Front Page · Domestic Desk
Husband And Wife's Secret Grievance Lists, Both Titled "Stuff," Mediator Rules Both Admissible
Neither partner has read the other's file. A mediator has now read both, rated them, and closed some without asking.
A phone glows in a dark bedroom, late, on a night nobody mentions in the morning. One partner is still awake, thumbs moving fast, eyes on the screen. The note is titled "Stuff." It has never once been about groceries.
Severity, rated by hand on a scale of one to five: a four. He does not know she is timing it.
Tonight's entry is about the dishwasher, and about the upper rack, loaded wrong again, on purpose this time. It gets a date, a short note, and nothing else. Nobody has ever read it aloud.
Other nights the entry gets more specific, and considerably less kind. One reads: "Sex, Tuesday, over before the ad break, blamed on the wine." Severity, rated by hand on a scale of one to five: a four. He does not know she is timing it.
His wife keeps one too, on a different phone, in a different room. Neither has ever seen the other's file, not once, not by accident. Hers gets written the same way: right after a disagreement that never survives breakfast. No shared calendar. No comparing notes, ever, on principle. Hers is shorter, and crueler. One reads: "Drunk again by nine, asleep by nine-fifteen, missed his own toast."
A divorce mediator found both files this year, entirely by accident, in the middle of an unrelated session. They arrived on two separate phones, handed over as evidence, in the same afternoon. She read them the way she reads everything: professionally, and out loud. The tissues were already on the table.
The mediator assigned her own severity ratings, independent of the couple's own. She cross-referenced every entry by date, methodically, the way she does everything. Some she closed as resolved, on the spot, without asking either party if they agreed. Some were closed within the hour, without either party being consulted, or particularly missed.
Then she lined the two files up, side by side, matched by date. Ninety-one nights matched exactly. Each note got opened within minutes of the other, every single time. Same argument. Filed twice, and each blamed the other for starting it.
"They are not as far apart as they think," the mediator said, filing the overlap under Compatibility, Unconfirmed. Neither party has been told the number is ninety-one. The invoice, in full, went to both anyway.
Other mediators have started asking for the files as standard practice, in every case that involves a marriage. Divorce solicitors now request "Stuff" by name, in the very first meeting. One firm trains staff to read the file for tone, not content. It offers a discount to couples who submit theirs unread.
This newspaper keeps a file on its own readers, and has done for some time. It is titled "Stuff." Entry one, dated today, says most of you are still here. We have not closed it. Severity: unrated.