About Me - Ex-husband and Father

Yeah, I know, "Homebrewer" was supposed to be next. It'll be next-next. I needed to get this one off my chest first.

When I first thought of doing this About Me Blog Series, the post that I felt the most trepidation about writing was "Ex-husband." What the hell was I going to write for that?

When I woke up this morning, I felt a strange compulsion to tackle this subject now. I don't have anything else to do today other than catch-up on downloaded TV shows, and you can only watch so much TV before you start feeling sick about how much time you have wasted watching TV. This is the reason I created this blog. This is a place for me to express myself, to vent, to think about my life, and also feel productive in a strange way.

The more I think about "Ex-husband," the more I realize how interlinked it is with "Father." Makes sense, right? Marriage is usually about starting a family. There will be more on this topic shortly.

When the statement was "Husband," it was quite possibly the most important label in the list. I really loved being a husband--even though I was apparently not a very good one--and being happily married was a tent pole in my life. I was happy to work every day to support our life, her career, and our dreams--shared dreams for a long happy future together. Once I had to add the "Ex," the label ceased to have meaning. An ex-something is nothing.

So, why not just remove it from the list? Trust me, I considered it strongly. I'm not even sure why I decided to keep it, honestly. Maybe I feel that it's better to be an ex-husband than to have never been a husband at all. Maybe I'm just keeping it in the list in anticipation of removing that "Ex" someday. Maybe being an ex-husband defines me more than I want to admit.

As an ex-husband looking back on his unsuccessful marriage, I have one thing at least to be happy about: we didn't have children. Segue!

When I added "Father" to my About Me list, it was almost as a joke. For anyone reading this blog that doesn't actually know me, no, I don't have kids named Cinnamon, Daisy, Fritzy, Furlicity, and Squeak. I have four cats and one dog (Daisy is the dog). These pets are my family, which makes me their adoptive father in a way. But, yeah, I always used the label "Father" in an ironic way. That is why I put the pet names in there, to make it clear that I haven't actually fathered any children.

My ex-wife was strongly opposed to having children. And I was completely fine with that. I have never felt that desire to start a traditional family by having kids of my own. As much as I feel that evolutionary push to leave some of my genes on this earth in the form of offspring, I resist because I don't want to raise a child. I certainly didn't want to raise children with my ex-wife, because there is nothing worse than two people who don't like kids having to deal with a kid.

So, when my ex-wife asked me to get a vasectomy, it should have been a no-brainer, right? But I resisted. And, holy shit, am I ever glad I did! (Yeah, I know that vasectomies are reversible, but as someone who is terrified of surgery, even simple day surgery, the last thing I need is to go through that shit twice.)

My reason for refusal was pretty straightforward. I didn't want to have kids with my current wife, but I wasn't completely opposed to the idea of someday having kids with someone else, if that someone else really, really wanted kids. At the time, I was only considering the event of sudden death; I honestly never considered the more likely event of divorce. But now here I am.

So, if the right person comes along, and that person wants children, I could someday be a non-ironic father. This thought terrifies me as much as the thought of searching again for the right person. But it's not because I think I would be a bad father. I had settled into a comfortable life where kids weren't an option and pets were our only family; now the future is unknown and unsettled and uncomfortable. That is terrifying to me.

There's another possibility here, too, which terrifies me even more than the thought of raising my own children. That right person for me might already have children. If I just immediately reject women that already have kids, I am really limiting my options. But I feel strongly that I don't want to help raise someone else's kids. This could be a bigger problem for my upcoming dating life than the atheism issue. Combine the two issues and... fuck me.

Coming full circle in this post, I still think I can be a good husband as well. In my first marriage, there was a mismatch of expectations. I will try to not let that happen again. I won't go through the ridiculous process of getting married again unless I feel that we are completely in sync. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I felt that way the first time around, but I'm maybe wiser and more perceptive now... maybe?

Before I end this post, I want to actually say a little bit about my pets--my family. They are important enough to me to be worthy of more mention than they received above.

Three of the four cats, Squeak, Cinnamon, and Fritzy, came from my ex-wife's mother's farm. The fourth cat, Furlicity, was a rescue from the Humane Society. We had recently lost Pumpkin, my favourite cat of all time--fuck, I just started tearing up thinking about poor Pumpkin--and a replacement fourth cat seemed like a good idea.

Squeak was the first to come into my life, moving in with me before my ex-wife did. I love Squeak, and will miss her tremendously when she inevitably passes on. She has had a rough life and is one hell of a survivor, but it is only a matter of time. Squeak is the only cat with the run of the house, and the only cat with backyard and bed privileges.

I have to admit that I have less affection for Cinnamon and Fritzy, who were pretty much forced upon me a few years ago. The situation they were in was definitely terrible, and I feel bad for what they've been through, but I can't help it that I don't love them like I love Squeak and Furlicity. But I treat them well and take good care of them. And if I am on the couch watching TV, Cinnamon is probably curled up in my lap.

Furlicity is the cat that makes me laugh the most, and also the cat that makes me the angriest. She is a shit disturber, constantly getting into trouble in the basement, but she hasn't destroyed anything of value yet... She will climb on the Wii Fit scale with me to fuck up the measurement. She will hop on the Total Gym with me to interrupt a work-out. She will completely destroy any boxes I leave sitting around on the basement floor. And she will try to rip my clothes to shreds with her claws. She also spends a fair bit of time on my lap, sharing the space with Cinnamon.

That brings me to Daisy, the dog. She is 3/4 Great Dane, 1/4 Great Pyrenees. Yes, that means she's pretty big. She's nearly 10 months old now, so still not fully grown; I don't know how big she will end up being, but 100 pounds is a safe estimate. The story of how Daisy came into my life is a little long (and frustrating) for this post, so I'll just say this for now: she is demanding, a pest, funny, a handful, intelligent, an earthquake-dog, trouble, a toy destroyer, entertainment, a cat attacker, work, a bed hog, and my friend.

Life without these pets would be no life at all.