s house (which I hadn’t gotten yet) at a competitive rate. I couldn’t lend what I didn’t yet have, nor did I feel comfortable taking it out of our own liquid savings given his being in a new job, so had to take out a loan against my 401k (50k) to ‘fix’ the problem. Had he not been between employers when this happened, I’d have had him take it out of his own 401k. We will be transferring this debt to him soon. He pays me monthly for the loan from rental proceeds. Because this loan was ‘off the books’, the business looks great to the bank. They refinanced all of the debt at a highly competitive rate and the business is back on track, rents are high and flowing in. So, not good, but not all bad. He is ending up using the ‘Harley money’ toward the loan, and taking a loan out of his own 401k now that it is set up and funded. And yes, I know that if he loses this job, the loan comes due immediately or is taxed/penalized. Hopefully, I won’t be married to him if that happens! If it does, it’s somehow going to be extracted from his side of the equation.</p>
<p>So, once the renovations were done on both houses, and husband settled into new job, it came time to finish our own house, which has been neglected severely. I have lived in this house for 9 years, and pay about $2900 mortgage, but live in about 1500 square feet of it. He is a perfectionist, and has to either do the work himself, or micro manage the contractor so the work has been slow. This has been the way with every house we have lived in. I haven’t really been able to entertain due to being under construction all the time. The kids generally don’t have guests over because we have one small tv area. Four people share one bathroom. I don’t have a large laundry room or finished basement (he gutted it a year and a half ago), so I hang dry the finer washables in the dining room (picture thongs on the chandelier… ; ) ). The first floor of the house is impeccably renovated. Everything else, not so much. So we began talking about how we are going to finish it off, and his plans were grandiose. He wanted to put on a small addition over our back porch to expand our master bath, or change foot print of upstairs to expand master bath into a guest bedroom. </p>
<p>Given the 50k loan I just made to the business, and the job situation, I did not want to allow the grandiose renovations to the upstairs (we are now 50k to 100k in the hole on this house, based on comps - we still have a lot of equity, but we are not getting back what we have put into it). I said renovate it within the existing foot print and use quality materials. But, in order to not be the bad guy and be name called, I offered to take our situation to a financial counselor. If, like Suze Orman, she said we could afford the renovations he wanted because we are ‘so rich’, I would do it. And I wanted to seriously discuss going with a different financial system so that we didn’t have these power struggles any more…we’d have his/hers and some joint. He refused to talk to a financial counselor and lay it all out for someone to give an opinion on. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, and I don’t know if I am pretty sure I neglected to talk about this in other posts, his obsessive compulsive disorder was getting quite out of hand. The first floor of my house always looks like a photo shoot for Pottery Barn, btw. If anything is out of place, or if any damage has been done (small mark on a wall, dent in hard wood floor, small pot scrape in white ceramic sink you get the picture), I pay by being verbally or emotionally abused - it doesn’t matter who did it or how it happened, it’s all about me. As I discussed this with my therapist, it became apparent to me that really, I’ve been tolerating a lot of verbal abuse the whole marriage…I’ve just shouldered it. Essentially, if I didn’t want to do something that he wanted to do, I would be name called, berated and belittled. I would also be periodically, randomly, picked at. He might cut down a hairstyle, a decorating choice, or might say something mean about my parents, who are saints. So, to combat this, I began 1) not running around to make things perfect any more 2)pushing more responsibility on him and the kids, who are 15 and 20 and should pick up after themselves, do dishes etc. and 3) fighting him tooth and nail on the verbal abuse - not letting one little get by 4)letting some people hear some of the crazy stuff he says to me, because almost all of it is done privately. I insisted he attend counseling for the OCD, which he refused. Said if everyone would just do what they were supposed to do, he would not be this way - but apparently, it’s apparently my responsibility to martial the kids and make the house perfect for him. He bears no responsibility in getting them to do things. </p>
<p>So, some time after last Christmas, we decided we were definitely splitting up. I decided no normal person would refuse counseling, and that most people would want to at least try to show that they wanted to keep their family together. But, we are still living together and arriving at official time frames and plans.</p>