by Focus
© 1999 Focus, all rights reserved
Preparation:
Plan ahead. Before you announce that you are going to divorce her,
Pay the bills carefully, paying in full important debts like your new perscription reading glasses and sunglasses, a fresh paint job on your boat, your boat's dock fees, and your boat payment. Pay your cell phone bill, and buy a few new tools for yourself. Pay for 3 year subscriptions to your sports magazines. When you run out of cash, skip unimportant bills like mortgage, gas and electricity, phone, taxes, and insurance.
Be sure to get plenty of cash for yourself.
Do NOT tell the wife that you have written $2750 worth of checks, despite the fact that there was only $1320 in the joint account.
Open a new bank account in your name only. Put your cash there.
Get the car you plan to take repaired. Charge it to your wife's credit card.
Get a P.O.Box in your name.
The announcement:
Choose the time carefully.
Wait till a day when she is really stressed out and bowled over by work. Finals week is a good time.
If you can announce on or near some special day, that makes the occasion more memorable. Mothers day, her birthday, or a few days before your anniversary are good choices.
Wait until after she has cooked dinner, and you have eaten.
Start the car, and leave it running in the driveway.
Take her into the living room, sit her down on the couch well away from dangerous objects. Seat yourself just out of her reach.
Make the announcement bluntly, without preamble: "[wife's name], I'm moving in with another woman, and I want a divorce."
Be ready to run if necessary. If it seems safe, try to get an ok out of her.
Do NOT let her trick you into a long discussion/explanation. Be gone within three minutes.
What to take, what to leave
Take the television, the coffeepot, the stereo, the aquarium, your desk, the video camera, the 35mm. camera, the VCR, the love seat, and the recliner.
Leave your model airplane kits, the camping gear, the mess in the bottom of your closet that you've been promising to clean up for two years, thirty-three of your less favored coffee cups, about a hundred fifty baseball caps, the broken pool table, the broken ping pong table, your bowling trophies, and the life-size cutout of Jeff Gordan - tell her you'll pick them all up later.
Leave the grass unmowed, and the mower and weedwhacker non-functional.
Leave your table saw, but take the key, so that she can't use it.
Take the hammer, the pliers, the wirecutters, the wrenches, the stapler, the screwdrivers.
Leave the truck that no longer runs.
Leave the pile of junk you've been promising to take to the dump.
Leave the Christmas lights that you nailed to the roof last December.
Take the ladder.
At the next meeting:
Try to talk her into doing the divorce without lawyers, to save money.
Tell her about all the delightful little things your new woman does for you, that your wife didn't do. Tell her how happy you are.
Refuse to give her your new address - give her the PO Box number instead.
Refuse to tell her your home phone number. Tell her to leave a message for you at work.
Refuse to tell her who you are living with now. Just give her a cute first name to go by, like Bambi or Ginger. If your new woman is named Edith, Hortense, or BuelaMae, don't tell that to your wife. Tell the wife the new woman is named Bambi or Ginger.
Explain how everything you have done was really for her sake, and for the sake of your children.
Tell her that the failure of your marriage was all her fault.
Mention that you are a little hungry. Suggest that she cook you a hamburger and french fries.