Divorce Papers!

After awhile, I simply became a recluse. I stopped talking to people. My social life became almost obsolete. I was living in a world that I had created for myself of sorrow and regret. I was vulnerable and desperate. I was depressed and angry. I had no idea where or what my next move in life would be. I honestly do not believe he really knew how much I loved him. He didn’t want to know. He will never know the impact of hardship I faced on a day to day basis of being a loyal military wife. He will never know the amount of tears I shed, or the length of time it took me to rebuild my broken heart.

It had been a little over a year since I returned from Germany and decided to proceed with a divorce. Papers had not been filed yet, and I had no motivation to do anything about it. He was still stationed in Germany and I was back living in Virginia under my parent’s roof. It wouldn’t be for another year and a half that anything would get filed or done about it. I got some hope when he was discharged from the army in November of 2009 and returned to Virginia Beach. We had the papers drawn up through an internet resource that he was insistent on using. I just wanted to get it over with so that I could close the chapter in my life and jump on the healing wagon officially.

I remember getting a little excited when I received the email that contained the papers. This was around January of 2010. Two years had passed since my return from Germany and it was 2 months shy of two years that I had made the decision official. I printed them out and quickly started to review them. I was shocked to see how many errors were in the document, with the main one being that it was referencing Hampton to be a county. I immediately took the papers to a paralegal that I knew to ask her to look over them. She did and came back saying exactly what I was thinking. It needed to say the City of Hampton instead of Hampton County.

I told him about that and the other errors and he would not listen to me. I felt like it was back to square one. This is what I had been going through all along with him. He did not want to listen to what I had to say and swore that whatever he did was the correct way. The only difference this time is that I had had enough. I figured I would let him take the papers to the clerk’s office and attempt to file them and I wanted to be there when he did. Why you ask? My presence was not necessary due to him being insistent before with being the plaintiff. I wanted to be there so that I could laugh at him when the clerk told him the same information that I had tried telling him before. I wanted to see his embarrassment when he was told he was wrong. The conversation between him and the clerk went something like this:

Clerk: “The judge and court won’t accept this. Hampton is a city, not a county.”

Him: “I went through an online divorce papers website, and that is how they came back to me.”

Clerk: “Those websites aren’t always accurate.”

Him: “But my friends all went through the websites and …”

Clerk: interrupting him, “And your friends are probably still married, aren’t they?”

Me: smirking in the background, trying to control my laughter.

Clerk: “You have to get them fixed or have a new one drawn up. The court won’t accept these.”

Him: “But I paid $250 for these ones!”

Me: “Danny, hold on. I can re-write them. I’ll use that on as a guideline and fix it to where the court will accept it.”

Him: “Ok, fine!” and he stormed out the door.

My laughter finally breaks free at this point and I look at the clerk and apologize for his actions. I told her I tried explaining that to him already, but he wouldn’t listen to me. She understood and told me it was alright.