The Verdict

I would go so far as to suggest we ALL just ROUTINELY consult a jury of our peers for emotionally-complex decisions. I was genuinely taken aback when ALL OF YOU agreed that I should NOT pay my ex-husband back for our divorce.

If you'd asked me beforehand what I thought the comments section would look like, I would have said I expected about a 50-50 split, with a large percentage of the "no, don't do it" comments dismissible for various reasons. Like, I expected to be sitting here thinking, "You are SO NICE to be trying so hard to save me from this awful responsibility, but we both know it's the ethically correct way." Or like when that one blogger, I forget who, got so much backlash for failing to return a small toy she hadn't noticed her child taking from a store: I thought there might be even VIGOROUS DEBATE about whether it was excusable or non-excusable to fail to pay him back, and HOW excusable/non-excusable it was, but I didn't think anyone would be arguing it was WRONG to pay him back (the equivalent, I was thinking, of returning the toy to the store). And yet that was the gist of it: that not only was it not the Ethical Good Idea I thought it was, it was in fact a Bad Idea! That it was NOT equivalent to returning a mistakenly-taken toy to the store, but more the equivalent of, well, I can't think of an equivalent but suffice it to say a BAD IDEA.

I was completely set back on my heels. Before writing that post, I had found my ex-husband's Facebook account, clicked "send message," and mostly composed the message where I said it was unfair that he'd had to pay for it and that I'd like to pay him back. I'd clicked away from it ONLY because I didn't want to be too impulsive: the idea had hit me like lightning and I'd been typing 5 minutes later, and that seemed too hasty. Plus, I'd thought it would be an interesting subject to discuss.

And at first, when the "Oh, honey, are you a little bit, um, crazy?" comments began, I was resistant. I thought, "Well, I don't have to TAKE the advice I asked for." But there were so many people I RESPECT who commented, and ALL of them agreed, and I thought if nothing else that meant the situation needed further thought. And after the further thought, I'm taking your advice.