Dumb friends

I got a call from my dumb friend this weekend. He is as he should be, complacent and middling. No, but seriously, he seemed fine, which is always kind of dangerous. One of my greatest fears is that he might just show up one day for a visit.

Because the conversation was so boring, I can not remember much of it, but he did take a shot at his ex-wife, which I kind of find amazing, because he has been divorced longer than I have and yet, his anger towards her remains strong. I do not buy into staying angry with anyone, much less someone you once loved enough to marry.

Here is my take on these things. For the most part, marriage is a convention that no longer works in our society. I am not sure it ever really did, but for modern Americans, it is passe, at best. First, the old reason for getting married was to have children and lord knows most people have children basically whenever they want, so marriage is not their issue. For some people it is a commitment to remain loyal to one another, but then again I can count on two fingers the couples I know who have been solidly committed.

What I do know, after years of extensive research, is that most marriages are as flawed at the people who engage in them. At some point a close friend of mine, acknowledging my divorce, said to me, well, your marriage was built on a bed of lies. To which I replied, and yours is not?

See, we all fall into this trap that marriage is the end all of relationships, that the marriage will bring some stability and peace to our lives, only to awaken one day and realize that not only is Santa not real, neither is the romantic concept of marriage. For the life of me, I can not think of one couple I know who are completely happy with one another. Certainly I know one or two couples that seem happy, but when alone and out of the awareness of a spouse, all sorts of sordid secrets get told.

So when my dumb friend once again made his joke, in reference to both the cold weather and his former wife, he said, "damn, today is like my ex, cold and frigid." I laughed the knowing laugh that all men share, that in so many ways, once married, the joy we once had disappears and we awake to the drudgery of a person we did not bother to get know and now that we do know them, we don't particularly like them. My dumb friend is unique in his inability to move beyond the pain of divorce.

Which is another interesting aspect to divorce. It seems to me that divorce is often a good thing for everyone. By the time most people divorce, there have already been affairs of some sort, there have already been long stretches of time where one or both realized the person they are married to is not the person they want to be married to, and there have been fights of one sort or another that ruined the sketchy fabric that kept them together.

So when divorce actually rears is welcome head, why do people end up hating one another? My dumb friend has such a fierce and angry bitterness towards a woman he has not been cordial with for over a decade, it makes me wonder why. Why carry that with you? Why bother allowing her to still have a way of making you feel anything? Why not just close the door. Mistakes get made, we all get knocked down, and the happiest of us, get up to fight again.

I did not ask my dumb friend any of these questions because, well, he is dumb, so he is not into self reflection or seeking a deeper understanding. What he seems to enjoy his hating the woman who was once his partner. I find it all so unhealthy that even my shallow conversations with him become cumbersome. My advice to him was, move the fuck on.

Which was the great advice I got when I was going through a fun divorce. I say fun because it was not a shock or surprise to me. It was a welcome relief. It was shocking at first, because I felt like a commitment is a commitment and even though I was unhappy for many years in my marriage, I was prepared to endure. Once the light of divorce shown on my face, I was engulfed with not only the freedom and happiness, but also with the insight that we get very few reprieves from mistakes in our life, and I was going to take full advantage of the freedom.

So, in talking to my dumb friend, I recommended to him that he seek therapy. I know, in America, every seeks therapy for everything, from a lost soccer game to the death of a fish. When people really need to get to the root of what makes them happy, sad, infuriated or regretful, they hardly ever seek therapy at that time. I told my dumb friend that after so many years of divorce, he should not be so angry, no matter how clear he was that his ex-wife deserved his scorn. Heck, if our respective ex's did not deserve scorn, they would probably never have become ex's in the first place.

I think every couple, prior to marriage should be required to seek out a qualified therapist who would delve into the reasons two people would marry. Get down to the the real reasons, so people would honestly be looking at one another and the implications that a marriage would bring to their relationships. I know I would not have ever gotten married had such a moment of truth been a requirement. On the other hand, I also believe that therapy should be required for people getting divorced. First, to remove some of the anger (see above) and second, to make sure that anyone entering into a new relationship does so with a little bit of knowledge so they do not repeat the mistakes that led to marriage/divorce.

Now, I know many people who have been both married and divorced. I know many who have moved on, found a new partner, and have lived happily, for a time, or for ever. I also know a few who did not seek inner peace, or self awareness and have moved in with or even married another partner who is wrong for them. I look at that and think, you know, seriously?

My dear dumb friend was almost married again, he had found a new woman, who was a spark plug, wild, fun and possibly insane, in other words, a perfect match for my dumb friend. He was madly in love, much more so that with wife number one. I actually went to the marriage of dumb friend and wife number one and on my way home from the reception, driving a little bit drunk with another long time friend, we were bot aghast and kept saying, what the hell is he doing.

With crazy replacement woman, all of us friends were in agreement, she may not be the one for our dumb friend, but she was fun.

That relationship ended when he came home to find her with a pool cleaner, and my friend did not have a pool. That must have been awkward. I have always preached against monogamy after a certain age. It just becomes less important in older, more mature relationships. If my dumb friend had bothered to ask me, I would have said something pithy like, ask the pool boy to stick around and get freaky. Instead, I got a call, and his venom was almost to the level of his hatred of his first wife. Crazy woman moved out and my friend has meandered from one failed attempt at relationships to the next.

I know many divorced people who never remarry, almost all by choice. The people who were burned by the marriage that ended in divorce seem the most reluctant to commit to another ceremonial hoo haaa again. As we age, like monogamy, the marriage compact seems less important. Maybe we do get married to make babies, and when the allure of children is gone, so is the need for marriage. Or maybe it comes down to once burned, etc. I am not an expert on anything at this point, but I do pay attention.

In the end, my dumb friend did complain about his ex-wife, which is always part of any conversation we share. I asked if he is seeing someone and his answer was surprising. He said he is taking a break from dating, from searching for a partner, and he is focusing on doing things he enjoys.

When I hung up, I felt for the first time in many years, that my dumb friend may redeem himself after all. Life is very short and this constant search for something that he may be too dumb to comprehend could be dangerous, to say the least. To have the ability to slow down, step off the dating/relationship treadmill and do other things that are important, could be a life changing moment.