Closing a Credit Card Account after Divorce

Pretty much everything that happened with the joint credit card accounts at the end of my marriage is a lesson in what not to do. I've written so many posts about it, it would take me an hour to link to them all. The "labels" section at the bottom of the page will unveil to you to the long and gory history of how plastic figured into the the aftermath of my divorce. If you are plotting your own freedom from jointly held credit card debt, you might want to pour yourself a drink and settle in for some reading.

As for this post, it's the final installment on the subject. The check has been posted as a payment. I'm free. Not completely unscathed. But free.

photo credit: tactical-life.com

Marriage Counseling

I suppose thinking about marriage counseling almost five years out from the break-up of my marriage is a little like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, but this recent piece from the New York Times caught my eye. The piece is essentially about how much couples therapy/marriage counseling stresses out therapists. “You have to like action. To manage marital combat, a therapist needs to get in there, mix it up with the client, be a ninja. This is intimidating," says one of the therapists interviewed for the article. I'll say. And it's also pretty intimidating, I might add, to be half of a couple seeking therapy.


Couples therapy, the article goes on to say, didn't become popular until the upswing in the divorce rate in the 60s and 70s. The therapist considered to be the pioneer of family therapy claimed that the goal of couples therapy is “not to maintain the relationship nor to separate the pair but to help each other to take charge of himself.” There were three episodes of marriage counseling in the thirty years of my marriage. As pointless as it now may seem, I wonder how I might have changed and how my marriage might have changed if I had embraced the goal of taking charge of myself. Maybe the marriage would not have lasted as long as it did. Maybe we'd have turned things around.


Apparently, one of the most successful types of couples counseling is based on the attachment theory of parenting. "...good relationships are built on secure attachments, ones that are engaged and emotionally responsive." I subscribed devotedly to attachment parenting as a young mother. And the results, with my daughters now in their twenties, seem hard to argue with. Maybe the couples therapy my ex and I received was not built on that model. Or maybe it was, and somehow the attachment between my husband and me never really existed or  had already dissolved. The only solid memory I've retained from the experience is that it was terribly difficult to make the demand on my husband's time. The request for counseling was yet another burden heaped on a day without enough hours.


Which brings to mind one of my old theories about parenting. The quality time argument was big then. Working moms spent "quality time" with their kids, while those of us that stayed home, the quality camp claimed, were lost in hours and hours of meaningless drudgery. I figured that time was time. No, I wasn't taking my kids to the zoo everyday, but we were together, responding to one another in ways large and small, fun and less fun. I think time, both quality and quantity, was what my marriage lacked.


Time in the context of the affair with the man who loves me does not seem divisible into quality and quantity. We spend two or three  nights a week together. Almost always we stay in. We cook. We eat. We clean up the kitchen. We don't watch TV or movies. We talk. A lot. We make each other laugh. Sometimes we listen to music or dance. These quality quantifiable hours spent fully engaged are undoubtedly a force in the love affair. And I believe, that since the end of my marriage, I have taken charge of myself. Those are the  things, at this point in my life, that seem central to love. 


How about you? Got any observations about love? Would you go to counseling (given the fact that a lot of therapists seem to dread the process) over a troubled relationship or just move on?


photo credit: flowerpowermom.com

The Church of Dogs

I saw a snazzily dressed preacher walking into the assisted living facility near the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society this morning. I felt a momentary flash of guilt, as if he might question me like some Catholic priest from my childhood. "Why aren't you in church?" he called out to me in my imagination as he strode toward me with his bible.
"I am in church," I said, continuing the imaginary conversation. "The Church of Dogs." The dome of blue sky for the ceiling. The whisper of the breeze for prayer. Little saints all around me doling out unconditional love. Like this guy. My new favorite.

His name is Eyota. And he's a rat terrier. A useful beast in Southern California where rats like to raid the fruit trees. Holy avenger against rodent satans!

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to walk dogs. Some of my favorites have been adopted in the interim. I was surprised to see that Oprah is still at the shelter. "Oprah," I said, "What are you still doing here?!"

I'd say she looks a bit baffled herself. Really, this dog is so charming, she should have her own TV show.

Wouldn't Eyota and Oprah make a cute pair?

Changing Your Name after Divorce

"I'm on my third name," I explained to the attorney. "The form says I have never been known by any other name." He laughed and told me to add a hand-written a note. That I shouldn't worry. Forms contain vestiges of old concerns. "They're not after you," he said.

"I'll have to strike out the 'M,'" the notary said. "Your California Driver's license doesn't have a middle initial."

"Right," I said. "I dropped the 'M' after my divorce. And before I had just an 'M,' my middle name was Mary. I dropped the Mary and went with 'M.' Now there's no M. either." I didn't mention the last names I've been through.

"These forms have an 'M'," he said, pausing with his notary stamp raised. I shrugged, feeling like I was trying to conceal a vestigial tail.

"How should I sign?" I asked.

"Sign with your current legal signature," he said. "It's your mark. Never change your mark."

Easy for him to say.
Marriage changed my mark. Divorce changed my mark.
Just call me "Mark."