8 1/2 years later or Life After Marriage... Mine... to a gay, Part Two: Matt

(He's gonna love this.)

Our friendship withstood the test of divorce. This is due in no small part to the fact that he buys me purses of which the current one is Coach.

He's a good guy. A great man. He's living his truth and truly his best life. There is no one on the planet of Earth, yea verily, who does not cheer for him from the sidelines louder and more annoyingly than me. He's not perfect, because he's a human being and also he just went from a full beard to a just a mustache.

We're not perfect. The first couple of years, I didn't know if our friendship would survive. We got into it a few times- more in that time than our whole marriage.

We trudged through that and things are way easier now overall- compromising, laughing, not giving a shit about how we're raising our kids, going with the flow, rolling with the punches, receiving designer purses.

But they've also gotten harder. And easier. And harder. And easier.

He lives in California still, and I left there- that fresh cesspool of doom and hell-fire for a single mom- for Salt Lake City. In the last 3 1/2 years, I've been doing it all. He hasn't been an absentee; he's been as supportive and co-parentive as one can be who is in a separate state while in a thriving and reputable career. And I'm considering going to grad school for the last few years of the children's non-adult years, so the tables could turn. I haven't mentioned that to him yet. This blog is how he's going to find out. This paragraph in this post.

When he comes here to visit, I try to cuddle with him, and when I do he tells me to get the fuck away from him, just like when were married. It's so great.

We still tell people we're best friends. It's so fucking cliche. But after all that shit, I say it like it's not. Because: PAT ME ON THE FUCKING BACK, MOTHER FUCKERS.

From time to time, one of us will call the other to ask for dating/love life advice. I mean, I can't speak for Matt, but I'm CLEARLY qualified to give advice on successful relationship dynamics.

And, yes, Matt's in a relationship. They're sharing their lives together. And through that lens, I really see him now.

At the time of our split, he had a family member firmly state upon learning the reason for the split (MATT LIKES THE D) that Matt was to "stay away from my son, grandson," etc, etc. Cool, huh? And then last year that family member magnanimously pulled him aside to tell him that if he ever gets married, he'll go to the wedding (No one was even talking about weddings... so I thought it was weird). The reason I bring this up is because in all of the struggles one has starting over at 39, I've never seen him without poise and confidence.

I love watching his authentic experience unfold- the ups, the downs, the fun, the day-to-day. He was living in a grave when we were together. Now when I see him smile, for whatever reason, it's more genuine than any smile I saw when he was trying to be married to me. There's a special despair that he's no longer masking.

Part 3...