#just gossipy little fucks that like to be bossy

[curlsincriminology]

if steve harrington were real and actually my bf, it would be the kind of thing where everyone is like this is perfect but we must break them up for our sanity

[delusion-of-negation]

are you okay? :(

Tumblr is shite for telling me that I have new messages, so I apologize so much to everyone for not responding to these sooner. I'm guessing they're about the other night and not my cold (but if they're about my cold: I'M NOT OKAY, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, SATAN CREATED THIS COLD SPECIFICALLY TO PUNISH ME!), so I'll explain as best I can:

So, for context, I'm occasionally "neurotypical passing" enough to "seem normal" to friends of friends who aren't as familiar with mental health stuff, and I try to limit my hanging out with them to when I'm well enough to keep up that facade -which means that in the past I've had the "privilege" of hearing people talking about non-neurotypical people we know behind their backs, or about annoying people we know that they've decided probably have [insert conditions here] because they're "weird". As a result, I really don't like doing something that puts a giant neon "ASPERGERS! BIPOLAR! OCD! AND MORE! COMING TO A GOSSIP NEAR YOU THIS FALL!" sign over my head, especially in front of people who I don't know well, especially especially if they say certain phrases that I've heard before in a gossipy context - and a lot of that fear comes from not wanting my friends to be hearing things like that about me behind my back, not wanting to risk them having to choose between me and their other friends, and generally not wanting to embarrass them or myself. That night, I was with two friends and two of their friends, and I started acting weird, like loud, obnoxious, controlling, bossy, not myself at all - I knew something was wrong but my head was all static, I couldn't even make sense of what I was saying, everything was in fast forward, I think I was dissociating because I only have fragments of memory of it. Then something one of the friends of friends did to wind me up triggered a flashback and panic attack, and after it ended I felt like I crashed, everything slowed down, even my vision went weird; I must've done something visibly because everyone looked horrified at me, I think I shouted. I then ran into another room. Later, one of my friends came in and got really upset with me for embarrassing them, they said that they were sick of having to defend me to their friends, and when I apologized and said I appreciated that they tolerated me, they responded "I shouldn't have to" and left me alone. I was mad at them for not understanding, I was mad at myself for not being normal, and I was still reeling from everything, so then all my other problems came flooding back in, it was like my mind went "Oh and here's 97 other times you fucked up, here's everything bad that person has ever done to you, also here's examples of lots of other people who hate you, with some abuse flashbacks as a side order, and while we're on the subject of you fucking up, what's it like having no money?" and I just... I couldn't take it any more, I wanted to kill myself, I decided that I was going to, but I have a rule that I have to wait a bit after deciding something like that before acting upon it - partially because of failures in the past and their consequences (you make mistakes when you're rushed or impulsive), but also because I remember a passage that I read a long time ago about how you should always wait before acting on extreme emotions like that to ensure that the emotion is one you stand by and not just fleeting, it always pops into my head when I get suicidal. So instead, I grabbed the lighter, but then I thought about the times people self-harmed in front of me or told me that it was because of me, and I thought about how hurt my friends would be if they found out that I did it in the same house as them because of them, I thought about how angry they get when I do it, about how many times they've told me that they'll leave if I do it again... I got scared so I put it down and started looking at pictures of self-harm instead (to try to live vicariously through them I guess, I really wasn't thinking clearly by that point), and that's when all the tumblr posts happened. I must've been dissociating pretty bad then too because I don't actually remember writing the posts or what I said in them, I only remember reblogging some depressing quotes and pictures. Eventually I just broke down crying and I don't remember anything at all after that.

The next morning, both of my friends were really supportive, and a third friend talked it through with me, plus my cold had gotten so bad that I was like "haha no need to kill myself I'm already fucking DYING". I felt more like myself, time was passing normally and I could think before I opened my mouth again, my sense of humour was back, and I couldn't remember much of the night so that made it easier. The embarrassment started to fade, and so I went through some old quotes and songs that have messages like "It's not your fault, don't let other people get to you, you can't control what they think so worrying about it is fruitless", and I re-read some stoic texts to reaffirm the whole "stop worrying about what you can't control" thing. Occasionally little thoughts and bitterness creep back up, but mostly it has passed. I'm really genuinely sorry if I frightened anyone during the episode, that wasn't my intention.

[wthomeland]

Franny can't follow her parents path, she is way too gossipy to be a spy LOL. I think she is more like her daddy (2.0 version) now, just say things without thinking haha. Perhaps when he comes back to his old self, he can teach her some spy lessons because her mommy is too busy with other stuff. OMG she is adorable!!!

Anon 2: Love Franny telling Q about Dar scaring  Mommy. And she tells him while he gives her the stare! Though the meaning of this stare is “who the fuck scared your Mommy”? Not intimidated at all, this little one. In fact, I think she knows Q is a cool guy to have around the house, in more ways than one. Beware all bullies in Franny’s school !

Franny is awesome! Kind of bossy, too. She probably can’t be bullied if she takes after her mom. When Franny saw Carrie was kind of upset after talking to Dar, she was probably thinking, “OK I gotta talk to Peter about this when we get home, who the fuck is this old geezer showing up at MY school and scaring my mommy!”.

[jamesgeiiger]

The Economics of Divorce

Even in the most carefully run and financially independent of lives, there will be some wrenching twists and turns.

Friendships and businesses will fail. You or your loved ones will get sick and some of them will die. Kids will have plenty of trouble on their long road to adulthood – if they even make it. And all around you, there will be a sea of fighting and breakups and divorces and mismatched relationships that you wish would end, for your sake or that of your best friends.

With all of this happening, it’s a wonder that we can remain happy and productive and even thrive as humans. But we can. And we do. Because sometimes life just serves up a shit salad and we don’t have a choice in the matter, but we always have a choice of how to respond to it.

So if you haven’t already heard through the rumor mill, the former Mrs. Money Mustache and I are no longer married. Although we had been drifting this way for a while, the formal change of our status is still less than a year old, so it’s still a topic that deserves some quiet respect*.

The downfalls of our own relationship are personal and not something we choose to make public, but you’ve heard it all before anyway. Sometimes people just grow apart over the decades and find that they want different things from life. And when this happens, not even the greatest advantages of a lifetime money surplus or a supportive network of great friends and family or living in a beautiful place can save you.

So that’s the bad news. The good news is that we have had about the most amicable separation that one could hope for, we all still spend plenty of time together and our son is still in the same loving environment he has always had. And I would venture to say that both of us parents are going to come out of the experience much better off than we were before.

See, even the harshest moments come with a little golden key taped secretly onto their side, which you can use to unlock personal growth and greater future happiness. But only if you choose to accept that key and put it to use.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that there weren’t plenty of harsh moments for both of us, both before and during this experience, with plenty more still to come. Because divorce, especially with children and family and traditions involved, is really fucking hard. 

But guess what? There are a lot of things in life that are hard. Being born and going through childhood is hard. Having babies of your own is even harder. School and jobs are hard, and money is really hard for most people. Relationships and friendships and dealing with bossy or dysfunctional friends or family or parents, personal habits and addictions, and everything else. Life is full of hardships.

But throughout all of it, we always have a choice about how to deal with them.

We can choose to focus on how unfair the situation is, how we were right and we tried our best and the world still mistreated us. And we can fight back, chasing the unfair person or company or situation and get revenge. We can make sure they know exactly why they were wrong and every way in which they were flawed.

And we can collect bathtubs full of sympathetic tears from our friends. And burn years on reliving the past, with a mixture of regret and vengeful self-righteousness and self-pity.

– OR – 

We can get right back to work on positive things to rebuild our lives. Improving ourselves through better habits and health. Building new relationships and nurturing old ones, and making sure we put out only positive energy to every person in our lives, including our ex-spouse. Building everyone up and never, ever tearing anyone down. Because they already do that plenty to themselves.

Like almost everything else in life, human nature draws us to the easier but more destructive of these paths, and only self-knowledge and self-discipline can lift us out of that rut and place us onto the more productive one. And even then, our human nature will keep pulling us back and we’ll make mistakes. And then we’ll have to drag ourselves back out of that rut again. And put the happy face back on, and start behaving like an adult again.

As one friend puts it, “Being a divorced coparent is like being the co-owner of a business. Except it’s the most important company in the world and having it fail is not an option. So you have to treat your business partner accordingly.”

It has been a hard year. But at the same time, I feel we have both already learned so much, that it seems almost impossible that the experience won’t help both of us live better lives in the future. We are both doing well in new relationships and supportive of the other’s success in that important aspect of moving on.

But this is usually a personal finance blog. What does my romantic life have to do with your financial life? Not too much in the specifics, but quite a bit in general, because about half of all marriages end in divorce, and I have found it can be quite a tricky minefield to navigate.

First of all, there is the effect on your child raising, which is a parent’s most important job in life. In the best scenario, the end of a marriage is just a change to your love life, and you can continue to collaborate with your former spouse in a wonderful and open way. But the more conflict you have with that ex, the harder it is to cooperate, which leads to a worse experience for everyone – especially your children.

Then there is the social shame attached to divorce in our culture. While it could be looked at as the natural and peaceful end of an arrangement that has just run its course, other people will see it as a failure or a betrayal or a sin. In fact, when rumour of our separation got out, multiple gossipy and negative and downright distasteful discussions formed around the Internet – on Reddit, other bloggers’ websites, even right here on my own forum. People who don’t even know you, will speculate on your character and your motives. It adds pain to an already difficult situation. The only way to survive this is to ignore it and focus on your own internal compass.

And finally there is the famed financial cost of divorce. It is legendary for destroying lives and fortunes, and indeed this is sometimes accurate. This is because conflict is a form of war, and war is the most expensive things humans have ever invented. And if you hire lawyers and other specialists to fight on your behalf, you just multiply the damage and the cost and stretch out the timeline.

But fortunately, like everything else, going to war is almost always a choice.

And if you don’t choose to fight, a divorce doesn’t have to cost much at all. Two people can peacefully collect up their financial and physical belongings and go their separate ways, and the only cost is in any duplication of possessions you choose to do, to replace things you formerly shared.

So the former Mrs. MM and I (mostly under her guidance!) worked through the do-it-yourself paperwork and paid a $265 fee to the county court for the divorce. I bought the lowest-cost house in the neighborhood, just a 2.5 minute bike ride down the hill from the family house, and I’ve already fixed it up and started hosting Airbnb rentals to help make it carry its own weight. I left the Nissan Leaf behind and chose not to buy a car of my own because I already have bikes.

We share plenty of time with our son and he is doing amazingly well – because we are choosing to make this new life about growth rather than conflict.

And most notably from the perspective of early retirement and financial independence, having enough money in advance has made this part of the split much less painful. Both of us can remain retired and continue to live in mortgage-free houses with investments easily covering our living expenses, while sharing child raising expenses. Although I chose to buy a house, nobody had to compromise on quality of life or sell the expensive family house.

Because I enjoy moderate living for its own sake, my own cost of living will go way down. And because I continue to enjoy writing and working, my income may continue to stay high through this next stage of my life. I’ll continue to use the surplus for projects and philanthropy just as before, but the point here is that one’s relationship status does not have to affect their financial status.

As a long-time reader said to me in a recent email as we discussed our shared fate, having a solid financial cushion and low expenses and lifestyle flexibility, has made the best of an otherwise difficult situation – especially in not having to disrupt the lives of our kids.

Still, having been through it, I would not recommend divorce as a decision to be taken lightly. If you’re still married and there is even a chance that you want it to last, you might consider the following steps.

How to Stay Married

Read about how to stay married – early and often. Peruse the bountiful relationship advice section at Amazon and definitely check out the 5 Love Languages book that resonates strongly with so many people.

Most of us (myself included) drift through the years, assuming we are doing a perfectly good job at being married, while unintentionally making all the same mistakes that everyone else makes.

Bad idea.

You need to proactively nurture a close, loving relationship before things get too dire, and never take it for granted. Because many bits of damage you do to a relationship are permanent. You cannot nag or criticize your partner for years and expect them to forgive you when you eventually see the light. And for those being nagged: you cannot ignore the requests of your partner for years, and expect them to forgive you for that either.

There are so many things, like being on each other’s team in times of hardship, and being genuinely excited and greeting your partner warmly at the door if they’ve been away, that fall to the side in marriages as they get stale. Every time you let this slide, you do a bit of permanent damage. The effects are cumulative like erosion, not temporary like moods or weather.

So the bad news is that there is definitely such thing as “too late.” At some point, the idea of “working on” a marriage sounds like hell because you have been waiting for so long to be able to escape it.

But the good news is that it might not be too late for you, if you do want to stay married. And the benefits begin immediately – if both people are working at it, every positive gesture from one side will be met with a positive one from the other, and they can reinforce each other into a beautiful upward spiral.

But if You’d Rather Not Stay Married

The flipside of all this is that many, many people are currently married, who should not be and don’t want to be.

You may be two perfectly great people with irreconcilable differences, or there might be one great person stuck with an abusive user or loser, or any other combination in the grand spectrum of possible humans. And it is important for these people to hear that although divorce is always difficult, sometimes it really is the best choice and there should not be shame or blame associated with this choice.

Every human needs and deserves to be accepted and loved – even the people who drive us crazy and even those who treat us poorly. They are who they are and while you can’t change them, you can’t make the world any better by spitting venom back at them. So your best strategy is to carve them out of your life, while keeping your words as kind and respectful as you possibly can.

And heed the wise words of my own relationship and coparenting counselor, who noted that the first months after any divorce are the times of greatest conflict. And then it gets easier. And easier. And mellower and friendlier. And after a few years, many former divorcees have moved on so happily that can’t even believe that they were ever angry at each other. That’s entirely possible, and it should be your goal.

So lean on friends, talk to a relationship counselor even if it is just by yourself (yes, it’s really worth it!), read books, laugh, cry, learn mindfulness and meditation, eat salads, get outside and exercise, write more new things and build new things and new businesses and new relationships, and you will come through it better than ever.

That’s what I’ll be up to in 2019.  I hope your new year is even better!

In the Comments: I have found it so helpful over this past year to share with others and realize that I am not alone in this. Feel free to share your own experiences and hopes and fears anonymously.

My comment form allows you to use a pseudonym so you can be anonymous while you let out the truth. And read the other comments, to see what other people around you are feeling.

And for those who have been through this and gotten through the other side and found happiness, go ahead and share your message of hope.

* A bit of social approrpriateness that seems to be lost on certain forum participants and even other bloggers, who we won’t call out here. Please don’t be like them – using the Internet to publicly gossip about strangers helps nobody.

    The Economics of Divorce published first on https://worldwideinvestforum.tumblr.com/