File this under "Done"

Last week, Steve and I filed for divorce.

Wait, what? you're thinking. Didn't they decide to get a divorce over a year ago? What then heck have they been DOING?

Shut up, I say to you. You have no idea.

First of all, no two divorces are the same. If you and your spouse own nothing and have no children you can probably file for divorce and be done with it in an afternoon, or at least a month. But if you own things, if you have children, if one of you has spent the last 10 years not working in order to care for your children and your household, it might take a wee bit longer.

In some cases, it might be worth it to wait.

It might make sense to get a job. To figure out what your expenses are or will be. To think through certain things, like what do do with joint property.  And in the meantime certain people might be able to keep health insurance for a few more months. Things like that.

So... yeah. It took us a little over a year.

Not that we didn't try to get things done earlier.

We had a meeting with lawyers. It took hours. It cost me about $900. It probably cost Steve the same. We spent the entire time arguing over a temporary arrangement and listening to the lawyers argue over who was going to pay to have the house appraised for value. Do you know how much it costs to have the house appraised? Probably a fraction of what it cost us in lawyers fees to argue over who was going to pay for it.

I quickly realized that we could spend months, years in court, arguing over how much alimony, child support was owed, over who would get what visitation, who would get which bank account... but when it was all added up, the lawyers would probably end up with most of the cash.  Steve doesn't make enough money, I explained to my lawyer, to make it worth arguing over alimony. At the end of the day, any difference he could possibly afford will be eaten up in fees paid to her firm.

In January we went to a mediator. We came up with an agreement, and most of the arrangements were made. Then we each took a copy of the papers to our respective lawyers and each of them had something to say.

When we finally go copies of everything we went tot he courthouse, but we were missing a couple of the 93 documents we needed in order to file, so we had to go back.

And so we did. And then we filed. And that brings me to now.

I had over a year to get used to the idea. But still, once we did it, once the paperwork was in, I had a little bit of a shock. That was it. It was done. Mostly. All over except the parenting class and the actual document stamped and returned.

Weird.

It feels weird.