Wednesday, August 15, 2007

 

Divorce, Disney and Doubt

Yep, I haven't seen him for a month. His mom took him on vacation. I’ll see him this Friday at his shrink's. I’ve made some decent progress on the house. That's the simple, superficial part.

I’m getting better with myself thinking that I might not see him much, if I go somewhere for awhile, like Texas or Australia. When I get this house finished, I want to go somewhere by myself, to see how I feel about living alone. Being somewhere else will mean I won't see him until I come back. The nagging sense that I’m abandoning him continues to linger, but there's not much damage to him if that happens because he seems content with limited contact with me. I won't treat him like a baby. I won't try to convince him that he needs to be with me instead of her.

Being with me is something he'll have to choose for himself. If he doesn't make that choice tomorrow, it's still his choice. If he doesn't make that choice until he's 18, it's still his choice. And if he never makes that choice ... You get the picture- It's still his choice.

One huge guess I’ve been noodling involves Bonnie’s ability to support him. I think Bonnie ran out of money last winter when she got her attorney to ask if she could have $100K of her $243K even though we didn't yet have the Final Agreement done. So she's had a half-year to spend money. She told the shrink that she wanted to buy another car, but she hasn't yet. However, she's still taking quarterly Disney vacations, including this last one- a week in Disneyland and two weeks to Disney World. I have to guess, since I can't know for sure, that she's losing about $2000-$3000 each month. Well, that's what I might lose, but I don't spend like she does. Since I have such little information about her monetary activities, she might last anywhere from two to eight years before she goes financially belly up. One big variable is how much money she gave her sister for her aunt's house. She owns it now, apparently. There doesn’t seem to be any progress on fixing that house.

At this point, I’ve gotta say something about her, something that is inside her head, not her bank account: she likes to have "a cushion" for her idea of "emergencies." In very rough terms, it’s like this: It's early 2007; you just got $100K. You rented a very nice house; you bought a wide-ass TV and a few more TVs, three computers, a houseful of furniture and you’re ready to take another vacation. No worries- we're talking merely a few tens of thousands of dollars, and you're sitting on a couple hundred thousand. Then you negotiate with your sister to pay for your aunt's house. But that house needs a lot of work- on one extreme, just paint and carpets. At the maximum level, maybe more money than you have. So what do you do? This is where her foolishness demon grabs control of her behavior. Normal people would consider the future. If you’re Bonnie, you continue living where you are- in that nice rented house. Why? Because if you fixed that house, you’d burn through your cash reserves and you "need" that cushion. Yep, if you refrain from saving for your future, you can easily spend for your present. The visible folly escapes her. If you’re Bonnie, just forget about what you'll need later on, have a good time today.

It’s easy to make subjective judgments about this situation. That she’s foolish, fiscally irresponsible, etc. doesn't bother me. The part that I care about is this- at which point will she run out of money and won't be able to provide Schaffe with support? When will she have to lessen her grip on his mind because she can't provide him with fun and toys and all the fast food she and he can eat? Maybe in two years, maybe a lot later.

Three years from now, he'll be an 18-year-old high school graduate. Will he exercise his adult right to see whomever he wants? Will he go to college? I hope so. What bothers me is that she might continue to use him as a pawn in our post-divorce lives and she might also use him to continue her day-to-day financial foolishness. How can he help her in her fiscal foolishness? She could get him to borrow money for school and then give it to her. But that's up to an adult Schaffe to deal with.

Does this sound terrible? I have some historical background here. I believe she's becoming more like her mother. And her mother used her children. If you mention this to Bonnie, she'd admit her mother used her sibs, but she’d vehemently deny this as anything she’d do to her son. She’d always "love" her children and never do anything wrong to them, yadda yadda. Bonnie’s mother loved her children and did some bad things with them. The one way Bonnie could resolve this mess is if she gets a job. With a job, she could stay out of bankruptcy. But I don't know if or when that'll happen. Part of her reluctance in actively looking for a job is the result of normal difficulties anyone would have- a long time between jobs is not a good thing when you’re job hunting. "You earned $70K/year back in 2001? Good. What have you done more recently? Nothing? Don’t call us, we'll call you." She won't take low-paying jobs because she had a great job. But people looking to fill great jobs want something like recent experience. She feels she deserves something better.

It’s a vicious circle, this iterative job/no job business. The longer she doesn't work, the harder it'll be to find a good job. The only jobs she could take are inferior and (in her mind) she deserves so much more. Her ego requires her to deserve something better. Yep, we all have egos partially dependent on our jobs. Sure, part of everyone’s ego is based on other things- family, achievements, hobbies, etc. However, right now, she's got very little to be proud of- her husband divorced her, she's been financially foolish and her lifestyle keeps her in the “obese” category. But part of everyone’s ego depends on one’s occupation. We all do this- we compare the salary someone else makes with what we earn and pass judgment on them. If someone would say, "Here's a $100K job, please take it," she'd be happy. Her problem is that the best she might do today is $20K - $30K. But taking an inferior job would interrupt her "lifestyle" which consists of sleeping in, going to the gym, buying junk food, and shopping for what she feels she needs. OK, I got a bit sarcastic there, but pretty close to the truth. I also wandered from my main point- she'll run out of the resources to care for Schaffe.

I read somewhere a bit of family law wisdom: “In divorce, no one wins.” I can only try to mitigate my son’s losses, allowing him to make his own decisions. But I can’t find a guarantee that what I’m trying to do will be best for him.


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