Thanksgiving week has all the wind knocked out of me. Could just be my reaction to going down, down, down the rabbit hole. The Holidays are here.

Only thing I know is the only thing I want to do is curl up under my big old comforter and sleep. It’s the lack of time that has me feeling so defeated. My kids don’t have school all week and we don’t have childcare, don’t have the money for the extra child care, I should say, so what happens? I don’t have time to work.

We are caught right smack in the center exactly what I feared getting back into this. I have no time to work because we can’t afford to cover the business hours I need so jobs are left unfinished leaving me feeling further defeated and my pay further behind, which adds up to less childcare that we can afford and fewer things completed. It goes on like this until I’m right where I am now.

One big miserable puddle of blah. And I blame it on the marriage, when actually I should blame it on me.

My reasoning, skewed as it may be, is that when we were apart a couple things were absolute: I had several days every week to work because the kids were with Sam and I had to make it work because the alternatives were homelessness and starvatation.

This week, I’m giving thanks for my two beautiful, healthy girls, and the ability I have to back up, reconsider, and try it again. But I'm also questioning how much of my current situation is a self-fulfilling prophecy and why I can't have the structure to make room for work in the same way I did when I was separated.

I've changed a lot in the past few years. When my husband stopped paying attention to me I started writing professionally and the next thing I knew I was busy with a freelance writing career that became surprisingly profitable. At first I was making enough money to occasionally take the family out to dinner, but now I make almost as much as my husband does.

It's an interesting transition to go from stay-at-home mom to nearly-equal breadwinner, especially when it annoys my husband to no end. In the beginning he would tolerate my deadlines but roll his eyes and sigh about how I should really work more on keeping the house clean. For a while I managed to do both — I kept the house clean and met all my deadlines — but I got very little sleep and was really exhausted all the time.

Funny...he could have stepped up and helped me with the house and taken some of the burden off me, but he didn't. In fact, one time he blew up at me and said how unfair it was that I had agreed to be a stay-at-home mom but then went out and got myself a career. Damn that ambition of mine.

Fast forward to present day, with the economy going crazy and our money just not stretching like it once did. It's my income that allows us to meet our bills every month and for him to still have the niceties he craves. It's my income that pays for car repairs. My income pays for the preschool tuition for the kids and paid for our road trip to see my husband's parents last month. In other words, without my income we'd be in bad shape.

This doesn't change a thing. I'm still expected to do everything around the house. No matter how much money I bring in he still sees me as the same stay-at-home mom I was years ago. I guess it's what he wanted, and still wants to this day, so that's what I'm always going to be in his mind.

Last week we looked at a house we loved in a great neighborhood with a great school, a few blocks from Lila's best friend.

And the landlord loved us. Told us we were her first choice, she just needed to do a quick credit check and get back to us. Then she fell right of the edge of the Earth. Stopped returning Sam's calls.

I knew she got the scores and decided to hold out for a situation where both the applicants AND there Equifax report were equally loveable. Five days later when I emailed to check-in, I got this response:

I'm so sorry Elaina but your credit reports came back with scores that were quite low and our financial guy recommended we not go in that direction. Simultaneously, another interested party decided that they also wanted the house. We ran their credit the next day and it was acceptable. We are wraping (sic) up the deal with them. As you know these things can fall apart at the last minute. If it does fall through, I will talk to my business partner about the idea of working together to see if we can figure out a way to make it work. Perhaps some way that you would pay a higher deposit or something.

Good luck to you and I must say that I also really enjoyed our interactions.

Regards, ....

I must say I wish she'd enjoyed our interactions enough to figure out a way make it work before wrapping up the deal with the applicants who came after us. Or at least enough to call back and say it wasn't working.

I get that rental houses are financial investments and have little to do with humanitarianism. The frustrating thing is we have excellent rental histories, both together and separately, And, irony of ironies, my credit sucks because paying rent on time is always top priority.

How much does a divorce cost? I don't mean the mental costs or even the cost of finding another place to live and all that jazz.

What I'm talking about is the actual cost of going to a lawyer, retaining his or her services, and paying for the lawyer to do whatever divorce lawyers do. I'm guessing they have to draw up documents, negotiate, and answer about a million questions from people like me who are confused and scared out of their minds.

So how much does this cost? I'm guessing it depends on what's involved. If I was to leave my guess is that the divorce would be contested and there would be custody issues. Does this cost more than an uncontested divorce?

When I did an initial search for divorce lawyers I was surprised to see that some of them offered payment plans. Financing a divorce? I was flabbergasted. It must cost a great deal of money if it needs to be financed.

Yes, I'm naïve. I haven't built up the nerve to actually make an appointment with a divorce attorney because I'm terrified of starting the process. Going in to see a lawyer and asking the question of how much it will all cost means that I'm really going through with it, and I just don't know if I'm ready to do that.

So instead of getting an educated estimate of the costs involved, I worry about if it's something I can afford or if I'll wind up financing it.

What a thing to finance. The very thought scares the heck out of me.

We've been looking for a place to rent for almost two months, but we're still in the same broke boat, with the same crappy credit we had two years ago when I left.

And just like when I left, and all the long years leading up to it, the weight of financial pressure creates this ongoing competition for resources that exacerbates all of our other problems.

Sam says I'm more stressed about it than he is.

He says it to me and he says it to our therapist, then we walk out of the appointment and he accuses me of wanting more than I actually want, of wanting to keep up with the Joneses, when actually I could not care less about anyone else's lifestyle.

I don't want a McMansion. I just want to get by without struggling.

It's the same old fight.

Not being able to support our family makes him feel inadequate, and I know it's true because when I left because he owned up to it. Admitted the nasty things he said were about being angry with himself, not me.

So I call him on it, and he apologizes. It's an improvement I'm willing to work with.

Our therapist once told me finances are cited as a key factor in 80 percent of divorces. Money is the number-one point of contention in marriages. I'll buy that. There's so much stuff bound up in dollars.

Like they say, money is power. So, of course, there's contention about who spends it and how. That's assuming there's money to be spent.

Those arguments feel luxurious to me. We don't get to fight about whose spending irresponsibly. More likely, I ask Sam to ask his family for a loan; he refuses. Or what we are going to do about child care this fall because we owe Lila's pre-school more than it cost me for a year of college back in the day, and until we pay it down, we can't use their before and after care program.

Sam and I both work hard at jobs we love, but we don't make much money doing it.

Gas is up to $3.69 at the cheap station on the corner and the media has spouted three different in-depth accounts of why I dropped $78 on two bags of groceries this week.

Story number one, the obvious: with gas prices over $4 a gallon in some places, cost of transporting food is driving prices through the roof. Well, of course.

Story number two: a CNN account of how commodity traders are responsible by betting on futures. Get past the basic supply and demand model and economics flies right over my head. I don't totally understand why, but it made sense when I was watching.

Story number three: federal mandates requiring farmers to grow corn for bio-ethanol fuels has cut into our food supply. Not only does less corn make it to market, other grain crops shrink to make way for more corn we can't eat. The point: we need to find an alternate energy source or we'll likely starve ourselves fueling our excessive lives.

Oh yeah, and one more story I heard last week, related to the ridiculous price of surviving: it's been 30 years since the U.S. government has increased food stamp funding. And, the ever-wise W is poised to veto two bills calling for an increase.

I'm low on grocery money this week.

From day one of separation, I've said money wouldn't be a deciding factor. I would not have a poverty-inspired reunion.

I'm not sure now. The higher those prices climb, the deeper my debt. I've been so busy surviving these last few months, I haven't paid any bills. Well, I did pay gas, but only because it was turned off. WiFi, too.

The harder it gets, the more appealing my marriage looks. I keep asking myself, if money weren't an issue would I still be married?

I mean, in these 18 months of separation, I couldn't afford to file even when I was positive I wanted to.

Now, I'm just broke and uncertain. 


I thought that any day now my fixation on the relationship between Rob and money and me would subside, and I would move on to cover other aspects of my journey contemplating separation.

Not so fast. Something most unexpected has happened: a windfall!

Tens of thousands of dollars may not be much to you readers, but given my life-long struggle with money, it's like manna from heaven. It could even put a large dent — nay, it could halve — the student loan debt I'm so resigned to be paying for the rest of my life that I didn't even make it part of my financial story previously.

But there's a catch: This windfall is Rob's. The company he works for has been sold and his stock shares are being paid out.

This sudden change in circumstance makes me realize I never thought true security was in the cards for either of us, together or separately. I never considered we would move on from renting to owning, from budgeting around car and student loan payments with no nest egg in sight. Struggling, apparently, was part of my identity. And part of how I saw us as a couple.

Mildly interesting, sure, but you're all wondering why I'm musing thus if it's Rob's money. Indeed, in my last post I attested that I couldn't let Rob pay for my past mistakes. I still feel that way. But Rob — even with the knowledge I'm apartment hunting to instigate a trial separation — is remarking: "We can pay down your student loan!" "We can have a nest egg!" "We can take a proper vacation!"

What is this "we"? Is he dangling a carrot?

While I have no intention of biting for the wrong reasons, I do wonder: Do I deserve any of this money? Years ago I nursed him through crippling self-doubt and encouraged him to go the direction professionally that would reward him for his talents. He has been rewarded. Do I get a take?

Last week I wrote about the debt I carried for years, my thrill at having recently paid it down, and my worries about building it right back up if I separate from Rob. A couple of readers noted a passing detail — that Rob and I never combined our finances — and wondered why. It's a good question, and one for which I don't have an easy answer.

One particularly astute reader asked if that might indicate there was a hesitation about our commitment from the beginning. Probably so.

I earned a bit more than Rob did when we first lived together (before we married). In fact, I remember putting rounds of drinks for his friends and me on my credit card — wracking up points with Rob, and keeping my credit card balances high to boot.

But these days Rob's salary surpasses mine by far. As this developed, and I was struggling to finally bring my embarrassing debt under control, I felt I didn't deserve any of his money. Were we to put our money together, and pay our obligations and debt together, Rob would have been paying for my past mistakes.

That didn't seem fair to me. And perhaps that says a lot about us — that we're not a partnership of two souls making their way through the world together come what may, but a convenient and safe companionship that stops short of unconditional support.

In a nutshell, the situation I described in Paying for Past Mistakes, Part I goes: Ten years ago I indulged in things I couldn't afford and put myself in debt. Over the past couple of years I started to consider leaving Rob, but that old, crippling debt has kept me dependent on him for security I can't afford alone. This past year I've worked my @$$ off to pay off my credit card debt and put a bit of savings away. I'm on the cusp of affording independence.

Sounds great, but not so fast. Moving away from Rob will suck up that savings in one fell swoop: the dreaded "first, last, and security." And we're talking Boston rent. It's not as high as in New York, but it's certainly inflated and nearly impossible to afford.

Even with roommates I'd be living on a budget that allows no room for error. Faced with a medical bill or emergency, I'd have to use credit. And I wouldn't have the income to pay it back immediately.

You see where this is going? By leaving, I'll put myself right back in the same boat I was for the last 10 years: in debt with no savings. And this time with no safety net either, as there will be no Rob to bail me out.

I guess the solution is clear: wait. I should wait until I have enough savings to cover the move with enough left over to serve as a safety net. But — sheesh — that will keep me here another year!

Patience. Sit tight. Right? 


In graduate school I lived on credit, paying for everything from food to rent with plastic. I also had a British boyfriend who lived across the pond. In a couple moments of emotional desperation, I flew to him despite the costly last-minute airfare.

And when we met each other in Spain for a budgeted vacation, I used a payphone on the beach in Marbella to call MBNA in the States for get an additional $1,000 in credit to extend my trip across the straights to North Africa.

Are my master's degree and travelers tales worth the thousands of dollars of interest I've paid since? Are they worth the $180 minimum monthly payment that could have built a comfy nest egg by now? I'll have to say no.

For the past year I've been budgeting down to the dollar, restricting nights out in favor of paying down debt and saving money. My goal is financial independence from Rob. We keep our money separate, pay our own debts, and contribute to rent and household bills according to our income. I have been living paycheck to paycheck, meeting my obligations with no room to spare. Rob, who earns much more, has disposable income and is the household safety net.

Last month with a few strokes of my pen I paid off my last credit card balance. Victory! I've also I've built up a bit of savings. Of course, putting the required "first, last, and security" down on an apartment will blow all that. And in leaving Rob I sacrifice my safety net. Can't. Get. Ahead.