a month as a family doing some activity, and they had dinner together once or twice a week. She was just starting to realize that it’d been a lonely way to live.
She hadn’t taken a lover because there’d never been a temptation. Nor an opportunity! The fact that Scott complained that she’d been working all the time and that she wasn’t interested in his life only added insult to injury because he’d had plenty of time to take a lover. Maybe if he’d been working, worrying about retirement and college tuition and paying the bills, he might not have had the time!
She spent a couple of hours with a friend who was an attorney who did a lot of divorces. The advice was familiar to her and exactly what she’d told a dozen friends and Scott—if they could agree on the division of property without lawyers, it would be cheaper and less likely to be contentious. Her friend warned her, “Your biggest problem will be alimony since you’ve supported him for so long.”
“But he could have worked!” Justine said. “He loved not working and having all that time off! I asked him a hundred times if there wasn’t something he wanted to do, even as a volunteer, and he said he’d put in enough hours of volunteer work as a dad!”
“It is assumed that every such decision is made in joint partnership, just as net worth is jointly shared.”
She’d never thought about it because she couldn’t imagine this happening to her, to them. There had been the rare time she’d said to Scott, “Have you heard about Char and Dennis getting divorced after thirty years of marriage? How does that happen? Please tell me that can’t happen to us!”
“Us? The most married couple in the county? Impossible!” he’d said.
And she would let it go. After all, they talked or texted all day, every day. They were constantly in touch; constantly joined at the hip.
She told Adele they would be separating soon, filing for divorce. Despite the fact that Scott had a lover, apparently he had nowhere to go and was living down the hall.
Adele began to cry on the phone. “You guys were one of the only reasons I had faith in marriage.”
“You can’t imagine how sorry I am that this is another shattered image,” Justine said.
So, staring terror in the face, she went to see the CEO of her company. She told him that her marriage was over and explained that none of the options she’d been offered in the restructured company were appealing to her and she wanted to offer her resignation.
“If you resign, there won’t be an exit package,” Wayne Holloway explained. “That’s an expensive decision. Do you have another position lined up?”
She shook her head. “I suppose I’ll talk to a headhunter,” she said. “For years I had fantasies about striking out on my own, starting a private practice or joining one, maybe consulting, something that would be less stressful and give me more time to enjoy my kids before they’re gone. But the demands of the bills were bigger than I was.”
“You’re right not to wait too long, Justine. Otherwise, you might end up spending your whole life trying to hold this company together.”
“What was your fantasy, Wayne?” she asked.
He leaned back in his chair and said, “I’d like to play the piano in a jazz band. Seriously.”
He was not known as a musical talent. “That’s amazing. I never would have—”
“Can I give you some advice?” he asked. “As a man divorced twice?”
“I’d welcome it,” she said.
“Be generous, don’t try to punish him even if he deserves it, but know what your priorities are and set fair boundaries that are nonnegotiable. You’ll be better off in the end if you can settle.”
“He doesn’t inspire my sense of generosity,” she said. “He makes me want to fight for everything.”
“I know. I get it. I’ve been the betrayer and the betrayed. Either way, just keep safe what means the most to you.”
“That’s easy—my girls.”
“Be practical, Justine. Can you be a full-time caretaker and provider?”