An Ex to Grind

by Heller, Jane

• ISBN13: 9780060899301
• ISBN10: 0060899301
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The battle of the sexes rages on in this smart, witty, and extremely timely comedy from the phenomenally popular Jane Heller At first, Manhattan financial planner Melanie Banks adores Dan Swain, her pro football player husband who's got a sexy Oklahoma drawl to go with his athletic good looks. But then his career comes to a screeching halt and he spends the next few years out of a job, seemingly unconcerned about it. Suddenly, she's the one bringing home the bacon and falling out of love with the paycheck-devouring, couch-sitting mooch. Divorce is the answer, she decides -- only to learn she has to fork over alimony while he lives like a prince on her income and she has to share custody of their precious dog, Buster. Consumed with the unfairness of it all, she plays dirty, hiring a high-profile matchmaker to find some unsuspecting female she can dump on Dan for ninety days and cause him to violate their cohabitation clause. But then Melanie's scheme backfires. Her ex's new love revitalizes him, miraculously transforming him into the focused, responsible go-getter she always hoped he'd be. And now, with the ninety-day clock about to chime, she realizes she wants him back.

Excerpts

An Ex to Grind
A Novel

Chapter One

Let me begin with a few words of caution for women intheir thirties and younger: if you think sexual equality is anonissue, a relic from your mother's or grandmother'sbra-burning past, a subject that's so yesterday, think again. Thedebate over it is back in a new and particularly insidious form,and I need to warn you about it. Please don't groan and say, "Sexualequality? She must be an alarmist." I know what I'm talkingabout.

You see, this isn't about whether women can succeed in theworkplace. That's a given. It's about whether our success has costus; about whether the fact that we're running companies andwinning Senate seats and performing delicate brain surgeries has made us vulnerable to men who will glom onto us for our bucks,not our boobs.

I'll be specific. I was a thirty-four-year-old woman in theonce-male-dominated field of financial planning, pulling in ahigh six figures as a vice president at the Manhattan-based investmentfirm of Pierce, Shelley and Steinberg. I was well regardedand well compensated, because I was good at helping myalready wealthy clients become more wealthy. The sexual equalitything never crossed my mind.

But then something snapped me out of my complacence. I beganto notice that with women grabbing more and more of thebig-ticket jobs, men were being relegated to the so-called pinkcollarones. Suddenly, women were the doctors, the lawyers, andthe college presidents, and men were the nurses, the paralegals,and the librarians. We were undergoing a seismic shift in ourculture, and I realized there had to be a consequence.

Well, there has been a consequence. Men, discouraged by ourgrowing dominance, are starting to shrug their shoulders anddrop out of the workforce altogether, leaving it to us to supportthem. Take a look around if you don't believe me. Ask yourfriends. It's happening, and it's throwing off the balance, impactingboth the way we hook up and the way we break up.

This still isn't hitting home for you? To be honest, it didn't hithome for me until it hit my home.

In the early years of my thirteen-year marriage, my exhusbandwas the breadwinner. Then his career ended abruptly,and I became the breadwinner. At first I wasn't concerned aboutour change in roles. A study had just been released reportingthat wives were outearning their spouses in over a third ofhouseholds, so I knew I wasn't the only woman bringing home 3the bacon. I accepted the fact that if you're the partner who's up,you should assume responsibility for the partner who's down,no matter which gender you are.

But then my ex-husband's bout with unemployment becamechronic, which is to say that he didn't lift a finger to find himselfa new career. The marriage unraveled. We couldn't handle therole changes after all. But as distressing as that was, the divorcewas worse. Why? Because I got stuck assuming responsibilityfor the partner who was down, ev en though we were no longerpartners!

I was forced not only to hand over a huge chunk of my assetsto my ex but to pay him alimony too. "Maintenance" they call itin New York state. Whatever. We're talking about me having towrite checks to the guy every month for eight years. I was a goodand generous person who gave to numerous charities and nevercheated anybody out of anything. But this? Well, I balked, to putit mildly.

Maybe you're thinking that if we're the big achievers now, weshould stop whining and just fork over the cash in the divorce.But here's the thing: when it's your turn, you won't want to forkover the cash any more than men did when they were hoggingthe power seat.

Did I go to extremes in my effort to wriggle out of my legalobligation to my ex? Sure. Do I regret what I did to him? Deeply.But I was caught up in that nutty fantasy about men—that evenas we're out there conquering the world, they're supposed to bethe strong ones, capable of rescuing us, or, at the very least, providingfor us.

It's all so confusing, isn't it? Well, maybe this little story ofmine will help sort things out.

Or maybe it'll simply confirm that equality, like beauty, is inthe eye of the beholden.

Sign here," said my d iv orce a ttorney, Robin Baylor, afortysomething black woman with impeccable credentials. Harvardfor her undergraduate degree. Yale for law school. LouisLicari for the auburn highlights that were expertly woventhrough her short, spiky hair. The two of us were sitting in her elegantlyappointed, wood-paneled conference room at a table thelength of a city block. She had just passed me the gazillionth documentpertaining to Melanie Banks (me) vs. Dan Swain (my ex)."It's the last one," she announced.

"Promise?" I said with pleading eyes as I glanced at the hugefile she had on Dan and me. So much paper. Such a waste of trees.

"Trust me, yours wasn't as complicated as some," she said, andshe wasn't kidding. She'd handled my friend Karen's divorce,which became a truly unsavory affair after it was revealed thatKaren's ex was not only an insider trader with the SEC breathingdown his neck but also a bigamist with two families on oppositecoasts. "You've waited out the year of legal separation, and nowyou're just signing the conversion documents. Once these arefiled, you're divorced. Case closed."

"Closed?" I said. "I wish. Thanks to this settlement, I'm tied toDan for seven more years.Having to pay him while we were separatedwas no picnic, but having to write him checks for thenext . . . Well, the whole thing makes me sick."An Ex to Grind
A Novel. Copyright © by Jane Heller. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from An Ex to Grind by Jane Heller
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