I thought it would be interesting to chronicle my adult dating life...okay maybe more interesting for me than you. I'll exclude any and all relationships before I turned 18 because they were all short-lived, involved copious amounts of alcohol, and were full of the drama that only high school can provide.
I was 19 when I met my ex-wife, Destiny. I didn't know then that this is the person I would later be divorcing (would've been awesome to have that information handy). I was going to college in Louisiana and we had the same group of friends. She was beautiful, very quiet, and painfully shy. She was also dating a mutual friend of ours; so while I was interested, I also understood that she wasn’t an option. As the semester passed, we hung out more, and she actually began to open up to me but we remained friends.
At the end of the fall semester, my mom called and told me that she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and that she would start treatments the next day. She insisted that I stay in Louisiana and continue classes, but I ignored this and packed up my 1986 Ford Escort drove all night to get home. It wasn’t until I was back home that my relationship with Destiny really begins (Yes, this probably isn’t the best way to get to know someone). Through long-distance phone calls and chats on AOL Messenger (those fucks used to charge by the hour, does anyone else remember that?) we had begun to fall hard for one another. She told me about her domineering mother, her distant father, and how she wished to get away from it all. Six months later, I took a Greyhound Bus from Michigan to New Orleans to see her and visit her family.
It’s important to mention now that her parents immediately did not like me. They were upper class, Southern Baptists that viewed me as a “Yankee” who had come to defile their daughter (In fairness to them, all true statements). After her parents had gone to bed every night, we would furiously make-out and dry-hump on the living room couch, telling each other “I love you.” (Hey, I bet you’re thinking that it’s a little soon for that. To I say: Yeah, but still...). As I boarded the bus back home, she told me that she wanted to be with me forever…I was all in.
Over the next six months, as my mom responded well to treatments and got better; I would save every dime and drive down fourteen hours to visit her at school at least once a month. Over the course of time, things progressed sexually and we eventually became the “first” for each other (Her reasons for waiting were because her parents used Jesus to tell her sex was bad. My reasons for waiting were tied directly to the lack of females willing to touch my penis). Later that summer, I drove to Florida while she was on vacation with her family. As we walked on the beach one night I pulled out a $400 ring, which I paid for with the only credit card I owned, and asked her to marry me. I was barely 20 years old and she was 19. She said yes. Her parents, whose hatred for me grew as we fell deeply in love, were livid. I’ll never forget her mom saying, “This is all like a bad dream.” You’ll never know how right you were, Donna.
Over the next year, we planned a wedding that no one was overly excited about. I was living paycheck to paycheck as a bank cashier and beginning to realize that I didn’t know how to support myself, let alone another person. On June 21st of that following year, we were married in Florida. I remember smiling a lot, even though I was scared to death. I also remember looking at my left ring finger and thinking “Forever…fuck...that seems like a long time.” We headed off to a forgettable honeymoon in Palm Springs, CA, where we spent the week fighting about money and not having sex. We then came home to begin life as a married couple but there was one small problem…neither of us knew how. Further compounding that problem was the fact that neither of us was equipped to communicate face to face. I’ll set the scene: two young kids got married, lived in a trailer with a 110 pound Labrador. They had one small income, no insurance, and neither had any sense of who they really were.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
As the months passed, the shy girl I first met a few years ago came back in full force. I realized that her mother had made every decision for her in life (minus one big one) and that she really had no sense of self. Exacerbating that problem was me, who didn’t know how to be helpful or supportive in any way. All I knew was my single friends were going out to the bars and having an amazing time. And there I was at home with a wife who didn’t speak to me, a dog neither of us wanted, in a trailer we could barely afford (you know it’s bad times when you can barely afford to live in a trailer). Little did I realize at the time that she had several very large limit credit cards in her name (Thanks mom and dad). I was blissfully unaware that my bride was racking up major credit card bills and not exactly disclosing it all to me.
More time passed and what were once small communication problems became massive issues that couldn't be ignored. It also became more apparent that Destiny and I had nothing in common (other than the aforementioned debt, trailer, and dog). It would be fair to say that we seldom had sex and spoke only when it was necessary. I was miserable but didn’t know what to do about it. She was miserable but tried to convince herself she wasn’t. In February, her mom called to tell me that Destiny was worried about the credit card debt. Go ahead and re-read that last sentence, my wife had her mother call me and tell me what she wasn't able to. She also suggested that we file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. She told me that we’ll have a fresh start and it won’t hurt us as much because we are young. I spoke with Destiny and she simply said, “My mom is right, that’s what we should do.” Later that week, after we had officially filed for bankruptcy, I lay awake in bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time. I thought about everything: how unhappy we were, how I had just committed financial suicide, and how I didn't really have a wife...I had a roommate.
One thought ran through my head non-stop: This is the rest of your life.
That following May, Destiny had gone home to Louisiana to visit her mom for a week. At no point that week did she call. I picked her up at the airport on a Sunday and as we drove home she told me, “My mom and I decided that we need a divorce. She is going to be here Tuesday to move me home.” Her dad called me and said that if I agreed to sign an uncontested divorce agreement they would spare me the cost of having to hire an attorney. At that point, I didn’t care.
I stayed with friends for a few days and waited until I got word that they were gone and that I could go home. Later that evening I walked in and took inventory: minus a mattress and a couch, it was empty. Gone were the dog, all of the pictures, dishes, plates, chairs, most of my clothes, computer, towels, sheets, DVDs, books…it was all gone. For some reason, they even took the plastic shower liner (struck me as especially petty). I plopped myself down on the bare mattress and stared at the ceiling. I was divorced, bankrupt, and never more alone in my entire life.
It was May 24th.
It was also my 25th birthday.
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