![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisI have zero paperwork about my divorce. I actually have zero paperwork about my marriage. I hope no one ever needs documentation of either. But, I believe that it was 1982. I know it was January 1. Our friend, Mary Wells, always had a fabulous January 1 open house every year and we'd spent the day schmoozing with good peops. When we got home, we sat down in the den to watch CBS Sunday Morning via the beloved VCR when Bob uttered The Dreaded Words... "We Need To Talk".
I figured we were going to kill the fun, party buzz with yet another relationship discussion. Instead he said that he thought we should give up trying. OMG YES! What an amazing relief.
He paid me for my half of the house. I left nearly everything. I took my clothes, my toothbrush and the microwave. That was really about it. The house was furnished mostly with the furniture moved from the Southern Pines house, but I was done with it. I wanted a fresh, clean, start.
I bought an adorable, amazing, wonderful condo in downtown Charlotte. It was very unusual and I loved it. It was only 556 square feet plus a garage on the ground floor. It had 6 floors total. Yes, that's correct.
You drove into the garage and walked up a short flight of steps to the front door and hallway and then up another short flight up to the kitchen. Then it was another short flight up to the living room that had floor to ceiling windows going up two stories. Oh and a fireplace and hunter green carpet.
Then you went up another flight of stairs to a landing that was the walk in closet and the bathroom and, then the final flight that led to the bedroom. The bedroom and living room looked out over a magnificent downtown park where they often held wonderful events like concerts and fairs. It was a magnificent cocoon a tower that was all mine. I bought a waterbed. I wallowed in my new life. Really wallowed in it.
For my wedding present, my husband had gotten me exactly what I had asked him for - a vasectomy. However, that did my little good now. So I made an appointment to get my tubes tied. IBM's benefits were amazing but the only birth control they covered at that time was abortion. Yes. True.
Bob actually got the vasectomy after we were married but while I was out of town. It was a surprise when I got home.
But, in 1982, my getting my tubes tied was an entirely different can o' beans. First of all, it was not legal unless you were over 30 and then you had to have the evaluation of two psychiatrists plus find a doctor who would do it (no small feat, there). All of this, by the way, was in the same state that had only 5 years earlier stopped the routine sterilization of the destitute and 'feeble minded' but actually still had the damn law on the books. Don't get me started.
I finally jumped through all their hoops. It was an outpatient procedure. I got to the hospital and filled out a bunch of forms. I was still, technically, married but for some reason, when I got to that part of the form, I put down "divorced." The woman taking the forms and checking off the requirements said "oh, dear, so sorry but, you don't have your husband's signature of permission... Oh wait, you're divorced. Ok, then."
WHAT THE FUCK??? He can get his sperm producer snipped without so much as telling me and I have to have two psychiatrists and his signature????? SO not good.
I finally got in and got my tubes tied and was forever grateful while still being really pissed. But now I could enjoy my wallow even more.
And, as a present to me - besides being safe from babies - I bought my first PC.
To Be Continued
I figured we were going to kill the fun, party buzz with yet another relationship discussion. Instead he said that he thought we should give up trying. OMG YES! What an amazing relief.
He paid me for my half of the house. I left nearly everything. I took my clothes, my toothbrush and the microwave. That was really about it. The house was furnished mostly with the furniture moved from the Southern Pines house, but I was done with it. I wanted a fresh, clean, start.
I bought an adorable, amazing, wonderful condo in downtown Charlotte. It was very unusual and I loved it. It was only 556 square feet plus a garage on the ground floor. It had 6 floors total. Yes, that's correct.
You drove into the garage and walked up a short flight of steps to the front door and hallway and then up another short flight up to the kitchen. Then it was another short flight up to the living room that had floor to ceiling windows going up two stories. Oh and a fireplace and hunter green carpet.
Then you went up another flight of stairs to a landing that was the walk in closet and the bathroom and, then the final flight that led to the bedroom. The bedroom and living room looked out over a magnificent downtown park where they often held wonderful events like concerts and fairs. It was a magnificent cocoon a tower that was all mine. I bought a waterbed. I wallowed in my new life. Really wallowed in it.
For my wedding present, my husband had gotten me exactly what I had asked him for - a vasectomy. However, that did my little good now. So I made an appointment to get my tubes tied. IBM's benefits were amazing but the only birth control they covered at that time was abortion. Yes. True.
Bob actually got the vasectomy after we were married but while I was out of town. It was a surprise when I got home.
But, in 1982, my getting my tubes tied was an entirely different can o' beans. First of all, it was not legal unless you were over 30 and then you had to have the evaluation of two psychiatrists plus find a doctor who would do it (no small feat, there). All of this, by the way, was in the same state that had only 5 years earlier stopped the routine sterilization of the destitute and 'feeble minded' but actually still had the damn law on the books. Don't get me started.
I finally jumped through all their hoops. It was an outpatient procedure. I got to the hospital and filled out a bunch of forms. I was still, technically, married but for some reason, when I got to that part of the form, I put down "divorced." The woman taking the forms and checking off the requirements said "oh, dear, so sorry but, you don't have your husband's signature of permission... Oh wait, you're divorced. Ok, then."
WHAT THE FUCK??? He can get his sperm producer snipped without so much as telling me and I have to have two psychiatrists and his signature????? SO not good.
I finally got in and got my tubes tied and was forever grateful while still being really pissed. But now I could enjoy my wallow even more.
And, as a present to me - besides being safe from babies - I bought my first PC.
To Be Continued
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-07 07:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-07 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-08 01:48 am (UTC)Outpatient or no, it still hurt like hell for about week.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-09 12:27 pm (UTC)Certainly in the UK doctors will refuse to carry out vasectomies on younger guys who have no children (or so a friend of mine complains).
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-07 09:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-07 10:11 pm (UTC)But, when you asked I went back to look and one of the units is on sale with great pics. It's two doors down from mine and not exactly the same but you get the idea.
https://www.redfin.com/NC/Charlotte/415-W-7th-St-28202/unit-F/home/43921179
Also I'm going to steal a shot of the outside and add it to the entry.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-07 10:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-08 07:01 am (UTC)Also, I have known women who could not find a doctor who would tie their tubes, even a few years ago! We are talking adult women in their 30s, and they're treated like they don't know what they want.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-08 02:02 am (UTC)Abortion but no birth control? That's just crazy. I knew about the different rules for getting snipped. It's crazy-making. I remember a friend being absolutely furious about it back in the day, when she was told she wouldn't even be considered because she was too young. She wasn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-08 05:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-08 05:26 am (UTC)That condo sounds fantastic, other than all the stairs.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-05-08 05:37 pm (UTC)I've had several friends get their tubes tied, and it still seems to be kind of an ordeal. It's really amazing when you read about all the forced sterilization stuff that apparently still does go on (California has a particularly awful history with it - as lately as 2010 there were stories about forced sterilization of women in prison here), and then you look at how hard it is for a well-off white woman who wants the procedure to get it...