Okay, I've got a new house for the animal family and me. Now: What to do with the old one? The plan is to ready it for sale or rent. I've talked with a couple of friends to see if they might want to buy it or maybe even rent it at a reduced rate just to keep it from standing empty.

And, my soon-to-be-ex Edgar has volunteered to rent it.

Edgar tells me I have to hang onto it. "That house is the only thing you have." Well, sort of.

I like to think of things like friends and family, years of experience in the kind of work I love, even my books and music as things I "have." But he's right. The old homestead is certainly my biggest material asset, even though its value has been dropping like a stone.

"This isn't the time to be selling your house," he told me.

I didn't buy the house as an investment, per se. I bought it 11 years ago because I'd always wanted a house, and needed a nice, quiet place to keep myself and my stuff. I kept it even when strangers approached me in the yard during the real estate boom and offered me several times what I paid. 

But they were offering only money. This is my home.

And though it is worth much, much less than it has been, I should still make a profit if I'm able to sell the place.

But that's a big If. I'd love to be able to rent it to Edgar and keep it. He does have a stable job, he knows the house's idiosyncrasies and might take better care of it than I have.

However, I also remember worrying, when he lived here, that he might set the place on fire during a drunken episode.

Typically, Ed is presenting himself as the solution to my problems, even though he says he can't afford the full mortgage payment. I'd have to pick up the shortfall. "But if you'd be willing to lose your house over a couple of hundred dollars a month," he said, "that's just stupid."

Jake had a thing about giving me jewelry. In his head, this is What Husbands Did. If one had a Wife, one got her Nice Things.

No matter that the wife in questions said, "I don't really like jewelry." No matter that she said, "I don't like to wear jewelry." No matter that she said, "At the very least, please don't ever get me anything gold."

"Happy anniversary," he'd say. "I know you don't like gold. I know you never wear jewelry. But I got this for you anyway."

So, I have this jewelry box, and it's filled with things. Gold things, mostly. Expensive things. Things I never wear. Things I didn't want in the first place. Things I have no use for.

And yet — two years later — I still have them.

Why? Is it because dealing with the process of appraisal and sale will take some effort? Is it because just the idea of yet another errand dealing with this divorce exhausts me?

Or is it that the idea of losing those presents is hard? Because — even though they speak so much to Jake's lack of understanding of me, lack of interest in what I liked and cared about — they were still given out of love.

So much pain is left when a marriage ends that it's hard to look back at what was good and happy without those memories being tainted, somehow, by all the hurt.

This could be grad school tuition, here in this box. This could be a vacation, or a couple of the cross-country plane tickets I'm burning through these days.

What will it take to open it up and take some action?

OK, I give up. I surrender, I confess, I admit it: I cannot afford my home anymore. By my home I mean both my house and the crazy city that I love, where I've lived for the past 20 years — longer than I've lived anywhere else, nearly half of my life.

I went "back home" to North Carolina last week, to attend my 30th high school reunion (!) and spend a week with my parents. I ended up using a lot of that time looking for a place to move my remaining family, the three dogs and three cats.

And I found something, a tiny little house in a great, big fenced yard. The rent is just over half of what I'm now struggling to pay for my mortgage.

For years I'd been scrambling for work, and just getting by, with the inconsistent assistance of Ed. It occurred to me, as I gazed at the satellite image of Hurricane Ike covering the entire Gulf of Mexico, that homeowners insurance — already prohibitively expensive - will never get any cheaper in Florida.  

My beautiful house, the cherished fulfillment of a long-held dream, needs work that I can't afford. Relatively speaking, it's a wealthy person's home. 

Relatively speaking, I am not a wealthy person.

Also, my parents also are not getting any younger. I'll feel better being closer to them — though I will decline, at least for now, their generous offer to let me live in their basement for a modest rent. I would not feel better being that close.

Speaking of which, I'm not opposed to putting several hundred miles between myself and my soon-to-be-ex-husband.

I don't want to move, I don't want to leave, but I can't afford this life any more.

I give up. That much is certain. Now all I have to do is work out the details. 

"Why is it," my mother asked, "that you can get married for $10 or $15 but it costs so much more to get un-married?"

"Because they know how badly you want it," I replied, and we shared a laugh.

Apparently, I want out of my dead marriage badly enough to actually do something about it. Nothing momentous, but this is where momentous begins. I marched myself up to the Self-Help Center at a civil courthouse and secured the packet of forms I need for my simple Florida divorce from Edgar. 

"Simple" being a term of art, of course.

The packet cost $65. Filing for dissolution will be another $409. In this county it actually costs $93.50 for a marriage license, a mere $61 if you complete the premarital preparation course.

I think that's a good investment. I've often wondered if premarital counseling would have prevented the train wreck that my marriage to Ed became.

Anyway, a clerk asked a couple of questions ("Do you have children with him? Do you own property with him?") and ultimately gave me what I asked for, a manila envelope containing 18 printed sheets. I actually only have to do something with 11 of them; the rest are instructions and receipts.

Unfortunately, one of the tasks I must complete is getting my husband served. I know where he works and could deliver his papers by hand myself, but it seems I still have to have his new address.

So far he's declined to give it to me.

Once I get that straightened out, it looks like I'll have to go to the courthouse twice more: once to go over the documents at the Self-Help Center and have them stamped by the clerk, and once for a Final Hearing.

The forms say they'll mail me notice of that date "in about four to eight weeks."

Okay, I've got the papers. However, I've already headed off to see my parents for a week. So I won't be filing anything until I return.

An informal poll of my like-minded sisters and girlfriends tells me 80 percent of them are back in the dating game, chomping at the bit to vote in the November election, and briskly moving their money from dangerous places, like mutual funds, and into safe places, like gold. Or crisply turning it into Euros.

Liv Tyler and I, however, are on another path. At least that's what I feel after reading today's celebrity headlines. The pouty, pretty actress was reflecting on her split with Spacehog guitarist Royston Langdon, equating it to "the loss of everything."

Tyler says, "I feel neurotic, like Woody Allen. Sometimes I just feel like a crab without a shell."

Okay. Do I dare admit that I can relate?

Women often feel lost without their men, even when the relationship sucks. It can be lonely trying to make the house, bank account, kids, and social life all work.

With the whole financial and political world reeling, I feel paralyzed. Even though most of the times I manage very well, there are moments, even weeks, when I feel myself totter.

During these episodes, my money doesn't feel safe, and neither does my state of mind. It's a little too late for me to correct the fault lines in my newly embraced financial portfolio. Divorce has left me not only poorer, but also woefully ignorant when it comes to investments and how fortunes are made and lost.

I can only hope to survive by worshiping at the church of Suze Orman (who preaches that a woman, or at least she, needs only one pair of earrings) and FWW's own Jean Chatzky, especially her advice to go on a money diet (oh god, another diet), and her instructions to always open your financial statements, which may be just too much right now.

A year ago, I was flying high.

I've got a problem. I like my current job, a lot. It's fun and rewarding but it's also demanding and on some days it has a tendency to take over my life. Like, for example, when I work 14 days straight. My boss is a wonderful woman, I also like her a lot, as a person, but sometimes — as a boss — she sucks. Like today, for example.

I had been filling the role of administrative assistant (mind you I also do a lot of freelance writing on the side, and have only taken on a "day job" as a means to pay bills while Levi isn't paying child support) for a minimal salary when an opening came up for Activities Director (this is an independent living facility for seniors). 

The activities director position was advertised at 5K a year more than my position. Interviews were conducted and somebody was hired, but the day before she was to start, she called and declined the position. I thought about it, and told my boss I'd like to take it. She readily agreed and even added that it was great for me as the position paid more.

The new job has been even more fun, as I am allowed to be more creative and flexible with my time. My first paycheck was $100 more. I was super excited about that. I began to think of all the ways that I might finally be able to put a little bit of money away for Adrian, or for vacation, or just for something... 

Since I've been living hand to mouth, draining my bank account every week (down to pennies; I'm serious) this was pretty great, and I felt a huge wave of relief come over me.

Then today happened. The payroll company called this morning and told me that my boss had reduced my salary by 4K. (So, now I'm only getting 1K a year more than I was before.) They didn't have an explanation, and as she isn't due back from her vacation for two weeks, I won't be getting one anytime soon.

I'm pretty annoyed. I can't even imagine why she did that. Especially after we talked about it.

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.

It’s been a year now since I determined I could not go on living with my husband, Ed. While he was the first one to bring up the D-word, he is also the one who does not want to get divorced.

Once I finally got him out of the house (my house, thank you very much; I bought it a few years before we married), I devoted myself to scrambling for money to keep body, soul, and animal family together.

I soon realized that divorce, with its lawyers and fees, was a luxury. And Ed, never a financial genius, said he didn’t have the funds either.

He did email me a proposed settlement agreement; I think he found a template on the Internet.

We have no kids and my lawyer tells me our pets are considered chattel (I’m sorry; anybody who looks to me for food and shelter and doesn’t work is a dependent).

I wasn’t seeking alimony and he wasn’t planning to battle over the house. Still, like any good divorcing couple, we managed to oppose each other.

I wanted to keep the health insurance he got through work, at least for a while; he would not sign a quitclaim deed formally relinquishing any interest in the house, until the divorce was final.

I was more concerned about the health insurance. I could keep that by just keeping quiet, so I did.

But after I tapped my retirement account to cover all the things I hadn’t earned earning enough to handle, I remembered that I’d also meant to get divorced.

I got out of bed in the middle of the night and emailed Ed, asking how he thought we should go forward.

Then it was his turn to keep quiet.

Weeks passed without a word from him.

I felt I’d done my part for the present, but my therapist thought I was procrastinating.

Imagine.

I said I’d get in touch with Ed, ask what he wanted to do. “Why are you giving this back to him?!” she demanded.

I thought about it briefly before replying.

“Habit.”