October 08, 2014 Blogs & Columns » Vodka Yonic

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Safe Socks 

No matter what happens in our divorce settlement, a pair of my ex's wool socks are coming with me

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This month, instead of celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary reminiscing over a romantic dinner, my husband and I sat in a deli booth dividing material assets. Once we come to a settlement, we will join the likes of Al and Tipper Gore, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, and scores of other less famous couples who also have divorced after decades of marriage.

Reactions to the news from our close family and friends have varied. Surely after so many years, you can work it out, right? But "it" — the pronoun for the list of reasons why we gave up — is hard to pinpoint. What took you so long? This response lacks an understanding that hope sometimes dies slowly.

Even though it has been a long time coming, I still find myself shaking my head, wondering how we got here.

I know that I am not alone in this existential crisis. While divorce rates in general have declined, these late-in-life divorces have doubled over the past two decades. In 2009, one in four divorces occurred among people 50 and older, and experts predict a 25-percent increase in the next 20 years. The trend is so pronounced, it has a name — the Gray Divorce Revolution. Some posit that this upturn is due to our increased life expectancies, or because differences that could be ignored or set aside while raising children become intolerable during the empty nest years. We fit into the latter category.

In good company or not, dividing assets calls to mind my mother's death, when my brothers and I squabbled over insignificant things, like her praying hands bookends. Somehow, having them lessened the loss of her. I noticed a similar reaction to this pending separation while going over our lists.

For example, one afternoon as I passed my ex's door, I surveyed the bedroom. I'd moved out of this room months ago, but I immediately noticed his sock drawer ajar, a habit of his that annoyed me for years. As I reached out — almost unconsciously — to close it, I peeked inside. Before even thinking about it, I grabbed a pair of his socks and moved them to my dresser in the room down the hall.

His socks fit me better than any woman's socks I've ever had; men's socks are longer and wider, perfectly encasing my size-10 feet. His entire dresser drawer of socks has been under joint ownership for more than 30 years now, if you count the courtship days. He has at least 20 pairs, so I'm assuming he will not even miss this heather-colored wool pair. But they are my favorite, and I have missed them. What else could I do but steal them?

If he knew I did this, he might mistake it for some kind of sentimental attachment to him, like back in the day when I wore his shirts not only so I could smell the scent of him, but to announce — in a somewhat primal, territorial way — to all his previous girlfriends that I was the girlfriend now. I remember how those girls looked at me, like I was just the flavor of the month. They thought we would not last. But we did.

Wearing his clothes or using his bathrobe familiarized me with what men have and how they use it. Before him, I was rather innocent, even ignorant about underthings and men's sizing. Men's socks are better quality, like those boxer briefs he suggested I use on one of our vacations to Florida after I got a second-degree sunburn. Those briefs were the most comfortable underwear I'd ever worn, which makes me want to sneak a pair of those to put in the emergency medical kit, just in case.

Once, borrowing a T-shirt or a pair of jeans meant we belonged together, and that we fit. Today, his socks just mean comfy feet.

I will take better care of these socks than he would. Carelessly, thoughtlessly, he left his socks elsewhere a few times. I intuitively knew when they went missing. And I know these socks are clean, because I've washed them like I've washed all of his things, all of these years. Wearing his clothes, doing his laundry once felt like a privilege, like watching him sleep, all the while wondering how I could be so lucky to share his bed. These tasks, these privileges? They're not mine anymore.

But as far as I see it, these socks are mine, because I've earned them.

When I signed the complaint papers — which made this all real — I realized that I'd had free access to this masculine advantage all these years, and perhaps I'd taken it for granted. Stealing his socks is a matter of practicality, really. I'm just taking my fair share of the marital assets.

And as the rumors start to circulate about our separation, people will feel triangulated and divide into camps. He's the likable one. He'll get all of the friends in the divorce.

But I'm keeping the damn socks.

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