Men's Divorce Interviews Me Even Though I'm Not A Man!

I was checking out Men's Divorce, a resource tailored to men's questions and issues surrounding divorce. Long story short, I connected with the editor, and we thought it could be interesting and useful to share my story as an ex-wife with the Men's Divorce readers.

The editor focused on Max's and my efforts to keep our split amicable, from our choice to use mediators to figuring out how to peacefully cohabitate for months as we waited for our condo to sell.

Check out the interview on Men's Divorce!

One Year Later: Why I Love My Divorce

It’s been 365 days since a judge asked me if I really wanted to dissolve my marriage. I answered yes. Not once in the past 365 days have I wavered or questioned if I answered that judge correctly.

Without the burden of trying to save my marriage, I have had the rare and beautiful opportunity to rediscover and redefine myself. In the past year, I have learned more about myself than I ever could have imagined.

Divorce, something I never thought would happen to me, something I thought was for quitters, something that was "not an option" (quoting myself in 2011) is now something I’m almost proud of. 

Here’s why I love my divorce and the lessons it has taught me:

• My divorce proved that you really can love each other but you cannot stay married. My ex-husband never made me doubt his love or devotion. It was maddening and insanely hurtful that he wouldn’t be intimate with me, but I did know it was his deep-seeded issue and not a reflection of his love for me. I am fortunate that I still believe in love.
  
• My divorce showed me that I have a strong support network. I felt so alone and humiliated as I protected Max and my relationship disintegrated. Once I knew the relationship was over and I started revealing the truth to my inner circle, no one made me feel judged. When I needed love or encouragement, it was a matter of which incredible person’s support I wanted to pick. I will never forget this.
  
• My divorce is a reminder that divorce doesn’t have to be cruel. Max and I lived together for six months after the divorce was final, and we learned how to be respectful of each other’s space while slowly cultivating a friendship. We continue to work on our friendship.
  
• My divorce awakened my sexual self. I bought a vibrator. I started hooking up with a guy seven years younger than me. I slept with someone’s boyfriend (will not repeat). I had peel-me-off-the-ceiling Incredible Sex for months. My sexual self is awesome. I’m pleased to remake her acquaintance.
  
• My divorce means I got to meet you, dear reader, through my blog and Twitter. Your stories and comments have helped me sort through my mess of complicated emotions. I am so grateful!

Most importantly, my divorce symbolizes taking control of my future and my happiness. I felt trapped and miserable and terrified of the D word. I changed all of that. And my life is better because of it.

Thank you for readership and support of Surviving and Thriving in the First Year of My Divorce. Let’s continue the ride and join me for another year! 

27 Reasons I'll Never Forget Being 33 Years Old

On December 27, I turned 34 years young.

Being 33 was one hell of a year! One of the record books, and by “record books” I mean this blog. The year kicked off with a surprise birthday gathering with my closest friends in NYC (thank you again, Sue and Ali!), and it set the tone for the year. My 33rd year was one of ups and downs, but so much growth.

In chronological order, here are the 27 reasons I’ll never forget being 33:

1. Went on some dates with Todd. I thought I was ready to start dating. I wasn’t.

2. Made out with Todd. He was the first guy to see my boobs since Max. I thought I was going to have sex with him. Turned out he had HPV. No sex for me.
        2a.  Got my first of three Gardasil shots. I figured I was single again, so better safe than sorry.

3. Entered a courtroom married. Sat in the big chair next to the judge. Left the courtroom divorced.
         3a.  Started this blog the night before. Yay!

4. Interviewed realtors and then put our condo on the market in February. We thought it would sell in a month. We were wrong.
         4a.  This kicked off a streak of making my bed everyday for six months. I hadn’t done that since I lived under my parents’ roof.

5. Met a more adorable than obnoxious 25-year-old (who would become The 26-Year-Old) who thought I was sexy. Who, me? Hello, ego boost!

6. Bought condoms for the first time since Max and I first started dating. Put said condoms into the inside pocket of every purse I have. In the words of Pretty Woman, I'm a safety girl!

7. Formed a booty call relationship with the 26-Year-Old and had my first orgasm since Max stopped touching me. We hooked up here and there throughout the year (but no sex).

8. For the first time in a decade, I bought a pretty glass bowl and some pot, which I kept hidden in my night table drawer. My rule-following roommate/ex-husband would’ve been none-to-happy if he’d known about it!

9. Selected a wonderful vibrator and discovered the joy of masturbation. This toy is also stored in my night table drawer – they don’t call it a goodie drawer for nothing!

I absolutely love my I'm Married To Me ring.

10. Sold my engagement ring and bought my right hand ring. I've been wearing my new ring for nine months and that ring still fills me with pride and strength.

11. Went to Disney World with my parents, sister, and her two kids. Disney World is the happiest place on earth.

12. Went to Nora’s and Lillian’s weddings back-to-back weekends. I hadn’t gone to a wedding single since 2004. And you know what? I still had fun at both weddings (and, fine, a little crying in the bathrooms too).

13. Slept with someone’s boyfriend. Not my classiest move, but I FINALLY broke my three-year streak of zero sex! But no more getting frisky with a guy I know is taken.

14. Reconnected with Todd. Made out with him on July 4. Thought something would start up with him. I was wrong.

15. Signed up for OKCupid and went on some dates. I had never done online dating before, and I found it to be pretty fun.

16. Went to my first country show -- Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley! My two girlfriends and I set up an amazing tailgate and sneaked booze into the amphitheater. Awesome way to spend a summer night.

17. Met Jason, AKA The Incredible Sex. We would date for two months. I adored his openness, intensity, and skills in the sack. I couldn’t stand that he smoked, was irresponsible, less educated than me and my friends, and generally self-centered. Yeah, not exactly my best match, but it was a ton of fun until he told me he loved me and messed it all up!

18. After multiple price drops and tons of frustration, we sold our condo in August. From the verbal offer to closing, the process took not even three weeks. Thank you, cash offer. My verdict on home ownership: it sucked!

19. After being in separate bedrooms for almost a year, Max and I moved into our respective apartments. After living with him for six years, I’m still not totally used to NOT living with him.

20. Had a wonderful night out with my friends for my Divorce Party (but I didn’t call it a "divorce party").

21. Ran my first half marathon on a gorgeous autumn day. It was a wonderful experience and I can’t wait to do another!

22. Survived my first wedding anniversary as a divorcee with a Me Day.

23. Traveled to Cancun with Sue and two other college friends for a week of reading, sleeping, drinking, and eating. I hadn’t been someplace tropical since my honeymoon in 2009.

"Kat, I'm honored to be your secret boyfriend.
Hey baby, let's drop it to the floor."

24. Sat for a family portrait, which meant three married couples... and me. I’m so glad we did it, but it further reminds me that my stupid biological clock is ticking. Will I ever get married again and have kids? Time will tell…

25. Hosted my first party all by myself. I’d always wanted to host a Christmas party, but Max wasn’t one for hosting. And my Christmas brunch was great, if I do say so!

26. Dyed pink streaks into my hair. Because I wanted to, because I can, and because no one can tell me not to!

27. Saw Pitbull, my secret boyfriend, in concert. The night before my 34th birthday, Yoshi took me -- what a great birthday present. (Pitbull is my secret boyfriend because he doesn’t know he’s my boyfriend and I’m going to have his rapper babies.)

How can my 34th year top all of this? What are your predictions for my 34th year? 

5 Ways that Living Alone After Divorce is Awesome… Except When It Sucks

"Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time
you most need to be by yourself.
Life's cruelest irony." -Douglas Coupland

Being home alone is awesome... except when it's not.

It’s been 75 days since Max and I sold our condo and officially went our separate ways. My new apartment is awesome and I’m thrilled to live by myself. I can be deliciously selfish. Everything is the way I want it, according to my rules. I don’t have to be considerate of anyone else’s feelings, tastes, or judgments. After living with my ex for so long, these are especially welcome changes!

But I’m discovering that living alone when I was 23 and single is very different from living alone because I got divorced. I guess I didn’t really anticipate that when I moved here in September. I thought I would love living alone as much as I did the last time.

Confession: I don't fully love living alone (yet).

Sometimes, especially on Sundays, my own company doesn’t quite fulfill me. Sometimes, I find myself wanting to do something some trivial task and then I realize it’s very challenging alone but it would be easy with someone else. Sometimes, I have to admit that I can get a little lonesome.

As I've noted several times since I got divorced, it's amazing how often I can experience opposing feelings at the same time. My current living situation is no exception.

Here are 5 ways that I'm finding living alone after divorce is both cool and uncool:

1. Cool: Monday through Saturday.

Uncool: Sunday. I’m still struggling a little with the first day of the week. Max and I always enjoyed our Sundays together, usually just chilling at home and getting ready to start another week. At night, we often got a pizza and watched a movie. Then when Jason and I were dating, we spent pretty much every Sunday together. Now, it’s just me.

2. Cool: I don’t have to clean up after anyone. I keep my apartment clean!

Uncool: There’s no one to help me with the cleaning. Max was much better at vacuuming than I am. I get bored and the skip corners. He would actually move furniture to get every surface.

3. Cool: I can decorate my apartment however I want.

Uncool: Hanging stuff on the walls. It’s really hard to hang a picture on the wall by myself. Plus I get really impatient when it comes to measuring and Max was so meticulous with stuff like that.

4. Cool: I can be a little sketchy and no one has to know. I had to walk the straight and narrow with Max because he walked the straight and narrow.

Uncool: Temptation can run rampant! I could bring home a different guy every night. I could smoke pot every day. But are these good choices? Probably not. The only way to keep myself in check is my own conscience. Boring!

5. Cool: I can cook whatever I want. I don’t have to come up with recipes that would work for both a vegetarian (me) and a meat eater (Max).

Uncool: There’s no one to talk to over dinner. There’s no one to compliment my dish (should it actually deserve complimenting). There’s no one to do the dishes since I did the cooking.

But don’t get me wrong, dear readers! Overall, I really, really like living alone. I am so overjoyed to be rid of our condo, truly no words can express it. It’s a bazillion times healthier to not live with my ex-husband. But as with any big change, transitioning can kind of suck!

What was the hardest part about adjusting to living without your ex?


See also: What Successful People Do On Sunday Nights

Closing on the Condo, Opening a New Chapter

With just three weeks from receiving the verbal offer to signing the closing documents, I no longer own and share a home with my ex-husband. My marriage is really and truly over.

Homeownership wasn’t really something I was all that keen on from the beginning. I never particularly cared for the town we lived in. I pretty much only associated that condo with heartache and rejection. So why did I cry almost every day that I saw Max from offer to closing?

You often don’t know that something is occurring for the last time as the moment is happening, but I was acutely aware the last few weeks. My last time making pesto in the kitchen we remodeled. My last time having pizza with Max on the couch that he’s going to sell. My last time going for a run in this neighborhood. My last days sharing an address with Max. I tried to pause and really take it all in. This was a rare experience where I felt a chapter of my life closing.

Over just three weeks, we had to find a lawyer, juggle realtors, find new apartments, sign leases, get boxes, pack boxes, write checks, and answer about a million emails. You would think we would’ve been at each other’s throats from the stress and emotion, but no. In the first place, Max and I were never ones to fight (says something about the absence of passion in our relationship, no?). But I think these past few weeks, we both wanted to continue our peaceful cohabitation. We’d survived this long, why start screaming now?

But there were plenty of tears.

We divided up everything, many of which items were wedding and shower gifts. We spread out serving pieces on our dining room table and picked through our belongings like we were at garage sale. We raided our kitchen cabinets and divided appliances and bakeware, his on the left counter and mine on the right. We were so damn polite through it all, like somehow it might hurt less if we minded our manners. I felt like I was living the Sugarland song "Already Gone."

We divided the furniture, and the result is that each apartment would be properly furnished. And yes, I got the king bed.

I sorted through drawers and found cards and letters from Max back to 2005. I wanted to just throw out everything but I knew better. I carefully read through his promises to love me forever, his assurances that he would be the best partner to me that he could be, and observations that I make him a better person. I sobbed on the floor of the guest room as half the cards went in the trash and the other half got stuffed back in a drawer.

I took these down, one by one.

I finally took the wedding photos off the wall. We never took them down because we didn’t want buyers to know that we were divorced. For a year, those framed blissfully happy wedding day smiles have quietly tortured me as I came to terms with the end of my marriage. I asked Max if he wanted to go through any of our wedding photos. He said not yet, that he wasn’t ready, but won’t that be a good reason to get together another time to go through and divide them up? I said sure. I don’t think we’ll ever do it though. I wrapped framed photos in newspaper and sealed them in a box.

On the closing day, we scrambled to pack those final boxes (and why do those always take the longest?!) and do a final cleaning. At 1:30, it was time to lock the door and head to the lawyer. Max stopped to look around and take one last walk through. Sun was streaming in through the windows and reflecting off the hardwood floors. Nothing of ours was left in this echoing 990 square feet of space, but I felt the stinging presence of three and a half years of longing, disappointment, and acquiescence. I told Max I couldn’t be there and I had to go. In the hallway, he silently grabbed my hand and walked me to my car.

I started driving to the lawyer’s office and then the tears really came. By the time I got to the lawyer’s office, I was sobbing. Here was my moment to finally get rid of this damn condo and Max had to find me a restroom to pull myself together. I finally walked in to the lawyer’s office, my green irises creepily bright thanks to how red my eyes were from crying. I signed my married name over and over, and before we knew it, everything was done.

We went to lunch at a restaurant we used to frequent when we first started dating. We got spinach artichoke dip, just like we used to before I discovered Weight Watchers. After lunch, we took a short walk and reflected on the towns we’d lived in over our eight years together.

And then it was time to say goodbye.

The worst kind of goodbye is when you don’t know if or when you’ll see the person again. It was the kind of goodbye you never think you’d say to the person you married. We embraced in the parking lot. I told him that I loved him. He said he would always love me and would be there anytime I need him, even if it was just to get something off a high shelf. There wasn’t much else to say, so I told him to drive carefully.

And now, I’m officially in my new one bedroom apartment in the town I’ve wanted to be in for years. My apartment is a complete mess of boxes but it’s MINE. My friends have a welcome back party planned for me in two weeks. Everything is falling in to place. It hurt to have finally said goodbye to Max, but I’m so very happy to be really and truly on my own and in my own space.

The new view out my bedroom window.

(And in case you’re wondering, Jason and I are still seeing each other. He’s coming over for dinner tonight.)

What were your final days living with your ex like?

Related reading: How to Hire a Real Estate Agent in Divorce.

5 Secrets to Living With My Ex-Husband and Not Killing Him

Everyone from my parents to my followers on Twitter is shocked that Max and I are still living together – peacefully – and not killing each other. Just last week we cooked eggplant parmesan together. Tasty.

(Let's get this out of the way: I do not hate my ex-husband and he does not hate me. The reason for the demise of our relationship was the complete absence of physical intimacy [which also impeded full emotional intimacy]. It is a very sad reason for a marriage to end: that Max’s demons were more powerful than his love for me. That says an awful lot.)

Anyway, if I hated my ex, I wouldn’t be able to tolerate still living with him as we wait for our condo to sell. We’ve been divorced since February, and if we had been renting instead of owning, I would’ve moved out in October 2012. So really, it’s been a long ass time living with someone I don’t love In That Way anymore.

Here is how I survive living under the same roof with my ex-husband:

1. I don’t treat him like a husband. Obviously this includes the sweet stuff like snuggling, sharing a bed, saying “I love you,” and bringing him a black and white cookie from a bakery for no reason. But this also includes the mundane (and sometimes crappy) stuff, like arguing about how to load the dishwasher, compromising on what to have for dinner, and reminding him to send his mother a birthday card. It’s been extremely hard for me to readjust, but I don’t do any of these things anymore.
   


2. ...but I also don’t treat him like an ex-husband. I try to look at him as a roommate [granted, a roommate with whom I happen to have an involved and complicated past as well as a shared mortgage]. I remember why I liked him before I loved him. Max is smart. He’s got a quick wit. He can be silly and really funny. Before we fell in love and moved in and went to therapy and all that relationship stuff got in the way, I sure liked him a lot. Now that we’re not in a relationship but still having to see each other most days, I’ve worked on adjusting my perspective on Max so that I see him as a person, not my ex-husband who broke my heart.
   


3. I don’t ask where he’s been. Max doesn’t do anything. He’s home on the couch about 85% of the time, reading ESPN.com and watching The History Channel. On the other hand, I’m all over the place. I mostly go out with friends but sometimes I’m out with guys and attempting to date. (In fact, I'm finishing up this blog post early this week because I have a date tonight.) To keep him from asking me questions about my whereabouts, I am very careful to not ask where he’s been or who he’s seen. What we don't say won't hurt each other, and that is best for peaceful cohabitation.
   


4. I don’t use the D word. This might sound weird but we never say “divorce” in front of each other. I’ve said “not married” or “people in our situation,” but never the D word. I know he can’t handle it.
   


5. I don’t joke around about our imminent departure. Unfortunately I learned this the hard way.
   
   This week, I discovered a glass bottle in the kitchen trashcan. Max knows this drives me bonkers. As the resident tree hugger, this totally appalled me. I fished out the recyclable, I playfully yelled at Max to quit killing the earth and turning me into a garbage lady. He teased back that I was a nag. Then, I apparently crossed the line and said, “Well look the bright side! Soon enough you won’t have to live with me anymore and you can throw all the glass in the trash you want!”
   
   No sooner did I say it did I realize I'd crossed a line. He looked terribly hurt and retorted, “Thanks dick.” (Yes, he actually called me a dick!)
   
   He retreated to the guest room (AKA his room) and slammed the door. The next morning, I knocked on his door. When he answered, I said, “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings last night.” I gave him a hug as a peace offering. With his chin resting on my head, he said quietly, “Look, I know eventually we’re not going to live together, but I don’t like thinking about it so I don’t like talking about it.” Wow, ouch. But, OK, another lesson learned on how to keep the peace with my ex-husband/roommate.

So these are the secrets to how I’ve survived all these months. Hopefully I won’t need these tricks much longer, because we are planning a drastic price drop for our condo this week; the new price should finally do the trick to unload this damn condo so we can both move on with our lives – whether Max likes it or not.

Did you have to live with an ex after the relationship was over? How did you cope?

See also: Divorced But Still Living Together; How to Hire a Real Estate Agent in Divorce.