What does it take to finish a divorce?

This week I realized I'm still not divorced. Even though the judge declared the marriage was over more than a year ago, I keep tripping over things that connect me to him.

We have no children, and the property was divided in the divorce decree. We didn't even have a joint bank account or shared credit cards. As soon as I moved out almost a year and a half ago, I cleared away any other remaining connections.

Eighteen months ago I called both agents and set up separate policies. At least I thought I did. The couple of times since I've had to talk to State Farm, the person I spoke with started by saying, "I see you have three cars..." I stopped them and threatened to leave State Farm if they ever said anything about 3 cars to me. "I have the Porsche. That's all." The topic never came up again in the conversation.

Then yesterday, I called simply to move both policies to one agent. The she said, "I see you have three cars..."

I spent more than half an hour on the phone trying again to completely, 100% separate my car and renter's insurance from my ex. I even had to speak to a supervisor to make it happen. Like the divorce process wasn't difficult enough.

I learned yesterday the reason for the lingering connection was because the agent still had my ex and me in the same "household." What does divorce typically mean? When there are separate policies and different addresses, why would there be one household?

And it doesn't stop there. Today at the doctor's office, the woman looked at my insurance card. "So the policy is under your husband's name?"

"No it isn't."

"Is he still employed at this company?"

"No. It doesn't matter since he isn't my husband. He has nothing to do with my insurance or anything to do with me."

She took his name off my records. Perhaps I'm a tad defensive?

Maybe these people don't know the right processes, or maybe they're just too lazy to deal with it. Either way, their complacency causes me pain. I invested years of heartache then thousands of dollars getting out of that union. Many other women do the same. I hope people check twice before they "couple" people who aren't a couple. It's often a bigger deal to the other person than they might think.

Love to the single girls,

Addison