Someone recently asked me what the situation is between me and my wife. Are we divorced, are we just separated, what is the deal?
Legally we are divorced. However on the day we signed the divorce papers we both went home together and treated it as a normal loving day in our marriage. The mood was a little dim, but we still stayed together.
Why get divorced then? Well when we got married I was living in the barracks in Korea and one 19 year old soldier brought a Korean girl who was 17 into the barracks. Not a huge age range, and to him he didn’t think of it as an issue. However the wrong person found out and she was a minor so the first sergeant of my company banned any and all civilians from the barracks.
Shortly after that we went into a month long training exercise where everyone wore MOPP 4 (chemical warfare protection suits) 24/7 except in the barracks. So if I wanted to see my wife fiance I had to get dressed up into a full MOPP suit, filled with charcoal that turned everything black, and then meet her somewhere off post. The suit was very warm, and this was also in the dead of summer in Korea which can get into the high 90′s.
Tired and stressed from the new rule already I gave in and found a cheap furnished apartment off post for about $700 a month. Then bought a bicycle and a backpack I was able to peddle my way to the apartment, change clothes, and enjoy my weekends with my fiance whom I had been dating for about 2 years, and engaged to for about 6 months at this point.
I still lived in the barracks, but for the most part I spent all my time here. Soldiers in Korea also had a curfew to be on post by midnight ever night, this gave me a way to violate that curfew and stay off post all night without worry of getting caught. Had anyone in my chain of command figured out that I was sneaking off post and changing out of my MOPP 4 attire, violating curfew on the weekends, and/or renting an apartment I probably would have gotten into some serious trouble. At the time it was the only way I could see her, and she was worth the risk… still is.
About three months later, we got married.
That quick? Yeah… that quick. I filed the paperwork, got a day off, and we both ran to the embassy and spent a day in Seoul running around and got married. Why? The Army pays $1,400 more a month and I could get a pass that allowed me to live off post with her. As un-romantic as can be, that is basically why we got married… to live together. The money was just an extra bonus. She also might have also been 6 weeks pregnant…. another story.
So even though we were legally married and had a baby on the way, her parents still didn’t recognize the marriage. They said we need to have a ceremony to make it official. According to them all we did was take care of some legal paperwork and that was all.
A year and a half later we have a 9 month old baby and I have orders to leave Korea and head to Fort Campbell. At this point they recognized that we were together, but not so much as a marriage still. Only letting my wife come with me as a couple because of our daughter.
New baby, new country, new job, new house, no family, first time the two of us had been out in the world on our own with no friends or family to turn to… it got scary. And we both freaked. Then all the crap from the Army and my website expose from the media, didn’t help matters at all. The Army conducted an investigation on my website and found me “not guilty”, then they pull some crap out of there ass, give me a change to get kicked out or conduct another investigation. Not wanting to go through hell again and being locked down like a prisoner I opted to leave the Army. (Later I learned that this saved me from going to Afghanistan) I finally got to move back in with my family, and we moved to New York.
In New York we got in a fight and I lost it. Said some things I shouldn’t have. So she left, not wanting to come back and wanting to stay with her parents she filed for divorce. She didn’t even have the heart to tell me.
So I refused to accept it without a fight, packed up everything I owned, and drove blindly to California without any plans once I got here. I had about $2,000 saved up and spent half of it getting here. I think at one point someone showed up at my New York apartment with the intent of repossessing my car, not paying that bill was an extra couple hundred a month. I had no job, and my websites were earning practically nothing.
I caught every single break I could have possibly caught. Something went down on one of my websites that I have yet been able to repeat. This little tiny site earned $1,200 my first month here. Since then it has made at best, $400 a month and averages at about $200. My New York state unemployment got extended an additional 6 weeks, which had run out months before I left New York. And I met one of the best friends I could ever had who offered me a helping hand that basically filled in all the gaps. Starting with a spare room in his house. I was sleeping in my car.
My wife was more surprised than anything else to see me that first day in California. Everyone in her family was surprised, and even gave me a bed my first night there. Tried giving it to me mid-day too thinking I hadn’t slept the entire trip or something, but I refused to try and express that I was competent. My daughter, who had just turned two didn’t recognize me after not seeing me for three months and that just drove my ambitions to win them both back even more. It took me several months, but I eventually earned a second chance from my wife, then slowly everyone else started to acknowledge that I wasn’t about to walk away from anything.
I tried finding a job anywhere and everywhere. Then eventually gave up, and started college.
We continued with the divorce as part of the agreement that we both wanted to start over. We have had days where we are about ready to throw in the towel and living under separate roofs makes it a little easier sometimes. We just hang up the phone and pout. I tend to run to twitter with a comment or two about women.
I have mentioned that I went on a “date” with another girl, but meant it as more of a joke. I went out with a girl from my class to have lunch in the mall. Had we both been 16 and in high school it could have been a date. It was after a fight with my wife and this girl was also on the rebound and eventually went back to her boyfriend as well. It ended with a hug, and nothing more ever happened between us. Granted once I found out she takes bi-polar medication after me making a joke about bi-polar people it kinda turned us both off to each other.
Now instead of my wife sitting at home on the computer all day browsing classified ads online for a business to invest into, she is actually out and and about. Being active with the dry cleaners is helping her interact with people socially and do something physical which has greatly helped her mood. This has also cut our fights down to just about non-existent or slightly disagreeable. Before with us both at home all day, like in New York, it started to wear us out on each other.
I am staying at the school I started in the San Francisco east bay, and she is working in Sacramento. The two are about an hour and a half from each other on average. When my Friday class gets over I leave from school and head to Sacramento. Then Monday morning I leave at around 7:30-8:00am to make my 9:30 class then stay the rest of the week in the east bay with my friend. So 3 days together, 4 days apart. If there is a holiday then I get a little more time with her.
But overall, we are divorced, but never stopped being engaged. It’s weird and crazy I know, and I still call her my wife, but mainly out of force of habit and lack of desire to explain this whole story to everyone that asks. Calling her my ex-wife/fiance raises to many eyebrows.
Eventually we will be married again, and likely we will be moving back to Korea. Getting a college degree for myself is the first priority for everyone though. My wife was raised to think that life without a college degree is a waste of a life, so getting this degree is giving her piece of mind for a better future between us. So those are the only definite plans. After college…. we have our guesses, but we are more or less playing it by ear.
Related posts:
You and Your wife are awesome!
This is a great story!