I got in a huge argument with my ex-wife the other day. The kind of argument that only she can get me into (she really knows how to push my buttons). You see, I made the mistake of trying to help her get on her feet after I moved out. She had spent the majority of our marriage staying home with our kids, and was just finishing up her first year of school when she decided it was over and told me to move out.
Since she had no formal training, I felt like I should do what I could to help her out, so I continued to pay all her bills for the next few months, and co-signed on a student loan so that she could enroll in a program that would train her to become a dental assistant. That turned out to be a huge mistake. She dropped out of the program with only two weeks left to go, so still didn't have the job skills she was after, but did have a loan payment to take care of. She didn't because she had no income. It almost went into default so I started making payments in order to keep my credit clean. I paid it for two years, but then hurt my back and couldn't go back to my part time job where I had hurt it. With this change (while I am much happier now) came a huge decrease in my income, and then she went out and bought a new car. I figured if she could afford a new car payment every month then she was doing better than I thought, so she could start making her student loan payment as well. I told her that I couldn't afford to pay it anymore and that she would have to take over. She agreed, and thanked me for taking care of it that long.
The other night I got a phone call from a collection agency. They wanted to inform me that they had not received payment for two months, and if they didn't by midnight they would have to put it on my credit. I called her to find out if she was planning on taking care of it, and why she had been ignoring their notices. As soon as she found out that I was upset with her, she started yelling at me about "how dare I embarrass her in front of her daughter" when I had seen them a few weeks prior. And let me tell you, it was a profanity laced tirade. It was a diversionary tactic to get the focus off of her.
A few weeks ago I was passing through Salt Lake City on my son's birthday. I took them all out to dinner to celebrate that with him, and she and my daughter got into an argument at the restaurant. I just looked at both of them and told them to stop. My ex looked at me and said "she does this all the time." To which I replied, "I think you started that one. You need to learn to pick your battles, and this one isn't worth fighting."
When she brought it back up on the phone she asked "How do you think that made me feel?"
I just said "We're divorced now. We don't really have to worry about whether or not we hurt each other's feelings. Just pay your student loan."
She did. But should it really have to include so much drama?
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