Divorce, Drinking and Dating

by Danielle Prahl

  I couldn’t. It was the final straw. It broke me. I literally felt split in half. I went to my knees on the ground and tears spilled out of my eyes. “You are being such a pussy,” I thought. But I couldn’t get off the ground. The worst part was, I couldn’t even pick up the phone and scream at him. I had to wait. And wait. And wait for him to call. The steam built up inside me slowly. I felt like a boiler on high, a pot bubbling over. When he called this time, which was about 24 hours later, I let him have it. I didn’t even let him talk. I had zero patience at this point, and I told him I knew what he had done and how pathetic his “confession” was. He could have probably included in that poor excuse for “coming clean” that he defrauded me, the only person who had always had his back. I won’t repeat exactly what I said here, but it was ruthless.

  I feel slightly bad to this day about what I said to him, but it had to be done. After being fed shit sandwiches for seven years, that piece of paper was my turning point, and there was no going back now. I told him I was going to keep this very simple. “I am going to ask you this one time, and one time only. I already know you took out this loan. I already spoke to the attorney. I have it on paper in FRONT of me that you did it. I am sick of being lied to. All I have ever wanted is for you to be honest with me. So, I will give you a chance to be honest for ONCE. Did you take out this loan in my name? If you lie to me so help me God I will hang up this phone, I will change my number, and you will NEVER hear from me again. Do you understand? Did you take out a business loan in my name?”

  He responded, “No.”

  I repeated, “Ok. I have the documents with your signature. In front of me. I already know that you did it. The attorney for the company even told me that you did it. It was deposited into an account in YOUR name. So, I will give you one last chance. Did you take out a business loan in my name?”

  He paused, probably mulling it over. And responded, “No. I didn’t.”

  So, I hung up the phone. And I changed my freaking number.

  This was truly the turning point for me. I was finally ready to move forward, declare myself single, and build my own life. It became official. I decided to continue my dating ventures, keeping it casual and using it as a distraction, research if you will, into who I was truly looking for as the new Danielle.

  #1. I want to relearn myself at this age.

  #2. I’d like to know what is out there in the world.

  #3. I need to invest everything in myself.

  After working all day, I decided to go down with Paula to the pool and catch some sun. I was mentally and physically beat, so afterward, I went upstairs, showered, and fell asleep immediately. At 9 PM, my phone started blowing up and woke me out of my pseudo-coma. It was a man named Wes. He had asked me out a few times, and I didn’t remember agreeing, but hey. He informed me that he was here for the date that I agreed to (when did I do that?), and was I coming downstairs now? I rolled out of bed, checked myself in the mirror, and I was literally wearing a pink bath-robe and my hair made me appear to be a victim of electric shock. I brushed it as best as I could, threw on a black dress and rolled downstairs like a hobo with access to a truck stop shower.

  First of all, he opened the door for me like a perfect gentleman and took me for martini’s, which who knew there were places open here until 1 am on a Sunday? This town was like Pleasantville, that never happens. We sat in these large picture windows in the bar area and took in the waves.

  I asked a lot of questions about him, mainly because I think people like that, and it’s a fun game I learned from my mom. You ask as many questions as you can about another person and just see if they ask you anything. He didn’t really. I was not attracted to him, but he did seem very nice, and it was sometimes good just to be out and not thinking about my overall situation for 20 minutes. And it’s fun to learn about other people, what makes them tick, how they got to where they are now, their strengths and weaknesses. These things were way easier for me to spot than seven years ago. He dropped me off back at the house and went in for the kiss, at which point I had a decision to make. Did I lead him on and try it? Or did I diss him by literally turning the other cheek? I went with the latter, casually turned to get out of the car, and thanked him for the nice time.

  The next day, I woke up to approximately eight e-mails from my ex (via his surrogate life keeper, aka his mom). They went from bad to gibberish, informing me of what to do with all the money he didn’t leave me, and reprimanding me for selling his Rolex for like six grand to buy a house (umm, what?). Like, off-the-rails type stuff. Not only that, but he was clearly trying to save face (from prison), because he copied my friends and family on the email, stating that I had plenty of money and that he didn’t owe me anything, and would I please pay off the business loan that he took out—illegally, in my name—with all of the cash that grows on the tree outside my house. One of my girlfriends was pregnant and did not need to be harassed with 100 emails that had nothing to do with her. My friends and family had had enough of him, and I didn’t understand what he and his mom were trying to do except drive me freaking insane.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I called his mom from a private number. I had never been anything but nice to her, so I am sure she was taken aback when I said the F word repeatedly and told her that I would be happy to make this worse for both of them. I told her, and I quote, “I am DONE FUCKING with you people! Leave me alone! If you keep emailing my friends, harassing my family, and bothering me, I would be glad to take the entire file cabinet full of my spouse’s documents and turn them over to the IRS, the DEA, and whoever else would like them. I’m sure there is nothing but pure gold in there. I don’t give a fuck anymore. Do you hear me? Leave me the FUCK alone!”

  I was dissolving our marriage, not seeking spousal support or requesting any of our assets. I was not bad-mouthing him all over town or trying to be insensitive or accusatory. I was not bitter or asking for the world on a silver platter. I literally just wanted the money that I was owed (which I will probably never see) and to be left in peace. Actually, I didn’t even care about him paying me back at this point. Just peace would be nice. But the debt he left me with was so not cool. Did I mention he racked up my credit card as well to almost 20 grand before leaving? Yep, there’s that, too. You know, the one in my name that he had authorized usage on. According to the stories I had seen and heard since he had been away a little over a month, maybe I even got off easy compared to most. After the call with his mom, she obviously emailed me and my mother a bunch of nonsense, claiming she may call the Wyoming authorities. Okay. And all my ex did was pay for things for me and my friends and family. Okay.

  I was pretty sure he spent all of his money on himself, and his legal problems, and his gambling, and bottles in the club to look cool for his uber cool friends. I wouldn’t say that he didn’t do nice things for me, or for my family and friends. He did. But he did a lot of damage as well, and not just to me. He did take my parents to the Kentucky Derby once, although we booked their rooms with my credit card points, and he left me with the entire $4,000 bill when he disappeared overnight. So, I guess I bought them a trip to the Kentucky Derby. Maybe that was what she meant by him “spending everything on me and my family.” I didn’t even respond. I literally replied with, “Your email address has been blocked from this account and not delivered.” I guess she believed it, because she never emailed me again. #tooeasy

  Then the letters started coming in from H from jail. They started off nice and delusional, talking about how everything was fine and how wonderful I was. Then they slowly digressed into accusatory, blameful, rude, and degrading nonsense about how all I did was go out every day and go shopping, and now I must just be living the high life, you know, “Sipping Santana Champs because it’s so crisp.”

  HA! I wish. Sure, I was living well compared to his prison cell, but it wasn’t without pain, sacrifice, and confusion. He screwed me. I did still have my freedom, and that was something I was thankful for and terrified about at
the same time. However, I did not get to go shopping and just party my face off. I didn’t even have cable. #americandream

  He was also the one that committed the crime. Even though I didn’t wish for him to be there, one of us was a pathological liar and the other was not, so I took it with a grain of salt. I guess he didn’t get it when I told him we were done, and changed my number. Delusion is your best friend when your life is full of lies.

  Believe me, at this point, I was so numb to the crazy that I just felt bad for him. I really did wish him the best. But I needed to find me now. It was my time to decide not to be a victim in my life, not to be afraid of moving forward, and not to let anyone control or judge me. I had an opportunity to rebuild myself from shattered bits of glass and make a really cool mosaic out of it.

  Chapter 12:

  The Minute You Are Uncoupling, Everyone Else Is Coupling

  One of my good friends, Larissa, from junior high and high school was getting married. I purchased my ticket long before all of this nonsense happened, so I didn’t expect it to be such an ordeal. I thought to myself at the time, somewhat happy in my marriage, “Oh, I will get to see old friends, new friends, and maybe have a great time while celebrating my friend’s happily ever after.” Our mutual friend , Josh, actually invited me as his date to the wedding, and yes, he is of the sausage-loving sort, so don’t get any sweet ideas. He called before I was supposed to fly out, and I told him everything that had happened. I asked him in confidence not to share the news, but I figured he should know what he was walking into. If I am “that person” at the wedding—you know, the broken, insane person chugging vodka and yelling about how happily ever after is a myth—I may need his support. He deserved a fair warning, but I asked him to keep it between us.

  I showed up in my hometown, where I thought nobody knew, thankful for a safe haven where people weren’t judging me and wouldn’t ask questions. WRONG. Everyone knew. I don’t know how it happened, if he told one of our friends or if the leak happened elsewhere, not that it matters now (because it really doesn’t). But I digress. People were either talking about it behind my back or asking me about it to my front. Honestly, I wasn’t sure which was worse. The night before the wedding, a guy I “dated” on and off for years and who completely crushed my heart, not just once but maybe seventeen times, had moved back, so we met up. I was not trying to dive into things, but it was nice to be with someone that knew me before all the awfulness and who treated me like a human being. Even if they had intimacy issues.

  We spent several hours adventuring the night before the wedding, and he told me every juicy detail of what had happened in his life since I had seen him last. He asked me to do the same, but I felt like so many things had happened in the past six years that I couldn’t even verbalize them. I felt like a mute. I couldn’t process, so I just numbly said, “A lot.” It was pretty much all I could think of. After all these years with my spouse (ex-spouse?), I couldn’t think of one story to tell that defined us. Not a one. Maybe it was my intimacy issues as well. Maybe it was that I felt my number one priority was to protect myself, especially from those who eternally hurt me. I couldn’t say why, but it was great to see him.

  The next day, he kindly drove me and my friends to the ceremony. I won’t lie to you and say that I wasn’t horrified at what I might encounter. With deep breaths and Grey Goose from someone’s trunk, I made it to the wedding. I kept reminding myself during the ceremony that the wedding was not about me. It was about her and her beloved, and I needed to separate my personal feelings. I did this semi-successfully. However, I can’t tell you in all honesty that when I saw her in her blissful state saying those vows, I didn’t feel like daggers were shooting through my veins. I just kept breathing deeply and reminding myself the day wasn’t about me. It was about her. The situations were different. I avoided several emotional breakdowns and got to the reception. I was so happy for her, it was crazy. But it didn’t help that half the people I ran into that actually hadn’t heard the news yet kept saying things like, “Congrats on your wedding, too!” Ouch. I just responded with, “Thanks!”

  Later, a girlfriend I had been close with for years confronted me about what was going on with my spouse. Needless to say, I gave her a five second version, and of course, she already knew the whole story because word traveled fast on the open plains. After I explained to her the abridged version, she let me know that she and her boyfriend had googled my spouse and that they knew he was awful from the start. I had a flashback to the time she visited me in Hollywood a few years prior, and my ex had bought her every meal and had even gotten her bottle service, but she never once accused him of being a criminal then. She had also told us how happy she was that I had met a great guy and how lucky I was. I get that hindsight is 20/20, but don’t try to save face in the situation.

  Then she asked me if I “knew.” Yeah. Because my spouse totally said, “I committed a crime ten years ago, and I will soon be a felon. I also lie a lot. About everything.” And I thought, oh, thank goodness. Let’s get married. This is perfect and would just really add to the brightness of my life. I was never even the little girl who dreamed of marriage. I was extremely skeptical of it. It took a long time after we dated and got engaged to even be okay with the idea. So, let’s just say I wasn’t a starry-eyed lover who got blindsided here. I had a good head on my shoulders. It’s just that sometimes in life, we lose.

  To make things even weirder, I “dated” a doctor at a young age. And by young, I don’t mean pedophilia; I was 18, and he was borderline Medicaid. Just kidding. He was in his 30s. He was the first person I ever hung out with regularly outside of a serious relationship/dating type situation, and the first man that ever taught me (very much by accident) the rules of casual dating. He more or less made me an expert at a young age about the games men play, and I later on mastered this. Anyhow, I thought we were a big deal at the time, and he had a lot to offer in life. I did not. I liked to party with my friends overnight and always wanted an adventure. I mean, come on, I had just finished high school. The world was at my feet.

  To make a long story short, it fizzled out. I get why. He liked to go to bed early and watch the History Channel, and I liked to go out with my friends and do hood rat shit. It wasn’t exactly a match made in heaven. Yet, it taught me a lot. I got drunk years later and pounded on his door before I got married, in full blackout mode, asking him what he was thinking of hanging out with someone so young. Or, at least that’s what I think I said. (If you are reading this now, I’m sorry about that. It was completely inappropriate. I think.) Listen, it’s not as if I wasn’t a willing participant, but the older I get, the more I realize that he was an adult in that situation, and his decisions were kind of poor when it came to me.

  I hadn’t seen him in a long time and had virtually never run into him in our hometown. So, here I was, the morning after the wedding, and my sister picked me up from the five-star hotel (just a joke, it was a shit hole, but we stayed there kind of as a joke). We went to some new breakfast place there that used to be a Village Inn. The service was incredibly slow, and I swear it took the waitress at least 16 minutes to figure out where to seat us. When she finally did, she sat us in a low booth. Lo and behold, who was I facing not one seat away but the doc himself. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being curious, so I blocked his entire face with my sister’s face the whole meal. He clearly said something to the guy he was with, because the guy did a 180 to stare at me for a while. Lord knows what they said, but I knew it had to be interesting. When it rains, it hails.

  That night, I went out with my other childhood girlfriend and her boyfriend, and her boyfriend told me that he was planning to propose to her at the end of the month. I just watched my friend get married. I ran into a friend during her bachelor party. My other friend who was moving in with me soon was expecting a baby with her boyfriend. And here was another friend, on the brink of getting engaged. I felt like everyone was moving on with their lives, because of c
ourse they should, while I could not because of who I chose to marry. I can’t dwell on it forever, but it was hard to let go of plans that we had made together, and realize that I was on my own again. No two incomes, no home buying, no baby, no white picket fence. None of it. It all turned into dust in the wind.

  Chapter 13:

  How to Date a Crackhead and

  Other Stories

  I had been dating quite a bit, which I believed to be healthy and somewhat unhealthy all at the same time. I knew that eventually I would get burned out, but for the time being, it was a fun distraction and nothing serious. I was enjoying what I could about it. So, when a man at the pool named Jim asked me to go to dinner, I thought, “Sure!” We went across the street, because he remembered me mentioning to my friend at the pool that I liked a restaurant named Houston’s. It was great, and on a normal day I would have been head over heels for it, but my appetite was shit at the time and I knew I wouldn’t be eating much.

  We walked in, and they said there was a wait. This was when my ex would have casually stepped closer to the person and sweet talked his way into the best seat in the house, but it was best in these situations not to compare one man to the next. Besides, his ability to charm and talk his way into anything probably should have been a red flag. Anyhow, we walked up to the bar while waiting for the table, and I ordered a vodka soda. Jim casually ordered a cranberry juice, and I immediately thought it was a red flag, probably AA. Where was his anniversary chip and how bad of an idea was this date? I asked him, while trying to be polite, why exactly he ordered a cranberry juice. He assured me that he was not an alcoholic, he just didn’t like to drink.