After I Asked for a Divorce, She Took Me to Court

"Fine. Divorce." "Then let's talk about how we split things. What do you want?" "The house, the car, the savings. And the younger one stays with me." Same demands as always. I was supposed to walk out with the older boy and nothing else. "That's not fair." "How is it not fair? I don't have an income, so I need the assets." I looked at her. "Your not having an income isn't my doing." "Then take me to court. Whatever the judge decides, I'll accept it." "I don't want to go that route." I tried again. "You can have all the property. Both boys come with me." "No." "All right, both boys stay with you, and you keep the property too. I'll cover the costs for both of them. I just want visitation." "I can't afford to raise them. I'll only take one." "They're brothers. Splitting them up isn't good for them. If they both come with me, you can see them whenever you want. I don't want them separated." "Then take me to court." I looked at her and knew there was nothing left to say. This was my weak spot, the soft place that had kept me holding on to this marriage. I couldn't feel any love from her, and whatever love I'd had for her was gone now too. But I didn't want the two boys to lose each other. If each of us took one, they'd grow apart. That was certain. I walked out of the room and sat up the whole night until the sky went light. First thing in the morning, I went to consult a lawyer. Income level wouldn't decide custody under the law. The fact that I earned more couldn't be my trump card for keeping both boys. But I got one piece of good news from the lawyer. A child's own choice mattered a great deal, and the younger boy was already past eight, which meant he had the right to choose too. After more than an hour with the lawyer, I made my decision. File for divorce. The lawyer's advice was to fight for the property along with the children. That was to protect my own legal rights. It was also the key to winning custody of both boys. On that point I followed the lawyer's advice. I had him draft the complaint, and that same day I filed the petition with the court. From the day I filed, I never went back to that cold house. A lot of people will tell you that being together is what makes you happy. But once we were apart, I found there was no pain in me at all. Just a relief and ease I hadn't felt in a long time. I rented a place first and brought the boys to live with me. They'd ask where their mother was, and I couldn't get around that. When I told them she'd gone to work somewhere far away and wouldn't be back for a long time, what I saw on both their faces was joy. So it turned out they'd found that house too suffocating too. Every day after school, the first word out of anyone's mouth was homework. No fun allowed in the house, no outings to unwind. The moment the TV or a phone came on, the same line came with it: Is your homework done? Scores like that, and you've still got the nerve to watch TV? The boys had lived on eggshells, and I'd carried a knot of worry in my chest most of the time. Now none of that had to be worried about anymore. After school they could have half an hour of fun first, and on weekends I planned plenty of outings. "It'd be great if Mom just stayed away for work forever." More than ten days in, the younger boy said it, and something in me dropped. The truth was, I didn't want to cut the boys off from her. A child needs a father's love and a mother's love both to grow up whole. But I'd overlooked something else. Maybe the boys had never felt that love at all. Twenty days straight, and I didn't get a single call from her, not one message asking after anyone. She didn't care where I was, didn't care what I was doing. She didn't care where the boys were either. It had always been like this after a fight. This time, if I hadn't taken the boys and left, she'd have been the one to disappear for a while. And once she left, she wouldn't even pick up her own parents' calls. Nobody would know where she was. From now on, I wasn't going to waste any more of myself on this kind of thing. On the twenty-third day after I moved out of that house, the court called to ask whether I'd accept mediation.

I refuse! I'd already tried to talk to her, to end this marriage peacefully. But we had serious differences. What my younger son said had settled it for me. I was going through with the divorce, and I was going to keep both boys with me. Maybe I couldn't guarantee my sons would grow up to be great successes, but I believed I could let them grow up happy, and let them chase their own dreams once they were older. The moment they were under her roof, she'd manage every part of their lives, mold them into whatever she wanted them to be. Exactly the way she'd tried to manage me. I trained in art, worked for two years after graduating, and now I freelanced, mostly on comics. These past couple of years I'd started using AI to make comic dramas, and my income had climbed from around ten thousand a month to a steady twenty thousand. But she never thought it was worth anything. Drawing was my dream, and she dismissed it. Even after my income went up, she still wasn't satisfied with my line of work, calling it unstable, saying I could lose it at any moment. Saying I had no benefits, no income to fall back on when I got old. She could always find a reason to tear me down. Not once did she give me any credit. To this day she has no idea what I've drawn, no idea what comic dramas I've made with AI. I was certain that once my younger son was living with her, she'd force that same need for control onto him. I wouldn't let that happen. After I hung up, I started thinking about how to legally win custody of both boys. Half an hour later, I got a call from my family. I hadn't wanted my parents dragged into this, but clearly she'd gotten the court's call too, and instead of talking to me, she'd gone straight to my parents. My father's tone was sour. This was going to be an interrogation. What was coming would come. That afternoon, after dropping the boys off at their enrichment classes, I went home. Her parents were there too, faces cold. My father didn't look happy either. "My daughter spent twelve years as your free housekeeper. She's getting old, and you just decide you don't want her anymore?" "Are you even human?" My mother-in-law set the tone for the whole thing the second she walked in. I looked at Cheryl. "I've already filed. Let's all keep this civil. Take your parents and go."

"What did you say?" My mother-in-law shot to her feet. "Take a good look at the son you two raised. Does he even see us elders anymore?" "Tell us to leave? Fine. If you can give me one good reason today, we'll go right now." "You think my daughter can't live without you? Let me tell you, the day she's divorced she'll find someone new, and twenty grand in bride money is nothing to her." "Who do you think you are, daring to talk about divorce?" Cheryl kept dabbing at her tears like she'd suffered some terrible wrong, while my mother stood there with an anxious little smile, trying to smooth things over. My father glared at me. "Speak. Why do you want a divorce?" "What has Cher ever done to wrong you?" The way things were going, if I didn't lay it all out today, there'd be no end to it. Some things had been stuck in my chest for twelve years. Then I'd say them. I looked at my mother-in-law. "First, about what you just said. You claim Cheryl spent twelve years as my housekeeper. Let me ask her something. Has she ever once washed my socks?" "Why should she wash your socks? Don't you have hands?" Cheryl jumped in at once. "You all heard that? I never asked her to wash them. The washing machine handles my clothes, and small things like socks I do by hand. That's perfectly normal." "So when it comes to laundry, she's not my housekeeper." "What about the rest of the housework?" I looked at Cheryl. "Have you ever cooked a meal?" "Have you ever mopped a floor?" "Do you even know where to go to pay the HOA fees, the water and power, the gas?" "Do you know which direction the kids' school gate faces?" Then I turned back to my mother-in-law. "You say she spent twelve years as a housekeeper. Let me ask, whose housekeeper sleeps until ten every day?" "Whose housekeeper heads out to play cards every single afternoon like clockwork?" "I'm managing the children's education," Cheryl shot back. "Whether you're managing their education or just feeding your need for control, you know the answer in your own heart." For years I'd held my tongue to keep the peace, to keep this family from blowing up. Now I didn't care. "Morgan Lambert's mother, what are you getting at? A grown man wants a divorce just because Cher doesn't do the housework?" "You pick up a little slack and that's too much to ask?" My mother-in-law kept her eyes locked on me. "Go look at young wives these days. How many of them do housework? She marries into your family and she has to be a slave?" "You've got two kids already, what's there to fight about?" My father looked at me. "It won't kill you to carry a little more of the housework." "Stop throwing around the word divorce." My father-in-law glanced at Cheryl. "Cher, say something too." Cheryl wiped at her tears. "From now on I'll do the housework." "See, there you go. From now on, when problems come up, just talk them through." My mother rushed to patch things over. I looked at Cheryl. It was the first time she'd ever backed down, and it did stir something in me, but I steadied myself again fast. Twelve years, and nothing had changed. I didn't believe she could. "I'm going through with the divorce." My parents' faces fell, and my mother-in-law's went even darker. Cheryl spoke up again. "The kids' education, I'll change on that too." "I already told you, I'm going through with the divorce. There's no need for you to change anything." "What do you even want from me?" Cheryl's voice went shrill. I'd said some things in front of the elders, but some things were harder to force out. Still, to shut them up today, I had to say it. Five years of a sexless marriage. That was another big reason I was set on the divorce. All these years I'd kept offering warmth and getting the cold shoulder, until whatever eagerness I'd had was worn down to nothing. I didn't like the man I became in the bedroom, reduced to a beggar. I looked at my parents. "I'm almost forty. This isn't some impulse. I really am divorcing her." "Five years. Five years without any married life between us." My parents, who'd been about to talk me out of it, opened their mouths and said nothing. "You've actually got the nerve to say something like that?" My mother-in-law cursed, her face cold. "You'd die without that sort of thing?" I glanced at my father-in-law. He sat with his head down. Looked like his own life was a mess too. "I can change." Cheryl spoke up once more. I said nothing, just turned and walked out. Twelve years and still couldn't see a person clearly? Then I'd wasted my life. That whole day, I refused to answer a single call. Then the next day at noon, while I was cooking for the kids, someone knocked. I don't order takeout, and I hadn't bought anything for delivery. So who? I looked through the peephole. Police at my door. "Hello. Are you Morgan Lambert?" "Yes." "Someone has filed a rape charge against you. We need you to come with us."