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Abstract

Ever since President Bush choked on a pretzel, the family game was whenever someone in the family choked, the first person who yelled “Bush!” got a hundred dollars.Kenny always yelled Bush first because Kyle was always choking. Kyle wore his handmade bow ties too tight. Schadenfreude, right?My mother told Mike when we split up, “Divorce is like a death, Michael. You need to mourn it.”He said, “I’d love to mourn Cindy’s death, ma, but then I bump into her at the grocery store, and then what do I do? Oh my God! Cindy! I thought you were dead!”My name isn’t Cindy, but Mike had always called me Cindy because that’s what looked like to him. That wasn’t even one of our problems.Mike told me he envied widowers. Nobody blamed them for what happened in their marriage. Dead trumped divorce. With divorce, people looked at us like defendants. Who done it? Who was guilty? Who made an unsuitable mate? Were we both broken? Did he cheat, or did I cheat?Who was the inadequate lover? Who was boring? Were hookers involved? I can’t tell you how many of my friends’ marriages ended in hookers. It’s a steady career choice if you can hack it.Mike wanted to leave our marriage as the good guy. He told me when people asked him what happened, he shrugged. He said “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you went nuts.”That wasn’t the reason we split up, either. My being nuts. He told me his friends asked anyway, “Did you know she was nuts when you met her?” I think all men secretly believe that given enough time, women all reveal our dormant insanity.We laughed about that. When the papers were signed, we decided to get drunk and read our old journals aloud. We were both writers. We had both s

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aved a lifetime of journals.It turned out we were both nuts. That was oddly comforting. It was a close call as to who was crazier. We briefly contemplated getting remarried. Who else would have us? That's why we ended up burning the journals. No turning back. Good luck moving forward.“Why isn’t there an AA for divorced people?” Mike asked me. He wanted to go through the 12 steps of recovery.“Maybe there is,” I told him. He hadn’t checked. That drove me crazy. He was okay with wondering. It made him seem like a four-year-old contemplating the sky but not realizing there was data to answer all his questions.I told Mike I’d seen signs up around the YWCA advertising divorce groups, but that appealed to me as much as joining a foot fungus group where everyone took off their shoes.When it came down to it, we didn't believe each other anymore. Mike could say he wanted his eggs scrambled, and it didn’t sound right. I could be mad at a friend, and he’d side with her.I ended up shaving my head and not leaving my house for a year, and Mike turned to vandalizing neighbors’ cars at night. We met when we were seven. When it ended, we had no idea who we were without the other.In the newspaper, where Mike and I wrote a joint advice column, none of our readers would have suspected our marriage had ended. On paper, our marriage continued to produce compassionate wisdom and excellent advice for the love lost.Our love column, twenty years running, was called He Said She Said. On paper, we were still a ‘we.’ In real life, I locked my five deadbolts and watched the door from the couch while Mike ripped off the side view mirrors of our neighbors as I sleeplessly listened.</article></body>

Divorce Isn’t the Same as Having A Baby

More hookers

by jean louis mazieres is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Everybody loves talking about their divorce. It’s like telling people you’re having a baby or buying a new house. Who doesn’t love talking about their most tremendous romantic success since Eve cheated on Adam with that snake? Mike said that was one of the things he hated about me in the end — my sarcasm.

Mike and I met on the commuter train. We were the only two people not looking at our iPhones, so we got married. That’s not true, but it’s what we told people.

We actually met at his cousin's birthday party. We were both seven years old. I was casually dating his eight-year-old cousin, Hank, who was a real hunk. Older men, ya know? So much more experienced.

We agreed telling people we were dating someone when we were seven years old made one of us look like a pedophile, so we rewrote our love story. People liked it, so it stuck.

When Mike and I got divorced, he said we didn’t owe the world an explanation—not our co-workers, not our classmates we’d bothered to keep up with, nobody that didn’t need to know. The kids knew. We told the kids. They were shocked.

“I thought we were happy,” our family pride, Kenny said, laughing hysterically. The little one, Kyle, the one we made to save the marriage, started choking. We all laughed harder. Kenny yelled, “Bush!”

Ever since President Bush choked on a pretzel, the family game was whenever someone in the family choked, the first person who yelled “Bush!” got a hundred dollars.

Kenny always yelled Bush first because Kyle was always choking. Kyle wore his handmade bow ties too tight. Schadenfreude, right?

My mother told Mike when we split up, “Divorce is like a death, Michael. You need to mourn it.”

He said, “I’d love to mourn Cindy’s death, ma, but then I bump into her at the grocery store, and then what do I do? Oh my God! Cindy! I thought you were dead!”

My name isn’t Cindy, but Mike had always called me Cindy because that’s what looked like to him. That wasn’t even one of our problems.

Mike told me he envied widowers. Nobody blamed them for what happened in their marriage. Dead trumped divorce. With divorce, people looked at us like defendants. Who done it? Who was guilty? Who made an unsuitable mate? Were we both broken? Did he cheat, or did I cheat?

Who was the inadequate lover? Who was boring? Were hookers involved? I can’t tell you how many of my friends’ marriages ended in hookers. It’s a steady career choice if you can hack it.

Mike wanted to leave our marriage as the good guy. He told me when people asked him what happened, he shrugged. He said “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you went nuts.”

That wasn’t the reason we split up, either. My being nuts. He told me his friends asked anyway, “Did you know she was nuts when you met her?” I think all men secretly believe that given enough time, women all reveal our dormant insanity.

We laughed about that. When the papers were signed, we decided to get drunk and read our old journals aloud. We were both writers. We had both saved a lifetime of journals.

It turned out we were both nuts. That was oddly comforting. It was a close call as to who was crazier. We briefly contemplated getting remarried. Who else would have us? That's why we ended up burning the journals. No turning back. Good luck moving forward.

“Why isn’t there an AA for divorced people?” Mike asked me. He wanted to go through the 12 steps of recovery.

“Maybe there is,” I told him. He hadn’t checked. That drove me crazy. He was okay with wondering. It made him seem like a four-year-old contemplating the sky but not realizing there was data to answer all his questions.

I told Mike I’d seen signs up around the YWCA advertising divorce groups, but that appealed to me as much as joining a foot fungus group where everyone took off their shoes.

When it came down to it, we didn't believe each other anymore. Mike could say he wanted his eggs scrambled, and it didn’t sound right. I could be mad at a friend, and he’d side with her.

I ended up shaving my head and not leaving my house for a year, and Mike turned to vandalizing neighbors’ cars at night. We met when we were seven. When it ended, we had no idea who we were without the other.

In the newspaper, where Mike and I wrote a joint advice column, none of our readers would have suspected our marriage had ended. On paper, our marriage continued to produce compassionate wisdom and excellent advice for the love lost.

Our love column, twenty years running, was called He Said She Said. On paper, we were still a ‘we.’ In real life, I locked my five deadbolts and watched the door from the couch while Mike ripped off the side view mirrors of our neighbors as I sleeplessly listened.