Suit up

Today my honey and I are meeting with my current lawyer at 3:00 pm and my potential new lawyer at 4:00 pm. Neither one has been able to talk to me for the last 2 weeks. Maybe neither one can really help, but in a effort to determine that, we'll make the effort to go and talk and I'll pay and we'll see. (I'm convinced this negligent male lawyer I have will spend the majority of the 15 minutes he'll give us speaking to my boyfriend and not me. I'll report back on this later. I notice this behaviour with any man I've hired. If E is with me, despite the fact that I'm paying them, they talk to him and not me, giving him details they'd never give me, yukking it up and bonding in the boy-club way. Ugg.)

Yesterday, my boyfriend asked me, "So, babe, you want me to wear a suit and use big words?"

Of course I said, "Yes. Please do."

Suits are like armour for men and I don't think there is a female equivalent. Some might argue heels are the female equivalent, but heels prevent women from being firmly grounded. They may give height and sex appeal and project femininity (and that's a way of masking real power), but they do not, I'd argue, convey authority and expertise the way suits seem to for men. So, I guess I'll have to ride on the coat tails of E's suit and just wear something casually authoritative (for me) like a suit jacket over whatever is relatively clean in my closet.

I hate this game and I know it is a game, all of it, for my ex. That's what is so infuriating. I have to play this out, even though I think it is ridiculous. Why can't he just sit down and talk to me and work this out? Why does it need to be a contest where everyone gets hurt?

Flashback: During our Catholic marriage course the priest had us imagine ourselves on a path through the woods. All of a sudden an animal appeared before us on the path. Then he asked each of us what our animal was. My ex's was a skunk. His spirit animal - a skunk! When I told him mother this she nodded, "Yes, that makes sense." If only I had paid attention then and gotten the hell out of the course and the marriage . . .

E's nothing like a skunk. I'd venture to say his spirit animal is an eagle or something far more regal and imposing. After all, he can wear a suit and look like he owns it.