Pretending to Be A Happy Family During Divorce

Trying to avoid awkward moments

How can I tell the world that I’m getting a divorce? Do I post a Facebook update saying, “Got a divorce”?

My inner circles have known for a while. But there are groups I don’t see often who still don’t know. The pandemic was a blessing; it allowed for privacy as we navigated the emotional madness. COVID was also the reason we lived together throughout the divorce, which is about as easy as giving an alligator a root canal. And that alligator is bitchy because she’s going through a divorce.

Now that the world is getting better (meaning people are giving the Delta variant the middle finger and pretending there is no such thing as COVID), I’m dipping my toes back into my social life. I didn’t realize the delicate nature of telling friends that are closer to acquaintances than BFFs.

This weekend, we played the role of a happy family.

On Saturday, we attended a going-away event for a friend of mine. Charles is the friend that you only see once or twice a year but adore to bits. I haven’t seen him since 2019. Joseph and I didn’t know most attendees.

One guest I knew vaguely in the past; he grilled me for removing him as a Facebook friend. I played dumb and begged him to re-add me. Not someone I cared to divulge my divorce status.

There was another couple who I’ve known for over a decade. I wanted to tell Matt and Christy, but how do you do that with people milling around? My kids kept randomly coming up to me before wandering off. Since they don’t know about the divorce, I didn’t want them to overhear any chatter on the topic. I got sucked into banal job stories and had no opportunity to say, “Super cool that lumber is available again for your construction sites! Oh by the way, I’m getting a divorce from the guy who toasted his drink with you two minutes ago.”

I didn’t even know how to tell Charlie and his wife. They seemed so happy. They love us as a couple. They love my kids. No matter how much I wanted to tell them, it didn’t seem appropriate to rain on their parade.

And so there we were: me, my kids, and my soon-to-be ex-husband acting like an actual couple as we were introduced to people and posed for pictures.

I normally save copies of pictures that I’m in, but in this case, I’m fine never remembering that day in photographic format.

Sunday. The second day of this faux-family weekend.

We had beach plans with close friends. Hailey and Sofia know the situation. Our families have hung out. The elephant in the room isn’t that big with them.

Hailey invited a family I’ve never met before. They invited their neighbors. Total count: two couples who know about the divorce, two couples who didn’t know.

It’s odd to introduce yourself and your spouse when that’s the very title you don’t want him to have. For people in the know, I call Joseph “my ex”. I cringe, calling him “my husband”.

People asked what I did for my birthday. I couldn’t say that Thomas got us a hotel and railed me for eight hours straight. I couldn’t say “nothing much” when Joseph knew I had been out all day. Instead, I stumbled a vague “out with friends” reply with each question.

I have never watched the clock so much in my life.

Was this the end of the fakeness? Nope.

Joseph offered to let me celebrate my birthday with the kids on my own. While it would have been my preference, I think we need to set a good example that we can get along well enough for celebrations.

Plus, they don’t know about the divorce yet, so it would have been weird.

It’s been months since we’ve eaten together out of the house. My skin crawled as we sat in the booth. My kids were cranky from a day at the beach. Joseph was perfectly pleasant, but everything he did got on my nerves.

It felt like a step backward. To the outside world, we were a normal family having dinner. We were a married couple with our kids. I’ve gone through emotional hell to push this divorce through and here we were, like the past two years, hadn’t happened.

Plus, the restaurant fucked up my dessert. Get your shit together, Yard House.

I’m nearing the end of this drama. Fingers crossed, my name can get off the loan this week. I can jump right into home buying and finally… finally… move out.

Then I can stop pretending we’re a family. We stopped being one long ago.