I didn't get the opportunity to do as I'd promised, due to a sudden and dramatic increase in business for the electronics company I worked for. That lasted several years before a sudden downturn in the economy resulted in my losing my job. I was a good engineer, but not senior enough to survive the staff reduction.

While we were married, Judy and I had the usual assortment of marriage problems. One of them was her tendency to buy things that she not only didn't need, but had no use for. I mean, we lived in a city, so why would she need a horseback riding outfit?

Another issue was the lack of kids. I tried to talk her into the two of us going in and being checked out to see if there was anything medical going on, but she was adamant that she was fine. As the years passed, things progressed from her being fine to there must be something wrong with me. I dutifully went in for a variety of tests, and they all came back saying that there wasn't anything wrong — which only aggravated Judy even more.

So when I got laid off from my job, our relationship took a sudden and dramatic downturn. Not only was Judy continuing to spend money we couldn't afford, but she started bitching at me about my inability to father children — or support them, for that matter. I tried to deal with it as best I could, and even tried to get her to agree to marriage counseling, but she wasn't having any of that. Instead, she would denigrate and berate me on a daily basis, even while I was trying to keep myself together so I'd be able to present myself well in job interviews. Unfortunately, there finally came the point where the two of us had an argument that ran damn near an entire weekend, off and on. The following Monday afternoon, I got a call from her telling me that she wanted a divorce — something I agreed to, just to put an end to all the fussing and fighting.

Her family knew what was going on, of course, and uniformly supported ME during all the hubbub — even to the point of refusing to give Judy the money she wanted to hire a divorce lawyer.