Divorce Doubled My Standard Of Living

To me, divorce didn't go anything like the experts said it would. For one thing, they said that your standard of living will undoubtedly go down. This is because you will now be living on half the money you had before. That sounds like it makes sense.

But, that's not how it went down with me. My standard of living doubled, maybe even tripled. I had this second job. I am a writer. I do this all day. I love writing. I'm passionate about it. And I always told my wife if she would just let me have control of the money I made I could double it.

But, she refused.

You see, I saw the money I made writing as 'Extra Money.' Your bills are paid using our regular pay. And, before I got this 'extra job,' we paid our bills just the same

So, now I start making an 'extra' $500 a month. Then I'm making an extra $1000 a month. I figure this money can be used to get out of debt. I figured once we get out of debt, we can use this money to go on vacations or buy things for our house. So, that's kind of what motivated me.

But, after years of this, the debt never went away. In fact, it got deeper. All of a sudden she starts saying things like, "We need to pay said bill. When is your check coming?"

Like, I don't want this money being used to pay for bills. I mean, once in a while is fine, but, that's not what it's for. Our bills should be paid out of our day job money. This is 'extra money." This is money that supposed to be spent on fun things.

But she refused to make any changes. No matter how many times I requested that she not ask for my check to pay bills, she kept saying it. It was depressing to me.

So, it was a disincentive for me to write. I got to the point, if she was just going to pay bills with this money, I wasn't going to write any more than I had to.

I mean, I was fine paying bills, so long as it was to get out of debt. But, in order for that to happen, she'd also have to stop going on her vacations. But, instead of that happening, she started going on more and more vacations.

Actually, one of these vacations she went on with just her and the kids. Like, if ever a hint could have occurred, a coworker came up to me. And this was someone I barely ever talked to. She said, "John, aren't you a little concerned about your wife going on vacations without you. It's not right."

Naive, I just defended her. I was the good husband (and perhaps that would be a good name for my book). I said, "Oh, she's a good mother. She earned the right to go on vacation with just her kids. Besides, I had to work."

Hint not taken. I moved on. But, that's not to say I was happy. I was not happy at all she went on vacation without me. If I had my way, there would have been no vacation at all until we were no longer living paycheck to paycheck.

I have a good analogy here. This is like what it's like living in a socialistic dictatorship. I actually even said that once in a fight we had. I told her that she is like a dictator. She taxes me at 100%. If I make more money, she takes that money too.

And most of it went to vacations. I never got to spend any of it to make our house look nicer. Nearly 100% of it went to bills and vacations. And, eventually, her new car.

So, one day I said, "If you let me control my money, I can double the amount of money I make."

She never did. She never allowed me to have any control. So, that sort of threw me into a depression of sorts. Here we were, 15 years into our marriage, and I'm not allowed to do anything. And I do something, and I'm berated for it. And then I'm told I never make any plans.

So, you can see this was not looking good. Still, I had Faith. The idea of divorce never entered my head. We would work it out. Although, this was not good form confidence or my self esteem. In the back of my mind, there were those voices that were saying, "John, this isn't good." But, I tuned them out.

See, this was the Faith in me. I knew I was in a trap. I was trapped. I was in a cage. Damned if I did and damned if I didn't. I was in a walled up country. That country was a socialistic Venezuela country. I was chained to a chair. The sole purpose of my existence was to be a good dad to my kids and to make money for her to spend.

And I continued to believe things would get better. And I never gave up thinking that it would. I never gave up until that inevitable day in court.

But, after than, my standard of living doubled. Hell, it tripled. Motivated to get out of debt and start saving, I went from writing 5 articles a month to 20. I was on fire. I was also moderating like crazy, and getting paid by the hour for that.

So, within the first month living on my own, I doubled my monthly wages. Seriously, folks, I doubled my wages. Now, nearly a year later, I am working on a deal that might help me to triple my wages with my 'extra' job.

So, your standard of living doesn't have to go down if you get a divorce. That's not true at all. In a way, I think my divorce was a gift from God. And I think I will make God the topic of my next rant about divorce.