DWM is serving 5-to-life in the penitentiary of the state of Kansas. No, not the Kansas State Penitentiary. Just living in Kansas in a situation I never offered enough foresight to. I, DWM, am not from the state of Kansas. When asked I will tell you that as I grew up, I had a northeasterners distaste for the midwest, and I really felt that the midwest began after Philadelphia. If asked further I will you that I still prefer the northeast slant in me to whatever “hospitality” midwesterners offer.
“I am not happy” she said, “and something something something about the stress of the marriage anymore.” ’She’ is the mother of my daughter and my ex-wife. She’s a great woman but my impression is that the cards are somewhat shuffled but not quite stacked. And although we like each other we never felt the love that should have gotten us to this point.
I met Ex at the peak of my singledom in Scottsdale, when I felt like I had wrung just about all of the fun out of my 20′s and I was ready to write a new chapter. I know now that there is much more to the equation than great girl + right time = good idea. I hadn’t quite wrung all of the fun out of my 20′s, a guys night out turned bachelor party spilled into leaving work the following Monday for Diamondbacks Opening Day – a decision that essentially got me fired 3 weeks before marrying a Kansas girl and here we are. Four years later at the birth of DWM.
“I am not happy and something something something”. In hindsight I should have been happy getting out of the marraige, but the marraige and our daughter was all I had. Kansas is a good place, but it’s better if your from here and don’t compare it to [what I perceive as] better places. And if you’re from here you have like-minded friends that … just make living here better. And you can look it it a lot of different ways, but a failed marraige still carries failure.
I give her credit for recognizing the marriage shouldn’t have been worked on, but she loses credibility for her trips to Planet Ex, where accountability and mutual respect do not exist. When I told her that if you took 100 marriages, 50 of them will end in divorce, 49 take a lot of work by both parties, and one is a God damn fairy tale, her reply was that that was what she wanted, a fairy tail. I wished her luck and told her she has a better chance of someone giving her a free lexus for life.
I get that men are from Mars, women are from Venus. But that’s not the last time a woman told me she wanted a fairy tale. I get that women think emotionally, but seriously? That’s what you wish for…a fairy tale? And do you REALLY believe frogs turn into princes, pumpkins turn into carriages, fairy godmothers with magic wands exist, and riding into the sunset will mean happily ever after?
Through the divorce someone told me “I’m sorry, that’s not fair.” Who ever told you life was fair? There’s a reason why some live in big houses, and some in small. Some are CEO’s and some empty trash. I could tell you there’s a reason why some are given life and some have it taken away but that’s a different conversation.
April 2007 was the orgination of DWM and these are my stories. My somewhat wisened and somewhat wiseass perspective on being a single man and loving dad in the midwest.
