Reflecting on a dinner table conversation from last night.

My aunt (married to my dad's younger brother) is 100% going to divorce my uncle. It's just a matter of when. Their son is entering high school in the fall. I'm guessing she's waiting until he goes off to college to formally start that process.

Their marriage, largely unbeknownst to me, has been on the rocks since before their son was born. They were trying to have a kid for the longest time and my aunt was under the impression that introducing a child into the situation would fix whatever problems the marriage was having.

I still don't know all the details, but a few years ago was pretty much the last straw. Something about... lying about finances. I think my uncle took her personal savings... perhaps money set aside for their son's college fund too... for one or multiple of his failed business endeavors. The mortgage hadn't been paid in a long time. They nearly lost their house.

Anyway, I haven't seen my aunt since all that went down. My parents and I drove past her hometown on the highway on Mother's Day which gave my mom the idea to send her a text wishing her well, noting that we'd gone by the place where she grew up. The text she got in response was a lot more than any of us were expecting. Stuff about how she misses my mom and the girls (my sister and I) but that she's keeping her distance for the wellbeing of herself and her son.

My dad was absolutely flabbergasted, particularly at the way my mom and I casually voiced the assumption that we'd never see this woman again and had assumed that for a while. He couldn't understand why. So as usual with this sort of thing I asked him to imagine my sister or I in the same situation, how he'd feel.

He said he had no context to even fabricate such a situation... even though the situation had been playing out with his own brother for over a decade with him the most in the know out of everyone since he's "head of the family."

So now I'm thinking wow, if my dad feels so strongly about this, how will my uncle feel when the divorce papers finally come even though the writing has been on the wall all this time? Does he truly think that after all this she's going to give him another chance? All the chances are spent. My mom and I know that just from our limited information.

Saying no to men is always such an ordeal.