Post-Divorce

     I am one of the 50% of people who have failed at marriage. This is not surprising, given the odds. With such a high rate of marriage failure in this country, I don't think anyone should be surprised if they end up in a divorce court. Let's face it, with 50/50 odds, marriage is a serious crap shoot. But what happens after that final decree is issued?

      I find this question to be far more interesting than why marriages fail. Why did my marriage fail? Who cares! The fact is that it did. So there I was, 31 years old, two kids aged 2 and 3 ½. I think it only fair to mention that I initiated the divorce. Because I was the one who wanted out, I felt it was unfair to demand anything from my former husband other that child support and health insurance for the kids. I was interested in keeping things as simple as possible. I had no desire to punish my former husband, or to drag things out for years to come. I just wanted out.

      So we finally got our decree and began to build new lives. We had the standard visitation agreement; Wednesday nights and every other weekend, alternate holidays, depending on the year. I chose not to follow this. Don (my former husband) wanted to see the kids more than that. So I let him. If he wanted to take the kids camping on a weekend that wasn't his, I let him. If he wanted to take the kids on vacation over Christmas, I let him. This approach paid huge dividends. By year 5 post marriage, we were able to travel together. We took family vacations, even though we were not a traditional family. In fact, traveling together was something we did exceptionally well. We couldn't live together, but a trip to Hawaii? No problem!

      A few years after our divorce, Don moved out of state with his job. He was worried about how that would affect his time with the kids. I told him not to worry; we'll just make a different plan. So that's what we did. He had the kids at Christmas and over the summer, as well as an occasional spring break. Sometimes he would come down to Florida for a few days and visit the kids there. He stayed at the house, our son sharing his room with him. We did not need to go back to court to figure this out. Neither of us felt the need to have some outside person document our decisions.

      As time went by, I decided to move back to St. Louis, which is my hometown. The thought of a long-distance move with two kids, a dog, 3 cats, 2 ferrets and a turtle filled me with dread. I called Don and told him about my plans. He was glad to hear this because this would put him closer to the kids, and there was a direct flight between St. Louis and Memphis, where he was living. He asked when I was planning to do this and offered to come down and help. Fantastic! I needed all the help I could get! He flew to Florida, helped us pack and load the truck and then drove us to our new home. Because the truck carrying our things was going to take a week to arrive, we decided to stop at Universal Studios on the way up and spend a couple of days at the park. Then we drove to Memphis, where we spent a couple of days at Don's house. Finally, we got word that the truck was due in St. Louis the next day, so we loaded up and drove the last leg of our trip to our new house. 

      This has been the theme of our post marriage life. We have now been divorced almost 3 times longer than we were married. We have managed to raise our kids with a minimal amount of drama. We have never felt the need to go back to court. We have never felt the need to put our kids in the middle. We have never felt the need to make each other pay and suffer for our marriage. I have never understood why some people feel the need to make their divorce the cornerstone of their lives by perpetuating the drama by taking each other to court, or refusing to let one or the other see the kids, etc. The way I figure it, they must have liked the person at some point. Why spend time and energy on something so pointless? I get exhausted just thinking about it.