What Happened to Eden

Back home after a long week away to find my footing, the kids went back to school and I filled out legal paperwork between packing boxes and house hunting online. Originally, we agreed to a simple divorce with a mediator for as little money as possible.

Then I found out she’d been in my home. I couldn’t stay in that house another minute. A stranger was in my bed while I was away with my children. The level of deceit and betrayal was so overwhelming, I didn’t know who he was anymore. He told me what my rights would be in the divorce, and as a trad wife doormat, I took his word for it. When I started thinking back on the last two years and all the lies he had told, my skin crawled knowing he was laughing behind my back, telling some poor woman what a monster I was and how he needed to be rescued.

I couldn’t trust him. I hired a lawyer. Then he blew up at me, and he hired a lawyer. I woke up every morning and went to sleep every night in fear of what would become of our family. He’d always been defensive, to the point where I had to carefully word anything I said. I couldn’t say, “please take out the trash,” because he would ask what I was doing and why I couldn’t do it myself. I had to say, “we need to take out the trash tonight, I almost forgot! Do you think you could help with that while I do the dishes? If not it’s okay I’ll do it.” I had to use kid gloves with a grown ass man.

When it came to trying to negotiate a divorce, I was terrified he would blow up and throw every bad day I’d ever had back in my face. No one is a perfect parent, and he was an expert at cataloguing my every mistake. If I ever tried to talk to him about the way we parent or a problem we were having with a child, he’d get huffy and bring up a time I failed. I yelled, I threatened to throw out a toy, I took away screens instead of using positive reinforcement. It wasn’t exclusive to parenting, I’d ask if he changed the air filters, one of his two chores, and he’d remind me I was terrible at remembering which items could be recycled.

Obviously, I had trust issues. Any time I’d try to negotiate in our divorce, he’d tell me I wasn’t allowed to leave the county with our kids. That was his right, but he knew we didn’t have family where we lived, and I was moving to his hometown where we both had family. It’s not like I was moving to a random location just because I felt like it. A city where he could get a job fairly easily. I needed a lawyer to defend me effectively. I didn’t even trust myself.

On the days we could agree about me leaving town with the kids, I was house hunting online. The weekend after Thanksgiving my husband was taking the kids to his rental so I booked flights to our future home to look at houses in person. At the time, I was still talking to the honey-voiced guy, and the cop from Thanksgiving, daily. There were a few others off and on, but those two were regulars. I let them both know I’d be in town for one weekend to look for a house, and both men said they’d like to meet me Thursday. The cop had his kids for the weekend starting Friday, and Honey Voice didn’t have his daughter that weekend, so I asked the cop to meet me and suggested a different night for the other guy since he was more available.

The Voice saw right through me and guessed I had a date lined up for Thursday. He was good natured about it, but told me that he had plans the rest of the weekend. Maybe it was a test to see if I’d cancel on the cop for him, but I didn’t want to. I felt more comfortable with the cop for some reason. If you’re going to go on a date for the first time in eighteen years, it should be with someone you’re comfortable with, not someone you’re intimidated by.

I did find the cop intimidating – he’d been divorced a lot longer than I had (I was, in fact, not divorced) so he’d had a lot more dating experience. I was eighteen the last time I dated. What did adults even do on dates? But he made me feel so at ease when we talked. He was very smooth, but no player vibes (though I don’t doubt his skills were honed over many, many, many dates that ended well). The Voice had promised to show me everything I’d been missing in my cold dead marriage, which was incredibly tempting. The Cop, on the other hand, warned me that sometimes the first date after divorce can be difficult, maybe even emotional, and whatever happened was okay with him.

And so I made a date with The Cop. We didn’t elope, fly to Rome, or have sex on the hood of his car, but you never forget your first date AD – after divorce.