"I want him to leave our home as soon as possible. I don't want Shira or Yarden to see him before we can talk with them about the situation."
"Okay," I said in a trembling voice. I was afraid that he’d go back on his promise to finish this in a civilized way. He was so aggressive in his responses and so cold to me. "When do you want to have the appointment with the mediator?" I groped in the dark.
"I don't know." He was hostile now. "I’ll have to think about it."
"What do you need to think about?" I was annoyed. "Everything’s been agreed to."
"I need to think about it," he repeated like a broken record and motioned for me to get out of the car.
I watched him drive away and started to cry hysterically. I cried about it all falling apart after I was so sure that everything was going to work out, but mostly I cried because Itay had never been so mean to me, so cold. I’d gotten used to his love and now that it had started to fade, I missed it.
I went back to the apartment. Manny was alarmed when he saw me crying. I told him what had happened and about my fear that Itay would rescind his decision to end our marriage by peaceful mediation. Manny tried to calm me down and told me that Itay seemed like a reasonable guy, that I had to give him some time, and in the end he’d reach the right conclusion, that this was best for everyone and there was no room for vengeance.
Manny was right. The next day, I called Itay, took the apologetic approach and immediately apologized for Manny’s presence in our home and I assured him it wouldn’t happen again.
Itay sounded much more relaxed and said he’d thought carefully about this and that, and despite all his anger and humiliation, he agreed that the best thing for us was mediation. He said he was going to take Wednesday off and I should set up a meeting with the mediator for Wednesday morning. In the afternoon, he wanted us to talk with the girls, and on Thursday, he wanted to take the girls away for a long weekend.
"Where do you want to take them?"
"Don’t worry, I'm not going to kidnap them," he said, although that hadn't occurred to me.
"I didn't even consider that. Just curious.”
"Because I'm the parent who leaves, I want to make it clear that I'm their father, I love them and I will always be there for them.”
"A good idea." I smiled. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to book a B&B up north. We can go hiking and spend some time together."
"Enjoy."
"I ask that you don’t bring Dr. Michaeli into our home."
I realized that I was going to have a whole weekend without Itay or the girls. Manny and I hadn't had quality time together since the fateful trip to the belly dancing festival in Eilat two months earlier.
"Don’t worry, I promised you he wouldn’t come over, and he won’t." I didn't understand why it mattered if the girls weren’t at home, but I didn't want to annoy him.
On Wednesday, I took the day off too. We had an appointment at Hava's office at nine-thirty in the morning. Hava came into the conference room and told us we were doing the right thing and it was the cheapest for all parties. A few minutes later, Avi, the mediation lawyer, came into the room. I’d spoken to him once on the phone, but it was the first time I’d met him.
Hava left and we started the meeting. We started the easy part, the division of property. I dealt in corporate law, so I didn’t work with family law. Once, I worked indirectly on an inheritance case. One of the main shareholders in the company that I was handling had died. I remembered that case while I was sitting there with Avi and Itay, and we made a list of all community property we had accumulated. There’s something analogous to death and divorce. In both cases, something is dead - a person or a love. In both cases, you needed to make a list of assets that must be divided, and in both cases, this was where evil showed its face. When someone dies, the war over the succession begins, and when you get divorced, there’s war over the division of property.
I was lucky to have been born to an affluent and supportive family and had had the sense to invest in my career. I knew that, even if the distribution didn’t turn out to be equal, I’d always be able to stand on my feet. I was very lucky I’d married a decent guy. Despite all the anger and humiliation, he had no intention of gaining from the situation I was forcing on us.
We explained to Avi that we wanted to sell the apartment and that, until it was sold, the girls and I would live there and Itay would rent an apartment, probably three bedrooms, in the Dan region. When we found a buyer for a decent price, we’d divide the proceeds, offset by the rent paid by Itay for his apartment.
Avi asked what amount of alimony I wanted, and I explained that I was only interested in alimony for the girls.
Itay readily agreed. It was important to him that the girls continued with the standard of living they were used to. I knew I could have asked for more, and he would have given any amount.
The financial part was easy. The hard part was yet to come: how to divide what was indivisible. How to divide the girls?
Itay admitted to me and Avi that he couldn't have the girls during the week because of the pressures of work, but I wasn’t ready to give up on having the girls every single weekend just because Itay couldn’t have them during the week.
In the end, we agreed Itay would take the girls every other weekend and every week on Tuesdays.
It was two weeks before Passover. We hadn't thought about it, but we realized that this was the first Passover in the last fifteen years that we wouldn’t be together. Was it necessary to agree on the division of holidays and vacations? Avi said we could, but he was sure we could just coordinate the issue without mediation before every holiday and vacation.
Since there was a clear division about the upcoming Passover, Itay agreed that, this year, the girls would be with me at my parents’ house.
Barely an hour had passed, and it seemed that we’d agreed on everything, including who got custody of Josephine the cat. I said I could manage without visitation rights.
"Is that everything?" Avi asked with satisfaction. Despite the way our marriage had ended, it all seemed very simple. I nodded affirmatively, but suddenly Itay said, "No."
"What?" I asked, surprised. "Is there something that we haven’t covered?"
"I want a written agreement saying she can’t have her boyfriend come into our apartment." Itay started talking about me in the third person, and I realized that, even though the meeting was relaxed, he was still raging inside.
"Itay." I looked at him and ignored Avi’s presence. "There’s no need for that. I promised you he wouldn’t move into the apartment."
"I don't want him to move in with you at all as long as the girls live with you.”
"So you're basically forbidding me from marrying another man?" I got upset, for he knew that Shira and Yarden couldn't move in with him permanently.
Avi told Itay that he could not, by law, stop me from marrying again, and so Itay tried to limit Manny’s and my relationship in other ways.
I didn't know if his demands stemmed purely from jealousy or from sincere concern for our young daughters. In the end, we agreed that Manny was allowed to sleep in our apartment only when Shira and Yarden were absent from it. If, a month from the signing of the divorce agreement, the apartment was not yet sold, then Manny would be able to visit us in the apartment, even when Shira and Yarden were there, as long as he didn’t stay overnight.
Although I didn't have to commit to it, I agreed that even if the apartment did sell within three months, Manny wouldn’t move in with me into my new apartment until three months had passed from the approval of the divorce agreement.
Because of this section, even though it was not actually legal, because there was no legal way to prevent an adult from marrying, it was important for me that the divorce agreement be signed as soon as possible.
If it was up to me, I would have signed the divorce agreement that same day, but Avi insisted on meeting with the two of us separately.
After
the meeting, we went home together. Itay packed the rest of his clothes and put his suitcase in the car. We called Ahuva and told her she could have the day off.
We prepared for worst moment ever: telling the girls that Mom and Dad were getting divorced.
CHAPTER 28
While Itay packed his clothes, I madeus a little something to eat. I didn't want us to be hungry when we announced such a dramatic thing to our daughters. The truth was, I wasn’t hungry, nor was Itay, but we wanted to sit with the girls with peace of mind.
While I made a salad, I called my mother and told her that Itay and I had prepared a divorce agreement, and we intended to tell Shira and Yarden in the next couple of hours. My mother, of course, was in total shock. She didn't understand why we were in such a hurry and why we couldn't sit back and wait. She suggested getting advice from a good child psychologist if we hadn’t already done so.
It was amazing how, even though I was an adult, she could unnerve me so much about my decisions, even if they were finalized after much deliberation. I had separated from Itay in my heart many months ago, and I’d finally decided to divorce him two weeks ago. It may not sound like a long time, but when you pretend in front of your kids for two weeks, you feel horrible.
Regarding the advice of a psychologist, I’d thought about it, but I didn’t have the mental strength to postpone this conversation any longer. I’d studied several online forums on the subject, read a few articles that had managed to confuse me, and I decided that the best thing for me, as with many other things, was to go with my instinct. With all modesty, my instinct’s usually pretty good. The fact was that, in the end, even though Hava was a little worried about me confessing to Itay about the affair, that was what had convinced him that I really wanted a divorce, and despite the blow to his ego, Itay wasn’t going to play games in court, and he was going to sign up to a divorce agreement that was mutual and fair.
I might not be the perfect mother, but I think I'm a pretty good one. I was attentive to my daughters, and I knew to talk with them on their level. My girls were intelligent, charming and had a high level of emotional intelligence. I believed that they’d be able to accept the sad news, especially since the term ‘single-parent family’ was not alien to them. In Shira’s class, there were at least two children with divorced parents. The parents in Yarden's kindergarten were a little less well known to me, but I’d once spoke with a mother who was a single mother by choice (she’d conceived via sperm donation). Her daughter was a friend of Yarden’s, and Yarden had been to her house a few times and didn’t think that a household without a father was anything unusual. My girls wouldn’t be the only children in kindergarten or in the classroom to live with only one parent.
In short, I decided to speak with them without too much preparation. In Itay’s opinion, there was no other way. He was not a big believer in psychologists.
We took my car because Itay’s car was full of his luggage. The girls were surprised that both Mom and Dad came to pick them up. They were used to Ahuva picking them up, and to suddenly get both father and mother in the afternoon was a pleasant surprise.
At first, we didn't know where to talk with them and what to do. We knew we wanted to spend time with them a bit to ‘soften the blow.’ We thought that, first, we’d take them out and then we'd talk with them, so that’s why we’d gone together to pick them up, but in the end, just before we collected them, we decided it would be best if we talked with them first and then we then spent some time together, so that they understood that we’d remain their father and their mother forever, and always love them, even though we wouldn’t live together anymore.
When we got home, the girls sat on the couch and I brought them pretzels. They probably thought we were going to watch TV. I looked at them, so small, charming and innocent, and my heart ached. Itay sat down on the other couch, and I sat on the coffee table across from them.
I told them they were great girls and Mom and Dad loved them very much. They smiled with satisfaction, but it was clear that they realized that I had something more to say.
I smiled at them so they’d feel as confident and easy as possible. Then I explained that Mom and Dad wouldn't be living together anymore. Yarden was very frightened and immediately asked where she’d live. I stroked her gently and told them we were going to move, but in any case, they’d continue to live with me and, occasionally, they’d stay with their father. They, of course, wanted to know where Daddy would sleep and I explained that their father was moving, we still didn't know where, but in the meantime, he’d live with their grandparents.
Once the real estate issue had been clarified, Shira asked the big question: "Why?"
I explained to them, especially to Shira, who already understood better, that sometimes there were fathers and mothers who didn't enjoy living together anymore, so, to make everyone happier, they go to sleep in a different house.
"Don’t you love me anymore?" Shira mumbled.
"We love you very much," I explained.
"No!" she said flatly. "Don't you love each other?"
I looked at Itay, and he looked at me with a look that said, "You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.”
"Mom and Dad still love each other," I said and didn’t lie. I’d love Itay forever, but not as a life partner. "But not enough to sleep together."
"And you won't meet anymore?"
"Of course we’ll meet! Here, look, even now, we want to go out with you together and spend time with you this afternoon." Itay finally entered the conversation.
We left the house and went to hang out at the mall. Although resentment was in the air, coming especially from Itay, we tried to be comfortable with each other and shower much love and gifts on the girls. Itay hissed at one point that I was overdoing it, and that my guilt didn’t mean that I needed to spoil them quite so much, and I hissed back that this was exactly the juncture where the girls needed a special treat. During the day out, they continually asked and took an interest in what would happen now, how their lives were about to change and I, mostly, tried to reassure them and explain that there wouldn’t be any significant changes. We’d still go to the mall, get pizza, ice cream, have presents, play games and everything would remain the same, only Mom and Dad wouldn't be living together anymore.
As we sat and ate pizza, Itay told the girls that for the coming weekend, he was taking them away and they were going to have the time of their lives. Yarden was a little sad when she realized I wouldn’t be coming too, but Itay, who, just a minute earlier was giving me a Supernanny lecture, bribed her with a variety of surprises that were to come, and our little girl was convinced.
We got home at almost eight o'clock. Itay wanted to get organized for tomorrow, so he didn't even come up, but went straight to his parents’ house. I went up alone with the girls and, for the umpteenth time, I bathed and put the girls to bed all by myself. Up to this point, I’d done it because I had an unsupportive partner. This time, I did it because I had no partner, period.
I told the girls two stories, something I do when I want to give them a special treat. A few minutes later, Yarden was already asleep. I crossed the room and saw Shira’s dark eyes gleaming in the darkened room. I went to her and stroked her head gently.
"Mom," she whispered, "actually, nothing’s changed."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Daddy isn’t here most evenings, anyway." I nodded. "And on Saturdays, we usually play only with him." When my daughter was right, she was right.
"You know what?" I gave her a kiss.
"What?"
"You'll see Daddy even more because he’ll come and get you in the middle of the week and not just on Saturdays."
"Really?"
“Yes, indeed," I smiled.
"That’ll be fun!" She smiled and relaxed into her pillow.
"I'm sure it’ll be lots of fun, especially at the weekend. Now go to sleep, my darling, so you’ll have lots of energy for tomorrow."
Next, I called Sh
ira’s and Yarden’s teachers and told them they wouldn’t be in school on Thursday and Friday. I explained that they were going on a trip and I’d explain it all later. I didn't want to talk about our divorce while the girls were listening.
Itay ended up picking them up after ten, and I was angry because he’d made me late for work and also because they could have gone to school until noon, and he could’ve picked them up then. I hoped that this first ‘passing of the baton’ wasn’t a sign of things to come.
On my way to work, I called their teachers and explained the circumstances to them. I asked them not to make a big deal about it and not to talk about it too much because children can use it as a weapon. It was just so to let them know that my daughters were going through a big upheaval in their private lives at that moment.
When I got to work, I was more than stressed about going into my boss's office to tell him what was happening. To his credit, he never poked his nose into my work too much, but I felt I’d been inattentive to it in the last week, and I wanted him to understand what was going on with me.
As usual, he was amazing, sensitive and generous, offering me a week’s vacation at his own expense. I said I’d rather get back to normal as quickly as possible. He smiled and asked me to talk to him in person if I had any problems.
After I spoke with him, I had an inexplicable urge to tell every passerby what was happening to me. After lying for months, I couldn’t lie to those around me even for one more second. Within minutes, all the secretaries knew, and from there, the information trickled to all of the interns and lawyers. Some people had the courage to come over and talk to me directly, and some were content with giving me an understanding nod. Everyone knew that I was getting divorced; some individuals professed to be keepers of my secret, and already knew, apparently, that I’d an affair and was about to start the next chapter of my life. I suppose that even those who didn’t know guessed at, or were eager to know the reason for my divorce.
Confession of an Abandoned Wife - Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 22
