Yesterday, Sam haranged me to the point of feeling ill about HAVING to transfer the title and registration of my suv into my name and it HAD to be done yesterday. Well, I told him I didn't havfe the 200+ dollars to do that so I was not ready to do it. He INSISTED that it be done and got the money from his parents. Then, he said he'd pay for a month of car insurance, and "maybe some more" when I told him that if he kept this up, I was going to stop being nice.

Today he calls and wants to know if this divorce is going to get dirty and does he need to hire a lawyer. I told him that the divorce would get as dirty as he made it. He said he wasn't trying to screw me over and I told him he was full of crap, especially after yesterday. He tried to tell me he wasn't being a jerk, so I recounted his actions the past month to him, date by date. He didn't have a whole lot to say after that.

So he asks if we are both going to put ourselves into bankruptcy hiring lawyers and I tell him I don't need to "hire" a lawyer, my brother is one, and whether or not I asked him to represent me depended entirely on Sam's actions from this point forward.

Later this evening, Sam sends me a text message that he has paid the car insurance for both of us for the next 6 months, so I am not stuck without transportation.

Did the fact that I can have a lawyer represent me in the divorce, mainly my brother, scare him into being nice for a moment? He also told me that if I needed anything and gave him a day or two notice, he would see what he could do to take care of it. He must be afraid that I will pull the representation card and he wouldn't be able to do the same so he will get "screwed to the wall," as he puts it, in the divorce.

Frankly, all I intend to do is to have my brother look over the paperwork, to make sure that I am ok, and hadn't even considered having him represent me in the whole thing. But maybe Sam needed to know that I was not without resources if I needed them, for him to realize that he can't act like a jerk and expect me to do nothing about it.

All of his "I'm not a monster. I want to make sure Lydia is ok" is just lip-service and my whole family knows it. He is running from having to step up and be the one to take responsibility and doing the least he figures he can get away with to keep me from unleashing my family on him. Maybe, today, he got the first spark of recognition that we all know that's his M.O. and he isn't fooling anyone.