When E and I were students we were broke. We never had any money. Back in those days there were still student grants. I think E had a full grant which, like today’s student loans, was barely enough to survive on. His parents were unable to provide any money on top of his grant, so […]
Tag: debt
Tent
When I was at University, one of the first things I studied was The Iliad. I don’t remember all of it (given my social life at the time, frankly I’m amazed I remember any of it), but I do remember being really pissed off with Achilles. Until I read The Iliad, I thought Achilles was […]
Spite and Malice
“Spite and Malice, also known as Cat and Mouse, is a traditional card game for two or more players. It is a form of competitive solitaire with a number of variations that can be played with two or three regular decks of cards.” The film The Wars of The Roses was the first time I thought of divorce as a […]
Missing
Don’t laugh, but has anyone seen E? He seems to have completely disappeared. He’s paid no child maintenance for four out of the last five months, and he’s not answering any of my emails asking what’s happening. My solicitor wrote to him almost a month ago and he hasn’t replied to her. The Child Maintenance […]
Weasel
When asked to describe what his plays were about, Harold Pinter famously replied: ‘the weasel under the cocktail cabinet’. This perfectly describes the sense of unease, even dread, that pervades the seemingly ‘normal’ world of his plays. Like a Pinter play, without the long pauses, on the surface everything in my world is perfectly normal […]
Frozen
I spent the rest of the Friday after E’s CMS bombshell, in shock. I knew I should be calling the CMS again to find out more about why E had applied for a financial variation, I knew needed to call the Secured Loan Company about the fact that he’d defaulted on the loan (handily a […]
Turn
It’s funny how a day can suddenly change, can suddenly turn from being a beautiful, positive thing, full of potential, into a nightmare. This happened the day I found out about E’s first affair (we had identical phones, and I picked up his, thinking it was mine, to find hundreds of texts between E and […]
Heard
I got a text from Oldest Daughter yesterday. One of her essay questions is ‘Defend the thought that silence can be heard’ (she’s doing Philosophy, it was inevitable), but her next comment made me laugh out loud: she said, “Was thinking I could write about my father”. I’ve often talked about Oldest Daughter’s perception and the […]
Silence
Whilst E’s withholding money in November (I’ve yet to see what his plans are for December) has caused me personal anguish, the financial stress and worry I’ve felt has been nothing compared to the effect this has had on the children. I’ve tried to not let them see how distressing I’ve found it personally, but, […]
Pain
When E and I first lived in Singapore, the school our children were at introduced a “1:1 Laptop Scheme” for every child in Oldest Daughter’s year group. Under the terms of this scheme, the parents of each child were ‘required’ to provide a £1,000 MacBook (only MacBooks, and only MacBooks of a certain spec were […]
He-total: Life without Ex 