Single White Male: Part 1

This will probably be a multi-part post like the highly acclaimed and award winning Moving Daze series of posts…oh wait...that series was neither acclaimed or award winning.  Well, here’s my chance to change all that.

So, let’s run down where I am:

·         Discovered wife no longer loved me.  Check.

·         Filed for divorce.  Check.

·         Wife and kids moved out.  Check.

·         I moved out.  Check.

·         Settled into new house. Check.

·         Have rocking new single life.  Che…uh…wait.

That last one needs some development and we’re still in the requirements gathering stage.

Let’s take a look at where I am as a single man but let’s put aside dating for another time.  I need to evaluate where I am as a person.  It’s more important that I take time for me and what I am going to do with my life.  The dating and potential relationships can either come from that or by other means, but as I said, we’ll talk about that later. Let’s take stock at who I am right now.

First and foremost, I am and will continue to be a father.  My two daughters are so important to me and watching them grow will always bring fulfillment and contentment to my life.  ‘Nuff said.

Second, I am a working man.  Until I win the lottery or find hidden treasure in my backyard, I need my job as both a source of income and satisfaction of doing good work.  I believe that whatever you are doing to make a living in this world, you should do it to the best of your ability.  I will strive to be a valued employee to the company I work for.  I don’t have aspirations to become a CEO or anything like that.  Just make a comfortable living to afford the good things in life or at least the semi-good things in life.

So that leads us to my personal life…or lack thereof.  This is something that has been kicking around in my mind for a while now.  When I was married, there were times where I put the job before my family and I regret that but my family was always first.  Since my job had me travelling a lot, I relegated doing anything for me to the back burner so I could spend time with my wife and daughters when I was home.  I suppose I failed a bit at that considering where I am now but regardless, I always tried to put them first. As I said before, it didn't seem fair for me to be out of town all week, come home and then spend all day on the golf course or out hunting (if I hunted). This means I didn't get the time to develop a personal life for myself.  And by that I mean hobbies or interests other than things I did with my family or individual things like reading or writing which I barely did anyway.

Now that I am on my own, I’m paying a bit for not carving out that personal life for myself.  I don’t regret this, by the way. I felt I was doing the right thing for myself and my family and that the other stuff would just grow as time went by.  That may still happen but it will take even longer now that I am on my own.  The point is I have a definitive hole in my life.  That hole was once filled with my marriage, but now, it's empty.  This is a void I need to fill. 

Before I was married, I worked for a company where I had the opportunity to sate my need to do something more than just work and search for dates.  Outside of the friendships I developed and still maintain with the people I worked with (thank you, Facebook!), I was active in company events such as the charities they supported and company picnics.  If there was an event being held that either honored the employees or talked about strategic plans, I was generally involved.  I loved doing that and it helped fill this gap that eventually was filled by my marriage and family but now the gap is present again. With my current job, I work from home and while I could host a company talent show, it would be in my backyard and I would be the only employee present. I do miss that day to day camaraderie of working in an office and have thought if worse came to worst, I could try to find an office job somewhere local.  The problem with that is a) it may be hard to find something with a comparable salary to what I am making now and b) “local” for here would mean at least an hour drive one way to an office…especially an office that could offer the aforementioned comparable salary.  I suppose this is something I could pursue if I needed to but that would really be a last resort.

That leaves finding other ways to bring back something fulfilling to me but we have uncovered a key aspect to whatever this may be.  It needs to be something where I am around other people.  Sure I can continue to blog or even start up my own YouTube channel and that would fill a creative need but I’m still doing those things by myself and they would not give me the gratification of doing something with others.  Friendships are best made when you connect by sharing a common interest. I think at my age, I'm beyond just meeting someone at random and becoming friends with them. That's easier when your younger but harder when you're older.  Call it experience to be able to tell when someone is somewhat creepy within five minutes or just call it being a snob but I'm too old to try work on a friendship at that level. 

That became all too apparent this past weekend when I took my daughters to the indoor pool I have access to where I live and some guy introduced himself while we were in the pool.  That may not sound too weird but when he asked if he could call me “Brother Kevin” and wanted to show me the fancy handshake he learned in the Bronx, I realized that maybe simply meeting people at the pool wasn’t the best idea.  Luckily, I had my girls there and while they are very good swimmers, I needed to “keep an eye on them” so I went to play Marco Polo with them and I HATE Marco Polo.  Probably the worst pool game ever.

But I digresss…

So my options for filling in the void that has been present since the divorce…although pushed to the back while I was finding house, moving, and then getting settled... is to find activities that interest me and that I can do with other folks who share the same interest.  But what are those activities?   What options are available to me?

Before you answer, I have some ideas…but I’ll talk about them next time.

The New Family Game Night

Last time I said I was going to explore my single life and what I’m going to make of it but that is taking more thought that I originally…uh…thought.  I need some more time to get it all straight but I am trying to put at least two of these posts out each week and I’m behind so let me make a slight digression and talk about something else right now.  Namely: games.

I had my daughters this weekend and my oldest wanted to have a family game night.  First of all, I was happy to hear this.  For the most part, my daughters now have two families. The one with their mother and one with me and it warms my heart to hear her still refer to family and include me in it.  I know that’s kind of silly on my part but when you are not around your kids 24 hours a day; you tend to think you’re second fiddle when it comes to real family.  Again, silly but it’s the world I live in right now.

Second, we needed games to play.  I have some but whatever games we had for the kids, the MMC has possession of them.  Not that we had a lot.  Our girls are really just getting to the age where they want to play games so our collection of kid based games has mainly been Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders.  Thus, we ventured to the store to get a couple more.  Our picks?  Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Kerplunk. 

I remembered these games as a kid so I was kind of excited to play them again because it’s been so long and I wondered if my kids would get as big a kick out of them.  We played Hungry, Hungry Hippos (HHH) first.  Let me say one thing about this game that I didn’t remember (or cared about) as a kid: it is LOUD!  My house, with hardwood floors and no curtains, amplifies just about any sound and the constant banging that is the main part of gameplay in HHH came across as a typical night in the streets of Beirut (assuming there is still a lot of gunfire going on in Beirut.  I’m really not sure but it’s my go to city when it comes to noisy warfare). 

Yes, HHC is a loud game and perhaps I’m too old but I eventually grabbed the ear buds from my iPod to wear while playing and it made it much more bearable.  At least as far as the sound is concerned.  The other problem I had with the game is the hippo head lock that occurred often in the midst of playing.  This is where the hippo head and neck gets out of whack and you can no longer control it with the flipper switch that is essentially lodged in the hippo’s rear end.  You have to pause your game to pull the neck out to get it to snap back into place.  Meanwhile all of the marbles are being eaten up by your opponents, namely my daughters who could give a crap about my lack of being able to play.  Since I am easily frustrated by little things, this served to annoy me to no end especially since it fell on me to unlock not only my hippo but my daughter’s hippos as well.  I momentarily became a veterinarian in the HHH world.

I wondered if both the noise and the constant hippo head lock was a problem with the original game.  I tend to think that stuff like this is being made much more cheaply today than back when I was a kid.  Call it old man syndrome, but I’m betting there was better hippo eating game craftsmanship back in the late 70’s when it first came out (yeah, I went to the Hungry, Hungry Hippos Wikipedia page for that bit of info).  I would love to compare an original game to the new one just to see.  Wonder if I could get one on eBay?

And while I’m on eBay for an original HHH game, I’d also like to get an original Kerplunk game too.  We played this one next and I was relieved because it wasn’t anywhere near as noisy but still I became frustrated with the set up.  If you don’t remember, Kerplunk is the game where you have a cylinder with a bunch of holes going around the middle.  You put a bunch of sticks through those holds and then put marbles on top.  The challenge is to pull out the sticks without any of the marbles falling.  The person with the most marbles at the end loses.  The problem with today’s version from what I remember about the one I played as a kid is that the sticks are now made of a bendable plastic instead of the original wooden ones.  When I was a kid, these were basically long toothpicks but now they are almost soft plastic. I can only imagine that some kid somewhere poked an eye out with toothpick-like ones and the family sued Hasbro or Mattel or whoever made the game and some governing body over children’s games said the sticks had to be safer thus the bendable, plastic ones were made. 

I’m not opposed to making things safer although I don’t remember any fatalities back when I originally played the game but these sticks are very frustrating to use during the set-up.  You see, since they bend, it’s hard to put them in a hole on one side and get them out of a hole on the other side of the tube.  When they were long toothpicks, it was relatively easy but now they bend down, up or to the side based on what obstacles they encounter going in.  Not a big deal with the first dozen or so but after that it’s an exercise in patience and time consuming just to get the game ready to play.  I also noticed that by the next day, some of the sticks were permanently bent thus further adding to the challenge of getting the game set up. 

Regardless of this, however, the game was still fun and let’s face it, it has the best game name in the history of game names.  Kerplunk!  I wonder if that is a legal word to play in Words With Friends or Scrabble?  If ever get that collection of letters, I’ll let you know.  I kind of doubt it but isn’t “kerplunk” a fair word to describe the sound of something dropping especially in water?  I’m sure I’ll throw it out there and get the all too familiar (to me at any rate): “Sorry, kerplunk is not an acceptable word.”  I’m now looking forward to having a K-E-R-P-L-U-N-K in my virtual tray in Words With Friends to try it out.  Wonder how long that will take?  Considering the number of games I currently have going, probably not that long and if it is legal, I would get the chance to use all of my letters!  Man, I am going to keep that in my back pocket for sure.

So, the new Family Game Night, despite the frustrations, was a success.  The girls and I had fun and even carried it over to the next morning after breakfast with a couple rounds of each.  I did, however, have to take careful inventory of all the different marbles and bendy sticks when we were cleaning up to make sure I had a complete set when we played again.

Before we do play again, however, I think I’m going to see if I can get some felt or something like that to put across the bottoms of the hippos mouths to act as a silencer.  Either that or throw an old set of ear buds into the game box so I’ll always have them.  Yeah, I’m old.  Deal with it.  I have to.

Lessons Learned

Marriage has taught me some valuable and some not so valuable life lessons.  Not the big ones like making sure you don’t take your marriage for granted or that open and honest communication is the key to a successful marriage.  Let's just assume I have learned those in spades. No, I wanted to talk about some of the lesser known lessons I’ve learned and how those are applying to my new life as a single man.

Here are just some of the lessons I’ve learned and have applied to my everyday life:

·       Laundry folding – By observing the MMC, I have learned how to better fold my t-shirts so they stay somewhat unwrinkled when pulling out of the drawer (that is, if I don’t leave them in the dryer or the laundry basket unfolded for a week).  I still, however, do not know how to successfully fold a towel.

·       Leaving the toilet seat down – I’m not sure when or where or why the rule became for men to make sure the toilet seat is put down and not the women to make sure the toilet seat is put up but it does seem to be a universal rule for the seat to be down…especially when you live in a house full of women.  Even though I am mostly on my own, I still find myself putting the seat down and maybe this is a good thing because there is nothing worse than in the middle of the night having to do a “sit down job” and finding that the toilet seat was up.  Which, as I think of it, is probably why "seat down" became the universal rule.

·       Closing cabinet doors and drawers – Again, the MMC taught me this because she was borderline obsessive compulsive on this matter.  If a cabinet was left even just partially open it would send her into a frenzy.  I never really understood what the fuss was about other than maybe it made the kitchen look like it’s in some state of disarray.  Still, I became accustomed to making sure each cabinet or drawer was closed unless I was doing something like unloading the dishwaher…which meant nothing to the MMC.  She would come through the kitchen while I was unloading and close the cabinets which threw me into a frenzy.

·       Loving children – Prior to being married to the MMC, I was convinced I didn’t want nor needed children.  I think this came out of my first marriage where we ended it without having kids and I constantly thanked whoever was responsible for making sure that didn’t happen (either me, her or God).  This desire not to have kids also came out of a base fear I had of children.  They intimidated me and I was always concerned I was going to say something that could potentially scar them for life.  Plus, being 6’4”, I worried I was going to step on one.  

Now that I have children of my own, I love kids.  I like messing with them, joking with them, wrestling around on the floor with them, and the best part, listening to them.  The next time you are around a 5 to 7 year old, ask them how trees grow or how birds fly and savor their explanation like fine wine.  The innocence of what they say and the determination to get the words out is a truly a joy to witness. Yes, they can be a pain at times, but so can most adults.  Daily life can and has gotten in the way of me enjoying my children so it’s important to me to make sure that doesn’t happen again and thus, I try to make the most of my time with them (without overly spoiling them, however).

·       You get used to the noises your house makes – Since being in my new house, I still haven’t gotten used to the noises it makes.  I didn’t realize how accustomed you become to those noises.  Even the noises from appliances you brought from the old house to the new house are different.  I don’t know why but the refrigerator I ended up getting to keep (contrary to what was said in Bed, Bath, and Bothered), makes noises I never noticed in my old house.  I am glad I do not own any guns because some of the noises that my new house makes would have been greeted with open fire on some nights.

·       Never let your ex take the majority of the kitchen stuff – When the MMC was packing up the kitchen, she asked what I wanted.  I wasn’t in the mood at that time to start dividing pots and pans and kitchen utensils so I just said I would take the old plates and just buy whatever else I needed.  Mistake.  First week in my new house and I quickly realized I didn’t have any microwave safe bowls, a four piece silverware set was not nearly enough, and a decent set of cutting knives is really required. 

·       The word “butt-crack” will send your kids into hysterical laughter every time – Nuff said.

 

And finally …

I don’t need to have a wife in order to be a good father – I’ve had my girls stay over three or four times now since I moved into my house and where I used to be worried about what I would do or how good a father I would be, I now just worry about what we are going to have for dinner.  I think I owe most of this to how my girls have taken the whole divorce thing.  So far, they have taken it very well.  I say “so far” because it’s still too early to think we’re home free and to be honest, it may take years for this to really hit.  For now, though, they have taken this like well-adjusted and balanced people. They know their mom and dad are divorced and live in separate houses.  They know we no longer wear our wedding rings.  They have not asked when are we getting back together or when we will be in the same house again.  I don’t know if this is a result of telling them so early or that while they understand the definition of divorce, they don’t know the meaning of it yet.  Still, I’ll take this to an estranged relationship or sad, depressed children any day.

I also owe a minor nod to my home selection. Having the indoor pool in my community has meant we all get time together while doing something that generates exercises (as opposed to just sitting around and watching TV) and is a lot of fun.  Of course it also means we go swimming regardless of how tired Daddy may be!  Plus they love their room with the bunk beds, dig the dog next door and love the playground as well.  When winter comes, there is a big snow hill we can sled on and they keep bugging me to get them an archery set because there is an archery range here too (truth is, I want a set to go out there as well!). 

Keeping a balance between some fun, but not extravagant, activities and doing normal routine things like taking them to gymnastics and birthday parties, going grocery shopping and making dinner like a normal family has made this transition easier than I thought it would be.  Do I miss them when they are not here?  Like crazy, but in addition to the every other weekend stay overs, I see them every week for dinner or just to horse around for a bit.  This almost constant contact has been key to keeping me sane. 

I’m feeling good about what I have learned in my new role as part time dad and that’s the biggest and best lesson I could ever get.

Now, if you will excuse me, my daughters and I are going to build some birdhouses together.

Travel and the Single Man

For most of last year, I was on the road with my job.  I figured I was away from home 40-45 weeks out of last year.  I have previously surmised that I felt the traveling played a significant role in why I am no longer with my wife and daughters.  It’s a somewhat ironic thing because it wasn’t that I was out messing around when I was traveling which is what breaks up a lot of marriages.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  When I was away, I missed my family and thus I spent the majority of my evenings in my hotel room.  Sure, I would go out to eat but I was pretty much back in the room by 8 or so.  Even if I had to stay over the weekend which happened a few times, I still wasn’t out partying at some bar.  I’ve never been the type to do that anyway and even more so when I was married. 

Now that I am single again, I thought that traveling would be a more exciting proposition.  Granted, I don’t travel near as much as I did.  As I’ve said in previous posts, I changed to a job that kept me home more.  This was a valiant (although futile) effort to save my marriage.  My first big trip post separation was a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic (mentioned in the last post, Tales of Beards and Bracelets).  This was for my company’s sales kick off and I thought “Man, this is where I am going to make my mark on being single again.”  You see, at events like these, there are a lot of meetings and presentations but there are also a lot of social events.  The company would tell you it’s a chance to network with your peers but most of the company’s employees will tell you it’s a great chance to get really drunk. 

Seeing as how there would be several hundred employees there from all across the world and that I would be in a foreign country, I was ready to do my share of mingling and maybe even have some “fun” while I was there, if you know what I mean, wink-wink-nudge-nudge. On the plane over, I got my man-bracelet and had a few drinks to prep myself for what was sure to be a few nights of frivolity.  I was excited.  I was ready to do this thing known as being single.  I couldn’t wait so much so that I couldn’t sleep on the plane. 

This excitement and readiness for living the single life at its fullest didn’t last long.  The first social event was after the first day of the meetings and there was a happy hour that went well into the night at the bar in the hotel.  Plenty of women and conversation but I was somewhat off to the side.  Not alone, though.  I had a few of the folks I work with who I should actually refer to as my friends but I wasn’t in the middle of chatting up some woman.  I felt out of place.  I felt like it was wrong.  I couldn’t shake the fact that I had just gotten out of the most important relationship I ever had in my life and trying to dive into the single life at that point was like diving into a pool that had no water.

Still, I tried to be as sociable as I could but the flirty single man wasn’t coming out.  At one point, I was showing the man-bracelet that I got on the plane and said it was something to replace my wedding ring.  One woman who was in our group laughed and said, “Oh I know your type.”  I looked at her quizzically and asked, “What is my type?”  She proceeded to describe me as the man who cheated on his wife and now left her and his children behind in order to pursue a mid-life crisis as a single man on the prowl.

The words stung even though they were very, very far from the truth.  Whatever winds I had flowing through my sails were suddenly stopped.  I politely (okay maybe not so politely, I had a few drinks in me after all) advised her that she was wrong and that my wife lost interest in the marriage and I wanted to work things out.  I never cheated on her and I couldn’t wait to see my daughters again.  She quickly shut up.

The rest of the trip was fun but there was one evening where the guys I was with were busily trying to find something to buy their wives and stopped at several stores to haggle for the best deal.  Another moment where my ship stopped dead in the water.  I didn’t have anyone to buy something for.  Oh sure, I did get my daughters some souvenirs but it would have been nice to have someone special for which to buy something special. I would have been right there with my friends in the haggling arena if that were true.  Instead, I stood outside the door and watched people walk by letting that all too familiar buzzing of “whys” and “what happened” dart around my head.  I tried to hide my depression from the guys but I’m not sure I did a great job at it although I hope it wasn’t too obvious. I didn’t and don’t want to be a downer around everyone just because life shit on me a little bit...okay so maybe this blog goes against that thought but I’m not forcing you to read this! :)

Another aspect of traveling relates to those little moments I talked about in The Little Things.  Whenever I used to sit at the airport waiting to board the plane or as soon as I got off the plane, I would call the MMC (see sidebar) just to talk for a bit or let her know I arrived if that was the case and ask how things were going.  I would talk to the girls as well but a highlight was just talking to her.  Like I said, I missed my wife and family when I traveled so making even short phone calls helped to ease that bit of loneliness.  Now, I don’t have that option and when it occurred to me the first time I stepped off a plane, it felt odd…weird…different.

One more story of travel and being single and then I’ll let you go.  When I was returning from going to Seattle for my niece’s wedding (see An Open Letter To My Niece), the girls and I got upgraded to first class on the flight back.  They sat together in the first row and I was behind them in the aisle seat, ready to spring up if they started acting up.  A woman sat next to me in the window seat.  The girls were absolutely perfect the entire flight and it certainly helped that it was a red-eye because they slept the majority of the time.  Those first class seats were practically beds for them.  When we landed, I was getting the girls up and their things together when a woman who was seated across the aisle remarked to the woman who was sitting next to me that she has never seen such well-behaved children on a plane before.  My “seat mate” said that she could take no credit for the girl’s behavior which I thought was a great response.  The other woman said “But you’re with the man who has the good little girls so you should be proud of that.”  We looked at each other, smiled, and let it go.  No sense in trying to explain, although it did kind of bother me that this woman across the aisle made no attempt to give the compliment to me, the father.  Like fathers have nothing to do with the behavior of their children!  Oh well.  Maybe I should have gotten the phone number of the woman who sat next to me but this was before the Prague trip and if I wasn’t ready for single life then, I certainly wasn’t ready for it at that time. 

I said I was going to let you go after that story, didn’t I?  Well, one more thing.  I’ve noticed an evolution with these posts as I have been writing them and I wondered if it was noticeable to anyone else but me.  I started out with the hurt and pain of losing the woman I loved.  I spent a few posts noting (hopefully humorously) about some facets of being single again (specifically in Bed, Bath and Bothered) and how I will be a single father (as in Parents, Inc.) but I spend most of my time on the divorce and the emotions around that.  Still, I do see that the posts are becoming less about her and more about not having someone, which I believe is signficant in that I am probably getting over her but not the situation.  I think loneliness is part of the “suddenly single” package, isn't it?  While it doesn’t have to be a sad thing, it is a major part of getting through all of this.  The end of this may be when I meet someone but I think the end will be when I am WITH someone. 

Okay, you can go now. Thanks for listening.

 

Next time:  The lessons of life

Entertainment Tonight, Today, and Always

As I was preparing to move into my own house, I considered the entertainment options available to me.  I am not much of a habitual TV watcher anymore.  I used to be.  I used to love television and had a set of shows I would watch each night.  I could tell what day it was by what shows were on.  There was a time when a certain show caused a lot of talk in the office on the following day (i.e. Lost) so I had to be up to date or out on the office chatter. Consistent TV watching has waned since I stopped working in an office   It got even worse when I was a frequent traveler (I rarely turned on the TV in a hotel room) and even more so with recent events (and if you don’t know what those are, welcome to my blog!  We’ll wait while you get caught up…start at Why? and work your way up.  Done?  Great!). 

Since I was on my own I didn’t need to be concerned over what the MMC (Mother of My Children, please see What to Call The Woman Who Is No Longer My Wife or in the side bar for more info on that) wanted to watch and I only need to be mildly concerned over what the girls wanted to watch when they came over.  We generally stick with movie nights and maybe TV in the mornings as they wake up and we get the day rolling. 

Even though I had become more of an occasional TV watcher, I was still a big TiVo fan.  Recording the shows I really did want to watch (mainly Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, The Daily Show, Storage Wars and Mythbusters) always meant I had something to watch at any given moment.  But since this has been the Summer of Divorce, most of these shows weren’t first run so I burned through them rather quickly during the rare moments that I actually wanted to watch TV and even during those times, I was only half paying attention. Thus when it came to making the entertainment choices for my new house, I pondered the latest thing in television technology:   On-demand.

During the time that I had control over the devices to feed my need for entertainment, I’ve experienced the Atari 2600, Nintendo, a VCR, cable, DVD player, the aforementioned TiVo, the Wii, Xbox and my latest device, the Playstation 3.  I got the Wii and Xbox mainly for the games … some for me, some for the kids but I discovered the other options available to me:  Netflix, Hulu, Amazon On Demand and a plethora of other assorted services.  We got Netflix at first as our on demand movie choice but I was always frustrated with it because there would be a movie I wanted to watch but it was never available on Netflix.  I found Amazon On Demand to be a much better choice for movie rental or purchase.  I also found it inconvenient to use Netflix because you had to add a movie or TV show to your queue on your PC or smart phone application and then fire up Netflix on your desired device to actually watch what you selected.  During the separation, I either discovered the functionality or there was a functionality change that allowed you to start selecting movies directly from the Netflix interface on the PS3.  This made Netflix a lot better in my oh-so humble opinion.

With this discovery and the fact that Netflix had a Kid option, the girls were able to browse through the movies and TV shows to select what they wanted to watch.  Of course, after watching a Disney movie called Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure sixty-eight times, I'd like to know if there is a way to block certain selections.  

On Netflix, I did find several TV shows that I either stopped watching or have never watched before.  It was magnificent and furthered my desire to go only on demand in the new place.  There was a period a time after the MMC and the kids moved out when all I had was my PS3 to get TV and I started watching episodes of The Office since I stopped watching it a few years ago. Again, I was thrilled and I started thinking, “Man, I should just do this all the time.”  More reasons started to collect in my head:

·        Money savings – We were paying for the premium cable package with HD channels that went up to around a $125 a month, although that included the internet connection.  I still needed that but I figured I could cut the cost in half by not having the cable channels.

·        Not paying for something I wasn’t watching – Related to the money savings is the fact if I’m not watching the TV, I’m not paying for it (well, not as much at least).  With cable, if I didn't turn on the TV for a month, I wasted that month’s cable bill whereas with on-demand, I would be paying much less but have a lot more available to me at any time I wanted it.

·        Always something to watch – Whether it’s seeing some old movie I forgot about (a lot of those I have rediscovered thanks to a buddy’s blog, Tales from the Queue) or watching the entire run of Cheers from the beginning, it didn’t seem like I could run out of things to watch.   Add into the fact that I also had the other outlets like Amazon On Demand, Hulu and stream directly from web sites, my viewing platter was full and never ending.

So when the day came to get connected, I called the cable company and I said I wanted internet only!  Unfortunately, THEY said, I needed at least the local channel cable option along with the internet connection.  They also proceeded to go through the other packages and by the time I got off the phone, I had the cable plus package along with internet.  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t pull the trigger to go on demand only.  I thought about sports that I would miss and how I would get two TVs running under this system.  You see, I had a TV in my living room and one in the basement.  No, I didn’t have one in my bedroom.  I hate having a TV in the bedroom and especially going to sleep with it on. This was a difference between me and the MMC and could very well be the main reason we got a divorce (I mean, I really don’t know other than what I have speculated on…again, go back and read my other blogs for more information on that).  If the girls wanted to watch TV in the basement, I needed a device to stream the on-demand content and I know there are plenty I could get but when it came down to it, I just went with cable. 

Maybe someday I will live the on-demand dream but for now I’ll just the change channels until I find something I want to watch.  Truth is, I still have access to on-demand so I can finish off the episodes of The Office I haven’t seen. 

And as I write this, I see that all that is on regular cable right now are infomercials and ESPN Sports Center updates I have already seen twelve times.  Hmmm...maybe I should have just made the switch to on-demand after all.

Then again, I could just stream Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure one more time...

Next time:  The small moments

The Next in Line

And now let me enter waters I shouldn’t even go into…

I don’t know if it’s too early to think or worry about when the “next in line” comes along.  You know, the next date, lover, fiancé, and/or spouse.  Oh and just so we’re clear, I’m talking about my ex-wife’s next date, lover, fiancé, and/or spouse, not mine. 

There’s a part of me that’s saying, “Uh, Kevin?  Do you really want to put yourself through this type of torture?”  And since I’m writing this, I guess there’s another part of me answering, “Yup!”
 

Here’s why this topic is somewhat heavy on my mind.  I still don’t know the exact length of time my wife was checked out of our marriage but I guesstimate about a year or so; possibly a little less time but not by much…eight months maybe.  So, it’s somewhat natural to think that she would be ready to enter the dating scene much sooner than me.  I am only two to three months removed from the realization that my marriage was over.  She’s had plenty of time to get used to the idea and move on.
 

Stupid side note: “Guesstimate” did not come up as an error on my spell checker which means it’s an actual word.  When did that happen? Can I get on some distribution list when words I thought I made up became real Webster-qualified words?  Just asking…
 

For all I know, she’s already started dating.  I mean once the divorce was officially filed, what would there be to stop her?  I know that, for the most part, this is none of my business anymore and I’m not bringing this up because of jealousy…well, maybe not entirely. I’m primarily concerned for my kids.  I don’t know what mind-state my ex is in but I have seen all too often the recently divorced woman who starts going party crazy:  out at bars every night, applying more make-up than they had previously, dressing a little more “showy” than they were before, and cycling through boyfriends like they are changing channels on the TV.  I’m not saying my ex will do all or any of that…those traits don’t really fit in with her personality but I didn’t think giving up on a marriage fit in with her either, so what do I know?
 

In the interest of not sounding like a Rick with a “p”, let’s put aside the possible “party girl-ness” of my ex and take a look at some statistics.  I read that the majority of people who get divorced get remarried within ONE YEAR!  One year!  Can you believe it?  I know I can’t.  What makes that statistic even worse is that more than half of those will end in divorce (because more than half of all marriages, whether it’s the first, second or otherwise, end in divorce).  Go marriage!

I can only assume this part of the population is glomming onto a new love because they just got out of a particularly bad one.  I just wonder how much thought is given to what they are putting their children through.  These poor kids have just gone through the experience of their parents splitting up, living in separate houses and them being shuffled back and forth according to the “visitation schedule.”  Now they must endure someone else stepping in as the new man in their mom’s life (or a new woman in their dad’s life…hey, I can take on some of this).  Even though my kids were made aware of the divorce early on and that Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be living together anymore, just recently my oldest daughter made reference that Mommy was my girlfriend.  They still don’t completely understand.  It astonishes me that people would then knowingly make it harder by bringing in the replacement partner/parent too early.

 

 

When we were working on our separation agreement, I came across something called a “Paramour Clause.”  No, this isn’t a sexy Santa but rather a statement that could be put into the agreement that stipulated neither spouse was allowed to have a romantic partner stay overnight with the children present for a specified period of time or even open ended…no real stop date.  I think having that in there forever is ridiculous but I considered adding the clause to prevent it for 6 months to a year.  To be honest, at first it was mainly out of the jealousy of my wife being with someone else and here was my chance to try to sabotage that.  Then it became consideration for the girls’ mental wellbeing.  Ultimately though, I decided not to include it.  How would I prove such a thing other than hiring a private investigator to sit outside her house all the time or, even worse, grill my girls on it when they were with me?   I think my ex and I have done a pretty good job at keeping the whole divorce process civil and, more importantly, keeping our kids out of it.  The last thing I needed to do was ruin it by manically questioning them on who Mommy might be sleeping with. 
 

Even if I was independently wealthy and could afford the private investigator, what type of penalty could I impose on her?  A deduction in child support?  Take full custody of the girls?  No.  Those penalties strike at the girls as well as my ex.  When we started the divorce process, I always knew the girls would stay with their mother.  It would have been cruel to them to do it any other way.  I still believe that.  Regardless of how crappy she was at communicating and keeping up her end of the marriage, she’s still a good mother and the girls need that. 

Truthfully, the idea of the Paramour Clause and me even writing about this to begin with does lie in jealousy, but not of my ex being with another man; it's with my girls being with another father.  I worry that whoever is next in line will be a better dad than I am or that the girls will like him more than me.  Is this a silly fear?  I wonder how other divorced dads deal with this situation.
 

In the long run, I guess there is nothing I can do about it other than try to be the best dad I can be and hope that my ex doesn’t position Mr. Next in Line as being the better choice.  I do think it will be challenging but having children in the first place has been challenging; realizing your spouse no longer loves you has been challenging; going through a divorce has been challenging…  It’s just another challenge in the long string of challenges that make up our lives.

 

 

I just hope this one turns out to be a very small challenge and not a big one.

Next time: What's in a name?
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Moving Daze: Part 1

All moves into houses start with one significant event: the closing (unless you are just renting, then it’s mainly pick up your keys at the office).  I have been to four closings in my lifetime and I generally dread them.  My first one took three hours because some of the paperwork was wrong and needed to be corrected and while my second and third went relatively okay (especially the third…when you are having a house built, the closing takes almost no time), I was still dreading my fourth.  Leading up to the closing, all of the work was done through e-mail.  I think I actually spoke to my mortgage company three times on the phone over the 45 day process.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved that.  Give me an online option over an in person or phone option any day of the week.  Still, with something as big as buying a house, I trepidatiously entered the closing expecting the worst. 

I shouldn’t have worried though; I was in and out within 40 minutes with only a slight cramping of the right hand from signing the phone book…I mean the pile of papers for the loan.  I do wonder when we will get to the day where all of this will be on an iPad-like tablet and all you have to do is sign and initial once and those will automatically populate to the places they need to be.  I swear a lot of the forms were introduced to me as “And again, this is just to say that you confirm you are buying the house as-is with no warranties.”  Again?  Did I already sign something to this effect?  I was dizzy from paperwork so I couldn’t remember exactly but if I did, why am I signing it again?  I did ask after the 40^th signature if anyone ever refused to sign any of the forms.  The closing agent and my real estate agent just laughed.  “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be getting the loan!”  So, if all of this is required to get the loan and I want the loan, why can’t I just sign in one place and give me the damn keys, already?

I really shouldn’t complain, though.  It went by very smoothly and my closing costs actually ended up way cheaper than originally estimated (although by their own admission, they over-estimate the closing costs so the buyer is prepared.  Fine with me!  I would rather be surprised in not having to pay as much as opposed to having to pay more).

With the closing completed and me armed with a file folder full of mortgage documents as well as a small catalog of the bylaws of the community I was moving into, I took my new set of keys and garage door openers and bolted to my new house.  I had a busy day and it already started with having the girls in the morning and then tending to them in the afternoon.  Even though technically the girls were supposed to be with their mother this weekend, she had her cousin’s wedding to go to and they did not allow kids at the wedding.  I thought that was odd.  I always thought weddings were fun for kids…anyway, I guess they thought differently.  Not a problem for me, by the way.  Even with everything going on, I’ll take the girls when I can.  I just needed to juggle the closing with picking up the girls, taking them to gymnastics class and being on a conference call for work.  Fun times for what should have been my first moving day.

I already had most of my clothes in the back seat of my truck.  I suppose that was opening me up for something bad to happen at closing but I took the chance.  Getting a sticker for my truck to allow me to get in and out of the community was first on my list and I got that marked off in no time.  When I got the sticker I also received yet another folder full of stuff about the community.  The reading requirement for living in this place was like studying for the SATs.  I drove over to the house, pulled into the garage after opening the door with my newly signed for garage door openers and discovered my truck doesn’t fit all the way into the garage.  The back end sticks out and would definitely prevent me from closing the door.  A bit annoying but I needed to trade my truck in for something smaller and with four-wheel drive anyway.  Living in Texas without four-wheel drive is okay but it’s been a struggle up in snow country and now that I have a driveway that has an incline as sharp as some New York Cheddars, I really needed something different (plus I no longer had the backup of my Ex with her four-wheel drive Jeep).  Add into the fact that the bed of my truck sticks over a foot out from the garage opening and automotive shopping was in my immediate future.

Undaunted by this discovery, however, I pulled out the various pieces of luggage I had my clothes hastily packed in.  Remember, I used to travel quite a bit so my luggage collection has grown quite a bit as well.  I threw all the suitecases into my master bedroom and then meandered through the house.  I had already been there once that morning before the closing to do a walkthrough…just make sure a tree hadn’t fallen into the living room or that the owners hadn’t decided a kitchen sink was no longer necessary…stuff like that.  It was a short visit, though, and it was with my real estate agent.  This time, it was just me and I walked slowly through each room, thinking about where furniture would go, how I would use a particular room as my office, this other as a guest room and that room would be where the girls would stay when they were over. 

I took some time to soak in the beautiful hardwood floors that were stained a deep cherry, the arched openings to the dining room and kitchen, the vaulted ceilings in just about every room and the unique light fixtures that were dotted throughout the house.  I sighed thinking this house was perfect for me and then I sighed again with a little bit of regret that I had to find the house in the first place.

As exciting as it was to have a new place to call my own, I would trade it all in to go back to the life my wife and I once shared.  Not the life we’ve been living for the past year or so…back to when our second daughter was born and our first just became the “big sister.”  When we knew we were in love and we didn’t have to prove it.  When it was her and I and our girls against the world, living in a small apartment waiting for our house to be built and exploring the new area we had just moved to. Before work got in the way and before the reality and distractions of everyday life took that love away and we just became two people living together who happened to have children.   

Yes, I would gladly give up my new house, the nearby beach and lake, hiking trails, and all the other amenities the community provides to get back a normal, loving family; one that isn’t separated by plots of land and emotional tension.  I know it can no longer be that way.  We aren’t the same people we were and while I try to not think about why that is, significant events like this seem to bring that out.  I have probably written in this blog about a half a dozen sentiments that seem to bring a close to all of the sadness about this divorce but apparently it isn’t fully closed. 

It’s kind of like my truck in my new house.  I can get most of it in but not enough to shut the door. 

Next time: More moving stuff and I’ll try not to be so depressing about it!

The First Visitation

This past weekend marked the very first weekend visitation I had with my girls.  Since the wife (or the ex…or soon to be ex?  I’ve seen people use the abbreviation of SBTX but I don’t care for it…I need a unique reference to my ex…some heavy thought will be given to this topic).  Anyway since SHE moved out last week, we started on the documented procedures set forth in our settlement agreement with visitation, child support and all that.  I have the monthly amount worked out for child support and I created a Google calendar for the visitation schedule straight through until they both turn 18.  This way we both know the schedule and can make and document adjustments as needed.  My hope is to never have to actually look at the settlement agreement again.  We are both adults and should be able to work out whatever we need to work out.  If we can’t, then we’ll pull out the agreement and if that doesn’t settle it, I guess we pull out the lawyers.

Normally, I will get the girls starting on Friday afternoon through Sunday at 6 pm but I kept them over Sunday night this past weekend.  Like I said, my ex and I are adults and we’re okay with adjustments…especially when those adjustments mean I get the girls an extra night! 

In some ways, that first weekend almost didn’t count because I was still at our old house which was mostly empty since the Ex left.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I had nothing but three people’s worth of stuff out of a house that held four makes for a mostly empty house.  The only room that was pretty much untouched was my office.  Still, I had a couch, the big TV, dining room furniture, a bed and dresser.  What else did I need?  Well, turns out an inflatable bed was necessary for the girls to sleep on.  They’ll have their own beds in my new house but for this weekend, the girls slept in the middle of the living room on an air mattress (a big, queen sized one).  They loved it and after they were asleep, I went up to my room.  They slept through the night without any problems.  I was expecting some crying in the middle of the night but, for the most part, my girls are troopers or just heavy sleepers. 

Friday night was spent going to the grocery store and getting supplies for a movie night.  I didn’t have a TiVo/cable box due to a mix up in the moving but I did have a PS3 console so I could stream Netflix through it (this will be a blog topic coming soon).  We set up the living room to be as comfortable as possible and the girls fell asleep watching Stuart Little.  As I got up to go to bed, I discovered that the couch I was going to use in my new house was not so great for my back.  It was the same couch I had before I got married and either it got old or I did.  Either way, a new couch was needed.  Possibly an orthopedic one if they happen to make such a thing.

Saturday morning was spent getting the house cleaned in case anyone wanted to come see it.  It was up for sale although the only way you can tell is by the sign in the front yard, not the steady stream of people looking at it (fail). My Ex and her mom came over to help with the cleaning while the girls played.  Once we were done and I took a shower, the girls and I headed out to lunch and then a movie (Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days).  We played a couple games in the arcade at the movie theater and had a good time.  My girls love to go to the movies, which is great because I do too.

Afterwards, we did what all kids love to do, furniture shopping!  Since I knew their attention spans were limited, I grabbed a salesperson and had her walk me through all of their couches at a Usain Bolt-type pace.  Luckily there was a special event going on in the store which included a guy playing piano for the customers.  The girls hung around him, asking a million questions and did a little dancing to the songs he was playing.  I felt sorry for the piano player but his loss was my gain. They were occupied.  In about 15 minutes, I narrowed my choices down to two couches and ten minutes later, I was out the door with a receipt for my new couch to be delivered on the Wednesday after I moved in. It felt good to get that done as quickly and as efficiently as I did.  Maybe I should take the girls with me every time I go furniture shopping? Hmmm…probably not.

It rained when we got home, so Saturday evening was dinner, some game playing on the PS3, and another movie (the Eddie Murphy version of Dr. Doolittle).  Sunday morning was a bit lazy as it looked like rain…a little TV watching, a little breakfast, some blog writing, and a round or two of the card game War with my oldest (she loves the game).  Then it was off to run some errands.  The list of things I needed for my new house was growing.  With the Ex and all her stuff out, I could more easily see what I needed.  When I was at my niece’s wedding, my family threw me a Divorce Shower just like the one I talked about in Bed, Bath and Bothered, so I had a handful of Target gift cards to use. 

Once that was done, we went back home just in time for a terrific storm to hit.  It got so bad; we went down into the basement.  My oldest daughter is petrified of storms while my youngest would probably go do cartwheels in them if I let her (I didn’t).  When it finally blew over, we came up from the basement and checked the outside.  A tree blew over and another tree shed a rather large branch…all missed the house, thank goodness. 

I don’t know if it was the storm or just being over-tired, but the girls woke up in the middle of the night screaming so they came up and slept with me…which was fine. Usually I don’t like it because they sleep in such awkward positions (as discussed in Making the Spare Bedroom Your Bedroom, Spare) but since we were down one person in the bed (re: the Ex), it wasn’t bad at all.  In fact, it was nice. 

So nice that when the morning came and I took them to my soon to be ex-mother-in-law’s house, I was sad.  I knew it would be two weeks before I could enjoy them staying the night again and the reality of the situation sunk in. That night found me sitting in the middle of that empty house wondering what went wrong once again as a depression storm took down my relatively sane mood much like the rain storm took down the tree in my backyard. 

I took some deep breaths and tried to get past it because that’s all I can really do.  In Parents Inc., I wondered what type of dad I would be now and how I would handle my time with my girls when I had them.  I’m still not sure I have that answer but I think it’s something close to what we did this weekend.  Activities we can do together but nothing too spectacular.  Just spending time with them and giving them as much attention as I can. 

It wasn’t like it was all butterflies and rainbows while they were here.  They’re still children and children can be a bit frustrating at times but that frustration goes away quickly when you know there’s an even bigger frustration just waiting for you when they leave:  The frustration of being alone.

Next time:  The big move!

And Now She's Gone

(Once again, I interrupt the regularly scheduled blog for something more "in the moment")

Yesterday, my wife moved out of our house.

Since they only moved a block away, the girls will probably bounce back and forth as they want until I move out 10 days from now but the person I thought I would be with until I died is now gone and I’m still alive (here’s hoping it stays that way for a while).

I thought this would end up being harder than it was. I thought an extended Healing Walk was going to be needed or fresh box of tissues or, at the very least, a big long hug from someone (although I probably would’ve needed to pay for that service…what’s the going rate for just a hug from a hot prostitute?  I say "hot" prostitute because, really...who wants a skanky one?).

I find myself, however, moderately okay. In Making the Spare Bedroom Your Bedroom, Spare I suggested against staying in the same house with your soon-to-be ex-spouse because it was/is extremely uncomfortable. I am tempted to rescind that piece of advice, though. Not the part about it being uncomfortable. Oh, it was uncomfortable. There was no getting around the built up tension between the two of us on some days. I’m talking about the living together post separation part being the advice I would rescind.

Having to stay with the woman I suddenly found out was no longer interested in keeping me as a husband became like an intense detoxifying program. I was constantly exposed to the reality that we would no longer be together. Day after day, I was slapped in the face with the reality of divorce. That kind of accelerated the healing process. That probably sounds a little weird, doesn’t it? I will try to explain but I was kind of surprised by it myself.

I believe that if I had moved out immediately and went into seclusion (which is what I initially told my wife I was going to do); I think it would have been a harder and a longer process to get over the relationship. My state of mind would have been frozen at the point of realization that my marriage was over and the love for my wife would have been trapped in emotional amber, not being able to dissolve itself. The buzzing of questions on “Why?” and “What happened?” would have taken longer to go away because I would have only been able to focus on those questions in that point of time, searching for those answers and nothing else. Since we were financially and thus physically bound to be together, however, the time made me continually face the fact that I was getting the divorce. Seeing my soon to be ex every day forced me to realize it was over and I found the love I had for her slowly draining away through tension, opened eyes and cold reality.  I had to confront the hard feelings and deal with them immediately. Sure, this meant a lot of depression, crying, and rendering of garments but now that we have reached this point where we are physically apart, I feel that I am emotionally apart as well.

Other than just facing up to the hardship, I also took a lot of deep breaths and counting to ten when I felt like blowing up at her. We had to live together along with our children so getting into a clash every time she left a pile of dirty dishes in the sink or when I thought about why she gave up on the marriage would have made a difficult situation completely unbearable. So, I swallowed my pride (and a fair amount of anger) and turned the other cheek…not always, but a lot. I think this helped me to accept the reality of the situation; to understand that there wasn’t anything I could say or action I could take to change the road we were on. The intersection that may have allowed that was long and far away in the rear view mirror.

Thus, I reached a point to where I simply didn’t care about answering those ever-buzzing questions. It was like I had become immune to the pain or more accurately, I no longer had the pain. I believe I reached that mindset much quicker by living with her than I would have by being alone.

Does this mean I’m completely healed? That I’m cured of this disease called “divorce?” No, I don’t think so. I’m sure there will be relapses and times where conflict will overcome the peace. Those times will most assuredly happen when my daughters come to visit and then leave but I think I’ll delve into that in a separate blog.

For now I will breathe in the silence and the emptiness of the house but feel that everything will be all right. I have already fought the battle of being alone by not being alone. Now was the time to live it.

My wife physically leaving isn't the end of the story.

It’s just the beginning.



Next time: What is the Emotional 5 Day Forecast?
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