Monthly Archives: July 2012

Life After Divorce: A Change in Perspective

Date: July 28, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 16 Replies
...Hope...

…Hope… (Photo credit: ĐāżŦ {mostly absent})

I don’t normally write this type of post, I usually try to have a point before I write.  Some of these come right out of me while others take days even weeks before I am happy with them.  But the past few weeks have been so strange, painful and weird I felt I had to share.

As most of my regular readers know I have worked on a book for the past few months, a memoir about being married to a gay clown.  The project has been so overwhelming that I have avoided socializing, looking for a permanent job and even cut back on performances.  The book has completely kicked my ass.  I am not going to go into too many details for a number of reasons, but a couple of weeks ago I got some bad news about my book.  So I have taken a mental hiatus from it to give myself a break, and to eventually re-group.  Needless to say it was difficult news to get and a huge blow, as the book and my writing are one of the few things giving me hope lately.

And also in the past month a few things reminded me how terrible I still am at dealing with the opposite sex and dating.  To protect the privacy of others I won’t get to too many details but its been a rough few weeks.  In one incident I was fairly humiliated and mortified but I immediately picked myself back up, dusted myself off and refused to show any sign of being hurt.

Since my divorce, I have lost a lot of confidence when it comes to dating.  I tend to over think everything and misread pretty much every signal out there.   I just keep falling flat on my face, and it isn’t a lot of fun.   To add to my bad mojo, earlier this week some random person posted a fairly nasty, personal, direct attack towards me on this blog.  Ironically he picked my most popular post of the week and said something along the following.

No one cares what you have to say, you are a narcissist, get over yourself, you are still a nerd this blog is crap.

I am pretty sure I know who wrote it, but I won’t go into any more detail because why fuel that fire?   But calling me a narcissist is an easy shot as I am a performer who usually gets on stage with nothing more than a microphone.  It does take a certain type of personality to do that kind of work.  I also have a website, a youtube channel and this blog, all named after myself.  I just thought it would be better branding to keep everything the same, there was no more thought put into that decision.  So guilty as charged I guess, but a true narcissist can never admit they are wrong, and I admit I screw up all the time.  So that is a bit off, and I also tend to hide out in my bat cave doing nothing but writing this blog, or working on my book.  The whole transition from performer to writer has made me far more introverted.  I am not exactly walking around screaming “look at me!” when I don’t leave my apartment for days on end.   As far as “getting over myself” the person in question has no idea what he is talking about.  The following is all true and I openly admit it about my life

  • I make next to no money, I scrape by every single month.
  • I live in a horrible neighborhood and I have to rent out my living room as a second bedroom to afford rent.
  • I don’t really have much of a performing career –  I perform around NYC but for very little money, and despite repeated attempts I can’t seem to land an agent.
  • I have trust and bonding issues so dating has been next to impossible.
  • Even though I worked in my ex-husband’s profession for about nine years, the entertainment agents who used to hire me – stopped hiring me after the split
  • I work as a human prop – background extra in film and television – a mostly dead-end job that is completely unreliable.
  • I tried to get a “real” job for months and registered with about 10 employment agencies and got exactly one interview, which I couldn’t make, and it was for a temp job.
  • I am from a working class background – Many things from paying for college to pursuing a career in the arts have been much more difficult for me as a result.

That is my reality.  I am hardly kidding myself.  But since I have had so much success with my writing, my hope is that it will pull me out of this mess.  In fact I know it will, I am just not sure exactly how it is going to work out.  And to the person who has nothing better to do with his life than to troll the internet and make direct personal attacks against me…well…I don’t even think I need to comment…it is fairly pathetic, especially when the person remains anonymous.  We all have enemies, but I usually just try to avoid mine.

So given all of that I should have been down…and a few years ago I would have sunk into a depressed state…and I did have a couple of bad days.  But since I discovered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) I decided I wasn’t going down that road.  I told myself that all of this was a sign from the universe that something completely positive was about to happen. I just keep focusing on the positive, and then the strangest thing happened.

I check my blog every single day, just to see how it is doing and at around 9 am, it showed that I had already had about 200 readers. For my blog those are crazy numbers so I went to investigate where it was coming from.  Someone on the Straight Spouse Network had decided to post one of my older articles, On Being a Straight Spouse – Broken Memories and it was exploding.  As the day went on more and more people were reading it, and the positive comments started pouring in.  As I read through them I started to cry, because they were all so heart-felt and it proved to me that there is a purpose to this blog and to my life.

Meanwhile I posted another article to the Huffington Post, I didn’t think it would get picked up as the Chick-Fil-A story is a few days old but to my amazement they printed it and it is doing extremely well.  So on top of the glowing comments I got on my old blog piece, I was getting a ton of crazy twitter and facebook attacks on my “Chick-Fil-A Do you really want to run your company on Biblical Values?” article.  And I have long since gotten used to attacks from strangers, I don’t even remotely sweat it, but it did make my day quite interesting to say the least.  When the dust settled I had a total of 806 readers on this blog for the entire day, my second highest day to date.  And it still isn’t completely over as I already have over 200 for today and it is still climbing.

The negative energy was somehow turned positive and everything lined up to remind me that there is a point to what I am doing here.  Even though I have performed since I was 11 years old, at no time in my performance career have I gotten this type of feedback.  The universe is telling me something…still not sure how I am going to steer my life back on a better path but I am headed in the right direction.  Thank you.  I am truly humbled by the wonderful comments I get, and to any straight spouse reading this blog…HANG IN THERE…YOU ARE NOT ALONE!  Much love.

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Dating After Divorce: Disposable People

Date: July 23, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband, New York City, Relationships, Uncategorized
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The above pair is my favorite pair of shoes on the planet.  Shoes, clothing, perfume, makeup all make me extremely happy.  The above pair I don’t wear often, but every time I step out in these I feel quite happy when they are on my feet.  Right after I got this pair of nearly perfect footwear there was a problem.  The sole of the heel broke off, and I didn’t realize it until I got them home.  The wear and tear of walking around on them like this had begun to grind down the heel.  I took them too my best shoe repair shop and for only $12 were repaired to a condition that was better then when I bought them.  The sole that the repairman placed on the shoes was thicker and stronger than the original.   Since my divorce, subsequent meltdown, massive depression and the recovery that followed I feel a lot like my favorite pair of heels.  Surviving my crisis and the hell that followed it has actually made me stronger as a person and a better potential mate for a partner, but the rest of the world doesn’t always see it that way.

I have written about this topic before in other blog posts.  In another article I called it “The Shiny Penny Syndrome”.  The idea that no matter how nice a partner you have in front of you, there might be something just better around the corner so why bother investing in keeping the partner you already have.   We have an epidemic of this mentality in New York City.  It only gets worse as we age and the older and more world-weary a person become the most banged up and tarnished they might seem to a potential suitor.  From the email and comments I get I have to think it is a common problem throughout the US, especially single people over 35.

I have read numerous articles about men getting so fixated on porn that real women do not measure up to the glorified standard of their virtual lovers.  A porn star is always young, ready willing and able with proportions and assets that few real women posses.  Never mind the porn star cannot actually be touched or embraced, or listen to a man’s problems, comfort him while he is sick or just sit quietly next to him on a sofa watching a movie.  The porn star is always the predictable and controllable.  She won’t call him with her own problems, won’t demand that he go to a party with her friends, won’t beg him away from a game, she won’t have a moody day when she wants time on her own, and she won’t nag him to do the dishes.   A porn star is always convenient, she does everything expected of her and nothing more.

Women also do this, expecting their perfect match to not only be kind, caring, and an amazing lover but also physically fit and taller than average.  The guy has to live close and have a good job, but not one that takes him away or causes him to work 14 hours a day.  He must respond to text messages, phone calls and always be emotionally available but not a wimp or too sensitive that he comes across as feminine.  He must love her friends and all of her interests and hobbies and never even think of straying or even look at other women.  Some women are hoping that the perpetually young, financially stable, quirky but masculine lover from their favorite romantic comedy will just bump into them on the street and change their lives forever.

Of course not every man fixates on idealized porn perfection and not every female wants some wealthy living breathing Ken doll with a stock portfolio to rival Mitt Romney.  But what gives?  Dating since my divorce has just left me feeling like a disposable girlfriend, good for an amount of time, then discarded without too much fanfare.  I have difficultly bonding anyway, so this type of behavior just makes me more wary, and more emotionally distant and distrusting.  Humans are more than the sum of our parts: a nice ass, pretty eyes, a good job or a decent apartment.   Why do we treat each other like this?  Why do I keep hearing stories from friends both male and female that sound the same.  Guy meets girl, gets really excited then drops her like a hot rock because he finds too many “deal breakers”.  Or girl meets guy gets really excited and then drops him when she realizes he isn’t exactly what she was looking for in a partner.

For some people in the dating pool, other human beings are nothing more than an object.  A new person is like a new pair of shoes thrown away when they don’t quite live up to their expectations.  The shoes looked so ideal at first, but once worn the shine is gone and the shoes tossed.   Meanwhile cluttering the universe are thousands of bright, shiny, new shoes that will surely fulfill expectations.  Perhaps it is our “You can have it all” consumerist mentality that is always preaching the gospel of never-ending search for perfection.  Why have a girlfriend with cellulite when you can have one with smooth thighs, never mind that you are 45.  Why have a boyfriend who is losing his hair, or is your exact height when you can date someone who looks like a movie star and runs a hedge fund to boot!

Are we turning into spoiled children who will never be satisfied?  Does our culture run on nothing more than pushing the next big thing down our throats?  And to get us to want more, more, more we have to feel bad about what we already have?  I don’t think we are quite there yet, and I hope we never get there.  After all we are human beings with flaws, dents, hang-ups and emotional baggage…and not just a lousy pair of shoes.

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Chick-Fil-A – Do you really want to run your company on Biblical Values?

Date: July 20, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Agnostic, Gay Rights
Comments: 49 Replies

Chick-fil-A

So a top ranking executive, Dan Cathy,  at the fast food chain Chick-Fil-A said the following in an article in the Baptist Press
“We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

Some have opposed the company’s support of the traditional family. “Well, guilty as charged,” said Cathy when asked about the company’s position.

he was also quoted as saying

“We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles,”
He has every right to voice his opinion, and to worship as he sees fit.  But I do question his belief in running a company on biblical principles.  I also wonder if he has actually read the bible.   According to ChristianAnswers.net the Old Testament contains 23,214 verses, the New Testament contains 7,959 verses.  Out of those 31,173 verses approx. six condemn homosexuals.   Jesus Christ had nothing to say about homosexuals or homosexuality.  Here is just one of the six damning versus.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

So along with homosexuals…thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers are also doomed from entering the kingdom of God.  Now if God is truly condemning “the greedy” to eternal damnation along with homosexuals that would certainly include a large portion of the population in any capitalistic economic system.  And what is a swindler?  Is it that essentially the same thing as a thief?   Adulterers are also quite common and would include many well-known Christian leaders.  And surprisingly the bible also only mentions homosexuality in men, not women.

I will give Chick-Fil-A credit for not opening their stores or doing business on Sunday as according to Christian tradition, Sunday is the Sabbath and working on the Sabbath is punishable by death in the bible.  But how far does Chick-Fil-A take their biblical values?

Here are just a few restrictions and laws also included in the bible.  Paraphrased for length.

Leviticus 19:19 – Don’t wear clothes made of more than one fabric

Leviticus 19:27 – Don’t cut your hair nor shave.

Leviticus 20:9 Any person who curseth his mother or father, must be killed.

Leviticus 20:10 If a man cheats on his wife, or vise versa, both the man and the woman must die.

Leviticus 21:17-18 People who have flat noses, or is blind or lame, cannot go to an altar of God

Leviticus 15:19-20 When a woman has a discharge of blood, which is her regular discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening

Leviticus 11 – Includes many dietary restrictions including unclean meat such as – pork, rabbit, camel, shellfish, birds of prey, bats, mice and various bird and lizard species

Deuteronomy 13:12-15 If you find out a city worships a different god, destroy the city and kill all of it’s inhabitants… even the animals. 

Deuteronomy 17:2-7 Kill anyone with a different religion.

1 Corinthians 3:2 – You are not to combine milk with meat

So I would love to ask Mr. Cathy, if his employees all have beards and long hair?  Does his company allow menstruating women to work?  And what about the menu items that contain pork products and dairy combined with chicken.  Are these not also abominations?  Are the uniforms made of only one type of cloth and thread?  Is it acceptable for an employee to murder a customer or fellow employee if that person is not a Christian?  If an employee curses their parents are they put to death?

I don’t quite understand how many Christians who cite these six scant verses in the bible that condemn homosexuality conveniently ignore some of the more extreme laws.  How is one verse the “WORD OF GOD” and another discarded as being out-of-date.  Who decided what is relevant and what isn’t?  It sure sounds nice to say that one lives by biblical laws, but no one really knows what those laws entail.  Of course there is great wisdom and philosophy in the bible even for non-believers but the darker passages cannot just be ignored.  Cherry-picking the bible and then using it condemn homosexuality while ignoring the other absurd and out-dated prohibitions is intellectually dishonest.

A religious person can and should live however they like as long as their behavior does not go against secular laws and does not harm others.  But homophobia does harm, and results in harassment, bullying, suicides, loss of employment, and infringes upon the basic human rights of others.  Some Christian conservatives are actively trying to force their religious beliefs into law in a secular society while most homosexuals are just trying to live their lives and not be treated like second class citizens.  Gay men and women are not trying to limit the rights of heterosexuals, this is hardly an even or fair fight.

If Dan Cathy really wants to live according to the biblical tradition of the family and run his business according to biblical law then he should get to work and stop picking and choosing which laws he takes seriously.  If Cathy wishes to run his company according biblical law, then at least we had better start seeing full beards and long hair on every employee.   It might not be up to health code but it would be according to God’s will.

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The Night a Feminist Fell in Love with Machismo

Date: July 16, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: New York City, Uncategorized
Comments: 1 Reply
D train, led by car #2590, entering Bay Parkwa...

D train, led by car #2590, entering Bay Parkway on the West End Line. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it comes to living in the big city, I have a bit of a fear problem.  I don’t have a valid driver’s license in part because driving a car freaks me out, I lose all confidence when I am lost in a tiny town or village, and I have a strange fear of getting stranded in the middle of nowhere.  All of my fears of life in the country are totally irrational, but in the big, bad, scary city of Gotham, absolutely nothing freaks me out.  I have seen people publicly having sex, been flashed by men on the subway, grabbed on the street, nearly pick-pocketed, had many screaming matches, and I couldn’t even begin to count the times I have witnessed public urination and even defecation on my neighborhood streets.  None of this makes me flinch.  When a man grabs my arm on the street, I immediately unleash a torrid of obscenities.  A would be mugger doesn’t want to deal with a screaming woman shouting at him especially a woman with my kind of volume.  When threatened, I am not exactly demure and I am not exactly quiet.

I have what some would call a reckless habit.  I like to go see shows late at night in places like the East Village, Williamsburg, Bushwick and the Lower East Side.  I am a bit of a loner, and I don’t enjoy the stress of having to coordinate a “Let’s go see a show” buddy, so 99% of the time I attend most late night events by myself.   I also usually know performers in the shows I go to, so attending shows by myself is not a lonely endeavor. My mode of transportation is almost always the New York City subway system.  I have lived in a metropolitan area for nearly 20 years, 8 years in Chicago and 11 in New York City.  I take public transportation daily, but I have yet to file a police report or get in an actual physical altercation with anyone.

The other night I did my usual and hopped on the Q train to see a show at Coney Island USA.  I went to see my buddy Fisherman and his orchestra of sorts – a lighthearted burlesque show with live music, my usual fix.   After the show I hung out with some friends and around 1 am I left to take the subway home by myself.

As usual when the train is in the station, only one car has its doors open.  I decide to sit in the air-conditioned car and not on the muggy platform.  A dozen or so people are already in the car, including a rather strange-looking fellow.  He has shabby white hair and a raggedy beard.  His outfit looks like a twisted throw back to the swinging sixties.  He sports a brightly colored tie-dyed t-shirt, a denim vest and jeans covered in political buttons.  He is colorful yet filthy.  The raggedy hippie is either flying drunk, on drugs or mentally ill and is probably a combination of all three.   I chose a seat as far away from him as possible.  He is loudly muttering and getting into fights with people on his end of the train.  I couldn’t tell what exactly what he is blathering on about, but I knew that the rest of the car is completely annoyed with him.  He isn’t just sitting there being a drunken idiot, but actively upsetting others while engaging in fairly hostile language.

By the time the car starts moving, he is subdued.   My mind goes elsewhere, he is just one of many crazy people I will encounter on any given day in New York.  The train only moves a few stops from Coney Island and all of sudden I look up and the crazy hippie is nearly right on top of me, muttering incomprehensible drivel.  Standing on a few feet from where I am sitting he reaches out an arm in my direction to grab me.  I immediately stand up and shout

“Get away from me…Don’t touch me”

Instead of backing off he lunges for me, getting angrier, he tries to explain himself.  I jump back a couple of feet and stand my ground.  I am alone, in low heels and a dress with long blonde hair and my huge blue eyes.  Even though I feel unstoppable, I know I look like one big target to someone mentally deranged.  I am often pointed out by a crazy person on a train car, even when I am not looking up.  Call it a doll syndrome or a Barbie complex, the mentally unhinged always love picking on the baby-faced blonde.  As I stand there waiting for what to do next, I hear a non-verbal threat from a seat near me.  Two young men, in their early twenties with thick Brooklyn accents immediately jump up and threaten the man to sit back down.

“Hey Buddy”

The hippie slumps back into his seat and immediately begins to antagonize the young men.  I can’t make out what he is saying as he is muttering nonsense.  I debate going to another car, but I figure the crazy old man could follow me, and at least in this car the two young Brooklyn thug types have my back.  Yet at the same time I worry that they would end up getting in an actual fight with the man, and as much as he is scaring me I don’t want to witness a full out subway brawl.

The two Brooklyn boys are both a tsunami of testosterone, loud, aggressive and fearless.  Things immediately escalate and the Brooklyn boys, threaten the hippie by pounding on the wall of the train car, just above his head.  The deranged hippie just keeps riling them up.  The moment things would calm down, the hippie would look at me as if I was a big juicy steak and he was a dog without a meal.  This is not lost on the two Brooklyn boys, who would then return to intimidating him.  At ear-splitting volume they shout

“Don’t you know what I could do to you?  Why are you giving me a hard time?  Why would you continue to disrespect us like that?  I could wipe you out old man!”

After a few more stops and screaming on the part of my younger protectors, one approaches me and asks when I am planning on getting off the train.  Then he walks over and asks the hippie what stop he was getting off on, the hippie replies.

“Whatever stop moves me man”

And with that the hippie looks over at me again.  Even though he is older, he is a huge and he probably could overtake me just based on his size.  I am stone-cold sober and have my phone out ready to call 911.  But it will be difficult to dial if he knocks me unconscious, or throws my phone onto the tracks.  Despite his claims of being a peace-loving “hippie” the look in his eyes screams predator.  The younger men discuss among themselves what they were going to do and wait until we got to another stop.  They then lure the man over to the doors, and when the doors open the younger and larger of the two position the hippie right in front of the open doors and scream

“You are getting out here!”

And with enough force to knock over three men, he takes the hippie by his shoulders and shoves him onto the platform.  The doors shut and the train moves out of the station.  The second the doors close a palatable release is felt throughout the subway car, the psycho is no longer a threat to anyone.   I slowly walk over to the two young men and thank them.

“Hey it’s no big deal, that guy was a monster, you could see it on his face, he won’t mess with you lady”

I ask what neighborhood they live in, because they remind me of a friend from Bensonhurst, a somewhat notorious old school neighborhood in Brooklyn.

“Kings Highway” “I am Irish and my buddy here is Italian, we grew up in Brooklyn, and we aren’t going to put up with some fool like that asshole, and don’t worry we weren’t gonna hit him, he wasn’t even worth that, we just wanted to scare him and get him off the train!”

His Italian friend responds

“And don’t worry we aren’t teenagers, I am 22 and he is 23 years old, we have seen more crap in our day…anyway have a nice night lady and get home safe”

I return to my seat across from a young black man and woman.  The young man has his jeans rolled up to his knees exposing his calves and his female friend is making fun of him

“Rolling your jeans up like that makes no sense, and your legs are ashy!  You can’t go around like that…you look crazy”

“Leave me alone girl, don’t you know my bunions are killing me!”

And with that I fall over laughing.  The couple looks over to me and we all starting laughing, about the crazy hippie, the tough Brooklyn boys, bunions and ashy legs.

Even though I know I am taking a risk riding the subway alone at all hours of the night, I don’t feel that scared.  Statistically I am more likely to die in a car wreck on a highway than murdered in a subway car in New York City.  When I first moved to New York I witnessed almost identical situation only less extreme.  A drunk man was causing quite a commotion on a subway car, and at after 15-20 minutes of putting up with him, three large men calmly walked up to him and pushed him out on the next station.  They didn’t even exchange words with the drunk man, the men just did what they thought they needed to do.

One of the most amazing things about living in New York City is the feeling that you are never really alone.  The lives of 8 million are constantly intersecting with each other, worlds colliding every day.  Our proximity gives us opportunities to connect with people of totally different backgrounds.  We can’t get in our cars and shut out the rest of the universe, we have no choice but to interact with one another, bound together whether we like it or not.  In a city that prides itself on its dog eat dog mentality and survival of the fittest philosophy situations like the Brooklyn boys and the hippie remind me that were are all in this together.

As Manhattan slowly becomes sanitized and gentrified the outer boroughs still feel much more authentic.  One of the things I love about Brooklyn, is that the old school tough guy mentality isn’t completely lost.   As Starbucks invade nearly every corner and mom & pop stores disappear, replaced by Dunkin Donuts it is nice to know that Brooklyn still produces some badass young men who are willing to get involved to help out a complete stranger.   Private school boys raised in luxury probably wouldn’t have thrown a threatening hippie off the train like that.  I was thankful for their lack of fear and street smarts.  I don’t want to live in the false safety of homogenized suburbs.  I want to live in a city with rough edges, and among people who won’t just sit back and take the world at face value.  New York City constantly surprises me and that is why I love this city so much.  Normally two super macho young guys would intimidate me, I never thought in a million years I would fall in love with brute male energy late at night on a subway car.

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Growing up with Depression

Date: July 13, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband
Comments: 11 Replies

First Day of School

I guess it has always been there to some degree since childhood.  I would love to say that my childhood was happy and that everyone around me was loving and supportive.  But who has that childhood?  I have met a few who have been fortunate enough to at least have strength in their basic foundational relationships.  The lucky few who are supported by both their parents, have a secure and safe environment, and a steady predictable routine. My upbringing was relatively stable in most respects but emotionally I would describe it as volatile.

I don’t blame my parents, and at my age I would feel a bit silly putting any blame on them considering my circumstances.  I wasn’t abandoned or left to starve and I wasn’t neglected or ridiculed.  My parents got married young and had four children in five years.  We didn’t grow up with much, and money was a constant source of stress and anxiety.  Their marriage wasn’t perfect and they were not ideal parents but they always made their children their primary concern.  So with all of their faults I knew the did the best they could consider the obstacles they were up against.   I may not have had a father I could have tender moments with, but he worked overtime, marched on picket lines and lived with very little material wealth for the sake of his children.  My mother was in over her head with four babies and a husband who worked all the time but she always made us the center of the universe.   She constantly took us to trips to the library, bought us every educational toy or game we could afford and made sure we did our homework.  She may have been too obsessed, but I would rather grow up with her than an indifferent mother.

School wasn’t much of a solace as I was awkward and socially withdrawn.  I found children my age to be a bit of a mystery and found more enjoyment reading a book than playing with other kids.  There is much more I could write about, but I won’t because I cherish relationships I have with certain family members.  I don’t want to dredge up old traumas for the sake of this blog.  Some things need to remain private, for the sake of my siblings and my immediate family.   When things got bad I literally hid in a closet in our basement.  I would shut the door and wait for my world to stop spinning out of control.  To this day I don’t think anyone in my family knew I would go down there, I guess they might know now…if they read this blog.

Depression has always been there.  The dread that will sometimes wash over me that I can’t shake.  It causes me to overreact and panic and lose faith in others.   My divorce made it much more pronounced but depression has been with me for as long as I can remember.  I had no idea how bad it would get until post-divorce I became suicidal and nearly completely lost my sanity.  Clinical depression is nothing to joke about or to shrug off as just the blues.  I realize now that I suffered from a mental illness that is quite common but extremely frustrating to manage.  But I fought back with traditional therapy, medication, cognitive behavioral therapy and eventually my situation greatly improved.

Although now, I can feel the seductive pull of the dark clouds sucking me back in from time to time.  At first it feels comfortable to give in to the black moods and collapse in tears but they soon take over.  Instead of having a quick therapeutic moment of release the dread wins out and starts to devour me.  I find myself lying on my bed looking straight up trying to fight back a panic attack.  I haven’t had one in over a year, and I am so proud that I have been able to stop them but when things get bad it is a constant struggle.  At least now I know I have some control, I don’t have to huddle in a closet until it passes.   Just knowing that I have some control has been paramount to my recovery.  As a child I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t understand why I wanted to retreat by myself, why I had difficulty dealing with other and why I constantly had crying fits that were nearly inconsolable.   I couldn’t understand why things got so black in my head, and why hope was such a hard thing to imagine.  My Catholic upbringing caused me to look for a supernatural source but now I know the real demons live inside my head.  If it is brain chemistry or some genetic defect I don’t know, or if repeated trauma caused something in my brain to develop abnormally.  The source of my depression doesn’t really matter, at least that is what therapy taught me.  What matters is management, and trying to live with and fight against this affliction.

For the most part I do alright.  I am so much better off than I was just a year ago, but I still struggle.  I know from the amazing feedback I have gotten from this blog and from fellow sufferers of depression that this disease is a tricky one.  If you are reading this and you have struggled with depression since you were a child, don’t give up hope.  You can and will beat it.  Some of us aren’t as lucky in life as others, some of us are born with more obstacles that the average person, and some of us are born with the biology that causes depression.  But it doesn’t mean that we can’t beat this disease and we can’t overcome it.

I wish I knew what I know now when I was six years old, if I could I would go back to that little girl with the ice blonde hair and the rosy cheeks and tell her that God isn’t punishing her when the gloom overtakes her mind.   Whatever is going on in her head is not pay back for any sins she committed and it is not a battle between good and evil.  The dark moods are just a slight flaw in her wiring, and that flaw is depression.  Everyone has a flaw, no little girl is born perfect.

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Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise Divorce – WTF?

Date: July 10, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 3 Replies
English: Cropped image of Tom Cruise and Katie...

English: Cropped image of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Photo taken at the White House Correspondents Dinner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wish I had a better title for this piece, but I don’t.   I debated even writing about this, but since I write about divorce I thought I would give it a shot.  I just want to slap my forehead every time I see anything about this ridiculous divorce.  I say ridiculous because I know many of my readers are fellow divorced men and women, few of whom had divorces that even remotely resembled this farce.  I think what annoys me the most is how easy it seems for both parties to simply walk away from this marriage.  According to the press and their respective publicists, Katie acquired an apartment without Tom’s knowledge and hit him with divorce papers right before his birthday and while he was out of the country.  They both secure top counsel and work out a settlement in less than two weeks time, including child support and a custody agreement.

Who in holy hell has a divorce like this?  I don’t know of any couple, including some who are extremely wealthy who managed a feat quite like this.   The whole thing just screams either blackmail on the part of Ms. Holmes or fraud.  So either Katie Holmes has information that would incredibly embarrass Tom Cruise and that is why he is so quick to settle, or the marriage was a ruse from the start.   I don’t know and I don’t really care.   I think I have gotten so angry towards this drama because it perpetuates a myth that getting divorced is somehow easy.   For starters they aren’t divorced yet, they only reached a settlement.  Their paperwork will still have to make it through the court system and the courts don’t care how much money you make or how much you paid for your attorney.  Everyone has to get in line behind every other couple already waiting in New York state.  Rumor has it that Manhattan is quicker than Brooklyn, but it should probably take at least a couple of months before they are truly legally divorced.  Their divorce will go through more quickly thanks to no-fault divorce in New York state.  Before the changes in New York state divorce law Katie would have had to file for legal separation and waited a year before moving forward.

No divorced couple I know has ever settled this quickly.  It is especially odd since divorce attorneys of the very wealthy actually like to stretch these things out as long as possible as it increases their fees.   Also for Tom to give Katie full custody without much of a fight at all, just seems flat-out bizarre.  Most judges would have given him joint custody, he has no criminal record, no substance abuse, no domestic violence history and he lives the same chaotic lifestyle that his wife does.   Some parents get completely screwed over in child custody situations, but someone with Tom Cruise’s deep pockets and squeaky clean record would not have had a problem.  He basically got full custody of his two children with Nicole Kidman, and since he was the primary parent of two other children it would only have helped him in court.  Something tells me that she had some incriminating evidence on him and that is why he might have caved.  Or there might also be some credence to the rumors that Suri was not his biological child, and that is why he is walking away from this so quickly and easily.   He might have also seen this coming for months rather than being surprised as he claims.  Here are some reasons most of us spends months if not years in litigation over a divorce.

  • One spouse will stretch out the divorce out of spite
  • One side will stretch it out to try to get the other spouse back
  • Fighting over every stupid little possession
  • The couples engage in a full on custody war
  • The couple doesn’t have the funds to pay for a lawyer and court fees
  • The two parties cannot decide on an equitable split of assets especially property
  • One spouse refuses to cooperate and won’t go to court or get an attorney
  • One spouse leaves the state or country to avoid dealing with the divorce
  • One spouse is physically threatening the other
  • One spouse completely bankrupted the other before they could get a lawyer – clean out bank accounts, drove up credit cards, etc.

For most of us, our lawyers aren’t going to dedicate all of their time for our case.  My lawyer forgot about my case and added an extra four months of waiting.  He tried to fix the dates on the documents but he let a few slide and it was obvious my paperwork was just sitting on his desk for no apparent reason for at least two months.  He was an inexpensive lawyer with dozens of cases, these things happen.  With expensive lawyers and huge retaining fees, divorces move quickly I guess.

The lack of passion in the Holmes/Cruise divorce makes me think that the marriage never had any real passion to begin with.  If she truly blind-sided him why would he settle so quickly.  Watching this unfold is like looking at an alternate universe of how the other half lives…not like the rest of us.    And if he thought by settling so quickly he would improve his reputation or avoid scandal his plan backfired.  Now more people are even more suspicious of his religion, his sexual orientation and the validity of the marriage.  To my fellow divorced friends out there, we know it isn’t like this.  Hang in there and when in doubt reach out to someone who has been through it themselves, the 99% don’t wrap everything up so neat and tidy in less than two weeks.

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Life After Divorce: When you Lose Half your Friends

Date: July 6, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: 10 Replies

Divorces are in some ways like wars between two rival factions.  Just like a city that has been carpet bombed, some closest to the impact are vaporized while others remain completely unscathed.  Who remains standing is almost random.  In-laws might also completely abandon the non-related spouse regardless of the reasons of the split.   When a couple decides to separate they usually have no idea how many other relationships they might damage or destroy in the process.

Bending Reality

For some friends who want to stay close to your spouse, they will bend, twist and invent reality in order to justify their loyalties.  In one such case I can think of a spouse who had not one but multiple affairs.  The affairs were blatant, public and included some of his spouses’ friends.  When the couple finally split, it was almost shocking to hear certain friends of the couple declare.

“That poor man, she won’t even work on the marriage”

So was it the wife who wouldn’t work on the marriage or was the husband having multiple affairs?  Maybe she had just given up at that point, it wasn’t a one time fling while on a business trip, he had full-blown affairs with other women including one that was on-going while they were working out the terms of their divorce.  I know I am picking sides here, but I would say the husband was probably more to blame in this situation than the wife.  Numerous serial affairs including people she trusted and called friends over a period of several years, and somehow the divorce was her fault?  It makes the mind spin.

The Public Relations War

When two celebrities divorce it is just a given that professional publicists are feeding stories to the press to make their clients look as good as possible  The same thing happens on a smaller scale when any couple splits.  Both parties act as their own public relations team leaving out horrible misdeeds and cruelty they have inflicted on the other.   In some cases total fabrications emerge.  One couple I know the wife has created fantastical tales of abuse even criminal behavior on the part of her ex-husband.  Her stories are not incredibly believable, in part because the stories get more and more extreme as she retells them, and she doesn’t keep her facts straight.   As I have caught her in several inconsistencies I just don’t give her much credence.

The best thing to do in these situations is to try to stay calm if your former spouse is trashing you to your social group.  The more you fight back the worse you will look, although if they are making wild accusations that might jeopardize your occupation or child custody, you should seek legal counsel and try to defend yourself.   I made every mistake possible during my divorce and made many things public that probably should have remained private.  If anything my behavior just caused people to be concerned for my well being, I was hurting myself more than my former spouse.

Then you are going to have friends who will simply project their own divorce hell or baggage onto your situation.  I had one such experience with someone I considered a close friend.  He basically hated his ex-wife.  Hated her with a passion that would be difficult to put into words.  When I was going through the worst of it, he didn’t feel I was treating my ex with enough respect.  Now mind you, our divorces were in no way shape or form similar.  My former friend was angry with his ex-wife and projected his own feelings about her onto me.  He started making cruel comments to me about my divorce right away, until it finally escalated to a point that I would not tolerate it anymore.   I do not consider this person a friend, and given the circumstances I am better off without him.

Lost Baggage

One of the more positive things about a divorce though is that you no longer have to keep up relationships with people you never liked in the first place.  Anyone married for any length of time has friends and associates that are only around them because of their spouse.  Consider your split one of the rare opportunities when you get to drop those unwanted acquaintances without any social stigma whatsoever.  No one will blame you when you stop talking to your ex-husband’s Poker buddies, or your ex-wife’s work out pals.  It’s time for a clean slate!

And of course some friends will surprise you.  They won’t pick sides, or if they do they will side with you and not your former spouse.  I was lucky to have some people in my life who have been extremely supportive and caring throughout my ordeal.  But overall I have been deeply hurt by those who basically abandoned me.  In some cases I tried to reach out to those who have cut me off and with others I simply let those connections atrophy and die.  It definitely has made me more careful about who I allow in my life now, and who I consider a true friend.   And it has strangely given me a tougher exterior, I just don’t flinch when cutting someone out now.  I don’t really like this new quality of mine, but I think it is here to stay.  When the dust settles, and it may take years for it to finally be over, you will see who stood by you when things got rough.  Those who remain are worth keeping around, those who left you don’t know what they are missing.

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Dating After Divorce: When will you be ready to date again?

Date: July 2, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Dating - NYC, Depression, Divorce, Gay Husband, Relationships, Straight Spouse, Uncategorized
Comments: Leave a reply
The Dating Game

The Dating Game (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So since I started this blog I have gotten amazing email from people all over the country and people all over the world about their own personal struggles of living a post-divorce life.  Most of the questions and concerns are about dating.  And I certainly don’t have all the answers as I am a bit of a mess in that department myself.  But the question I get a lot is

When will I be ready?

And all I can say is that the answer is different for every person.  It has been three years for me, and I am not even sure of the answer for myself.   One of the problems of a newly divorced person is that nearly every waking thought is about your divorce and about your ex.  Of course this isn’t the case with everyone, but I have found it is more the norm than it is the exception.  A potential partner can and will pick up on this, and it will be a huge warning sign to them that you aren’t ready.  For instance if everything the other person says on the date leads you to say in response…

  • That is just like my ex
  • I can relate because of my divorce
  • Do you know what my ex did?
  • I had the same thing with my ex

Basically the more times you bring your ex up, the crazier you are going to sound.   And you are a little crazy as divorce is an extremely traumatic event in any adults life.  So, here is a trick that my therapist gave to me, and I recently repeated to a friend that will help.

Stop referring to your ex by their first name, instead reduce them to simply…”my ex”

You don’t have to do this with people who know your ex well, or family members.  In fact doing that might read as insensitive.  But if you are meeting a potential date, mention your ex as little as possible, and if you do don’t use their first name.  You will find in time this will become effortless, and you won’t find yourself even having to think about it.   Also try like hell not to talk about your divorce, your settlement, custody agreement, or the reason why you got divorced to a new potential partner.  Again much easier said than done, as I know I still have this problem.  I am worlds away from where I was a year ago, or two years ago but my divorce is a huge part of my life.  It doesn’t help that I am currently working on my memoir.  Writing a book isn’t exactly a casual affair as it tends to take up most of my thoughts, most of the time.  So I am in an especially strange situation of working for hours on something I shouldn’t talk about when meeting someone new.  Hopefully you aren’t writing a book about your divorce!  So talk about anything and everything else!

Also try getting your feet wet without plunging into the pool.  Don’t set out to have a committed relationship right off the bat, and do NOT think of terms of replacing your ex.  Try to date multiple people casually, maybe even without much of a sexual component to the relationships.  Go on group dates with your friends instead of forcing yourself to sit across the table from a virtual stranger before you are ready.  Surround yourself with people who love and support you, rather than putting yourself out in a dating pool full of sharks.  Some men and women seem like the answer to your prayers at first, only to drop you like a hot rock when they find a less complicated mate.  Some are just player types who want to bed as many people as they can and care little about your feelings.  Others might be just as screwed up as you are after a divorce and you could find yourself in a co-dependent nightmare.  You don’t want to be a burden on someone, you want a balanced healthy relationship.  In order to have a healthy relationship you have to be able to stand on your own two feet before involving another person.

I really don’t have a definitive answer on the exact length of time post-divorce and anyone who gives you an exact time frame should be viewed as suspect.  You will know when your divorce and your ex does not consume your every thought.  You will know when you are not so desperate for a replacement for what you thought you had with your ex.  You will know when you are comfortable and happy on your own, and it could take a few months or maybe a few years before that happens.  Again I say this from experience, as a very deeply flawed person that I am myself.

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