While I was too hurt, embarrassed, or ashamed to be fully honest after announcing we were getting a divorce, I am officially over that now.

I always told people that we grew apart and wanted to set a better example for our kids of what a loving relationship looked like.

And that wasn’t wrong.

It just wasn’t the WHOLE truth.

I wasn’t protecting myself either.

I was protecting my ex-husband.

Do I have flaws? Of course. I’m a January Aquarius with raging ADHD, among other letters. One of the kids who went undiagnosed and just got stuck in GT and AP classes in the 80s and 90s.

I’m flighty. I like animals more than most people (can I pet that dog??). I’m competitive and want to win. I like nice things and going to nice places. I have high standards.

So here are some of the actual reasons I got divorced, and some of the red flags I noticed along the way.

He:

• was/is ALWAYS the victim.
• thought wearing cargo shorts was dressing up.
• thought he was the smartest person in every room.
• is exactly like his father and won’t admit it.
• told me to look in a mirror every time I tried to bring up something he did that bothered me.
• only provided conditional love, never unconditional.
  • Tit for tat — have sex with me and I’ll be nice to you.
• thought “in sickness and in health” only applied when he was sick, apparently.
  • Let me drive myself to and from the doctor when I broke my hand in front of him at our house and needed a plate and seven screws to put it back together.
• fucking asked what I brought to the table.
  • I worked part time for 10+ years to raise our children, who had special needs.
  • I cooked.
  • I cleaned the house.
  • I managed the pool.
  • I took care of the pets.
  • Then I joined the real world and went back to work full time as an executive, making almost what he does.
  • As a follow-up question, he asked if I had any goals in life. Like I hadn’t accomplished anything of note to him.
• can’t take accountability for his actions. It’s never his fault.
• wouldn’t learn about codependency to grow with me.
• has a lack mentality and always cries poor.
  • Gave me an allowance to keep spending down when I was working full time as an executive.
• hates animals.
• left me and the pets at home during a terrible storm when the power was out and we had no heat in below-freezing temperatures, and wouldn’t answer my texts or calls for help.
  • Then didn’t understand why I was mad.
• has an addictive personality — food, exercise, sex, you name it.
• gives me the ick.
• doesn’t respect boundaries. He views them as a challenge.
• tells lies for no reason. Just because he can.
  • Inserts little white lies and exaggerations into every story until they eventually become fact in his own mind.
• gave me hideous jewelry that was completely not my taste, got mad that I didn’t have the reaction he expected (deserved?), and ruined the rest of Christmas.
• would start a fight before every major event or holiday so we went into it with bad vibes.
• would tell me I needed a girls’ night out to relax and then throw a temper tantrum before and/or after, complaining that he never got to do anything.
  • Which was by choice.

I wonder which one I’ll pick off this list the next time someone asks why I got divorced.

Maybe I’ll just hand them this.

Anywho, please know this:

Anyone who asks what you “bring to the table” is showing you something about themselves.

In my experience, it wasn’t a genuine question.

It was a power move.

It was a way to make me feel like I needed to prove my worth to someone who had already decided his own worth was greater than mine.

Shut that shit down.