Tag: Divorce

Hit Me Where it Hurts

~ marobbie ~ 2 Comments

I think my brother-in-law is an idiot. But then again there are so many of his kind in my old country.

Recently, I lamented in this post the plight of women in my country of origin. The piece was brought about by what I think of as my sister’s digression into blind submission to the dictates of society. This submission is well-disguised as Islamic morals, values, and mostly dress code (wearing the headscarf or Hijab).

Today my good sister’s husband came up with another gem from my erstwhile people who have been dozing for the last thousand years. He splashed a “funny” post all over Facebook’s “Funwall” and forwarded it to his numerous friends – most of whom are WOMEN if I may add.

I am translating it from the original Arabic:

Behind every great man .. a woman

Behind every prisoner.. a woman

Behind every problem.. a woman

Behind every war.. a woman

Behind every traffic accident.. a woman

Behind every fight between neighbours … a woman

Behind the demographic imbalance… a woman

Behind the corruption of young men and their depravity.. a woman

Behind every mother and father who were thrown into an old age home… a woman

I want to know who was the stupid ox who called them the fairer sex.

End of gem.

Given my current situation, I am not very good friends with the male fraternity at the moment. But this particular post would enrage me even on a good day, and I do not think it is funny at all. It simply illustrates the male (and especially the Middle Eastern male’s) attitude of passing the responsibility of EVERYTHING onto a woman’s shoulders. Men get away with this because we women have broad shoulders, and can carry everything the guys throw at us: The groceries, the kids, and a good portion of the home-loan to boot. We do it with love, then we smile and ask for more of the load.

Yesterday I drew up a list of items I bought in the last two years and gave it to Mr. Negativity. I did that because in the settlement he stated that I will be getting X thousand Rand’s worth of household effects. I annotated the items I would like to have and added them up to come up with the amount HE said I would get. His response: “I don’t want to go into nit-picking”. Of course, it is nit picking, because I am the one who is asking for stuff. In contrast it is not nit-picking when he demands that I throw petrol in the car on the rare occasions I dare to use it, or when he makes me pay for his son’s passport applications.

His latest antic: I am not allowed to use the car for moving my few belongings to my friend’s house down the road, no more than two kilometers away. And of course it is too much “effort and expense” for him to drive me there. Yet, he wants me “out of his hair” sooner rather than later. Perhaps I should do a sit-in protest on top of my boxes, and wait to see who will break first. Believe me, I want out as well, but I have put up with this crap for nine years, what is a few days more?

Final Days

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Sadly, my days together with Ron are numbered. Throughout this I am still trying to keep an outward facade to my family overseas who know no better. I do not want to add on to their worry. In the midst of all this, Robert’s long awaited Christmas present from Auntie Celia arrives. Its belated arrival made a sad testament to the changed circumstances. I picked the parcel up at the post office, and the it lay unopened for days. So I finally decided to open it and divided the presents, which were supposed to be shared. Ron got the tea, and I kept the chocolates, while Robert got the whole lot of baby goodies and a book.

During the past week Ron and I steered away from each other. He kept his usual morning routine, and at night he went to sleep soundly while I stayed awake, reading news feeds and blogs and writing my own. Just messing around on the internet to shorten the hours of the night and to keep the fear and desperation at bay. Many of my problems do not have solutions yet. Who will look after Robert while I am away at work? How will I manage work in the long term? what will happen next? I try not to think of everything at once, and deal with one problem at a time.

I had to explain my situation at work, thus making myself a novelty and a freak. People who have been at my work long enough know that I have been close to divorce before, and I can imagine the gossip that is spreading on the floor. I endured the pitying looks and asked for some arrangement to my shifts. The first solution that came to my mind was to work 20 hours of night shift every week. I thought that Robert slept through the night, and Jackie is home almost every night so she can keep an ear if he wakes up at night for some reason. I am still waiting for a response for my request, but if it is not granted I really do not know what else to do. Jackie is careful and paranoid about people who enter her house. It will be difficult for me to employ domestic help if they do not meet with her approval.
All these problems I try to forget while Robert and I are together. We are spending many hours at the park, and enjoying our final days there. Once I move in with Jackie it will be a much longer walk here, and I am not sure whether I can come here every day.

Robert crawls now very easily on the grass, and he can sit in the swing for a very long time.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Trust a Man

~ marobbie ~ 2 Comments

Today’s quote from Husband (hereafter referred to as Mr. Negativity-he won’t be Husband for long) : “You will never appreciate all the things I have done for you through nine years of marriage”. The quote came on the heels of an accusation to me that I have stopped doing anything around the house. Yes, it is true, I have stopped because there is no point. There is no pleasing the bugger whatever I do, so I just took a step back and started slacking off COMPLETELY. I am using him for all he is worth, for now. Because I know: a) Whatever he is doing right now serves to massage his guilt and promote his self image as the martyr and the victim of the piece. b) Heck, I will be having a real hard life next, and will not get much out of him after these next few days, so I might as well enjoy it while it lasts. No, I am not going out with my girlfriends every night and leaving him with a crying baby. I am not maxing out his credit card. I am only slacking off in the housework department (where I was a slacker to start with), and when he cooks dinner I eat the extra portion he puts aside. I still take care of baby whenever I am home from work, but he still feels that he is so nice to help me babysit our son. Oh, please give me a break. Like this is stopping him from his life’s work ! At least looking after the little child is a productive and rewarding activity. Better than trying in vain to reverse the passage of years at the gym. Of course this is not the way he sees it. As far as he is concerned he is paying me GENEROUS child support of x thousand Rand (don’t hold your breath, it is honestly peanuts) so that he doesn’t have to do babysitting. What the cheapskate forgets is that the generous amount includes R600 contribution to my medical aid, which he still benefits from. After deducting it, there is just enough to cover the rent of a furnished room in a friend’s house. We still need to live and pay for nannies if I want to continue to work. I rest my case.So, what has he done for me in nine years of marriage? The one good thing is my little one, and if he didn’t think that having a child was something that will magically fix his life, he wouldn’t have allowed me to have him. Then there is ruining my self-esteem, isolating me from my friends, giving me complexes about my healthy appetite, begrudging me every treat, and trying very hard to change me. His excuse: he wanted me to be someone compatible with him. Yes, and I am the fool who fell for this crap for six long years. When I had enough he fooled me again by telling me that HE has changed. In my native tongue there is a saying : trust a man, trust your water to a sieve.

Getting Ready for Battle

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

We are going to do battle soon, over trivial things. I feel the eminent confrontation over what is mine and what is his. I can almost walk away from everything except for my books and my craft tools. The only thing that stops me is knowing deep down that I am entitled to some things.

There is precious little in this flat that belongs to me alone anyway. These are few things that I bought for me, with my own money, when I first came to Cape Town two years ago. Husband is the type that buys the cheapest kettle, and toaster. While I give myself a little treat with a cordless kettle, and a sandwich maker. I am partial to the things I bought, because I chose them with care and paid the correct prices. Strangely enough it is not the appliances that I hang on to, it is more the little gadgets and tools.

Today the argument was as follows: If I do not pay the telkom bill then he will deduct it from my -yet to be seen- maintenance, or maybe from the child’s maintenance. Earlier, when I asked him if he can take us shopping for diapers and baby stuff he answered that he doesn’t need to do that, because he will pay for maintenance, and why should he pay twice. I can sense that we are going to descend to pennies and cents shortly, but what the heck, there is no point being nice anymore.

Bear in mind that I have offered to keep him on my medical aid in return for a contribution and even thought of leaving the modem for the telephone line. He even alluded to the fact that he wants one more ticket at staff prices from my airline employer. I did not say : Hell no, you do not deserve it. I just try to be reasonable, for the sake of momentary peace. In the end, he is helping me look after HIS son while I go to work. In his book he is being nice and doesn’t have to do it.

I look at my poor baby and feel sorry for him. I have chosen a complete jerk to be his father. I hope he will not be afflicted with the same emotional and psychological shortcomings of his sire. Yes, I know I am not perfect, but heavens I consider having my baby a privilege not a burden. Having the baby made me discover that I had love and dedication in me, while it exposed his self-centered tendencies. Of course these suffered with the advent of a new life. When I am confronted with this attitude it is difficult to curb my revulsion. If a person cannot melt with love towards their own child, then they are incapable of feeling this emotion towards anyone. It is rather sad.

Bargaining with the Cheapskate

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

The lawyer I saw two years ago for my first divorce attempt is helping again for this final one. We sat together last week to try and draft a consent paper. My soon-to-be-ex husband was also present. At the end of the meeting I thought that we had agreed on everything, but a day or so later husband came back with a counter offer, which I found insulting. One more day of ugliness and name-calling followed then another revised offer. I am not about to fight over a thousand here and another there, so I basically agreed on whatever he suggested. I agreed on pathetic terms for child maintenance and spousal support, but then I am hoping that I will not need this small change. Besides I have reached a stage, where I do not mind buying myself out with some small concessions to his pocket. So we are finally in agreement about the settlement, but my soon-to-be-ex still chokes on small stuff. He always has, and onces a cheapskate always a cheapskate.

I know that I said I took the word divorce out of my system for good, but the lawyer convinced me otherwise. Why should I stay married in name only to this guy, and let him get the benefit of our joint estate and avoid being accountable for maintenance? It might suit him but not me. Now at least I know what I will end up with and what to expect (or not to expect) financially. For all I care he can keep the dubious satisfaction of telling whoever comes next that I was the one who divorced him.

This Time it is Over

~ marobbie ~ 1 Comment

We are definitely getting divorced. This time I will not chicken out or make an about face, because I have had enough.

I am packing boxes of books and yarn. My clothes and baby’s are still waiting to be packed. This makes a fourth time for me, I have dismantled my life three times before for the same man or because of him, and this time I want my own life back. A life where I can call the shots this time, and make my own decisions.

In the end it turned out that people do not change that much. Perhaps he tried to change, perhaps he wanted to, but he finally realised that he couldn’t. I never offered to change, and if I had I don’t think I could change either. It is the way things go.

I still bear him some grudges, especially because he lied and pretended to be what he isn’t. Because he put a child in this world because he “thought” it would make him happy. In contrast, I KNEW that I was ready for a child, and I knew that having him will change my life. I am glad I did not know what the future held because I would have missed out on the most wonderful thing in my life.

Kak Day?

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

In light of the ongoing developments in our life, it is a fitting title.
I planned that Miriam will babysit today while Ron and I were out attending to the legal issues pertaining to out impending divorce. The good woman, however, dropped me late last night saying that she had misunderstood the day. Of course this is not true. I think she has found another job and I will be surprised if I hear from her again.

Jackie was the emergency babysitter for the day. We dropped Robert at her house and went into town. The meeting was less stressful than I expected, and relatively painless considering the circumstances. After we finished, Ron dropped me unceremoniously at Jackie’s and left me there. I was so hungry and agitated, so we went out for an impromptu lunch. Robert kept us company in his pram while we enjoyed smoothies and wraps. I gave him some sips of the smoothie with a straw, and he enjoyed that immensely. We had just finished with our lunch when Robert delivered the package of the day. Unfortunately his diapers were already wet and could not absorb the stinky mess, and it leaked out, green and wet down his legs.

Jackie got me some additional napkins while I tried to stem the flow with our unused paper towels. Fortunately we were only a few blocks away from her house and we rushed home after covering baby’s diaper and the offensive leak with a blanket. Halfway home the funny side of the situation kicked in and we laughed all the way to her front yard. Jackie suggested that we hose Robert’s sticky butt right there on the front lawn. It was a good suggestion, and the little one enjoyed it. What followed was a meticulous routine of cleaning and disinfecting the pram, soaking blanket and clothes, and generally getting things back in order.

No pictures of the incident are available.

Round and Round

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

I don’t think that I can ever write in this blog with my real name. People might think I am a lunatic or something. This project started with the intention of mapping my life near the Cape of Good hope, it turned out into a study in hopelessness. It has been almost a year since I wrote here, and ironically it is again the season of heartbreak in Cape Town ! I feel edgy and unhappy, and confused.
Since my doomed crush on Aquarius went nowhere, I got cold feet regarding my breakup with Husband. I pulled the plug on the divorce, and coughed up the lawyer bill.
In the divine wisdom of pop culture : “Love The One You’re With” (If you can’t be with the one you love).
So this was great, I swallowed a big wallop of my pride, and begged Husband to get back. He left for a few months home to Canada, then came back, called the moving van and shipped loads of stuff to Cape Town. The furniture has been in storage ever since, awaiting the time when it can be set up in a place we can call a home.
The past few months I was happy – I think – living on makeshift and 2nd hand furniture, and having very few possessions. We spent lots of time together or in the outdoors.
At the end of October we moved from the old flat, gave away the old rickety ‘furniture’ or whatever you might want to call it.

Yesterday it was the day, the day we were supposed to get our nice things, and put it in our home. Yes, the furniture arrived yesterday, and along with it came the foreboding. I do not know what is up with me. All of a sudden I see the expensive things, the box of old love letters, the diving equipment and the sport bags — his things, and again there is nothing of me here, just a few crates of books, and suitcase full of coloured threads that I wanted to knit one day into and afghan, and a black emotionally disturbed cat.
Years back, we bought some things together : A bed, a leather sofa ( his dream was always to have one) and a desk for me, but Husband has had almost everything else longer that I have been with him. He calls these nice pieces a legacy, and now they are incompatible with one of the few things that I do care about … Petey my cat.
The cat is sleeping in the closet now, he is disoriented and sad to lose his home, and I do not know why I relate to him so much. I will have to figure this one out.