Have I told you yet that we succeeded in selling the house? Hallelujah! Now all we have to do is get out of it before the 60-day escrow expires (in maybe four weeks from today). That part’s not so easy.
Wife has been looking for a place to live, with no success. She has also been trying to pack the house, with help from the boys (and occasionally from me) … again, with limited success. She is weighed down by twenty years of hoarding, and by having no idea where she will go next. And her ability to cope seems to be shrinking.
She no longer cleans any of her own dishes. If the boys are there, she makes them do it. Or she leaves them undone. She has not fixed a meal all summer: Son 1 has done all the cooking, and is getting to be good at it. That’s good for him, but worrying in what it says about her. She no longer even makes coffee in the morning, and that was an inflexible ritual for the year when both boys were away at school and I was still living in the house. When I got there Saturday to help out I went to make a pot of coffee and found the pot had to be scoured first. The filter still held the used grounds from the previous pot, but they were crusty and moldy. And I’d probably better not talk about the catbox.
What follows are some notes that I texted to Debbie along about the middle of Sunday [edited for readability]:
What a day. I got here a bit before 11:00. Son 2 was up (since 7) packing his room. Son 1 & Wife got up by noon. W spent the next 30 minutes making breakfast then at least an hour on the phone. Sons 1&2 sorted clothes in their room. I looked through files to find paperwork needed by escrow company; then organized some more.
Finally W off phone, going to look at 2 apartments right now. Oh wait – no, not going. Spent a little time boxing a few more books & a lot of time complaining. Son 2 announced his allergies are bad & just now left on his bike. (Good for him!)
She tried to give him money to buy her milk; he insisted on using his own money instead. Then she went into a rant about how she’ll have to pack the whole house by herself because Son 1’ll be at school, Son 2’s allergic & I’ll be at work. And lay down with medicine and a migraine.
Except now after another 20-30 minutes she really is leaving to see a couple places … though I had to tell her that if her appointment is near [such-and-such an intersection] at 2:45 she has to leave now. (sigh)
Son 2 really does get a bad allergic reaction whenever he spends too much time packing things at the house – probably dust, though he thinks it might be the cats. And Son 1 really is going back to school next weekend. And Wife can’t find a place to live.
She came back from her outing Sunday afternoon saying that she was ready to slit her wrists (yes, she used exactly those words) because finding a place seems so hopeless to her. I can’t see why: when I go to Craigslist and put in the parameters I think she should be using, I find a bunch of places. Yes, she has applied to a few and been turned down because she can’t prove her income. But the answer to that is to get a legally-binding agreement from me about spousal support, which in turn would mean logging onto her e-mail and reading the proposal I sent her a few days ago … and then agreeing to it. And partly she has a list of mandatory criteria that is just too long. It has to cost no more than this; and it has to have that much space; and it can’t be located over there. I want to tell her, “Look, you are imposing restrictions on price, size, and location, but the reality is you can pick any two of those and not the third.” But I also don’t really want to spend a lot of time talking to her, nor (I think) she to me.
It’s not pretty, and it’s not getting any prettier. We’ve got a month longer before we have to get out of there, and I expect it to get worse steadily.
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