Sometimes, it is difficult to not lapse into a victim mentality.

Sometimes, it is difficult not to overflow with resentment.

Sometimes, it is difficult to find the positive in an extremely negative situation.

Sometimes, it is overwhelming to look at the sum of a finite set of experiences and not question, “why try?”

Sometimes, I find myself wondering why I am “rewarded” for doing the right thing with what seems like a very stern, highly inconvenient and hurtful consequence.

What’s this all about, you ask, Alfie, my friend?

For the first time in many years, I assessed my life and tax-related situation as having become simplified enough that I could return to my once-lifelong practice of filing my own tax return.  So, once my spring break arrived, I made sure that I had all the relevant documents in a bright yellow folder in my work bag, and I set about Turbo-Taxing my way to completion and e-filing.  Long before the deadline.  Yet not soon enough.

What does that mean?

It means that I carefully assessed every relevant-to-my-life IRS topic, entered all my information, and I clicked “Submit.”  A full six weeks before the dreaded April 15th deadline.  I was set to receive a refund for the first time in many, many years.  And I was grateful in advance.  And then, the notice arrived.  The kind postman did not allow me to walk through the pouring down rain to sign for it at his truck – he walked it up to me as I stood in my garage, opening and unpacking boxes, purging and salvaging and reintroducing treasures to their place in my home.  He handed me the envelope addressed to me from our good friends at the Internal Revenue Service.  I cringed. I knew what was inside.  Not good news.  And not to do with me.   

But it was addressed to you.  How could it not be to do with you?

Because, from not-afar-enough, he’s still in passive control of a few things.  He doesn’t respond to powerful entities’ requests to contact them.  He leaves the mail unopened.  He hears my reminders, acknowledges what I am asking, promises to take care of things.

And then he does not do it.

So, yes, it was to do with me.  His Social Security number and my name.  As if we are one and the same.  According to the IRS, otherwise knows as the only people who can take everything you have to cover what you owe to them, we were one and the same.  At least through 2013.

And once again, the aforementioned powerful entities find a way to get what is rightfully theirs.

They take it from me.

Just like they took $1,800 from me in the summer of 2014 because he stopped opening the credit card bill from our credit union.  The credit union he had long ago stopped using for his personal finance.  Because about a year into our marriage, he stopped depositing his paycheck in our joint account.  He opened his own account – a business account.  And commenced to spending about $200 per month on donuts and diet drinks.  For far too many months.  I was a new mother, and I was in survival mode.  So it wasn’t until I asked for access to his account for tax preparation purposes that I noticed the pattern and brought it to his attention.  We were married, so it never even occurred to me to take his name off of my account – like my name was not on his account – therefore, when he stopped paying that credit card bill, and they decided to “charge it off.”  They did – right out of my savings account.  The money was there because I had set it aside to pay the mortgage.  And then it was gone.  To pay off his debt.  In one fell swoop.  My sister and her husband paid my mortgage that month.  And a few other basic bills.  It took me 6 months to get the money to pay them back, but I did it – immediately once my house sold, and I had the cash.  I paid the IRS first, and I paid them second.  I paid the IRS first because I know how powerful and unrelenting they are.  And I do not like powerful, unrelenting people or organizations lording over me.

One of the reasons I got a divorce.

The family court judge who heard our divorce proceedings ordered that we split the 2013 taxes 50/50, and we both agreed to that order.  So I complied with that order.  The other one did not.  So, the taxes were paid 100/0.  It was actually a little more off-kilter than that because the penalties grew to almost $200 on his half.  I paid those, too.  For a grand total of almost $1000.

So, it’s difficult not to be bothered by it all.  And I don’t like to make waves.  And I feel like I have been very reasonable in all of this process.  But now, I have to do a little cost-benefit analysis.  Do I file a Motion for Contempt of Court?  I have asked him to give me a date by which time I can expect reimbursement.  Do I send a formal demand letter first?  Can you, in fact, get blood from a turnip?  What comes from a Motion for Contempt of Court anyway?  They put him in jail?  Do I want to be that parent?  The one that the other parent gets to tell our child, “Mommy had the judge put me in jail.”  I don’t really.  And it does not serve me.  And it does not get my money back.  Jail + wages garnished?  That might be a viable option.  Everything is considered to be my fault anyway.  And there does not appear to be much capacity for insight or self-awareness anyway.  So, would it be a “bottom” experience?  Finally?  Divorce was not.

I wonder, sometimes, if I allow myself to be too hopeful.