Q. Divorce and health insurance: After I had an ugly and protracted affair, my husband ended our eight-year marriage. We’ve been living separately for almost four months. Despite many pleas on my part to reconcile, I’ve finally begun to accept that he does not view me as a life partner anymore, for extremely valid reasons. He has drawn up and sent me some very equitable divorce papers and has displayed a lot of patience about my taking some time to sign them. I’m currently employed as a freelancer at a prestigious publication; I’ve been here for more than a year but don’t yet have employee benefits—most pressingly, health insurance. I have gotten some vague promises that I am “next in line” for a staff position but no hard timing and no indication of a move in that direction. I am reliant on my estranged husband’s health insurance to control an intense anxiety disorder and for therapy to help process my feelings on our split. While so much of me is not ready to give up on him, I want to set him free to pursue someone who can be faithful to him and can appreciate him fully. But on the other hand, I don’t want to saddle myself with crippling financial burdens just to maintain my precarious mental health. Is it moral to delay the divorce process until I can secure employee benefits? Should I be looking for another job, even though the stability of a job I love is one of the few bright spots in my life right now?
A: Two distinct points to be noted here, I think: One is that you are still in love with your soon-to-be ex-husband, as much as you are trying to come to terms with the fact that your marriage is over. The other is that you’re in a genuinely precarious financial position. If it were only the first, I’d encourage you to sign the divorce papers as quickly as possible, but as things are, I think you have to adopt a policy of cautious risk-taking. It would be a mistake to delay the divorce process indefinitely, because then you run the risk of exhausting your (extremely patient, it sounds like) ex-husband’s goodwill, and it doesn’t sound like your current employer is in any hurry to offer you a full-time position with benefits. Letting the husband you’re trying to get over pay for the therapist who’s trying to help you get over him sounds like a recipe for trouble, and the sooner you can get on your own health plan, the better. Look for another job with great zeal, and let your husband know that your goal is to find a full-time position elsewhere so you’re no longer dependent on his insurance policy. Ask him how much time he’s willing to offer you, so you have as much information as possible about your future, and so he knows you’re doing your level best not to take advantage of him or spin this divorce out perpetually in the hopes that he’ll want to reconcile. Vagueness is your enemy; clarity and detail are your greatest allies when it comes to planning for your future without your spouse.
I’ll welcome more specific advice from readers well-versed in health insurance policy, so if anyone has a suggestion or other options for this LW, please let us know.
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The Principle of Least Interest: He who cares least about a relationship, controls it.
