Divorced Mother, Not the Genie of the Lamp

Divorced Mother, Not the Genie of the Lamp

            I am divorced. Some people look to the divorced for answers as though we’ve taken the test, flunked it and now have the answers to how to not fail at marriage. I did not receive the corrected answers to my failed test questions in my divorce papers so I can’t really help there. Still, if I am asked for advice, I will always give it. I have been asked on a few occasions for the subsequent key-code or the secret handshake equivalent or whatever the hell it is people think I know. Often times it isn’t what people want to hear but it’ll be the truth as I see it, every single time. There was a guy that worked in my building, I’ll call him Lloyd, who used to ask me about marriage and divorce and such. He wasn’t married and had no prospects so my guess was he was bored since he really was more of just a babysitter rather than anyone with real responsibilities. One night he stopped me and was asking how to make sure that the person you marry never wants a divorce. I guess since I am divorced I am a novelty in this country considering no one else has ever heard of such a thing. I tried telling him that you just have to both be into it and want the same things but that sometimes people change and grow apart and it just is one of those terrible things that happen. That wasn’t good enough for Lloyd and he kept asking and asking and asking and coming up with new angles and ways of bargaining  to get me to tell him that he would  never get a divorce if he ever did eventually corner some poor girl into marrying him. Then it came to the topic of children and he wanted to know how to keep his pseudo-wife from loving their non-existent children more than she hypothetically loved him. I told him there was no way a person could ever love anyone more than they loved their children and that he would be the same way if he ever in fact lost his virginity and had children one day. This kept going, he needed the secret to keeping this figment of his imagination from loving anyone more than she, the figment, would ever love him and he wanted a guarantee on being married to his idea of whatever he was after. Finally, I grew very weary and sick to death of his childish argument and just said to him, “You know, your first marriage is just practice for your second.” That was the winner right there. He left that instant and never asked me for advice on marriage and children again. That was a stroke of genius if you ask me.