Credit Where Credit is Due

Below is the exact text of an email I sent yesterday:

Hi,

I tried again recently to get my name taken off our joint credit card. No go since I am joint owner of the account. 

It is possible to close the account even though a balance remains. Bills would continue to arrive, etc.

Would it be all right with you if I closed it? It's important to my personal and financial well-being.

Please let me know.

I have not yet received an answer. But my brain is working overtime on this thorny issue. I have not used this card since October of 2008, and the balance continues to grow and grow. 

Credit card companies do not recognize divorce, which I've written about here,  and here. 

Yesterday I called the credit card company for advice. "You could get an attorney and take him to court," the young woman said.  Ha, ha, ha, I said, not going into any detail about the fortune that I've already spent on my divorce. But, yes, I thought, after I hung up, what about the Stipulation to Divide Joint Assets? Didn't my attorneys include some provision about this credit card, and yes, I will invoke whatever solution lies within this legal document, because several times I expressed my concern over this card to them, and yes, that's where the solution is!  Here is what I found in the Stipulation. 

Credit card account xxxxxxx : (Respondent shall close the account upon payoff by Respondent)


HMMMM. Toothless is the word that comes to mind. 


Meanwhile debt continues to mount in my name while I ponder my options. One option I am NOT considering is going back to my attorneys for advice on this one.

How the Hearing to Recover Attorney Fees Went

I had my day in court on Wednesday.
But not really.
I was there, as were two of my attorneys and Mr. Ex's attorney, too.
Mr. Ex himself had better things to do. Which is what
the judge said. Surely, it was time to wrap this case up, he said,
because Mr. Ex, the big name L.A. attorney from one of the biggest and fattest law firms surely had better things to do. 
The judge scolded my attorney for a technicality. She did a decent job of defending herself...and me.
I was not allowed to speak. I did not say
that I, too, have better things to do than sit mutely in a courtroom
on a
Wednesday morning in March.

On Thursday I flung doors and drawers wide and
threw paper away.
Not motions, nor declarations of income and expenses, nor schedules of assets
and debts, nor stipulations for the divsion of joint assets. Not
the final decree--but notes for stories already written and early memoir drafts, handouts from classes, rosters with names of
people I can't quite remember. I didn't throw away the things I don't want to remember, I threw
away what I am finished with. I am not finished
with you, millstone of a  husband. I will print out every email, bind them into a book
and then
I will burn it at your feet.


The judge has taken the matter under submission.  I don't know anything yet. Meanwhile another godzilla of a bill from my attorney is weighing down my desk.