The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “Distance”, and here’s where you join the party: Six Sentence Stories
It had been one of their worst sessions, one in a steadily shortening list of tasks required to win her freedom. He did his best to add to this list of issues for the mediated divorce decree, forgetting to do their assigned tasks, and maximizing the length of time that they would have to work together; the mediator didn’t call him on it as she was making money for each additional session.
What her soon-to-be (please God!) Ex really wanted was to see her blow her stack again, because for him, negative attention was better than no attention at all.
She stepped out of the mediator’s office, temper intact, zipping her parka to the top, and hunching her shoulders against the bitter January wind. She shivered and felt momentarily sad, thinking he should have put all that energy into strengthening their marriage, instead of gaslighting it to extinction.
She thanked God she hadn’t had children with him.
© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2021)
Valley of the Trolls 
Most welcome
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Well written
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Thank you!
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Well told!
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Thanks, Lisa!
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Grace under fires. Well done
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Few things are harder than a divorce, especially when one party is determined to undermine the other. Thank goodness there were no children indeed!
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Exactly! Thank God for fiction… 😏
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It is over, and it should be a smoother transition with no children a part of the picture. Well done SSS.
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excellent!
One of the ways that normal/healthy/reasonably mature people are at a distinct disadvantage when interacting with a person such as the soon-to-be-ex person in your phrase “…for him, negative attention was better than no attention at all…”
that perception (of attention) is so counter-intuitive…hell, counter-rational for the rest of us.
That single realization is the breaking of the chains, for sure.
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That line hit me as well, so count me in with Frank and V. The gaslighting line was superb.
Sad, yet I sense an energy from her that speaks to improving her life, to making it her own. Not an easy task to remove oneself from a toxic relationship especially when there is history and love mixed in.
Thank you, Liz for a 2nd Six. Excellent.
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Hope others feel seen with this. It’s a hard road, tougher when there kids involved.
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Agree with Frank on “gaslighting it to extinction” nice line. Seems she had her regrets along with some relief. The divorce can now leave room for growth.
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It takes grace to be calm. I like the phrase “gaslighting it to extinction”.
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Thanks, Frank!
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