He asked no questions

"In the interest of my own personal safety, I cannot attend the chemical dependency group today, but I will try to go on Monday."

Those words started out my day on Thursday and I wasn't joking or making up a false excuse not to attend. My stress level had been off the chart for two days and there was no conceivable way I could tolerate the added stress of going into a new atmosphere without jeopardizing my own life. The trigger that pushed me over the edge on April 1st, was the same trigger that was now putting my life in peril again...meeting with my ex to finally work on the divorce.

It wasn't even so much seeing him or talking about the divorce that was triggering the unbearable anxiety, it was knowing that he would want to talk about our daughter and try to draw me back into the middle of things. Either try to paint me as the enemy that turned her against him or as his last hope to ever reconnecting with his child, depending on how he spun his web of emotional manipulation.

He barely read the divorce papers. At this point, he's living such a miserable existence that he probably would have agreed to anything I had put in them. We spent no more than 10 minutes, 15 at most, on the paperwork. He asked no questions, made no comments. He even seemed relieved to know that once he signed the appearance waiver, that there was little remaining involvement on his part. Not completely sure, but since he isn't disputing the divorce or what was in the papers, he most likely won't even have to show up in court.

After his brief glance through the papers, he immediately turned to how he can get our daughter to talk to him again. He said he tried to write a letter, but that he got no further than a paragraph in and ran out of words. I wanted to say "for a man that's amazingly proficient at verbally bullshitting and emotionally manipulating those around him, I find it hard to believe you're speechless", but I held my tongue.

I tried not to reveal too many details about her and what she's up to. I had tossed around the idea of bringing a recent photo of her to give to him, since we just had her portrait taken, but decided it was best not to. I know she wouldn't want him to have it and my intention was to keep the focus on him. He's so quick to blame anyone or anything else he can, I wanted to keep the spotlight on his actions in all this, since that is what lead to the failure of their relationship.

He made a half-hearted attempt at blaming me by randomly asking if I ever watch the tv show Six Feet Under. He just had to mention that the daughter in that show wanted to get back at her parents so she looked up Borderline Personality Disorder, started acting like one to piss her parents off and eventually she "became" one. This attempt at a dig against me hearkens back to the days when we first split and he didn't want me to have custody because our daughter would "learn to be borderline".

When that didn't illicit the response he was apparently looking for, he switched into "woe is me" mode. I refused to follow along, which I could tell was starting to aggravate him. All the emotional blackmail techniques he'd used on me and had always worked like a charm in the past were no longer working and he didn't know how to deal with that. After trying a couple of more times to get me to break down the boundary I'd set of refusing to be pulled into the middle, he gave up and said we should go get the document notarized.

While we were waiting for the notary, I told him he'd soon be single and able to marry the chick he's been living with for over year. He defeatedly said that relationship could end at any minute. When he asked if I had been dating, I confidently said there were a couple of guys on the radar. I find it funny that he's been through so many relationships since we broke up, yet he still gets jealous at the thought of me dating.

If he doesn't have to show up for court, Thursday might have been the last day I'll ever see him, outside of a few photographs. His parting words? "I might just up and disappear". The only thought going through my head was "good riddance", but I did manage to let out a good-bye.

I am still anxious about going to the courthouse to file the papers, more so because I really hope I've got everything I need and that I can get a court date right away. I'm bringing my sister with so she can help keep me calm and so I have a backup who can help ask questions and keep notes on everything I might still have to do. I've picked this Thursday as the date to go...it'll get me out of the chemical dependency groups for another day.