Divorce Financial Paperwork is The Worst

It’s as miserable as my actual marriage

Filling out endless forms isn’t new for me. I’m in my third house and I’ve refinanced homes a million times. I know the repeat loop of asking what my current credit card statement is or the average of my profit sharing over twelve months.

I know when applying for more life insurance with all that endless paperwork you need to write a statement explaining why you’re applying for more life insurance instead of keeping what you have; simply saying “because one million dollars is better than five hundred thousand you fucking idiot” isn’t acceptable.

And here we are with divorce financials. I may have met my match.

I incorrectly assumed I needed to put the cost of my current expenses in any spreadsheets. Being the bill-payer and family accountant (among titles such as CEO, doctor, personal shopper, and laundromat), I can whip all that up in a heartbeat.

That isn’t what the mediator wants.

The mediator wants my expected expenses.

How the fuck do I know that?

I don’t know how much mortgage I’ll qualify for because I don’t know what my down payment will be. My down payment depends on how much you, as the mediator, can have us figure out after we split our assets.

Am I eligible to get half of the vintage car? That car’s value ranges between $40k and $100k. Yes, I can get it appraised, but that’ll take time because I have to get my quasi-ex-husband Joseph to make the car accessible by removing all the boxes of shit he has hoarding all around it in the garage. I don’t even have the keys. Joseph won’t readily make the car available, so that will take months to figure out.

I don’t know the cost of my future electricity bills. I have solar panels right now. What do people pay now for electricity? It depends if you have San Diego Gas & Electric or Edison; one is half the cost of the other.

Water bill? No fucking clue. I have a pool and a front yard with grass. We’ve been at home using more water than normal thanks to COVID for 13 months. I don’t know what a normal water bill would be. If I’m in a condo, I won’t have a yard to worry about watering at all.

Will I have an HOA (Homeowner’s Association) fee? That depends if I can afford a detached house. That’s anywhere from $150 to $400 extra per month if I’m in a condo.

My income also depends on whether I’ll get child support. There is no way to know if I’ll get that because Joseph won’t know until the fall if he can continue working from home. That affects whether I have the kids 50% of the time or 98% of the time.

What are my dependent care costs? No fucking clue. They were $950 per month before the pandemic for after-school childcare. Those rates have gone up; no one knows if they’ll eventually lower back down once they no longer have to worry about hiring extra staff to keep smaller groups of children.

On his end, how is Joseph supposed to calculate his gas expenses? He commutes 150 miles a day. But if he works from home, that commute goes to zero miles a day. That’s a significant difference with many zeroes added to the cost.

With these questions, we’re not talking about the difference of two or three hundred dollars a month. The difference in these numbers is in the thousands.

I apologize to Soria, the Mediation Coordinator, who I can only describe as “Client Email Bitch” because she has to deal with clients like me.

Sofia tells me not to worry (it’s almost 5 pm on Friday, I sure hope she’s working from home having shots of tequila to compensate for my endless questions this week) and that many people are in the same boat as me when filling out these spreadsheets.

She tells me that when I have my 1:1 session with the mediator, I can tell her what our expected plans are.

Oh dear, sweet, innocent Sofia: my expected plans differ from Joseph’s. Primarily because he has no plan other than to buy me out while his brother gives him extra money to help pay the mortgage.

I’m a planner. I know where to add buffers to factor in variability. Under normal circumstances, filling out a financial spreadsheet is a piece of cake.

(Mmmm, cake. One of many things I won’t be affording after this divorce other than a celebratory one when this whole thing is fucking over.)

Since Covid, my life has been on pause. I’m pushing this divorce through like a grand piano in mud. It’s moving. Slowly. Slowly. So slow that it barely feels like I’m making any progress at all.

What keeps me moving forward is the new life I envision for myself. It’s not fancy or glamorous. I imagine a tiny run-down house. I’m using my free time to watch YouTube videos on how to make low-cost home improvements. I’m enjoying not tiptoeing in my house. I’m doing the things that I want to do that I can’t do now because of judgment, like dancing to loud music or singing (badly… singing very, very badly). I’m wearing whatever the fuck I want to wear because I do a million stomach crunches and I am entitled to wear a slightly cropped t-shirt without a snarky comment.

It’s the image of a life free from Joseph’s negative opinions, attitude, and name-calling that fuels me to keep pushing that damn piano buried in mud.

My 1:1 session with the mediator is scheduled for 5 days from now. Joseph won’t schedule his session unless they call and harass him to make an appointment. Best believe that despite the uncertainty, my financial spreadsheet will be completely finished by then.

I spend my days and evenings at my desk, scribbling numbers to figure out how I can make extra money or what I can sell to help afford my future life. No wonder why people will walk away with nothing. My desire to end my marriage is causing me to give up more than I should.

Getting divorced is single-handedly my biggest goal for 2021. I refuse to let a spreadsheet slow me down.