So the great joint parting of Xenu’s most famous inhabitants, Tom “Nebulan” Cruise and Katie “Jupiterdiah” Holmes has occurred today. TomKat will be no more, and so it is writ. This day in history marks the divorce settlement in a case of weirdness and speculation that has riveted every major news outlet, and simultaneously caused yet another bit of scrutiny into the batshit nuts cult religion that is Scientology. Continue reading
divorce
10 posts
After just over a year of marriage, the Muppet team of Brand Perry has called it quits. Elmo, Brand’s romantic rival, is probably somewhere celebrating with a margarita made from a hand sock. Continue reading
Hush now children, and listen to a crazy law firm tale. This happened during the reign of Bush I, also known as the “L.A. Law” years. I was a legal secretary at a firm that handled everything but family law. This is important later in the story. The firm had five “named” partners, that is, their last names made up the firm’s name, like “Dewie, Cheatem, and Howe.” Continue reading
So I hear New York State passed some law or something? I woke up this morning to find Crasstalk excitedly celebrating the passage of marriage equality in New York, and deservedly so. (Don’t get too excited though, New York gays. The associated taxes and fees that Albany will inevitably add to applying for a marriage license may cause you to reconsider your feelings on getting married there. You might be able to be legally married now, but it’s still New York after all. Everything is treated as an opportunity to generate new tax revenues.) Continue reading
Sorry Philippines! You’re gonna be on your own ’cause your only companion in this loveless marriage is just not going to stay together for the children. Yep, that’s right, Malta is going to pull a bitch move and get her own free-wheeling divorzju lifestyle complete with her own martini, long cigarette and lounge coat.
It took her only 24 hours. 24 hours to turn our lives upside down and change everything. 24 hours to wipe the whole slate clean.
My mother had recovered fairly quickly from the divorce. At least to the point that she was able to function in day to day life and put forth a brave face for her daughter, who, incidentally, did not recover quite as quickly, nor really understood exactly what had happened to their family. Continue reading
You know, I remember it like it was this very morning – July 18th, almost ten years ago, came up like nobody’s business- all bright and full of promise – just has she had predicted. There was nothing to fear really, it was all so very well planned out by my bride-to-be. Every last detail…the appetizers, the perfectly matched bottles of wine on the table for our friends to enjoy, the music – certainly the music, the perfect dinner – oh it was grand. To this day, friends will tell me it was the best wedding they had ever attended (followed by the inevitable and obligatory, “sorry to hear about you and the Mrs”). Maybe that was the problem. Maybe, living up to the grandeur of the wedding – in happily ever after style – was too much to ask of anyone, really. Continue reading
Reality. It hit my mother like a punch in the gut. Reality. Freedom’s ugly, selfish, ankle biting cousin. She slammed the door on my father and the past but, when she greeted her new found freedom, it let her down. Freedom meant taking care of a 3 year old by herself. It meant working full time, finding a place to live, hiring a lawyer, and paying him. All in a country that was not her own with a language that was hard to master.
Freedom was overwhelming, sometimes miserable, often exhausting. My mother struggled, I know she did. I remember a lot of tears, followed by yelling, followed by sleep. My father just made everything worse by fighting her every step of the way.
Before we get to the juicy, albeit crazy, details, I need to explain something to you about my mother. She spends the majority of her life on a moral high horse. She will argue a point into the ground and would prefer to always come out smelling like a rose. She cannot stand, what she perceives to be, any injustice aimed at anyone she knows, let alone her own judgement.
Enter the private detective. The pit bull lawyer my mother found through a friend suggested she needed “evidence” to strengthen her case. He knew the salacious information regarding the mistress would only be bolstered by photographic evidence and first hand testimony. So, the train wreck that was my parents divorce, began.
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember much. I remember it was cold and snowing and somewhere around Christmas time. I have a vague recollection of the doorbell ringing at an ungodly hour, my mother bundling me up like the Michelin Man and strapping me into my car seat in someone else’s car. The private detective’s car.
We were going for a ride! To Switzerland. Yup, Switzerland. Which, from Germany in the winter of 1973, was no small feat. My father had decided that spending the holidays with his girlfriend and her daughter in the snow sounded downright cozy. And my mother, well, she saw this as the perfect opportunity for evidence gathering.
So, off we went, the three of us in the cold, with cameras in hand and a thirst for revenge in our hearts. It turned out, however, to be much more difficult than first anticipated. We were exposed by a friend and my dad moved his whole party to a different chalet. This, unfortunately, did not come to anyone’s attention until we’d spent an entire night staking out an empty cabin.
In hindsight, I don’t think Magnum PI was really up to the job, but he was all my mom could afford. Finally, on night three, paydirt! From what my mom tells me, things were seen, pictures were taken, words were exchanged and police were called. The three of us beat a hasty retreat and escaped across the border without being caught. I guess the Swiss do not look favorably upon spying through people’s windows and photographing the action. Who knew?
Fast forward several months. We settled into a new apartment, my mom found a job and someone to take care of me. She purchased her first car (a Citroen Deux Chevaux) and made a few friends. But, the divorce was still looming large. There was the matter of alimony and child support as well as custody arrangements. The custody thing turned out to be the easiest to deal with as my father was not really equipped to raise a child, nor did he have any desire to do so.
The money was a different story. My parents fought tooth and nail. To this day, with all the evidence gathered and presented, I am still baffled by the outcome. The judge presented my mom with a whopping $200/month child support and no alimony. She was devastated. You see, my father had made quite a name for himself in the commercial photography business thanks, in no small part, to his mistress/rep. Money was not an issue for him, except that he hated to part with it.
So, after all the craziness and sleepless nights, my mother’s moral high horse was put out to pasture, at least temporarily. Her new reality was survival mode and she dove in head first. You see, no one would ever convince my mom that she’d made a mistake, that she was not capable of doing this on her own and being successful.
She was determined to turn the chaos into calm.
Then, one day, when I was nine, my mother made a decision that would alter our lives forever…..
In the early days, Crasstalk was a backwater with few visits but so many great things to share. To help bring some of those early posts to light we present Crasstalk Classic. Our latest classic post goes all the way back to November 2010 when NoDebutante shared how life doesn’t always work out like the movies.
I might have mentioned once or twice that I’m going through a divorce. As of today, I am officially divorced. Given my family’s track record of marriages for life, this is a status I never thought I’d achieve. In fact, as a child, I learned most everything I knew about divorce from the film Irreconcilable Differences. I was only slightly older than Casey, the child played by Drew Barrymore, and didn’t give much thought to the story beyond halfheartedly wishing we had a Mexican housekeeper with whom I could live when I didn’t like my parents anymore. This didn’t come to pass.
I have to say, though, that my divorce didn’t quite pan out the way I thought it would, given all the cinematic depictions of marital strife and divorce I’ve seen through the years. Here, for you, is the difference between how I thought it would go and how it really went down.
It’s my oldest memory. I was three. It was 2 o’clock in the morning. The knock on the front door would not stop. It was getting louder and louder. I buried my head under my pillow, but my father’s angry voice overcame everything. Everything, until the neighbors called the police. “He is no longer welcome in this house. I changed the locks and my mind” my mother told the officers. This was Europe in 1973 and the cops attempted to reason with her, but it was no use. You see, my dad had spent 17 years pushing my mother to the breaking point and had finally, and spectacularly, succeeded. He wanted to be let in, to come home, to be forgiven. My mom had different ideas. Ideas of freedom, escape, and a new beginning that, in no way, involved “him”.
He was a Cheater. In my world, this term should always be capitalized. It changed my life, my relationships, and my view of marriage and should never be taken lightly.
My parents met in New York City, through a friend, and became inseparable. They married and moved to a beautiful loft on Washington Square in the heart of NYC. My mother played the happy homemaker and encouraged my father to indulge in his photographic talent as a career. He was a cartographer by trade, but taking pictures was his passion. He was incredible by all accounts, but NY was overrun with talent and my Dad languished while trying to build his portfolio.
His knack for commercial photography finally reached a friend, who was living a fabulous bohemian life in 1960’s Germany. He invited my Parents to make the move to Europe, set up studio space, and find a rep to help my father “sell” his talent.
From the get-go, my Mom was anything but excited about this adventure. “Germany, really? What the hell am I going to do with myself?”. But, she loved my father and was willing to do anything to make him happy. And, in the beginning, he was happy. His work was well received. He managed to garner several large commercial contracts with The European Cotton Council, MCM Leather, and Braun, among others. Most of this was, in no small part, due to his rep, who worked tirelessly to sell my Father’s talent. Unfortunately for us, she had an ulterior motive… Him.
Their affair began quietly. My mom is not sure exactly when, but it was somewhere around the time that I was conceived. The pregnancy was a long time in coming and had been taxing on their relationship, to say the least. Birth control had torn apart my mother’s reproductive organs (wrong dosage) to the extent that my imminent arrival was quite the surprise to the doctors and my parents. The timing could not have been worse, but my mom was thrilled nonetheless. She dove, head first, into motherhood. To the outside world, she had the perfect life. A successful husband, beautiful home, and a miracle baby on the way. No one knew that it was all a facade.
She knew from the very beginning. He showed all the stereotypical signs; coming home at odd hours, distant, argumentative, defensive. My father was the poster boy for cheating. Yet, my mother chose to ignore it all. To this day, she tells me “it was the 1970’s in Europe. Everyone was having affairs. It’s just something you dealt with”. But, she didn’t just deal with it. The mistress/rep was invited into our home for birthday parties and holiday dinners. Her daughter and I were playmates. She was sleeping with my father while my mother babysat. The whole charade was destined to explode and leave two innocent girls in the dust. It was just a matter of time…
My mom won’t tell me what/who cracked her perfect smile, but I am grateful for that instance. The instance she decided that this was no way to live, no way to raise a child. The instance she began to respect herself, her daughter and realize that there was more to this life than taking care of my father while he gallivanted around town like the rooster that ran the hen house. She did not drag on the misery. Her decision was quick and final, almost too practical and calculated.
The story of the actual divorce and its aftermath will need to wait for another day. But, trust me when I tell you, it included late night car chases across Europe, private detectives and a final move back to the States with everything we owned. For this, and many other things, I am proud of my mother. You see, I am a child of divorce and I am a better person for it. In no way do I believe my parents should have stayed together “for the sake of the child”. It was a struggle, almost on a daily basis but, my Mom did it. She succeeded without my father and never looked back…..