If you’ve come to the blog looking for my latest furniture recreation or DIY tutorial you won’t find either in this post. What you will find, however, is an update on why things have been a little slow around the online homefront lately. As I’ve said a few times before, I’d like to put pen to paper and give my power tools take a break.
And this is my chance…
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I’ve heard it said that you don’t know someone until you’ve lived with them. Some folks would argue that living together isn’t enough since people change after marriage. Half of all marriages end in divorce and I’d bet those couples learned things about their “better half” they’d never have known otherwise.
We met in person the second week of September. Dave moved in two months later. He’d just gotten out of the military and it made sense to share the bills since we planned to stay together after the baby was born. The following September we said ‘I do’ in front of a handful of family, friends and our 8-week old son. We moved five times before the divorce was final in April, seven years later.
I rented an apartment on the third floor. I dated four different guys, two of them seriously. I played ‘Mom’ twenty-six weekends a year for six years. And then I remarried my ex-husband.
Now, listen. I know what you’re thinking. Why would I reinvent the wheel? Especially when I already knew it was prone to blowing. Here’s the thing – as bad as I was at being married, I was worse at being divorced.
After dating everyone else’s ex-husband I realized maybe mine wasn’t so bad. I mean, he did go to work every day. And he had a stable job. He didn’t stop off at the bar or strip club or dog track on his way home. Other women never, ever texted his phone. Sure, he snored and missed the laundry basket every single time but his ex-wife was awesome and I didn’t hate his kid. Really, in comparison he was sort of a catch.
When you remarry your ex you get half of your stuff back.
Things were good for the first four years. We picked up right where we’d left off and didn’t talk much about the time in between. Our son was in high school; I worked from home and the house was large enough to give us space apart. We got another dog and started planning for the future.
But then something changed.
I don’t know when it happened and I can’t tell you why but sometime over the last year my husband remembered why he let me leave in the first place. I thought maybe it was a mid-life crisis when he paid $2500 for a mattress for the spare room. At our counseling sessions, he insisted he was willing to work things out but then he’d hole up in the other room for days. I didn’t care for the silence but I wasn’t willing to admit knowing exactly what he was going through. Four months ago I hired a divorce attorney. Six weeks later Dave moved out of state. Next month my son will leave for the military and I’ll find myself alone on the other side once again.
Looking back, I can’t say I know much more now about the man I married even after divorcing him twice. I do have a better handle on who I am, who I’m not and who I want to become.
When you divorce someone, you get the other half of yourself back.
And so, as I move into a new phase I think it’s cool to be a part of the promotion for HBO’s new series DIVORCE starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church that premieres Sunday, October 9th at 10pm. It’s the story of a very, very long divorce, the show follows Frances and Robert as they grapple with the fallout from their failing marriage, not just for themselves, but also for their children and friends, ranging from awkward public encounters to difficult private therapy sessions. You can learn more about DIVORCE via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Let me ask you – would you remarry your ex? Do you think it would last if you did? Leave a comment for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card.
Entry Instructions:
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You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
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2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older (or nineteen (19) years of age or older in Alabama and Nebraska). Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 2 business days to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 9/26/16– 10/23/16
Be sure to visit the DIVORCE brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!
Halves & Have Nots originally appeared on on September 1, 2016.