Sign Here for Failure

Next week I'll be on vacation, and one of the things I'd meant to accomplish during that time was to finally make an appointment with Snarkwife's lawyer to go in and sign the divorce papers.

The package has been sitting on my kitchen table for seven weeks now, but it was my intention to wait until my August vacation to take care of it. Now the time is upon me and I need to act. I can't just sign the papers and send them in-- it has to be done in the lawyer's presence.

I'm not comfortable with this level of participation in my own divorce. If I make the effort to go to a law office to sign something, I'm being proactive. The divorce is no longer something that's being done to me, it's something that I'm agreeing to. I'm an accomplice. I prefer to play the victim, so taking such an active part in the dissolution of my marriage is a difficult step for me to take.

There's no real rush, since we can't actual file the papers until we've been separated for six months, which will be in September. But I wonder what would happen if I just didn't sign them. How long would it be until Snarkwife, or her lawyer, contacted me to ask about the divorce papers?

One of the things I have to sign is a waiver relinquishing the right to a two-year separation. If I wanted to be a real asshat, I could make my wife wait two years before she can divorce me. But what would be the point of dragging it out like that? Spite? I've never really been very good at concrete spite. I prefer to just wish bad things rather than actually facilitate them.

So I'll probably go ahead and sign the papers. But I don't have to like it.