On the day that Dave said he wanted a divorce, I was actually quite constructive with it when I got home. I called the car insurance company and cancelled his name off my policy. We co-owned a van but all of the details were in my name so I started making arrangements to cancel that policy too. Anything to not feel so sad. I started keeping notes of how much everything was costing me because he was going to pay for it.
I had told Dave that I would be in touch about when to come and collect his belongings. I ordered some boxes to pack them all up. I wasn’t going to be overly nice about it but at the same time, I was not going to give him any cause to have a go at me about his belongings.
There was no way he was leaving my house with anything but his personal belongings. All of the furniture in that house, I had paid for. When he moved in with me, he literally had a couple of black bin bags of clothes and his tools for work. Leaving the property was going to be much more time-consuming in packing his belongings but I’d be damned if he was going to cherry pick what he took and leave me to clear up his rubbish. He was having everything. What he did with it after that was not my concern.
Mum had already been coming down to stay overnight quite a few times during our separation but when Dave called to say about coming around to collect his belongings, Mum was adamant she would be there. I also had Jill on standby just in case Mum couldn’t make it for whatever reason. I had been very constructive once the packing boxes had arrived. Basically, I went through the spare room like a tornado. I boxed up all of Dave’s belongings. I was probably far more fair than I should have been because after each box was packed, I labelled it so that he would know quickly what was in it.
When Mum arrived, I showed her the progress that I’d made with the spare room and she said she was really proud of me and that I’d done a great job. To be honest, it was a massive distraction and had really kept me occupied. I’d really worked up a sweat packing up his belongings. It had really focused my attention and had helped me stop feeling so sad. This was being constructive and I was on a mission to not feel sad.
Another reason for me being so focused on packing his belongings was to stop him cherry picking his favourite items and basically leaving all his crap behind for me to deal with. Whilst we were married, Dave wanted to experiment with going to auctions and seeing if he could grab some bargains and then flip them for a profit either on eBay or at boot sales or on some other selling platform. Basically, he had watched TV shows such as “Baggage Battles” and “Storage Wars” and thought that he could, and would do the same. I did try to tell him that the auctions wouldn’t be like that and even though the TV shows were supposed to be reality, it was what I call “staged” reality. There was no way he would buy a lost luggage suitcase at an auction and magically find a Rolex watch in it!! It just didn’t happen like that!
Well he thought he knew better. I supported him and went with him to the auctions. Unfortunately, most of what Dave bought was utter crap. There was absolutely no way I was going to be left with dealing with his mess. I packed it all up in boxes. Again, I was more than kind in that the breakable stuff I wrapped in bubble wrap and very carefully named the boxes. When he did come to collect his belongings, he did try to palm some of it off on me by asking me if I wanted any of it to try and sell myself! Inside I was absolutely raging and telling him to “fuck himself”. First thing I thought, not the first thing I said. All that actually came out of my mouth was “no thank you”.
The funniest thing was when Mum and I were in my bedroom. Mum was sitting on my bed. I had a roll of black bin bags and I was just putting all of his clothes into the bin bags. I did give him one suitcase that he had bought when we were looking for lightweight cases for our trip to the US but all the other suitcases in the house were mine. I had bought them over the years so there was no way he was getting one of those. As, by this point, I had also run out of boxes, the only option was to pack his clothes into black bin bags. I didn’t see anything wrong with that. I just piled them all in. I didn’t even bother trying to fold them or reduce the risk of creasing.
Anyway, at some point during this process Mum said to me “there’s a pair of scissors on the side there, are you sure you don’t want to have a go at a few bits? I would”. She was nodding towards the scissors and then towards the pile of Dave’s clothes that I was, at that point, piling into the black bin bags. Bless my Mum. She really did make me laugh. I would somehow, one day feel vindicated and/or get some sort of revenge but for now, I had to stay squeaky clean. I didn’t want him to have any cause to go after me for anything during the divorce process. Mum was very proud of me for this approach but still asked again if I was sure I didn’t want the scissors! Trust me though, 99.9% of me really wanted to take those scissors and go to town on his clothes.
Everything was returned to Dave in tact. You see it in the films and on the TV where the scorned wife has gone ballistic but I hadn’t smashed up his belongings, burned his photographs or cut up his clothes. I was hanging onto my dignity by a thread and I intended to continue to do so, certainly in front of him. If I subsequently fell apart in front of Mum and Dad or Jack and Jill, then so be it, as long as I maintained my composure in front of him. I did however take the opportunity to remind him that he was very lucky that his belongings weren’t neatly laid out in the middle of the nearest motorway and that I’d been more than fair with the packing.
The only slightly cheeky thing that I had done was that I’d raided Dave’s coin jars. He kept £2 coins in a jar in the cupboard in the kitchen and seeing as he’d cleared off for 8 weeks without any word or financial input towards the house, it was “married” money so I had it and put it into my bank account before I filed for divorce. That was the only slightly devious thing that I did in the whole process. I must say that I am a little ashamed of it because it was his money but, quite frankly, I was pissed off and it was a legal, lawful way I could have a little stab at him, through his back pocket.
Between Dave asking for a divorce and him finally coming to collect all of his belongings, I sought legal advice and instructed a solicitor to start the divorce process. Unfortunately, it was at this point that things started to turn nasty and the fallout really started. I thought that packing his belongings up was tough and watching his life literally leave my life was rough going. Oh, No. I was in for another big shock of my life when I started to find out what Dave had been saying.
Living The BPD Life 