By the time I filed for divorce, Mark and I had been unhappy for years.<\/p>\n
We barely spoke unless it involved the kids, bills, or something that needed fixing around the house. I was tired of feeling married and alone at the same time.<\/p>\n
When we started dividing our belongings, Mark became unbelievably petty.<\/p>\n
He wanted the large TV because he had bought it.<\/p>\n
Then the expensive coffee maker.<\/p>\n
Then the patio set.<\/p>\n
Then even a set of beanbags the kids had used for years.<\/p>\n
I stopped arguing.<\/p>\n
If he wanted something badly enough, I let him take it.<\/p>\n
But on the day he moved out, I found him at the front door with a screwdriver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking the lock and handle,\u201d he said. \u201cI paid for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a moment, I honestly thought he was joking.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
So I stepped aside.<\/p>\n
He removed the entire lockset, packed it into a box, and left.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, I called a locksmith and replaced everything.<\/p>\n
Three days later, Mark phoned me sounding furious and embarrassed.<\/p>\n
The lock he had taken didn\u2019t fit the door at his new apartment.<\/p>\n
Worse, he had already thrown away the old apartment hardware before realizing it.<\/p>\n
Now his landlord was charging him for emergency replacement locks and damage to the door.<\/p>\n
He wanted to know if I still had the original pieces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought they were yours,\u201d I said calmly.<\/p>\n
There was a long silence.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t laugh.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n
For once, his determination to take absolutely everything had cost him far more than simply leaving it behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By the time I filed for divorce, Mark and I had been unhappy for years. We barely spoke unless it involved the kids, bills, or something that needed fixing around the house. I was tired of feeling married and alone at the same time. When we started dividing our belongings, Mark became unbelievably petty. He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9752,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9750\/revisions\/9752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}