I Won't Pay Ya

This prompt is very timely for me.  Of all the identities I prided myself on in my previous life, cool wife, supermom, someone with good credit is the hardest to let go.  I do the right thing.  I make good on my promises.  I pay my bills.  Yet, the last one is getting scary.

I lost everything in the divorce.  I walked away with a little cash, a nearly totaled car, and a mound of credit card debt.  I can't begin to explain why, aside from, I am my mother's daughter.  I thought I could make it work, yet despite two jobs, I find myself teetering on the financial edge.  I recently decided to move out of my apartment, breaking my lease early, to move in with my sister.  This is a great and horrible decision.  I get to save money and reconnect with my sis, but I lose the space I created for myself, and alone time with my sweetheart.

Because of the cost of breaking a lease, however, I won't begin saving money until the summer.  Thus Part B of saying no.  I am not paying my credit card bills.  Here's why:

I spend $400 a month in minimum payments, only to have my checking account linger precariously close to zero at least once a month.  In the last six months, my credit score has plummeted over 300 points, despite my regular ontime payments.  I have, in other words, invested over two grand to get eight dollars in credit.  My debt to income ratio is out of my control.  I make what I make.  I owe what I owe.  And I am one accident, one illness, one car issue away from bouncing checks.

So, I am saving that money I would spend on those two bills to create savings.  My credit is shot anyway.  It will be a long, hard, ugly battle, but eventually, I'll settle the debt.  In the meantime, I have to tell them no way, I won't pay ya.

This is a decision I've been avoiding making.  My name is still on the mortgage.  My ex is afraid to refinance in just his name.  He told me recently that part of the hold up is that he co-signed his girlfriend's car.  So she has to take his name off the note so that he will take me off the mortgage.

I have been paying $400 a month I don't have in order to prevent my financial decision from affecting him or the home.  This did not work both ways.  So 7 months after the finalized divorce, I am paying $400 a month so he can finance another woman's money issues.  No way.  I'm not paying.

Before I made this decision, I tried other options. Clarity came the day I got rejected from a loan at the credit union I've been a member of since '99. 17 years of saving, paying off loans, doing the right thing. It meant nothing to them. It was the same heartbreaking rejection I felt from my ex. It hit me.

My loyalty, my commitment, means nothing. Doing the right thing means nothing. At the end of the day, the whole world takes more than it gives. Love is the rare exception.  No one is in my boat but me. The shame of divorce is compounded by the shame of being one with bad credit. According to my score, I cannot be trusted. I have never felt so alone. My score is not who I am. Neither is this decision, but sometimes life puts us in a place where we make the decisions we'd never make otherwise.