It's another. Sheesh. After months of delays, setbacks, stress, and other unexpected events, even my efforts to refinance my house hasn't escaped Lady (Bad) Luck...
Shortly after my Ex and I came to our Marital Settlement agreement, in order to meet my monetary obligations, I contacted my Mortgage Company about refinancing my house. I filed an application, paid the fee, and then we scheduled for a Property Appraiser to assess my home. It didn't quite appraise as much as I would've liked, but it was damn close; close enough for me to get rid of the majority of the consumer debt and give the Ex our agreed upon amount. The caveat is that I could not actually Refinance until my divorce was final; otherwise, her name would be on the Deed.
As mentioned previously, we had already been to our hearing and as far as I knew, our petition was sitting on the Circuit Judge's desk, waiting for him to sign it. The Magistrate had said it should only be a week or two. I checked the County Website several times daily to see if there was any change. After almost a month, it still said "Pending". I was beginning to become concerned. Not only was this prolonging the current situation, but because of how overextended we let ourselves get, we were just scraping by and actually slipping a little further into debt, not to mention all of the interest we were paying and just the overall stress of the entire situation. The Ex had been looking at several different places to move, but until I get this ReFi finished, the simple fact is that neither of us can afford to not have the other's income. A few of the ones she was really interested in had already sold, so she was getting a bit miffed as well.
One day, while outside my office on a smoke break, I was talking to a woman who works for one of the Lawyer's offices in my building. She and I talk all the time and she was aware of my whole state of affairs with regards to the Divorce and Refinance. She was surprised that it had still not been finalized. She offered to call over to the County Clerk's office and see what she could find out for me. This is were things go Twilight Zone...
A couple of days later, I saw her and the first thing she said was, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news. You aren't going to like this...". I immediately felt a wave of panic flood over my entire body. Did the Circuit Judge reject our petition? Was he going to order me to pay alimony? All kinds of things rushed through my head; all of the things we had spent the last few months working out and agreeing to could now be completely out the window. She then went on to explain what had happened.
Before a Divorce Decree can be signed, it must first be "prepared". This is the job of the Judge's administrative assistant/paralegal/whatever. This particular Judge's assistant was currently out on medical leave and had been out for the last month, and wasn't expected to return for ANOTHER month. Due to budgetary constraints/cutbacks, the County was not permitted to hire temporary replacements for staff who had to take a leave of absence. And because of the case load, none of the other assistants were permitted to help get this Judge's case load up to date. So, in essence, our Dissolution Petition was sitting in the Inbox of a person who wasn't going to even see it for at least another month, not to mention the fact that I'm sure they'd have to do a lot of catching up after having been out for 2+ months.
Needles to say, my heart sank into my shoes. She then offered to prepare the Decree for me and send it over. She was aware of how stressed I've been over the whole thing. I thanked her and told her if she needed anything from me, to call my office. Later that day, she called to ask me a few details and get my email address so I could review the document. It looked fine to me and she then forwarded it to the Clerk's office. This was on Monday (6/09). I kept checking the website all day Tuesday but nothing had changed by the time I went to bed. When I got up on Wednesday, I saw the it finally said "Final Judgment" on the site, but I wasn't sure if that meant it had simply been put before the Judge or if I were now, in fact, officially Divorced. The woman called a few hours after I got to work and said "Congratulations. You are Divorced and you owe me a beer.". I obviously thanked her and agreed to her terms. This was Wednesday (6/11). The Decree had been signed on the 10th but there is some lag with posting Case statuses on the County site. Now, I just needed the actual paper documents so I could send a copy to the Mortgage company.
We received copies of the Decree in the mail on Thursday. I gathered together the documents for the Mortgage company and took them to work on Friday so I could fax them but I had forgotten the required bank statements and W2's. On Monday, I tried faxing everything but for some reason, it wasn't working. Perhaps the volume of paper (30-40 pages)? So, I ended up mailing them (more delays). But at least now, everything is moving forward rapidly.
So, I am now Divorced and simply waiting for a check. The last few months have been incredibly stressful and difficult for me. I've lost a lot of weight and I've been an emotional wreck. I have said and done things that have been very hurtful to people I care about and that is just something else I can add to my list of regrets. All I can say is I am sorry. At the same time, I am very happy to finally be getting onto the next chapter in my life. I hope that I can be a better man than I was at times in the last chapter.
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