I must preface this by saying that I don’t normally like writing about my ex-wife. It doesn’t feel fair that she doesn’t really have a venue or a microphone to defend herself, so I tend not to tell jokes about her or our divorce on stage. Your mileage may vary. For me, despite how things ended, it feels unfair to put “on blast,” as the kids say, the particulars.
However, sometimes a situation is so perfect a capsulation of a moment of time, that I don’t feel unfair in sharing it. This is one of those times. Also, it’s not really an instance of her being horrible, so am I really putting her on blast?
My soon-to-be-ex-wife and I had a wonderful marriage. By all measures, it was amazing. We loved openly, laughed openly, and made each other very happy. We checked all the boxes, did all the things you’re supposed to do. And yet, she wanted to be done. Long-story-short, it hurt. A lot. And it didn’t make much sense. It was not consistent. Her reactions were out of proportion to what she named as the problems. Still. It takes two to make it; it takes one to break it.
We are sitting in the divorce mediator’s office (that’s what people who want to at least pretend at being nice use instead of a trial and lawyers).
(From here on out, I’ll just refer to the divorce mediator as the DM, as her role is similar to that of a DM in a role-playing game: adjudicate the interactions. Also, it’s a quick and easy abbreviation. )
In-process-to-becoming-my-ex-wife in one chair, and I in another a respectful, but accessible distance away. I’m sitting there pretending to not be really sad about what we’re going into, when the DM’s secretary says, “Oh, she’ll be a bit late today. She and her husband are buying a bed, and having trouble getting it into the house.”
This DM is spending the money she’s making on our marriage’s fatal decline on a bed that she and her husband can continue to rail each other on, in passionate ecstasy. That is an extra level of “you failed.” Your inability to maintain a loving marriage and home is paying for others to do exactly that, and spend theirs doing what you used to do.
A few minutes later, my soon-to-be (but not soon enough for her) ex-wife says: Is it me, or does this place smell like cat pee?
Me: I’m sorry?
Her: Is it me? Or does this place smell like cat pee?
Me: you want me to smell you?
Her: No! What?
Me: I guess I can, but I am a little confused, as I’d figure you don’t want me near you enough to smell you.
Her: What are you talking about?
Me: You asked if it was you who smelled like cat pee, or if it was this place that smelled like cat pee. I can’t tell unless I smell you.
Her face betrays her for an instant. I AM funny. I AM charming. And she still finds enjoyment in my antics, despite herself. Immediately, that is squashed. The hatred she now feels for me comes flooding back to her eyes. Her nostrils flare slightly, in a way that I remember signaling her feeling particularly vulnerable. She’s conjuring her hatred from an unseen pool. Likely something she learned to do from her online self-help guru. I wish that was an exaggeration. Her face flushes, and she tries to squint hatefully at me. But her smile is still there. So, she says the following with as much venom as she can muster, but with an odd laugh-stifled-behind-manufactured-anger voice and countenance:
Her: I fucking hate you.
Me (not missing a beat, because what do I have to lose here? My wife?): I know. That’s why we’re here.
I laugh and smile through the sadness that it is. And what a pair we still make. She, trying to use her anger and hatred to hide joy and laughter, and me using laughter and joy to salve the sadness of not only having the woman I love leave me, but of having her stop being the woman I love and become someone who does all she can to hate me.
We sat in the silence of her simmering anger. I’m sure she still smelled cat pee. And I began to wonder why the DM and her husband made it work when we couldn’t. Maybe because they got a sleep-number bed. Maybe because neither of them was a redhead. Maybe because they both let their emotions just be, instead of masking with their opposites like she and I were doing. Regardless, there we sat. At the precipice of the end of what had until relatively recently been the best thing that had ever happened to me.
