What kind of cake do you get for your one-year anniversary of living in quarantine with your ex-husband?
Leaning toward the most calorie-filled cake ever — something that says, "yay, we did it," with a hint of this is why we are not married anymore.
I know what you are thinking.
Why in the world would you choose to live with your ex?
Well, it really wasn’t planned. It wasn’t like we got divorced and I thought, wow, how great for my dating life to have my ex sleeping on a blow-up mattress in my youngest son’s bedroom.
But here we are, a year in. We thought it would only be a few weeks. We were so cute and naive back then.
So, here’s the why. Because we could. Because it meant that our kids didn’t have to go back and forth. It meant my ex could become a teacher so I could focus on my work. It meant that when I became ill and had to go to countless doctors’ appointments and my energy was low, my ex could jump in and help.
It meant that our kids saw us together, in a new way, for them
Do we still fight and get annoyed with each other? Heck yes. But for the most part, it’s stuff like, “Hey, you get the same emails I do from the school, stop asking me questions about them!”
But the benefit, the really wonderful and unexpected one about all of this, has been appreciation.
I appreciate my ex more than I ever did when we were married
I am assuming he would say the same, or else no cake for him!
Our marriage did not work. And that is absolutely OK. But we now have this amazing co-parenting relationship. He went from being an enemy to a friend. We are on the same team, because at the end of the day, the only team I want to be on is the one with my kids.
So now I am off to the bakery to request a "happy one-year anniversary of living with your ex" cake. I am sure they will think that’s totally normal, right?
