The saga of my divorce begins on the last day of the 2011/2012 school year, although I suppose things had been deteriorating for many years. We usually spent a couple of weeks in Michigan each summer visiting Rita’s family and my extended family. As is typical, I had quite a few things to schedule that summer (thesis defenses, preliminary exams, research meetings, etc.), and I scheduled everything early in the summer because Rita said she wanted to stick with tradition and be in Michigan late in the summer.
Late that evening, Rita came into the bedroom after I had gone to bed and informed me she was taking the kids to Michigan in the morning. I’m not sure if she specifically said I wasn’t invited, but it was pretty clear I was not. Plus, my schedule would have required me to drive back and forth multiple times. Feeling like she set me up–she had to have planned this long in advance because she watched two or three infants each day–I got pretty annoyed. This was also the first time I really thought the marriage was in serious trouble. I was an idiot in that regard.
We got into one of the worst arguments we’d ever had. It was purely verbal, as all our arguments had always been, and at first, there was no outright yelling that I recall; the kids slept through it as far as I know. I didn’t want to be away from the kids, and she wouldn’t tell me when she was coming back. Plus, we only had one car at the time, so I wasn’t sure how I would get around. She mentioned she didn’t know if she was coming back. I was not aware of my custodial rights at the time, so this really scared me. At probably around midnight, she decided she was leaving and got the kids out of bed and dressed. We argued furiously about this because I didn’t want her driving when she was tired. By that point, I had given up on talking her out of going. As she had apparently already packed the car–I think she was planning to leave before I got up in the morning to avoid an argument, and I’m not even sure why she told me besides to start the fight–she herded the kids downstairs to leave. As far as I knew, she had gotten the kids in the car when I decided to go downstairs to try to stop her by maybe preventing the garage door from opening.
I saw this little Tiffany-style lamp (like the one shown) on a table in the hallway on the way to the stairs. It was touch-activated and always annoyed me that Rita never turned it off. On the way past, I swatted at it and knocked it off the table. In doing so, I opened a huge gash in my finger. In hindsight, maybe I should have claimed Rita cut me. I was later accused of throwing it, and I wish I had because there was no one nearby, and if I had picked it up, I wouldn’t have cut my finger. I got downstairs, and my finger was bleeding a lot. I decided I needed to go to the hospital to get stitches. When I got to the garage and asked Rita to take me (in our only car), she refused. I had a small 50cc scooter that I used for short trips to and from work, weather permitting. I tried to ride that to the hospital in the dark and rain. I got about a mile before deciding it was crazy for me to try to get to the hospital riding with one hand and barely able to see, so I turned around. Figuring Rita had already left, I planned to bandage my finger the best I could for the night.