Am I good or bad?

In the beginning of this diary, I spoke often of T. I do not think of him too often, or rather.. I try not to.

There are times that I am overwhelmed with bitterness, for the years wasted that I cannot find again. And yet, those were decisions I made, turning my back on caution from those who loved me, thinking that I knew the man better than they. Truly, this was pure conceit on my part and with little forethought, I went through with marrying him.

I wish I had not, I would scold her now.. that foolish girl who believed it was her last chance at love. It need not have been, had she not been so mule-headed.. yet, she was.

For some reason lately, I have questioned myself.. things that I do not look too closely at. I have never believed in karma, because not everyone does get what they deserve. Some do, some don’t. It’s not a certainty.

We married 15 years ago this month, we separated 6.2 years later. The divorce was not finalized until much, much later.. 6.5 years later as a matter of fact.

At first, we separated.. after much bitterness and difficulties, I finally managed to get him to admit that he wished a divorce. He had hoped that I would be the one to ask, as he always said that if there were to be a divorce, it would be only if I wished it, that he would never give up on the marriage. And yet, he was the one who walked away and found another love, his vows of honor were forgotten in that moment.

Regardless of that, I still gave him options of changing his mind. Part of me hoped that we would reconcile, because to me, vows were not taken lightly. That might have been pride as well, it likely was.

To work at the same company as the two of them, I could not work in this setting of such close proximity, while going through the divorce. He and I would have terrible arguments, times when my supervisor was tempted to thrash him. So I advised T that I could not deal with the details of the divorce while I worked there, that and my attorney had very severe difficulties dealing with T.. she was known for handling divorces that were messy, having gone through 3 herself. And yet, T was more difficult than she cared to deal with.

We had put the divorce on hold, I had advised my attorney, and she quickly wrote to take herself off the case. I was a bit startled, having already paid her a large sum of money for this, to then have to find another. Of course, T was not willing to assist in this endeavor, he had already arranged his own and I did not trust the type of attorney he might find.

Had I gone with him to find an attorney, his attorney stated at the end, after I signed the papers after spending the greater portion of a day proof-reading the documents and helping him correct them, that he would have assisted me instead of T.. for ethical reasons, he could not state this beforehand.

Be that as it may, it still did take many years for the divorce to finalize. T’s timing was always impeccible with regards to trying to convince me to hurry things along. His life was very comfortable, a great job with a much larger income and a lady who moved into our house to take care of his every need.

I had to move, three times.. my income was non-existent. Once I did find a place to live after moving 800 miles north, he began to push for me to find an attorney to do the divorce proceedings. At the time I was busy with a new job, trying to make ends meet and dealing with my health. He kept quiet for most of the time, until just after my fathers’ funeral, when I was just told of needing chemo, and I had to be firm and state that I was too busy fighting for my life, that my priorities were clear and I could not waste the energy on dealing with filing papers for the divorce and working with his attorney who did not return calls often.

The last day that I worked, before I went onto medical leave, I had taken care of the papers, sent the correct ones to the courthouse, since they had been returned the month previously for being sent to the wrong department. Actually, I had gone into work on a saturday to do this, so that I would have some peace and quiet, although I had put in some hours to make up for being sick that week.

But from that time until the divorce was finally settled, it was yet another 2 years. To do the final paperwork required my taking the bus down for a quick turn around trip, 20 hours one way, 18 hours back.. dealing with his attorney who did not have a secretary. After that, things went quickly, the divorce finalized within two months.

I had not intended to drag things out deliberately, and yet.. lately I wonder if I did that in order to have some final control in a situation that had been out of my hands for so long.

I felt nothing when I received the final papers, no tears, no sorrow.. no nothing.

And yet, now I question myself, over 2 years later, was I trying to dole out my own sense of karma?