Al DeLuise on the secret to maintaining a great friendship with someone you used to be married to.
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If you heard this one side of my cell phone conversation, what would you think?
“Hello? Yeah, it’s me. Is he gone?”
(Muffled reply)
“What? You said he’d be gone by five-forty-five. I’m not just going to keep driving around waiting for him to leave.”
(Second muffled reply)
“Okay, well, then I’ll meet you down by the supermarket. Hurry up.”
If you heard that you would naturally assume I was in the middle of some illicit affair with a married woman, right? Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong. It was just me arranging to pick up my dinner.
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My ex-wife Arlene and I have a very good relationship, much better than the one we would have had if we had actually stayed married. I hope my kids appreciate that fact. There are horror stories of divorced couples that use their kids as weapons. There are divorced couples who, even after thirty years, can’t stand to be in the same room with one another. And then there’s Arlene and me. Even though we’re divorced Arlene has handled and dropped off my taxes at the accountant, picked me up when my car was in the shop, and we sat together (along with Dennis, her boyfriend) at all our kids’ events. Arlene buys me presents for Father’s Day and I buy her presents for Mother’s Day, although those gifts are technically “from the kids”.
During Hurricane Irene in 2011, my townhouse lost power, so I called Arlene, whose house was unaffected by the storm. She told me Danny (our youngest son) was stuck at his girlfriend’s house and couldn’t get home because of all the downed wires – although I’m sure Danny wouldn’t have used the word “stuck”. Arlene’s sister, Andrea, who came for a visit but was now also “stuck”, was staying in Alexander’s room, my other son who was safely away at college. That being the case, there was an extra room and she asked if I wanted to stay there. I thanked her, packed a few things (scotch), and headed over. What normally would have been a twenty minute ride ended up being a two-hour ordeal. Streets were blocked by fallen trees; dozens of power lines draped across broken branches. I maneuvered through back roads that I didn’t even know existed; I followed some innate primal urge to be safe and dry (and drunk) and eventually made it to Arlene’s house.
Not sure how many divorced men would ride out a storm with their ex-wife, her boyfriend, and his ex-sister-in-law, but things could have been a lot worse.
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After I unpacked (poured a drink), I gathered in the dining room with Arlene and Dennis along with Amanda (daughter) and her boyfriend, Paul, and Arlene’s sister Andrea.
After a fine dinner of spaghetti and meatballs Arlene announced, “Let’s watch a movie.”
Not sure how many divorced men would ride out a storm with their ex-wife, her boyfriend, and his ex-sister-in-law, but things could have been a lot worse.
I may make fun of the relationship I have with my ex-wife but I am very happy that it had evolved to where it is. I know others find this relationship odd but there is one thing that is even odder still: our strange relationship with food.
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For some reason, and I don’t know how it all started, Arlene feels compelled to feed me. I certainly don’t have a problem with that; Arlene is an excellent cook. It’s the manner how I get the food that is strange. Like something out of a spy novel, we started to have food “drops”. I’m not sure why, because I’m sure Dennis doesn’t give a damn that Arlene gives me leftovers, but it was just something that happened. I would walk in to pick up the kids and Arlene would whisper, “There’s a bag in the front seat of my car – baked ziti”.
She might as well have said, “The frost is on the pumpkin” then stroked her index finger across the side of her nose like Paul Newman in The Sting.
The food might show up anywhere: in my son’s room, the front porch, a hollowed out copy of ‘War and Peace’. It’s come to the point that when I pull into the driveway I check the mailbox for a forgotten veal parmesan sandwich.
I would walk in to pick up the kids and Arlene would whisper, “There’s a bag in the front seat of my car – baked ziti”.
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As for the one-sided phone conversation above, I pulled into the supermarket parking lot next to Arlene’s van. I got out of my car with a bag full of empty Tupperware containers from previous drops. She got out of her car with a bag full of containers filled with ravioli, turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy. We quickly exchanged packages, got back into our cars, and drove away; another successful prisoner exchange.
Given the choices of the type of relationship to have with an ex-spouse, I think Arlene and I are making the right ones. However, even with the best of intentions, there is always consequence to every relationship.
I really need to drop a few pounds.
Photo Credit – Glen MacLarty/Flickr
I have a similar relationship with my ex…he still calls me for advice as I do with him…we share many meals together…even our divorce mediators questioned if we really wanted to get divorced. Sometimes major differences and core values shared by one partner and not by the other make it such that the marriage does not work, but the friendship is deeply rooted. So when the dust settles, love still prevails but just in a different way…I can totally relate to this….thx for sharing…,