Relationship Update

For the past several months, my marriage was on the rocks. My wife didn’t love me anymore, I could tell and ultimately, it ended. Throughout all the difficulties of seeing that it was over, figuring out how to split up our stuff, countless hours of depression with several empty boxes of tissues and a few toilet paper rolls around me and, the worst of all, telling our children “Mommy and Daddy will no longer be living together, but don’t worry, it’s all going to be okay” (still sounds hollow) … in the midst of all this untangling of the knot that became our lives trying to create two separate strings again, there is one thing I was actually looking forward to doing: changing my Facebook relationship status from “Married” to “Single” (and thus the name of my blog).

Now I know this must seem odd but let me explain. Right or wrong, good or bad, left or right, Facebook has become a part of most of our lives. There are those who profess to not being on Facebook but those are mostly guys and I’ll bet half those guys are lying. If you think about it there is great power in the Facebook status update…or, in this case, a profile update.

First of all, you can’t stop it. If you change your profile and you haven’t flipped the appropriate switches to not show this type of update, it’s out there. Every person you are friends with will know you made this change. But, hey, I didn’t want to stop it. I wanted to harness the power. Instead of calling everyone and letting them know I’m on the “market” again, all I had to do is select a value in a drop down box, click a Save button and BOOM! Instant notification.

However, before I could get to that point, I had to decide exactly what my new relationship status was. I thought my options were just “Married”, “Single” and maybe “Widowed” (hey, my marriage died, wouldn’t that count?). I do remember seeing “It’s Complicated” before but I think that’s just for teen-agers. I mean, unless you're a man that is still-in-the-closet gay and have children with your female cousin who is also a wanted arsonist in twelve states but you can’t say anything for fear of waking up in a burning bed, chances are your relationship is not THAT complicated. I do admit, however, if I had thought of it I would have changed my status to “It’s Complicated” a month or so prior to all of this happening. Seeing something you once thought was so perfect was actually far from it could be classified as complicated.

I also immediately discounted “In a relationship”, “In an open relationship”, “In a civil union”, and “In a domestic partnership.” Before I go on, let me just comment on the last two because I assume these are statuses for gay people. Listen up, gay people, if you are for all intents and purposes married to your significant other then go with  “Married.” All this other bullshit is just that. Bullshit. They are ridiculous labels to make others feel better; those that fear and put down the differences that make the human race a special race to be running in. Well, I say “Screw them.” You’re married and God help you, you may end up writing a blog like this someday (but I hope you don’t).

:: steps down from soap box ::

Okay, I narrowed my choices down to “Separated”, “Divorced” or “Single.” Officially, I am not divorced. Unfortunately, it takes time to get this finalized through our government. We only have to wait seven days to get a gun but it’s 90 to end something you probably should have ended a while ago if only you had proper communication between the two of you instead of keeping stuff bottled up inside until it’s too late to do anything about it and then you’re...uh…

 …ahem… Maybe I’ll just save that stuff for another time.

Now down to two choices: “Separated” or “Single.” “Separated” sounded like we were living in different places but could end up back together again. It would be nice if that were true, but it’s not. It’s over and thus “Single” is the only option that makes sense and completely describes my relationship status. I’m no longer a Couple so I am a Single. If Batman and Robin split up, they would no longer be the Dynamic Duo but rather the Super Single…or maybe the Skillful Single just because Superman would have issues with the first one I came up with.

 So, “Single” it was and is. I saved the change and it magically posted to the news feed of the 294 people I had as friends on my account. The wait began. How long before the first person went “WTF?” in a comment under the relationship update? Without sounding boastful (?...not sure if that is the right word here but I’m going to go with it) I did think the news would come as a bit of a surprise to most. My wife and I had, at one point, a great relationship, marriage, and family and thanks to Facebook, we displayed it to the world…or at least to 294 people in the world (and however many friends my wife had at the time). And we kept showing it up until recently.

How would people react? Would they be sad? Would they be happy? (and if they were happy AND they were female AND they were Single as well, gimme a poke!) Would they care one way or the other? Would they be on my side? Would they be on her side? Would I even care?

No, probably not. The point of the update, for me at any rate, is to use social media the way it was meant to be used. Let everyone “get all up in my bidness.” I could stick my head out the window and shout: “Hey there! Kevin Beddingfield is no longer in the marriage business. He’s signed on as Single and there is a really, really good chance he will stay that way!” But I doubt too many people would hear that. So I invoked the name of Zuckerberg and cyber-announced my inability to maintain a healthy relationship. It’s what Facebook is there for and I for one embraced the opportunity to use it.

It’s funny. There once was a time where I thought I would never visit the Relationship portion of my profile again after I flipped it to “Married.” Boy, was I a sucker. After making this next change, however, I WILL NEVER visit that section again, let me tell you…

…okay, so maybe it will change to “In a relationship” someday… you never know.

Next time: What to get a man who now has nothing…