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Abstract

ife version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlVeaz_l5Jg">Among Us</a>. Would they know? Was it obvious?</p><p id="8d8f">Of course not. We’ve hidden our crappy marriage for 17 years.</p><h2 id="29ed">Movies and TV</h2><p id="d489">We have every streaming platform available. Disney+ (<i>which my cheap ass jumped on a prepaid 3-year deal at four bucks a month</i>), Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu with an HBO add-on, and Apple TV (<i>free for a year</i>). Since we’ve taken social distancing quite seriously, this has been our main form to pass the time.</p><p id="0973">I’m almost an expert at determining which formulaic plotline a movie will follow. Very rarely is anything original and new. Especially in kids’ movies, which are the genre primarily streamed in my house.</p><p id="b041">One common theme among live-action children’s movies is the “child struggling because his parents are divorcing or this is the first holiday without his parents together”. While my kids don’t know Joseph and I aren’t an official couple, it’s still awkward when we’re all on the couch and the topic comes up.</p><p id="1deb">I think it’s great that movies are showing diverse families, don’t get me wrong. My problems stem from the formulaic usage of it to motivate the characters. Ant-Man and Night At The Museum are identical: a single guy down on his luck has to prove he’s worthy to his child while his ex-wife moves on with a new husband. Even worse are the ones like Jurassic World, where they’re midway through their split so the children mentally retreat into their own world to escape (<i>cue the alien, dinosaur, or other paranormal activity</i>).</p><p id="2f6e">It’s so damn awkward when these topics come up in movies. The tension in the room skyrockets.</p><h2 id="3f47">Administrative Dealings</h2><p id="fbed">Fortunately, I have the most fantastic boss and I trusted him to tell him about our situation. Otherwise, no one at my job knows what’s going on. With our work-from-home structure, I could grow five eyeballs and my coworkers wouldn’t notice.</p><p id="5c6a">Joseph and I have experienced a few awkward moments in other administrative areas.</p><p id="4829">Before breaking up with him, we overhauled our Living Trust since ours was quite dated. It was still incomplete when I told him I was done. If you divorce, your Trust is useless because everything is predicated on “the surviving spouse”. I had to side chat with our lawyer to get the full details on what this weird state of marital limbo means legally.</p><p id="67b6">Since we had already paid for it and I wasn’t sure if we would ever formally sign divorce papers instead of staying separated, we’ve left our new Trust as-is.</p><p id="d03f">Things got awkward again when we rearranged our finances and bank accounts. It was a two-for-one situation since new accounts had to be opened and put while under the name of the new trust while also opening up separate, independent accounts for ourselves.</p><p id="9b0e">We’ve been treated like royalty since we have enough in savings to become Chase Private Clients, which is like when rich people walk into a bank in the movies and everyone enthusiastically greets them by name. We have a dedicated banking person who handles all our crap, Randi.</p><p id="bcae">Randi was very sweet when shuffling and opening our accounts. S

Options

he also kept bringing up things like how we had access to a financial advisor free because of our goals (<i>like we wanted to retire together or travel as a couple</i>). We awkwardly mumbled through our masks that we weren’t interested at the moment. After signing the necessary papers, Joseph left to take our bored kids home while I dealt with the remaining banking paperwork.</p><p id="457b">I leaned forward towards the Plexiglas barrier and told her the situation. While our families don’t know, damn right I’m going to tell our financial people so things don’t get unnecessarily more complicated down the road.</p><p id="b071">Randi told me that’s what her parents did and only stayed together until she graduated. She then performed her administrative magic to get me a separate account while putting our trust as the beneficiary and prattled on about financial stuff to consider when divorcing. I’m glad I told her; she positioned things to make my life easier through this transition.</p><p id="1f0e"><a href="https://readmedium.com/unexpected-events-after-i-asked-for-a-divorce-747fc142f0c3">I thought telling my husband I wanted to divorce</a> would be like a swift kick to a tower of cards. One move and the rest would synchronously fall. Instead, it’s like breaking a series of Lego structures. Some crumble easily while others need a few stomps to tumble. And it doesn’t happen all at once. Breaking one structure doesn’t mean the others fall down as well.</p><p id="9eb3">On that note, time to help my daughter build her new Lego sets from Santa.</p><div id="4a1f" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/when-they-rebound-from-you-856b6a2b7001"> <div> <div> <h2>When They Rebound From You</h2> <div><h3>Why it hurts.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*4DEPrWmcHEsTV4Kb)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="b8ee" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/a-letter-to-the-highschool-boyfriend-i-treated-like-garbage-47f6bad3a3de"> <div> <div> <h2>A Letter to the Highschool Boyfriend I Treated Like Garbage</h2> <div><h3>It was 24 years ago. I still regret my behavior.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*R4ahAoJ-tzEDrGUs)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="940d" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/affairs-taught-me-what-i-want-in-love-33b2449aa91c"> <div> <div> <h2>Affairs Taught Me What I Want in Love</h2> <div><h3>It took doing the wrong thing to learn what’s right</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*OaxRzV6yZxdsNc-M)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Divorce and Separation Bring Awkward Moments

Learn to smile and grit your teeth.

You guys, splitting up from marriage is work.

I’m not even in a full-fledged divorce yet. I’m what divorced people would view as the pussy state, where we haven’t jumped right in and signed papers.

I began this separation at a full 5k pace. Since then, I’ve slowed to a marathon stride to make sure our situation is sustainable. With the new year though, I’m going to push for the 5k pace. Or at least, a 10k.

When I first asked for a separation, it seemed like I was throwing everything all at once at Joseph. He completely melted down for months. I backed off at the advice of our divorce therapist. I think he’s finally come to terms with it all, however that doesn’t make things less awkward.

Since we’re riding out the pandemic together under one roof because of our children (do you know how much fucking time is used to teach kids at home?!), we’ve had to adjust our lifestyle a little. Well…maybe not a little. A lot.

Family and Friends

We haven’t said anything yet to our circle of people. I couldn’t care less if either of our families knows the truth. They’re far away so they wouldn’t notice. Also, since it was a big effing deal that I married outside of my parents’ religion, the last thing I care to hear is “I told you so” (my mother wouldn’t just say it once, she’d repeat it daily for the rest of my life). If there’s anything I’m a pro at, it’s hiding secrets from my family.

Our friends are a different matter. It’s a weird twist of fate that all this came crashing down during a pandemic where we’ve barely seen anyone. I have two friends that are in my “coronavirus bubble” but our state is in massive lockdown and after one of them got the virus, I’m going to avoid everyone until the situation chills the eff out. There’s no immediate need to tell them.

Part of my reasoning to end my marriage is to start living an authentic life. Uh, authentic to everyone but my relatives. I would rather tell my friends instead of plastering a smile. Since this impacts Joseph, it’s not on me to spill the secret without his approval as well.

Since breaking up, we attended one whole event at Halloween with our coronavirus bubble friends. Our married friends showed little acts of love for each other, like quick kisses or making a plate of food for their spouses. The tension between Joseph and I skyrocketed. It was like playing a real-life version of Among Us. Would they know? Was it obvious?

Of course not. We’ve hidden our crappy marriage for 17 years.

Movies and TV

We have every streaming platform available. Disney+ (which my cheap ass jumped on a prepaid 3-year deal at four bucks a month), Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu with an HBO add-on, and Apple TV (free for a year). Since we’ve taken social distancing quite seriously, this has been our main form to pass the time.

I’m almost an expert at determining which formulaic plotline a movie will follow. Very rarely is anything original and new. Especially in kids’ movies, which are the genre primarily streamed in my house.

One common theme among live-action children’s movies is the “child struggling because his parents are divorcing or this is the first holiday without his parents together”. While my kids don’t know Joseph and I aren’t an official couple, it’s still awkward when we’re all on the couch and the topic comes up.

I think it’s great that movies are showing diverse families, don’t get me wrong. My problems stem from the formulaic usage of it to motivate the characters. Ant-Man and Night At The Museum are identical: a single guy down on his luck has to prove he’s worthy to his child while his ex-wife moves on with a new husband. Even worse are the ones like Jurassic World, where they’re midway through their split so the children mentally retreat into their own world to escape (cue the alien, dinosaur, or other paranormal activity).

It’s so damn awkward when these topics come up in movies. The tension in the room skyrockets.

Administrative Dealings

Fortunately, I have the most fantastic boss and I trusted him to tell him about our situation. Otherwise, no one at my job knows what’s going on. With our work-from-home structure, I could grow five eyeballs and my coworkers wouldn’t notice.

Joseph and I have experienced a few awkward moments in other administrative areas.

Before breaking up with him, we overhauled our Living Trust since ours was quite dated. It was still incomplete when I told him I was done. If you divorce, your Trust is useless because everything is predicated on “the surviving spouse”. I had to side chat with our lawyer to get the full details on what this weird state of marital limbo means legally.

Since we had already paid for it and I wasn’t sure if we would ever formally sign divorce papers instead of staying separated, we’ve left our new Trust as-is.

Things got awkward again when we rearranged our finances and bank accounts. It was a two-for-one situation since new accounts had to be opened and put while under the name of the new trust while also opening up separate, independent accounts for ourselves.

We’ve been treated like royalty since we have enough in savings to become Chase Private Clients, which is like when rich people walk into a bank in the movies and everyone enthusiastically greets them by name. We have a dedicated banking person who handles all our crap, Randi.

Randi was very sweet when shuffling and opening our accounts. She also kept bringing up things like how we had access to a financial advisor free because of our goals (like we wanted to retire together or travel as a couple). We awkwardly mumbled through our masks that we weren’t interested at the moment. After signing the necessary papers, Joseph left to take our bored kids home while I dealt with the remaining banking paperwork.

I leaned forward towards the Plexiglas barrier and told her the situation. While our families don’t know, damn right I’m going to tell our financial people so things don’t get unnecessarily more complicated down the road.

Randi told me that’s what her parents did and only stayed together until she graduated. She then performed her administrative magic to get me a separate account while putting our trust as the beneficiary and prattled on about financial stuff to consider when divorcing. I’m glad I told her; she positioned things to make my life easier through this transition.

I thought telling my husband I wanted to divorce would be like a swift kick to a tower of cards. One move and the rest would synchronously fall. Instead, it’s like breaking a series of Lego structures. Some crumble easily while others need a few stomps to tumble. And it doesn’t happen all at once. Breaking one structure doesn’t mean the others fall down as well.